A30243:879
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.
3. It is good, because hereby godliness hath a repute, and an esteem, and wickedness 1hath a discouragement and brand upon it. The Scriptures speaks of an whores fore-head, and a face that could not be ashamed: Now it is well when Gods Ministry hath brought sin into such an Odium, and matter of shame, that none of any ingenuity, any care, dareth commit any vile sin: and Oh that in all our congregations, if there were not such sanctifying grace, yet such ingenuous dispositions wrought in men by the light of the Word, that men would say, I am taught better, I know better, I scorn and am ashamed to serve any lust, or commit any known sin: those that are drunk (saith the Apostle) are drunk in the night, and so those that steal, steal in the night. Thus let Ashkelon and Gath, let Sodom and Gomorrah, who are in the night and dark, have wickedness committed amongst them; but let not Jerusalem, or Zion, who is in the light, thus stumble in the day and fall. How much is it to be deplored, that where the Gospel is received, and the word of God read, and preached, every profane person should not be as much ashamed to show his head, as a thief when he is taken?
3. It is good, because hereby godlinesse hath a repute, and an esteem, and wickednesse 1hath a discouragement and brand upon it. The Scriptures speaks of an whores fore-head, and a face that could not be ashamed: Now it is well when Gods Ministry hath brought sin into such an Odium, and matter of shame, that none of any ingenuity, any care, dareth commit any vile sin: and Oh that in all our congregations, if there were not such sanctifying grace, yet such ingenuous dispositions wrought in men by the light of the Word, that men would say, I am taught better, I know better, I scorn and am ashamed to serve any lust, or commit any known sin: those that are drunk (saith the Apostle) are drunk in the night, and so those that steal, steal in the night. Thus let Ashkelon and Gath, let Sodom and Gomorrah, who are in the night and dark, have wickednesse committed amongst them; but let not Jerusalem, or Sion, who is in the light, thus stumble in the day and fall. How much is it to be deplored, that where the Gospel is received, and the word of God read, and preached, every prophane person should not be as much ashamed to shew his head, as a theif when he is taken?