A30243:694
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 26
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 Text is part of that Narrative which relates to his by-past conversation, wherein he described himself from the religious condition he then was in, and that first more generally, then more particularly: Generally, He was after the most strict way of Religion [Greek or Hebrew] the Original for Religion. Plutarch tells us, cometh from the Thracians, eminently taken notice of for their devotion: and it is used sometimes in a good sense, sometimes in a bad sense, as it degenerateth into superstition. The Original for Sect, is [Greek or Hebrew], Heresy, and so the several sects among Philosophers were called Heresies. It is the opinion of Gerhard, a learned man, That this word is always taken in an ill sense in the Scripture: but this place with two or three more in the Acts of the Apostles, seem to imply the use of it in a middle, or indifferent sense, any particular way that a man shall choose different from the rode, although in the Epistles it is used in an ill sense: Therefore Tertullian called it Secta Christianorum, The Sect of the Christians. Now this way Paul walked in, is aggravated with this adjunct, [Greek or Hebrew], in the superlative sense: and so Josephus speaks of the Pharisees, as those that were most accurate in the observance of instituted and Traditional obedience: more particularly, his way is described by its denomination, a Pharisee. There were three Sects sprung up among the Jews, the Pharisees, Sadducee •s, and Essenes; the Scripture speaketh nothing at all of the latter, because as some say, They lived like Hermits, in remote solitary places, and so the Evangelist had no occasion to mention them: Now the Pharisees were called, either as some say, from a word to open and explain, because they expounded the Scripture; or from a word to Separate and Segregate; and Cameron upon this place makes the Hebrew word [Greek or Hebrew] not to signify every kind of Division or separation, but that which is after a most subtle, and minute manner: Hence Isa. 28. 29. It is applied to the teeth of a rake, and Horse riders [Greek or Hebrew], ⟨p. 149⟩are called, [Greek or Hebrew], because of their spurs: and Proverbs 23. It is applied to The sting of a Bee: Therefore to be a Pharisee, was to be a scrupulous, anxious man, which did subtly examine all things: