B00698:21
A fountain sealed: or, The duty of the sealed to the Spirit, and the…
A fountain sealed: or, The duty of the sealed to the Spirit, and the work of the Spirit in sealing. Wherein many things are handled about the Holy Spirit, and grieving of it: as also of assurance and sealing what it is, the privileges and degrees of it, with the signs to discern, and means to preserve it. : Being the substance of divers sermons preached at Gray's Inn. / By that Reverend Divine, Richard Sibbes D.D. and sometimes preacher to that honourable society.A fountain sealed: or, The duty of the sealed to the Spirit, and the worke of the Spirit in sealing. Wherein many things are handled about the Holy Spirit, and grieving of it: as also of assurance and sealing what it is, the priviledges and degrees of it, with the signes to discerne, and means to preserve it. : Being the substance of divers sermons preached at Grayes Inne. / By that Reverend Divine, Richard Sibbes D.D. and sometimes preacher to that honourable society.
London: printed by Thomas Harper for Lawrence Chapman, 1638
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.
1Now that which the Apostle dissuades from, is from grieving so holy a Spirit. These truths, are presupposed: First, that the holy Ghost is not in us personally as the second Person is in Christ man,2 for then the ⟨p. 9⟩holy Ghost, and we should make one person: nor is the holy Ghost in us essentially only: for so he is in all creatures: nor yet is in us only by stirring up holy motions, but he is in us mystically, and as Temples dedicated to himself: Christs humane nature is the first temple, wherein the Spirit dwells; and then we become temples by union with him.3 The difference betwixt his being in Christ & us, is, that the Spirit dwells in Christ in a fuller measure by reason that as a head he is to convey spirit into all his members. Secondly, the Spirit is in Christ entirely without any thing to oppose: the Spirit always finds something in us, that ⟨p. 10⟩is not his own, but ready to cross him. Thirdly, the Spirit is in us derivatively from Christ, as a fountain we receive grace at second hand, answerable to grace in him.4 The holy Ghost was in Adam before his fall, immediately; but now he is in Christ, first, and then for Christ in us, as members of that body, whereof Christ is the head: & it is well for us that he dwells first in Christ, and then in us: for from this it is that his communion with us is inseparable, as it is from Christ himself, with whom the Spirit makes us one. The holy Spirit dwells in those that are Christs after another manner then in others in whom he is in,5 in ⟨p. 11⟩some sort by common gifts, but in his own, he is in them as holy, and as making them holy, as the soul is in the whole body in regard of divers operations; but in the head only as it understandeth, and from thence ruleth the whole body: so the holy Ghost is in his, in regard of more noble operations, and his person is together with his working, though not personally; and though the whole man be the temple of the holy Ghost, ye the soul especially, and in the soul the very Spirit of our minds, a most suitable to him being a Spirit. Whence the Apostle wishes the grace of Christ to be with our Spirits, the best of spirits