B00698:33
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.
and it is contrary to the spirit, as it is a ⟨p. 32⟩Spirit of goodness, & hence is it that presumptuous sins so much grieve the spirit, for by such sins we abuse the sweetest Attribute of Gods Spirit, his goodness, and be therefore evil because he is good, and turn his grace into wantonness,1 the sin of this age. Sins against knowledge are either such as are 1. Directly against knowledge, as when we will not understand what we should do, because we will not do what we understand: such put out the candle, that they may sin with the more freedom. This kind of ignorance doth not free from sin, but increaseth it; some men will not hear the Word, nor read good Books, lest their consciences ⟨p. 33⟩should be awaked; this affected ignorance increaseth the voluntariness. Again, when we maintain untruths for any advantage, knowing them to be untruths; as many learned Papists cannot but do. What a great indignity is it to the Spirit of GOD to sell the truth, which we should buy, yea with the loss of our lives: and to prefer the pleasing of a base man, or some gain to our selves before a glorious beam of GOD? Other sins if we know them to be sins, are sins against knowledge,2 not so directly, but collaterally: yet this will be the chief aggravation, when our conscien•••s are once awaked, not so much that ⟨p. 34⟩we have sinned, as that we have sinned against the light, when the will hath nothing to plead for it self, but it self; it would, because it would, though it knew the contrary. Involuntariness, takes away something of the heinousness of sin: when there is ignorance, perturbation, or passion, there is less sin, and less grieving of the Spirit: but when there are none of these, but a man will sin, because he will; accounting it a kind of sovereignty to have his will, this will prove the most miserable condition: for not to have the will regulated by him that is the chiefest good, is the greatest perverseness, and will end in desperation.