A30243:849
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.
3. Then can outward abundance be no comfortable sign, when the means to 1get it and the way to preserve it are unlawful, and such as the Scripture condemneth: ⟨p. 185⟩The Lord many times suffereth unjust and deceitful men to thrive for a while in the world, and so ungodly men have much outward prosperity. even Idolaters, when Gods own Church hath been much afflicted: David and Jeremiah expostulated with God about this, no wonder wicked men thought the better of themselves, when David a godly man was so discontented hereat, that he thought all his integrity and pure worship of God was in vain: Yea the Heathens they have busied themselves, Plutarch and Seneca have on purpose debated this providence of God, Why it is many times so ill with the godly, and outwardly so well with the wicked: but till David went into Gods Sanctuary, understood Gods word, he was not satisfied, but by that perceived they were in slippery places, and he began to think he would not have all their prosperity, with the sad consequents of it; and indeed it is never well with the wicked, though in abundance, and never ill with the godly, though in deep extremities: say ye to the righteous, it shall be well with him. say ye to the wicked, it shall be ill with him, say it, Gods Ministers are boldly and peremptorily to pronounce this; that morsel which went down at first as sweet honey, will at last be emptied like gravel out of the belly. Do not therefore conclude of thy great mercies, it may be the manner and way may afford thee little comfort, it may be that which thou thinkest a demonstration of Gods love to thee, is an argument of thy wickedness; when men come to great estate, presently we ask, How is it raised? as the Geographers dispute about the spring of Nilus: Outward mercies in Gods way are sweet and comfortable, but in unwarrantable and unlawful ways, they melt like wax before the fire, and besides they sting like a Scorpion, and bite like an Adder.
3. Then can outward abundance be no comfortable sign, when the means to 1get it and the way to preserve it are unlawfull, and such as the Scripture condemneth: ⟨p. 185⟩