A30243:867
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 32
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.
A Christian may be a Swine, and yet washed. Thou that wert once a drunkard, a whoremonger, a swearer, mayest have forsaken these sins, and yet this alteration be in externals only, not internals. Though thou hast escaped the pollutions of the world, yet not those of thy heart, and therefore thou art still in the state of gall and wormwood. This is cleared in the foolish Virgins, who are called Virgins, ⟨p. 189⟩because they kept themselves from the Idolatry and pollutions of the world; yet foolish, because they had not oil. Thus you have the Israelites several times throwing away their Idols, by which they had provoked God against them, and yet returning again to them: We may say, the Israelites did clean escape those Idolatrous pollutions, and they did it seriously, they were not gross dissemblers; but because their hearts were not changed, and they steadfast in this reformation, they were swine washed returning to the mire. Judas throweth away his unjust gain, with great terror and sorrow of heart, but he is a Goat, not a Sheep in Christs flock. I confess this sign seemeth to carry much probability with it; and commonly such men, who have superseded their lusts, find a great deal of comfort: they rejoice to see those fetters and chains of their legs, which once lust and the Devil had put on them, taken off. They were sins prisoners, and went up and down in their shackles, but now they are out of this dungeon.1
A Christian may be a Swine, and yet washed. Thou that wert once a drunkard, a whoremonger, a swearer, maiest have forsaken these sins, and yet this alteration be in externals only, not internals. Though thou hast escaped the pollutions of the world, yet not those of thy heart, and therefore thou art still in the state of gall and wormwood. This is cleared in the foolish Virgins, who are called Virgins, ⟨p. 189⟩because they kept themselves from the Idolatry and pollutions of the world; yet foolish, because they had not oyl. Thus you have the Israelites several times throwing away their Idols, by which they had provoked God against them, and yet returning again to them: We may say, the Israelites did clean escape those Idolatrous pollutions, and they did it seriously, they were not grosse dissemblers; but because their hearts were not changed, and they steadfast in this reformation, they were swine washed returning to the mire. Judas throweth away his unjust gain, with great terrour and sorrow of heart, but he is a Goat, not a Sheep in Christs flock. I confesse this sign seemeth to carry much probability with it; and commonly such men, who have superseded their lusts, find a great deal of comfort: they rejoyce to see those fetters and chains of their legs, which once lust and the Divel had put on them, taken off. They were sins prisoners, and went up and down in their shackles, but now they are out of this dungeon.