A30243:340
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 14
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 Apostle at the first verse having declared the glorious privilege of being the sons of God, he doth vers. 3. mention also their Duty: for external grace and inherent are inseparably joined together. Their Duty is to avoid sin, which is pressed from several Arguments;
THe Apostle at the first verse having declared the glorious priviledge of being the sons of God, he doth vers. 3. mention also their Duty: for external grace and inherent are inseparably joined together. Their Duty is to avoid sin, which is pressed from several Arguments;
1. From the native filthiness of it, It is a transgression of the Law.
2. From the end of Christs coming, which was To destroy the works of the devil.
3. From a collation or comparison between the two Fountains or Fathers of him that doth sin, or him that doth righteousness; the one is of the Devil, the other is born of God; and this difference my Text amplifieth: So that in the words you read, you may observe five Propositions; first, He that is born of God sinneth not; what it is to be born of God is easily known, viz. to have the image and holiness of God stamped upon us by his Spirit quickening of us; we must not imagine any communicating of the Divine Essence to us; in which sense the second Person is born of the Father, and so called, The Son of God; but by participation of those supernatural graces which make us resemble him; The greater doubt is about the predicate, He sinneth not; which hath much exercised the thoughts of men: some understand it of a perfection attained to in this life, not to sin at all. Thus Papists, Pelagians, some Anabaptists and divers of late; but if this were the meaning, the Apostle within a very little space would expressly contradict himself, for Chap. 1. 8, 10. he saith expressly, If we say we have no sin we deceive our selves, and make God a liar. Not to sin therefore is not wholly to be without sin. Others limit it to a certain kind of sin, in this sense, He sinneth not, viz. unto death, so that he shall be damned; and without question to this purpose the Apostle speaketh Chap. 5. 16, 17, 18. But this seemeth to straiten it too much. Others, as Arminians, he sinneth not, viz. in this respect, and so far as he is born of God; but what an absurd sense would this be, and who knoweth not that a godly man doth not sin in that he is godly, or because he