A30243:453
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 18
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.
Hereupon because every Abel will have a Cain (as the Fathers proverbial speech is) vers. 13. he comforts the godly against their afflicted condition. It is no wonder if the world hate that which is of heaven; and ver. 14. he returneth to another argument for this gracious Love, and that is from the profitable effect, it is a sign we have passed from death to life.
In the words, you have two Propositions;
First, That the godly even in this life are already passed from death to life. Some render the Greek word translated, and thereupon Estius observes, because we are passive in this privilege, that it is not to be attributed to our merits, but to the grace of God: Now the Apostle useth the Preterperfect tense, and not the Present, because of the certainty of it, and his right to it, Qui jus ad rem habet, rem ipsam habere videtur, saith the Lawyer; you have the like expression John 5. 24. By this life some understand the life of grace, and by death, the death of sin, as if the love of the Brethren were a sign of our being in the state of grace, and then there is good reason for using the Preterperfect tense. But although this may be part, yet it doth not comprehend all, for eternal life, and glory is also included herein.
First, That the godly even in this life are already passed from death to life. Some render the Greek word translated, and thereupon Estius observes, because we are passive in this priviledge, that it is not to be attributed to our merits, but to the grace of God: Now the Apostle useth the Preterperfect tense, and not the Present, because of the certainty of it, and his right to it, Qui jus ad rem habet, rem ipsam habere videtur, saith the Lawyer; you have the like expression