A30243:712
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.
Therefore all those affected Austerities of [Greek or Hebrew], eating of herbs, and other dry things, as also Humicubaticus, or lyings on the ground in rough sack-cloth, though the exercisers therein did no doubt much please themselves, and thought hereby to endear God to them: yet all this is but a vain refuge: The Apostle determineth, 1 Tim. 4. 8. Bodily exercise profiteth little, but godliness is profitable to all things. He makes a distinction between bodily exercise, and godliness; therefore one is not the other: Do not then measure thy hopes and assurances of heaven, though very specious to a carnal eye, by such outward strict observances.
Therefore all those affected Austerities of 〈non-Latin alphabet〉, eating of hearbs, and other dry things, as also Humicubaticus, or lyings on the ground in rough sack-cloth, though the exercisers therein did no doubt much please themselves, and thought hereby to endear God to them: yet all this is but a vain refuge: The Apostle determineth, 1 Tim. 4. 8. Bodily exercise profiteth little, but godliness is profitable to all things. He makes a distinction between bodily exercise, and godliness; therefore one is not the other: Do not then measure thy hopes and assurances of heaven, though very specious to a carnal eye, by such outward strict observances.
Thirdly, An extraordinary strictness which maketh men confident, Is a voluntary abdication, and actual dispossessing our selves of all outward comforts, and applying our selves only to religious exercises. How did this mistake seduce thousands of devout souls, who were zealous for God, but wanted knowledge? Hence came those Monasteries, renouncing of riches, wealth, and whatsoever comfort was in this life: As if those places, Unless a man forsake all, and deny himself, taking up the cross and follow me, &c. did command an actual abdication of all, and not rather an habitual preparation of heart to leave them all when God shall call for them. And if we read of Philosophers that have thrown all their wealth away, that they might the better study Philosophy, is it any wonder if a false zeal carry some to part with all, that according to their thoughts, they might the more expeditely come to the races end? It is true indeed, the Scripture commands such strictness in our affections and desires to all worldly comforts, That those that have them must be as if they had them not: And who is there that can stand under those exact commands of God herein? yet we may err on the right hand, as well as on the left. Such were those Euchetae, that gave themselves only to pray: And the Donatists upbraiding the Orthodox with their impiety, and commending their own godliness, Nos formidamus divitias, We (say they) are afraid of riches.