Many in the church of Corinth were enamored with style.  And Apollos had style to spare.  He seems to have been bright, articulate and alert to the philosophical streams of his day.  In a nutshell, Apollos and his offspring are the sort of men every church wants to recruit as a speaker for their annual Retreat.  Paul, on the other hand, offered real substance but his style was plain and narrow.  If his writing is any measure—and we need to remember that his Bible letters were first spoken to an amanuensis—he often shifted from topic to topic in a loosely structured sequence, his metaphors could be scrambled, he lacked humor and he rarely employed the rhetorical flourishes that any bright audience enjoys.

In I Corinthians Paul addressed this style gap.  Paul had founded the Corinthian church and then moved on after a couple of years, but he never lost his devotion to their welfare.  Apollos also spent time there after Paul left and soon became a church favorite.  Some sharp divisions followed, not because Apollos stirred them (he, too, had moved on), but because some of the local leaders started to question Paul’s capacity to lead.  The style gap between Paul and Apollos made Paul seem to be an inferior figure . . . and, therefore, one whose teachings need not be taken very seriously.

Paul wrote to the church when he heard reports of those problems.  Any differences he had with Apollos were based on function and nothing more or less.  The two men could be compared to farm workers preparing a field for a crop: he had planted and Apollos had watered.  By implication, one was a hands-on, dirt-based effort; the other was cleaner, neater and appreciated.  Both roles were needed.  Yet the church in Corinth came to be divided by competing loyalties: some favoring Paul, some Apollos, some Peter, and others Christ.  Paul was appalled.

At stake was a deeper, more seditious problem.  Some of the leaders in the church were using this rhetoric gap as a ploy to achieve power for themselves.  They wanted power in order to take the church in new directions, directions they knew Paul would oppose.  In 1 Corinthians some of these new directions are apparent: unconfronted incest, careless sexual promiscuity, in-church lawsuits, casual divorces and remarriages, and more.   So, in order to loosen up Paul’s status and the sort of moral-spiritual restraints he represented, these leaders offered a new course for the church: the course of wisdom.  By comparing Paul unfavorably to Apollos their real point was not to follow Apollos but to dismiss Paul.  It was a basic ‘divide and conquer’ model for a church takeover.

Paul’s response was, ironically, rhetorically brilliant.  He responded (and I paraphrase), “You want wisdom, do you?  Well, wisdom has different sources, doesn’t it?  And from where are we getting our competing versions of wisdom?!”

Why this strategy?  Because he knew the Biblically-literate members of the church would perk up their ears in an instant: two competing versions of wisdom were at the root of the Fall in Genesis 3 just as there were two versions being offered in Corinth.  Isaiah, in a similar set of circumstances, had said as much on God’s behalf in a text Paul cites in 1 Corinthians 1:19, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.” [Isaiah 29:14] 

The context of Paul’s Isaiah citation is striking in its application to the Corinthian problem.  In Isaiah God was challenging those in Israel who “draw near me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, while their hearts are far from me . . . . [and who] hide deep from the LORD your counsel, whose deeds are in the dark, and who say, ‘Who sees us?  Who knows us?’  You turn things upside down!” [Isaiah 29:13, 15-16]  Some in Corinth were also turning things upside down. 

The problem of discriminating true wisdom from false wisdom was widely recognized in the early church as illustrated in James’ epistle [James 3:13-18] where he distinguished a wisdom from above and a wisdom from below.  One is expressed in meekness, the other in selfish ambition; one is pure, peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere; the other is demonic, larded with jealousy, boasting, disloyalty to the truth and it breeds “disorder and every vile practice.”

After raising the problem with dripping irony [1 Corinthians 1] Paul turned to the Trinity as the basis for discriminating a true wisdom from the flawed version offered by the Apollos-favoring-rhetoricians.  First, the Father “chose what is weak in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, so that no man might boast in the presence of God.” [1:27-29]  Paul turns next to the Son [1:30-31], “He [the Father] is the source of your  life in Christ Jesus whom God made our wisdom and our righteousness and sanctification and redemption.  Therefore, as it is written, ‘Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.’”  And the Spirit is the source of the Godly and true wisdom being offered to and through all who love God: “‘What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him’—these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit . . .” [2:9-10]. 

In sum, Paul’s lack of impressive rhetorical skill was a bit like a gift poorly wrapped in some inelegant WalMart paper, yet containing a magnificent diamond bracelet; and his detractors were offering a lump of coal wrapped in a splendid package.  Paul was offering fellowship with the Triune God while his foes were promoting their own importance to the profoundly immature Corinthian church.

