A30243:291
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 2 › Sermon 12
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.
The first is, Perfect and complete, as Christ did, and the Saints in heaven do perfectly love God. The second is imperfect, but sincere, though the Scripture calls it perfect, because of the essential perfection, though it hath not a gradual. The third is external, with some internal affections, but altogether unsound. The Apostle as he meaneth the second kind of knowledge, so the second kind of observance of the Commandments, and howsoever the translation be in the present tense, We know that we know him, yet in the original it is, We have known him, whereby it's plain, That good works do not go before Faith or Justification, but follow it. The second Proposition is, that the keeping of Gods Commandments is a sign that we do know him, [Greek or Hebrew], by which he doth not mean a conjectural knowledge, as the Papists would put it off, but a sure and certain knowledge. Now although the Apostle speaks indefinitely, when he saith, Keeping the Commandments of God, yet because it is in a necessary matter, the Assertion is equivalent to an universal.
The first is, Perfect and compleat, as Christ did, and the Saints in heaven do perfectly love God. The second is imperfect, but sincere, though the Scripture cals it perfect, because of the essential perfection, though it hath not a gradual. The third is external, with some internal affections, but altogether unsound. The Apostle as he meaneth the second kinde of knowledge, so the second kinde of observance of the Commandments, and howsoever the translation be in the present tense, We know that we know him, yet in the original it is, We have known him, whereby it's plain, That good works doe not go before Faith or Justification, but follow it. The second Proposition is, that the keeping of Gods Commandments is a sign that we do know him, 〈non-Latin alphabet〉, by which he doth not mean a conjectural knowledge, as the Papists would put it off, but a sure and certain knowledge. Now although the Apostle speaks indefinitely, when he saith, Keeping the Commandments of God, yet because it is in a necessary matter, the Assertion is equivalent to an universal.
Hence the Doctrine is,