B00698:94
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.
1Again, take heed of little sins, which we count lesser sins perhaps than God doth. We weigh sin in our own balance, and ⟨p. 103⟩not in his, whereas no sin is to be accounted little: for if it were once set upon the conscience, and the wrath opened due unto it; It would take all comfort from us. And therefore we must judge of sin, as the Spirit doth, if we would not grieve the Spirit; as the communion of the Spirit, is of all the sweetest, so the preserving of it, requires most exact watchfulness, and through understanding of our selves. Take heed of the beginning of sin, when any lust ariseth, pray it down presently, say nay to it, let it have no consent, be presently humbled, otherwise we are endangered by yielding to grieve, by grieving to resist, by resisting to quench, by ⟨p. 104⟩quenching, maliciously to oppose the Spirit: sin hath no bounds, but those which the Spirit puts, whom therefore we should not grieve. And let us look to the head and spring of sins,2 whereby we grieve the Spirit of God, not to the sin so much, as to the root. We are angry with our selves for being passionate, but what is the cause of passion? It comes from pride. Jonah was a passionate man, in that measure that he was passionate, he was proud: he was loth to be shamed when he had said, Nineveh shall be destroyed, he thought upon the sparing of them, he should be discredited; and he preferred his credit before the destruction of a populous ⟨p. 105⟩City. So there is much depraving, and detraction in the world, and thereupon brawls, and breaches. What is the cause? a spirit of envy, and oft times a spirit of pride. So men run into the danger of others, by wronging them, what is the cause? worldliness, base earthly-mindedness. Men think not of the root of sin, but dwell upon the act done, we should be led from the remote streams, to the Spring and source of all, and bewail that especially.
1Againe, take heed of little sinnes, which wee count lesser sinnes perhaps than God doth. We weigh sinne in our owne ballance, and