On both sides of this division was the certainty that the other side represented folly.  Which, in turn, meant that as soon as anyone in the Corinthian church embraced either Paul or his opponents, they would be branded instantly as a “fool” by the opposite side.  Yet, on the other hand, they were “wise” according to the side they embraced.  The bottom line, Paul observed, is that those who side with the teachings he received from Christ become wise fools, having “received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God.” [2:12] 

Let us, then, who are treated as fools for our simple devotion to Christ, celebrate our folly as we draw near to him with our hearts and not just with our rhetorical lips.  Let us enjoy the honor of becoming more and more the ‘fools of Christ Jesus’ with the full certainty that the Triune God is pleased with us.

Martin Luther, in his 1518 disputation at Heidelberg, compared a theology of glory with a theology of the cross.  Theologians of glory were—in a modern term—triumphalists.  They presented God as the basis for success; and in that success they impressed people with their intelligence, their erudition and their godliness.  Personal achievement and godliness were represented as a unity.  Theologians of the cross, on the other hand, were aware of their sin and embraced God’s mercy as the basis for their spirituality.  Their confidence was based solely on Christ’s work on the cross.  Theologians of glory, on the other hand, were reassured by their own emerging holiness.

What launched Luther’s thesis?  He doesn’t say but certainly his reading of the gospel of John had a role.  In the gospel we find two glories in competition.  One version of glory is from God, the other from men. 

John 5 offers one episode in which Jesus highlighted these competing sources of glory.  It followed his healing of the lame man by the Bethesda pool.  Critics in the audience were predictably upset by the day of the miracle—the Sabbath.  Jesus responded by intimating that his equality with God was the basis for the healing.  That, of course, ratcheted up the anger against him by a few more notches, moving him ever closer to his coming crucifixion.    Yet rather than moderate the issue Jesus pressed ahead by offering the evidence of several supporting witnesses in favor of his deity. 

Among the evidences he offered were the Scriptures of Moses.  But even this was apparently not enough.  Why not?  The problem, Jesus pointed out, was ultimately heart-based—his critics loved something other than God.

You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.  . . .  But I know that you do not have the love of God within you. [John 5:39-42]

But if they didn’t love God, what did they love?  They were, after all, theologians and, with that, presumably students of the nature and works of God.  So one would presume God to be their focus of ministry and life devotion.  Jesus pressed the point and exposed their actual motives.

I have come in my Father’s name, and you do not receive me.  If another comes in his own name, you will receive him.  How can you believe when you receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God? [John 5:43-44]

The association of glory to believing is intriguing.  While Luther held that some theologians seek human glory, Jesus treated human glory as an obstacle to faith in him.  So on the one hand they seemed to be saying the same thing but, on the other, there was a real difference: the first century glory-mongers opposed Jesus, while those in Luther’s day held Jesus to be the object of their faith.

Luther understood that, of course. But his point would have been to show that any theologian of glory—whether in Christ’s day, in Luther’s day, or in any other day—is unable to truly believe in God.  Or at least to believe in a fashion that aligns a soul with Jesus as savior and Lord.

Before pressing that case let’s return to Jesus and his religious opponents.  In John’s gospel the twin versions of glory continued to be developed as a sub-theme.  Jesus unveiled the ultimate purpose of his incarnation ministry: death on the cross.  And his willingness to die was the basis for his glory.  The Father himself affirmed this in one of his few audible vocalizations of the Bible.

And Jesus answered them, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.  Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.  Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.  . . .  Now is my soul troubled.  And what shall I say?  Father save me from this hour?  But for this purpose I have come to this hour.  Father, glorify your name.”  Then a voice came from heaven: “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.”  [John 12:23-28]

The majesty of Jesus came in his humility.  Paul captured this in Philippians 2.  Jesus refused to count his equality with God as an excuse to avoid becoming obedient to the point of death.  He was prepared to sacrifice his own life in order to offer new life to all who believe in him; to all who embrace him in his crucifixion.  The resurrection comes only to those who die to sin by embracing the cross.

Compare this attitude with what was said of a group of spiritual leaders who recognized the compelling evidence of Jesus’ equality with God, yet who did nothing about it.  Pay attention to their faith-obstacle.

Nevertheless, many even of the authorities believed in him, but for fear of the Pharisees they did not confess it, so that they would not be put out of the synagogue; for they loved the glory that comes from man more than the glory that comes from God.  [John 12:42-43]

Let us now return to the claims of Luther. 

What did this group of silent theologians have in common with the theologians of glory in Luther’s day?  They all shared a misapplied love.  In both the first and the sixteenth centuries God had become a utility—a resource for personal benefits.  The focus of the Jewish religious leaders in the time of Christ was on God—seen as separate from Jesus.  In Luther’s time the religious leaders were ready to affirm Christ as God, but he was still simply a resource to be engaged for their own benefit. 

