A30243:995
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 36
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.
The words then are a Proposition containing a Reason, why there must be a Regeneration before there can be any entrance into the Kingdom of Heaven; wherein you have the subject described, That which is born of the flesh. Flesh is sometimes used in Scripture for the bodily part of a man, as corruptible, in which sense it is said, All flesh is grass; sometime it is used for man as he is sinful and unregenerate, In my flesh dwelleth no good thing, saith Paul. The first sense denoteth our fragility and meanness, the second our guilt and sinfulness; both aggravate our misery and baseness; and this expression is universal, That which is born of the flesh, is flesh. This extendeth to wise men, to great men, noble men, Kings and Emperors; they are flesh of flesh. Secondly, there is the predicate, Is flesh. The expression is in the abstract, to show, how totally, deeply and universally he is fleshly. Thus the Apostle, Rom. 8. calls being in the flesh, as surrounded and compassed about with it.
The words then are a Proposition containing a Reason, why there must be a Regeneration before there can be any entrance into the Kingdome of Heaven; wherein you have the subject described, That which is born of the flesh. Flesh is sometimes used in Scripture for the bodily part of a man, as corruptible, in which sense it is said, All flesh is grasse; sometime it is used for man as he is sinfull and unregenerate, In my flesh dwelleth no good thing, saith Paul. The first sense denoteth our fragility and meaneness, the second our guilt and sinfulnesse; both aggravate our misery and basenesse; and this expression is universall, That which is born of the flesh, is flesh. This extendeth to wise men, to great men, noble men, Kings and Emperors; they are flesh of flesh. Secondly, there is the predicate, Is flesh. The expression is in the abstract, to shew, how totally, deeply and universally he is fleshly. Thus the Apostle, Rom. 8. calls being in the flesh, as surrounded and compassed about with it.
So that our Saviours reason lieth in this, Every thing expresseth the nature of that kind in which it is, That which comes of a Wolf hath a Wolvish nature, that which comes of a Sheep hath a Sheepish nature, and that which comes of a corrupt unclean kind must also be unclean: So that our Saviours expression is like