A30243:2857
Spiritual refining
Spiritual refining: or A treatise of grace and assurance Wherein are handled, the doctrine of assurance. The use of signs in self-examination. How true graces may be distinguished from counterfeit. Several true signs of grace, and many false ones. The nature of grace under divers Scripture notions or titles, as regeneration, the new-creature, the heart of flesh, vocation, sanctification, &c. Many chief questions (occasionally) controverted between the orthodox and the Arminians. As also many cases of conscience. Tending to comfort and confirm saints. Undeceive and convert sinners. Being CXX sermons preached and now published by Anthony Burgess sometime fellow of Emanuel College in Cambridge, and now pastor of the church of Sutton-Coldfield in Warwickshire.Spiritual refining: or A treatise of grace and assurance Wherein are handled, the doctrine of assurance. The use of signs in self-examination. How true graces may be distinguished from counterfeit. Several true signs of grace, and many false ones. The nature of grace under divers Scripture notions or titles, as regeneration, the new-creature, the heart of flesh, vocation, sanctification, &c. Many chief questions (occasionally) controverted between the orthodox and the Arminians. As also many cases of conscience. Tending to comfort and confirm saints. Undeceive and convert sinners. Being CXX sermons preached and now published by Anthony Burgess sometime fellow of Emanuel Colledge in Cambridge, and now pastor of the church of Sutton-Coldfield in Warwickshire.
London: printed by A. Miller for Thomas Underhill, 1652
Title page typeset from the transcription.
A TREATISE OF GRACE and ASSURANCE; Being CXX. SERMONS. › Section 12 › Sermon 114
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
Secondly, This holiness is a pure and unmixed disposition of soul, from any thing that may soil and debase it: So some make the word [Greek or Hebrew], that is, without any 1terrene or earthly mixture; for as every thing is debased, when it is mixed with that which is of an inferior nature to it; as lead with silver, water with wine: So it is here, when the soul of man which was made for the enjoyment of God, and communion with him, is bowed down to earthly things, and mingleth it self with them, then it becometh base and degenerate. Now the soul may admit of a twofold mixture, both which makes it unholy:
Secondly, This holiness is a pure and unmixed disposition of soul, from any thing that may soil and debase it: So some make the word 〈non-Latin alphabet〉, that is, without any 1terrene or earthly mixture; for as every thing is debased, when it is mixed with that which is of an inferior nature to it; as lead with silver, water with wine: So it is here, when the soul of man which was made for the enjoyment of God, and communion with him, is bowed down to earthly things, and mingleth it self with them, then it becometh base and degenerate. Now the soul may admit of a twofold mixture, both which makes it unholy:
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First: With the lusts of sin, and the beastly pleasures of the flesh; and this is the deepest pollution, as if the Sun should become a dunghill; and therefore wicked 1men are compared to Dogs, licking up their vomit, and Swine wallowing in their mire, 2 Pet. 2. 22. Oh therefore remember, when thou hast been committing any gross sin, thou hast made thy self like dirt and dung, thou hast made thy self like a loathsome Toad, God abhorreth thee, and were thy eyes opened, thou wouldst be abominable in thy own eyes, thou wouldst not endure thy self, but cry out with David, Wash me throughly, and I shall be clean.