A30243:949
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.
Eighthly, This birth is inexpressible: He that is thus born again, cannot declare 1how, so our Saviour afterwards, The spirit or wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou knowest not whence it cometh, or whither it goeth. As a man understandeth not how fearfully and wonderfully he is made in his mothers womb; so neither how admirably God doth put these inclinations and dispositions into his soul: How is it that he who was backward, yea, an enemy to what was good, yet now with all delight follows it? motum scimus, modum nescimus, we find these great changes made upon us, but cannot declare how: From this also it cometh about that we cannot express it to another, only experimentally feel it in our selves: As a man cannot express to another what it is to live, only he feels the motions of his life in himself: Thus also he cannot tell to another what that new life, that new birth is, what that power of God is which he hath felt in his soul: but saith as the blind man to the Pharisees concerning Christ, I know not how he made me whole, only this I know, I that was once blind, do now see, Joh. 9. and so here, I know not how it cometh about that I am thus altered, I cannot tell how I am changed, only this I know, I that was not afraid to sin, now I am; I that did not delight in God, now do.
Eighthly, This birth is inexpressible: He that is thus born again, cannot declare 1how, so our Saviour afterwards, The spirit or winde bloweth where it listeth, and thou knowest not whence it cometh, or whither it goeth. As a man understandeth not how fearfully and wonderfully he is made in his mothers womb; so neither how admirably God doth put these inclinations and dispositions into his soul: How is it that he who was backward, yea, an enemy to what was good, yet now with all delight follows it? motum scimus, modum nescimus, we finde these great changes made upon us, but cannot declare how: From this also it cometh about that we cannot expresse it to another, only experimentally feel it in our selves: As a man cannot expresse to another what it is to live, only he feels the motions of his life in himself: Thus also he cannot tell to another what that new life, that new birth is, what that power of God is which he hath felt in his soul: but saith as the blinde man to the Pharisees concerning Christ, I know not how he made me whole, only this I know, I that was once blinde, do now see,