With Christ's Help Pursue Multiplication (1)

Good things lie in us dead and bound up, unless the Spirit brings them out. There are gracious good things in the church, but they want further spreading, from this we may observe:
(1) We need not only grace to put life into us at first, but likewise grace to draw forth that grace. Here is the difference between man's blowing and the Spirit's. Man, when he blows, if grace be not there before, spends all his labour upon a dead coal, which he cannot make take fire. But the Spirit first kindles a holy fire, and then increases the flame. Christ begins the work of grace on the church, and now further promotes his own work. The wind first blows, and then the spices of the church flow out. We are first sweet in ourselves, and then sweet to others.
(2) It is not enough to be good in ourselves, but our goodness must flow out; that is, grow more strong, useful to continue and stream forth for the good of others. We must labour to be, as was said of John the Baptist, burning and shining Christians (John 5:35). For Christ is not like a box of ointment shut up and not opened, but like that box of ointment that Mary poured out, which perfumes all the whole house with its sweetness (John 12:3). For the Spirit is like wind; it carries the sweet savour of grace to others. A Christian, so soon as he finds any rooting in God, is of a spreading disposition, and makes the places he lives in the better for him. The whole body is the better for every good member, as we see of Onesimus (Philem. 11). The very naming of a good man casts a sweet savour, as presenting some grace to the heart of the hearer. For then we have done what we were meant for, that others have occasion to bless God for us, for conveying comfort to them by us. The winds are called upon to awake and blow upon Christ's garden, ‘that the spices thereof may flow out' (Song of Sol. 4:16).

Devotional Readings taken from Puritan Richard Sibbes 'Refreshment for the Soul.'
The Love of Christ (Bowels Opened), pp. 14-15
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