A30243:72
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 2
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.
Be not carried about with divers doctrines, for it is good to have the heart established with grace; Where the Apostle makes grace and godliness to stablish and settle the heart; and therefore men that are led aside into errors, are said to be carried about with them, a Metaphor from chaff and straw, which because of its emptiness and lightness is blown this way and that way. Thus a man that is empty of grace, and not consolidated by the power of it upon his heart, he runneth from one opinion to another, without any stay at all. Therefore a savoury inward knowledge of divine truths, would be an excellent ballast in the soul. And as it would thus keep the heart firm to the truth, so it would unite the heart to holy things as the best and sweetest, without hypocrisy, double-mindedness and inconstancy, and this is much to be considered, thy heart is one while for good things, another while as vehemently for the world, thy heart is divided between the Creator and the creature, how cometh this about? for want of real and experimental knowledge of the goodness of God, He that drinketh of this water (saith Christ) shall never thirst more, that is, Siti totalis indigentiae, with a thirst of total want. Now how great a mercy it is to be kept from that double-mindedness the Apostle speaks of, To be like a wave that is sometimes tossed up high to the heavens, and then presently sinks down low in the sea; or like the Grasshoppers that leap up towards heaven, but immediately fall down to the ground: When temptations of profit and pleasure come, how easily can they be repulsed by an heart who feels better things? So that till you have an inward feeling and joy about the things of God, you are not able to withstand other temptations, but you will always be striving to make possible that which our Saviour hath pronounced so impossible, To serve God and Mammon.
Be not carried about with divers doctrines, for it is good to have the heart established with grace; Where the Apostle makes grace and godliness to stablish and settle the heart; and therefore men that are led aside into errors, are said to be carried about with them, a Metaphor from chaff and straw, which because of its emptiness and lightness is blown this way and that way. Thus a man that is empty of grace, and not consolidated by the power of it upon his heart, he runneth from one opinion to another, without any stay at all. Therefore a savoury inward knowledge of divine truths, would be an excellent ballast in the soul. And as it would thus keep the heart firm to the truth, so it would unite the heart to holy things as the best and sweetest, without hypocrisie, double-mindedness and inconstancy, and this is much to be considered, thy heart is one while for good things, another while as vehemently for the world, thy heart is divided between the Creator and the creature, how cometh this about? for want of real and experimental knowledge of the goodness of God, He that drinketh of this water (saith Christ) shall never thirst more, that is, Siti totalis indigentiae, with a thirst of total want. Now how great a mercy it is to be kept from that double-mindedness the Apostle speaks of, To be like a wave that is sometimes tossed up high to the heavens, and then presently sinks down low in the sea; or like the Grashoppers that leap up towards heaven, but immediatly fall down to the ground: When temptations of profit and pleasure come, how easily can they be repulsed by an heart who feels better things? So that till you have an inward feeling and joy about the things of God, you are not able to withstand other temptations, but you will alwayes be striving to make possible that which our Saviour hath pronounced so impossible, To serve God and Mammon.