A30243:913
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 33
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.
2. The impossibility of it appeareth in the several manifold works of Gods grace, 1which are absolutely necessary after we are regenerated: So that suppose a man be converted, yet if grace do not afterwards help, and that several ways, this man would die in the wilderness and never get to Canaan; now Gods grace is various, There is preventing grace, whereby a man is kept from those many sins and temptations, which if plunged into would utterly undo him. Thus David was kept from murdering Nabal; and as Paul said, 1 Cor. 15. 10. By the grace of God I am what I am; So he might have said (saith Austin) By the grace of God I am not what I am not. Yea Divines say, Plures sunt gratiae privativae quam positivae, Gods preventing mercies are more then his positive mercies. Oh therefore think, If the grace of God did not keep off this sin, this lust, this temptation, how had it swallowed thee up, as the Whale did Jonah! Again, There is protecting grace, and that is, when thou art in the midst of all temptations, yet grace defends thee, and thou sinnest not; we wonder at Gods miraculous deliverance to Daniel, who was kept alive in the midst of roaring Lions. Alas God doth no less for thee every day. There are devils like so many roaring Lions, seeking to devour thy soul, and its grace hath a covering over thee. Its a remarkable expression of the Psalmist, mercy d•th compass the godly, Ps. 32. 10. its a Court of guard against all those assaults that our spiritual enemies would make upon us. There is also quickening grace, whereby the principles of holiness are daily blown up and enlivened; now if this bellows were not always blowing, if this were not always filling our sails, we should lie like so many dry bones; This wind must arise ere they can come together. David found the necessity of this, when he so often prayed, That God would quicken him. Thy very graces would lie & rust away, were there not this exciting grace; Do not the people of God fall into divers lethargies and hurtful sleeps, because of the want of this. Again, there is cooperating grace, which goeth along with us to do, as well as to purpose in our heart: Its Gods grace that worketh in us not only to will but to do, Phil. 2. 13