A30243:375
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 15
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.
A second Way whereby God proveth, (and the sincere rejoice therein) is a 1powerful and soul searching Ministry, which like thunder and lightening, makes the mountains to melt like wax, and the Hinds to calve in the fields, I mean the stoutest and obstinatest sinner, to find his soul thereby in a spiritual travel and agony longing to be delivered. A gracious heart loveth that Ministry which like the word of God is a two edged sword in his heart, of which he can say as the woman, of Christ, It hath told me all that ever I did. That shaking of heaven and earth which the Prophet Haggai speaketh of, is the Ministry of the Apostles, and in the Hebrew is the word, from whence Boanerges cometh. Then are ye like the Eagles young ones, [Greek or Hebrew], when ye can look upon the sun beams: when light is not offensive to your sore eyes. It was a speech infallible betraying Ahab's rotten heart, when he said of the Prophet Michaiah, I hate him, because he always speaks evil to me. You have just cause to suspect the soundness of your hearts, when you delight only in a lazy, formal, general, and dull ministry: when you would have Prophets that should sing only Pleasant songs, daub with untempered mortar; encourage you, notwithstanding your sins you are in. And if this be a symptom of an unsound heart, may we not say Hypocrisy hath fallen upon the hearts of most in England, who rejoice not in those Ministers and Prophets that rouse their consciences, that trouble them for their sins, that would reform them from their superstitions and prophanies? do not the faithful Ministers of God meet with the same hatred and opposition as the prophets did by Jerusalem? and why is all this? That of our Saviour will answer it, The thief hates the light, because his deeds are evil. Therefore is thy heart afraid, and unwilling to have a Ministry that shall discover thy sins, because thy Conscience is full of Ulcers and sores: whereas now if thou diddest love to be reformed, how wouldest thou rejoice in the light of the Ministry. The more spiritual, powerful, operative, thou diddest find it in thy heart, thou wouldest bless God the more: thou wouldest cry out with thankfulness, O Lord I bless thee that light shineth in every dark corner of my heart: Oh let it still be a ministry, as if to me only, to mind me of my sins, to bring my iniquities to remembrance.
A second Way whereby God proveth, (and the sincere rejoyce therein) is a 1