B00698:27
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.
1For the first: The holy Ghost cannot properly be grieved in his own person, because grief implies a defect of happiness in suffering that we wish removed. It implies a defect in foresight, to prevent that which may grieve. It implies passion, which is soon raised up, and soon laid down: GOD is not subject to change; it implies some want ⟨p. 17⟩of power to remove that which we feel to be a grievance: and therefore it is not beseeming the Majesty of the Spirit thus to be grieved. We must therefore conceive of it as befitting the Majesty of God, removing in our thoughts all imperfections. First then we are said to grieve God,2 when we do that which is apt of it self to grieve: as we are said to destroy our weak brother, when we do that which he taking offence at, is apt to mislead him, and so to destroy him. Secondly, we grieve the Spirit, when we do that whereupon the Spirit doth that which grieved persons do; that is, retireth and showeth dislike, and returns ⟨p. 18⟩grief again. Thirdly, though the passion of grief be not in the holy Ghost, yet there is in his holy nature a pure displicence and hatred of sin, with such a degree of abomination as though it tend not to the destruction of the offender, yet to sharp correction: so that grief is eminently in the hatred of God in such a manner as becomes him. Fourthly,3 we may conceive of the Spirit as he is in himself in heaven, and as he dwells and works in us; as we may conceive of God the Father, as hidden in himself, and as revealed in his Son, and in his word; and as we may conceive of Christ as the second person, & as incarnate: ⟨p. 19⟩so likewise of the holy Ghost as in himself, and as in us, God in the person of his Son: and his Son as man, and as Minister of Circumcision, was grieved at the rebellion and destruction of his own people. The holy Spirit, as in us grieveth with us, witnesseth with us, rejoiceth in us, and with us; and the spirit in himself, and as he worketh in us hath the same name, as the gifts and graces, and the comforts of the Spirit are called the spirit; even as the beams of the Sun shining on the earth are called the Sun: and when we let them in, or shut them out, we are said to let in or shut out the Sun. We may grieve the