A30243:49
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 1 › Sermon 1
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.
It is a duty of special concernment for the people of God to be assured of such a true 1and saving work of grace in them, as thereby they shall be differenced from unsound hypocrites.
- 1Observ. 1.
There are certain Notes and Sign• of grace, whereby a man may discern what he is.1
- 1Observ. 2.
A Practical and Experimental knowledge of Grace doth far transcend a mere Notional and Theoretical: There is a great difference between him that hath heard Honey is sweet, and him that hath tasted it. It is a rule among the Hebrews, That Verba notitiae, quandoque significant ⟨p. 3⟩affectum & effectum. Words of knowledge do sometimes signify the affections in the heart, and the effects thereof in life, how well were it if they did always so signify among Christians. In former times Christians did much labour after an experimental knowledge, now they luxuriate into a mere brain-knowledge; howsoever in physic we call that man by way of contempt an Empiric, who goeth by experience only, and hath no knowledge of the nature of things, yet to be an Empiric in Christianity may have a good sense. In legendis libris non quaeramus scientiam, sed saporem, said Bernard, In reading books let us not so much look for science, as a savouriness of the truth upon our hearts. Now when the Apostle commands us to prove and try our selves, it is to endeavour to feel that in actu secundo, as they say, in actual working, which we persuade our selves is in us actu primo, or habitually. As for example, Every man thinketh he is a believer, he is regenerated; To prove or try our selves, is to apply those notes and marks which the Scripture makes of such, and thereby to have an experimental feeling of the actual exercise of these things. The Scripture