408 SALVATION APPLIED.
my soul ; -vxhcn at tlic hour of death wo can commend our soul to Christ, Take my soul, blessed Saviour: thou hast redeemed mo, thou hast loved me, and given thyself for mo ; look upon that soul in mercy that thou hast sprinkled with thine own blood. Strive wo then for this particular faith, without which we cannot resign up our souls comfortably unto Christ at the last.
NOTE.
(a) P. 891. — ' It is for rebellion he perishes : as when a malefactor is condemned, ■who hath a book,' &c. The allusion here, which is a not unfrequent one in Sibbes and his contemporaries, is to wliat used to be called ' the benefit of clergy,' by which a convicted felon saved himself from capital punishment on being able to read a verse or two from the Psalms on being found guilty. It was restricted originally to the clergy — hence the designation — but was afterwards extended to any person who could read. There was a certain rough justice in its original limitation, in so far as pardon was disallowed to a ' clergyman' unable to read. But altogether it was a strange statute, and more strange than even its original enactment was its vitality — having only been abolished in the year 1827. A reference is made to it by Sir "Walter Scott, in his ' Lay of the Last Minstrel,' canto i. v. 24. : —
' Letter nor line know I never a one, Were't my neck-verse at Hairibee.' G.
A FOUNTAIN SEALED.
A FOUNTAIN SEALED.
NOTE.
' A Fountain Sealed ' was originally published in a small volume (12mo) in 1637. Its title-page is given below.* A second edition was issued in the same year, and a third in 1638. The last has a beautiful miniature portrait of Sibbes introduced into a,n engraved title by Marshall. G.
*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 meanes to preserve it. Being The substance of divers Sermons prea- ched at Grayes Inne.
By that Eeverend Divine,
KicHAKD Sibbes,
D.D. and sometimes Preacher to that
Honourable Society,
LONDON,
Printed by Thomas Ilarper, for Law- rence Chapman, and are to be sold at his shop at Chancery lane end, in Holborne, 1637.
TO THE TRULY NOBLE AND MUCH HONOURED LADY,
THE LADY ELIZABETH BEOOKE,
WIFE TO SIR ROBERT BROOKE.*
Madam, — Besides that deserved interest your ladyship held in the affec- tions and esteem of this worthy man, more than any friend alive, which might entitle you to all that may call him author, this small piece of his acknowledgeth a more special proprietyf unto your ladyship. For though his tongue was as the ' pen of a ready writer' in the hand of Christ who guided him, yet your ladyship's hand and pen was in this his scribe and amanuensis whilst he dictated a first draft of it in private, with intention for the public. In which labour both of humility and love your ladyship did that honour unto him which Baruch — though great and noble — did but receive in the hke, transcribing the words of Jeremiah from his mouth, Jer. xxsvi. 4. Wherein yet your ladyship did indeed but write the story of your own life, which hath been long exactly framed to the rules herein prescribed. We therefore that are entrusted in the publishing of it, deem it but an act of justice in us to return it thus to your ladyship, unto whom it owes even its first birth ; that so wherever this little treatise shall come, there also this that you have done may be told and recorded for a memorial of you. And we could not but esteem it also an addition of honour to the work, that no less than a lady's hand, so pious and so much honoured, brought it forth into the world ; although in itself it deserveth as much as any other this blessed womb did bear. The Lord, in way of recompence, write all the holy contents of it yet more fully and abundantly in your ladyship's heart, and all the lineaments of the image of Jesus Christ, and seal up all unto you by his blessed Spirit, with joy and peace, to the day of redemption !
Madam, we are, your ladyship's devoted,
Tho. Goodwin. J Philip Nye.|
* Cf. Vol. I. p. cxix ; also, besides the Bcaronetages, Hanbury, and nearly every History of Puritanism. — G.
t That is, ' proprietorship.'— G. t Cf. Vol. II. p. 3.— G.
A FOUNTAIN SEALED.
And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ive are sealed unto the day of redemption. — Eph. IV. 80.
Whether the words be a command ensuing from authority, or counsel from wisdom, or a caveat from God's care of our souls, it is not material, con- sidering both counsel and caveats of the great God have both force of a command, with some mixture of the sweetness of love. The apostle, as his manner is, from the largeness of his spirit, riseth from a particular dissuasive from corrupt communication in the verse before, to this general advice of not grieving God's Spirit by sin, especially against conscience enlightened. And this dissuasive from evil is enforced from a dangerous efiect of grieving the Spirit of God ; and the danger of grieving ariseth from this, that it is the Spirit of God, and God himself, whom we grieve, and a holy Spirit : holy in himself, and holy as the cause of all holiness in us ; and he that, after he hath wrought holiness in us, sealeth and confirmeth us in that act of grace, until the day of our glorious redemption. So that the grounds of not grieving are from the greatness and goodness of the person whom we grieve, and from the greatness and constancy of the benefits we have by him. To speak something of the person : the Holy Spirit is called a Spirit, not only by nature, as being a spiritual essence, but in regard of his person and office ; he is both breathed from the Father and the Son, as proceeding from them both ; and by ofiice, breatheth into all that God hath given Christ to redeem and him to sanctify. He is so the Spirit of God in proceeding from God, as that he is God, which whoso denieth deny their own baptism ; being as well baptized into the name of the Holy Ghost as into the Father and the Son. And no less a person than God is needful to assure our souls of God's love, and to change our nature, being in an opposite frame. Who can reveal to us the mind of God but the Spirit of God ? And herein we may see the joint forwardness both of the Father and Son and Holy Ghost : when both Father and Son join in willingness to send so great a person to apply unto us, and to assure us of that great good the Father hath decreed, and the Son performed for us.