A30243:2859
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, A defiling mixture may be by the inordinate and immoderate affections 1of a man, even to lawful things; even as the waters that overflow the banks, they get soil and filth by that means: So those affections that are carried out beyond their limits, in over-loving, in over-grieving, in over-desiring, they debase and make unholy. Hence Esau is called A profane person, Heb. 12. 16. why? we read not of his gross, vicious, beastly sins, but because be had a low and undervaluing esteem of heavenly things, of that birth-right he sold: So then, thou art an unholy and a profane man, though free from thy gross sins, if thy thoughts, thy esteem about holy and heavenly things be low and careless: Thou hadst rather have, as he said, Guttam vini, then cadum mentis, a drop of pleasure, then an whole vessel of heavenly wisdom, this argueth thou art unholy. Holiness lieth in the spiritual dieting and moderating of all thy affections to worldly comforts: He that marrieth, as if he married not; he that buyeth, as if he bought not, 1 Cor. 7. In all our estates and conditions, we are to cut off those luxuriant branches, we are to put bounds to them, as God to the sea, Hitherto thou shalt go and no further.
Secondly, A defiling mixture may be by the inordinate and immoderate affections 1of a man, even to lawful things; even as the waters that overflow the banks, they get soil and filth by that means: So those affections that are carried out beyond their limits, in over-loving, in over-grieving, in over-desiring, they debase and make unholy. Hence Esau is called A prophane person, Heb. 12. 16. why? we read not of his gross, vicious, beastly sins, but because be had a low and undervaluing esteem of heavenly things, of that birth-right he sold: So then, thou art an unholy and a prophane man, though free from thy gross sins, if thy thoughts, thy esteem about holy and heavenly things be low and careless: Thou hadst rather have, as he said, Guttam vini, then cadum mentis, a drop of pleasure, then an whole vessel of heavenly wisdom, this argueth thou art unholy. Holiness lieth in the spiritual dieting and moderating of all thy affections to worldly comforts: He that marrieth, as if he married not; he that buyeth, as if he bought not,