A30243:945
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.
Fourthly, Because his nature is new, his actions […] are new: all Old things are passed away, 2 Cor. 5. 18. Paul that once persecuted […]ehold he prayeth, and such were some of you (saith Paul) but ye are washed, but y• are cleansed; As every man 1is (saith Aristotle) so is he affected, so he speaks, and so he lives; When therefore thy life is supernatural, so thy affections, thy word•, thy conversation is also: The life that I now live, is by faith in the son of God; saith Paul, Gal. 2. 20. Oh this is a sad symptom, that few are acquainted with regeneration, because all things else are not made new in them: They have the old conversation, the old affections, the old discourse, the old passions […] used to have: This argueth ⟨p. 206⟩thee to be in the state of bitterness still. There cannot from a sweet fountain come only bitter streams, so neither can there come from a refined spirit only corrupted actions. As the thorn cannot send forth grapes, so neither do grapes send forth thorns; why then if thou art born of God, dost thou discover so much of the old man in thee? why is the Egyptian in Canaan? this is as the Father said, for coelum pluere gehennam, in another case: did grace and Christ dwell in thy soul, were it possible that thy heart should be a den of lusts, and a cage of unclean imaginations? shake off therefore all negligence and lukewarmness, observe how thou art changed, whether it be otherwise with thee then what thou hast by nature.
Fourthly, Because his nature is new, his actions 〈…〉 are new: all Old things are passed away, 2 Cor. 5. 18. Paul that once persecuted 〈…〉ehold he prayeth, and such were some of you (saith Paul) but ye are washed, but y• are cleansed; As every man 1