A30243:701
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.
Now, That godliness must be strictness appeareth partly from the nature of Grace, 1which is contrary to our affections, and so doth with prevailing power subdue them to the grief of the unregenerate part: Hence the Scripture calls it, Mortifying, and crucifying the old man; which implieth the pain and Agony our corrupt part is exercised with by Grace: Christianus est perpetua naturae violentia, to conquer lusts, is To pull out the right eye, and chop off the right hand: and by this we may see how few are Godly, because they are rare that feel this spiritual conflict and agony, there is no mortifying and crucifying within them.
Now, That godliness must be strictness appeareth partly from the nature of Grace, 1which is contrary to our affections, and so doth with prevailing power subdue them to the grief of the unregenerate part: Hence the Scripture calls it, Mortifying, and crucifying the old man; which implyeth the pain and Agony our corrupt part is exercised with by Grace: Christianus est perpetua naturae violentia, to conquer lusts, is To pull out the right eye, and chop off the right hand: and by this we may see how few are Godly, because they are rare that feel this spiritual conflict and agony, there is no mortifying and crucifying within them.
- 1I. From the contrariety of grace to our affections.
Again, Godliness must needs be exactness: partly, Because our duties are so bounded, and circumstantiated in their principles, manner and ends, That to do any ⟨p. 150⟩good action, is always to hit the mark, as to sin, [Greek or Hebrew], is to miss the scope and white. Aristotle placed his Moral virtue, in medio, and so made it difficult to avoid extremities on both sides: but (alas!) the word of God requireth far more concurrences then ever the light of nature could discern: so that if you take any religious action, whether elicit, or imperate, to do it after a godly manner, there must be a great deal of circumspection: there is so much required in the cause, in the manner, in the motive, that we may cry out for every particular duty, which Paul did for one main one, Who is sufficient for these things? so that negligence, formality, and luke-warmness can no more consist with godliness that is of a strict and exact nature, then hell with heaven.