A30243:980
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 35
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, Therefore do not men believe this, because they do not understand the 1true nature of the Sacrament of Baptism, which if rightly understood, would make every man see the necessity of regeneration. If the Pharisees had known the end and use of the Sacrament of Circumcision, that would have led them into the knowledge of their natural defilement, and the necessity of cutting it off. Hence God promiseth to circumcise their hearts, Deut. 30. 6. and circumcision was properly that of the spirit in the inward man, Rom. 2. But the Jews they rested wholly upon the external sign, and never regarded the thing signified. Now Baptism in the New Testament, doth also proclaim the necessity of this new birth, called therefore the laver of regeneration, Tit. 3. 5. as some expound it. And although it be much disputed, whether that expression of our Saviour to Nicodemus, Unless a man be born of the water and the spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven, be meant of Baptism, and the outward element in that Ordinance: yet the very water which is commanded to be used by us in that administration, doth evidently signify the pollution of our natures, and so a necessity of washing: For children that have no actual sins are washed, because they have Original filthiness, so that regeneration is necessary to a young infant. Who art thou, that because thou keepest free from gross sins, abstainest from the evils of the world, and therefore seest not such a necessity of regeneration? For if thou wert as clean as the infant new born, If thou hadst no more sins then that hath; Yet this spirit of regeneration must new mould thee, ere thou canst be a polished stone in that heavenly Jerusalem? But as it was with the Jews, so it is with us Christians: we rely on Baptism, rest on the Sacrament administered, never considering whether we are made partakers of that inward nature-washing or not.
Fourthly, Therefore do not men believe this, because they do not understand the 1true nature of the Sacrament of Baptism, which if rightly understood, would make every man see the necessity of regeneration. If the Pharisees had known the end and use of the Sacrament of Circumcision, that would have led them into the knowledge of their natural defilement, and the necessity of cutting it off. Hence God promiseth to circumcise their hearts,