A30243:934
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 4 › Sermon 34
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.
And first, It is not as Nicodemus grossly conceived, a second entering into the womb; It's a wonder that Nicodemus a learned man, not in Aristotle, or humane arts, but in the Law of God, in the Scriptures, where he had read of a new heart, and taking away the heart of stone, Ezek. 36. 26. yet should apprehend no better: but though a man could in a natural way be born a thousand times over, yet such is that abominable defilement and pestilential contagion in every one, that this natural being can be no more made glorious in heaven then a black coal a glorious Star. Thus our Saviour afterwards showing the ground of regeneration, saith, That which is born of the flesh, is flesh. What a folly then is it to glory in a mans birth, a Prince, a Nobleman, a Gentleman by birth! for though these have privileges among men, yet they do not exempt from curses before God: Oh that those who glory in their blood could discover well the works of Gods Spirit in them, and this is universally true, even of those who have excellent, ingenious, good natures, such as Bonaventure of whom by an hyperbole it was said, In hoc homine non peccavit Adam: This good nature, this kind, this ingenious nature must be born from above; It must not only have external culture and dressing, but internal alteration, and without that it burneth in hell as well as others.
And first, It is not as Nicodemus grosly conceived, a second entring into the womb; It's a wonder that Nicodemus a learned man, not in Aristotle, or humane arts, but in the Law of God, in the Scriptures, where he had read of a new heart, and taking away the heart of stone, Ezek. 36. 26. yet should apprehend no better: but though a man could in a naturall way be born a thousand times over, yet such is that abominable defilement and pestilential contagion in every one, that this natural being can be no more made glorious in heaven then a black coal a glorious Starre. Thus our Saviour afterwards shewing the ground of regeneration, saith, That which is born of the flesh, is flesh. What a folly then is it to glory in a mans birth, a Prince, a Nobleman, a Gentleman by birth! for though these have priviledges among men, yet they do not exempt from curses before God: Oh that those who glory in their bloud could discover well the works of Gods Spirit in them, and this is universally true, even of those who have excellent, ingenious, good natures, such as Bonaventure of whom by an hyperbole it was said, In hoc homine non peccavit Adam: This good nature, this kinde, this ingenious nature must be born from above; It must not only have external culture and dressing, but internall alteration, and without that it burneth in hell as well as others.