A30243:557
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 3 › Sermon 21
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.
This Point needeth a powerful and a wary discovery: Therefore for explication sake, let us consider what religious affections and motions the Scripture declareth to be in some, who yet are not truly regenerated. The known and famous instance is Mat. 13. 20. where the third kind of hearers is said to receive the word with joy. This is tasting the good Word of God, finding some sweetness ⟨p. 118⟩and power in the Ordinances, yet that this hearer was not hereby regenerate is plain, partly because he is said to have no root, partly because he is opposed to the good ground, that is, the good and honest heart (what is said by Arminians to these things, hereafter shall be discussed) so Joh. 5. 35. you have a plain instance of some that had light and heat in them, yet not godly. Ye did for a season rejoice in Johns light and Ministry, so that men who shall at last be thrown in utter darkness, may yet for a while rejoice in the light of Gods word: Thus Herod putteth it also out of all question, Mar. 6. 20. for he heard John gladly, and the motive was religion, for it's said he feared or reverenced him, because he was a just man. I look upon this point as fundamental in practice; and which if true, may strike like an arrow into our hearts, and therefore have brought undeniable places of Scripture to assert this truth; Affections in holy administrations with delight and joy, may be in those who yet have no true grace: I will instance only in another affection, and that is sorrow and grief about sin, even this may be in a man unseasoned with grace, Mat. 27. 3. it is expressly said of Judas, he repented himself and confessed I have sinned in betraying the innocent blood, [Greek or Hebrew], the word is properly used of that sorrow, grief and care, which is in the affectionate part of a man: Ahab's humiliation, 1 King. 21. is so great, that God taketh notice of it; Seest thou how Ahab humbleth himself? The Israelites how often were they in their humiliations and mournings for sin? though these laud floods were dried up again, insomuch that Gregory did well compare them to the grasshoppers which make sudden leaps from the earth, as if they would fly to heaven, but presently fall down upon the ground again. Take one place for many,