A30243:833
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 31
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.
That outward Success, Prosperity, and Greatness in the world is no true Evidence of Grace.
That outward Successe, Prosperity, and Greatnesse in the world is no true Evidence of Grace.
DEUT. 9. 4, 5. Speak not in thy heart, after that the Lord thy God hath cast them out from before thine eyes, saying, for my righteousness the Lord hath brought me in to possess this land, &c.
The people of Israel after a sore and dangerous voyage are now entering into their haven, after a wilderness full of troubles and dangers they are now possessing a land of Rest, a land that flowed with honey; but l•st they should surfeit of this honey, and lest this rest and quietness should be like that of pools, which breedeth nothing but noisome creatures, Moses is exceeding vigilant to inform them as of the great mercies God had done for them, so of the great duties he required of them: and this is the scope of Moses both in the precedent, and this present Chapter, with some others that follow. The mercies God vouchsafed to them are aggravated by an enumeration of the several wonders God had wrought for them, as also by a lively description of that Land and Country they were now made Lords of, Chap. 8. 7, 8, 9. called therefore the good land frequently, and is made a type of heaven, for the joyful pleasure of it, as if the Israelites now possessed of Canaan were brought into Paradise again; and for the full commendation of it the Scriptures expression is remarkable. Deut. 11. 12. A Land which the Lord thy God careth for, The eyes of the Lord thy God are always upon it, from the beginning of the year to the end of it: a phrase much like that which the Scripture useth even of his own children, as if he had the same care of that Land as of his own people. As he thus lively describes their mercies, so he doth as powerfully quicken them up unto their duty, which is to take heed of all those sins, that fullness, ease, and security, would quickly breed; whereof he instanceth in one more especially, viz. an apprehension that God had done this to them, for their righteousness, because they were more holy then others, as they thought; Therefore they concluded themselves more happy. Because their land abounded with all excellent fruit, they judged their lives to overflow with all graces. They