A30243:3015
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 120s
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.
That not all mankind are called with a saving call; How absurd it is to hold, That the Works of God, the Sun, Moon and Stars, &c. may so call Men; And Gods Justice cleared in that point, stirring up all to behold the severity and goodness of the Lord.
That not all mankinde are called with a saving call; How absurd it is to hold, That the Works of God, the Sun, Moon and Stars, &c. may so call Men; And Gods Justice cleared in that point, stirring up all to behold the severity and goodness of the Lord.
ACTS. 2. 39. For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call.
WE have handled the third kind of persons enumerated in this Text; viz. Those that are afar off. The next thing in order to be considered, Is the further description of those that are afar off, which is by way of restriction and limitation, As many as God shall call; wherein observe, 1. The limitation of the number, As many as God shall call: You see its not an universal, its not to all that are afar off, but only to those whom God shall call unto him. 2. There is the benefit or privilege God vouchsafeth, described; 1. From the nature of it, Call. 2. From the efficient cause, The Lord our God shall call; the Greek word is with the proposition, [Greek or Hebrew], shall call unto him, which doth partly denote, the great distance that all men by nature are from ⟨p. 692⟩him; and partly, the mighty power and strength of God, whose word only can make such a change. Christ from heaven said, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me, and his Blackamoor skin, yea, heart, was presently made white and clean: Christ did by a word only call Matthew the Publican from his place of gain and profit, and he presently leaveth all and followeth him: Thus as he said to Christ, Lord, if thou say but the word, my servant shall live: So its here; Lord, if thou speak but the word, the mountains will melt like wax, iron swim, the rivers of Jordan run backward, the hills skip like lambs; that is, the lives, the thoughts, the purposes of men will be wholly altered and changed; its but Gods call, and that will make the deaf to hear, and the foolish to understand: And partly this doth imply, the mere good will and pleasure of God, it resolveth all into his grace: Here is no goodness, no worth in these men that are afar off, moving God, but, As many as God shall call: The utmost into which all is resolved is God will have mercy, on whom he will have mercy. I shall at this time pitch on the restriction or limitation of the subject, Not all that are afar off, only such whom God shall call: And from thence observe,