God as a utilitarian resource?  Yes.  A theologian who fails to respond to God’s love may still use God’s name and authority to leverage obedience from any and all who take them seriously.  But without a love for God all they offer is a human-to-human spirituality.  The glory they receive is from humans and for humans.  God, in the meantime, looks on with wry distaste (I’m thinking here of Psalm 2).  Enough distaste to condemn purveyors of utilitarian glory to death.

And, ironically, that death is what qualifies them to come to the true glory of God as they repent!  Paul himself was an example of this.  In his flawed but exuberant zeal for God as a budding theologian—which came with human glory as he matched and surpassed all his competing Pharisees—he finally experienced God’s actual glory.  It came in the blinding light of Christ’s presence on the Damascus road.  Paul’s old vision of glory was shattered and shuttered.  In Christ’s confrontation—“why are you persecuting me?!”—he came to see his sin.  And with that realization came his new vision of Christ crucified.  Crucified for him.  And that became his true glory.

What can we take away from this reflection?  Hopefully an honesty about what we actually love.  For those of us who do theology, may we guard our hearts from the love of theology as an end in itself and turn instead to the cross.  May we die to any appetite for personal elevation and success.  May we, instead, love God as revealed in Christ with all our hearts and then love our neighbors as well.

Dr Peter Mead of OM [Operation Mobilization], a Brit living near London and a dear friend, is my first guest contributer.  There is a need to offer God’s love in ways that meet people both affectively and effectively—that is, in heart and in practice!  I asked Peter to share something on that topic in line with his concern for preaching and his devotion to sharing about God’s heart-to-heart purposes in offering us his word.  His offering is directed to those who are already preachers or who aspire to that role.  For those who find it to be a good fit, please take advantage of Peter’s website biblicalpreaching.net where benefits abound.  For non-preachers, I invite you to listen in and take full advantage of some lessons from a gifted communicator of God’s love.

I’m delighted to offer a guest column here on Ron’s site.  I fully agree with Ron that every aspect of Christian life and ministry should be viewed through the lens of Trinitarian/affective theology.  I would like to offer some thoughts on the critical area of preaching.

Preaching is both indispensable and central to Christianity.  When given the privilege of preaching, we participate in the glorious activity of God’s self-communication.  Augustine taught that “what the Bible speaks, God speaks.”  So preaching is an extension of a central reality of our faith – we have a God who speaks through His Word!  Why does our God speak?  Donald Coggan put it simply, “He speaks because he loves.”

Some perceive homiletics (the “academic” term for the field of preaching) to be sanctified rhetoric, a matter of mere technique.  In reality, the “technique” aspects of preaching need to build on a solid foundation of the hermeneutics and the spirituality of the preacher.

In 1948, Andrew Blackwood stated that, “Pastors everywhere are becoming concerned about expository preaching.”    It would be easy to observe that such an interest in expository preaching in the post-war years has surely faded considerably since.  While this is true, there does seem to be a reviving interest in “expository preaching” in recent years.  Perhaps this is only in my experience (or in my dreams!) since I am so involved in preaching seminars and the like, but it does seem like there are new academic programs starting, journals being launched, websites born, special events for preachers convened, and so on.

Why is there such an interest in preaching?  Let me suggest two reasons.

Reason 1 – Because so much contemporary preaching lacks biblical substance

The first, and easier, answer to this question typically involves pointing the finger at others.  Many are pointing out that the church generally (usually that means everywhere but our own church!) is in the grip of an epidemic of Diet Sermons with all the nutritional value of Diet Sodas.  Perhaps motivated by the demands of a consumerist culture, or the notion that contemporary listeners are incapable of concentration beyond a few minutes at a time (consider MTV to support this claim, but ignore the lengthening Hollywood movies since that undermines the point!), many churches have moved to purely practical how-to messages giving helpful tips for life.  The fruit of this change may be bulging pews, but shriveling souls, as biblical illiteracy sweeps the contemporary church scene.

There is certainly truth in the critique of such Preaching Lite that pervades much of evangelical Christendom today, but there is another reason for an increasing interest in preaching. 

Reason 2 – Because so much biblically substantive preaching lacks spiritual power

J.I.Packer suggests that the reason for such an interest lies in a deeply troubling sense that we do not know how to revive the powerful preaching of Whitefield, Wesley, Simeon and others.  “We feel that, for all our efforts, we as preachers are failing to speak adequately to men’s souls.” 

Do we indeed have a deep dissatisfaction with our own ministry?  We try to compete with the world, but often do not sense that hearts are truly won, nor that genuine peace and joy result in the spirits of those listening.  We give much, but do we really give much of God or a genuine confidence in Christ?  

I would like to suggest two moves that need to take place in our understanding of preaching.

Move 1 – From Diet Bible Sermonettes to Well-Informed Biblical Exposition

The first move that is needed is a shift in focus.  A shift from preaching well-crafted lists of tips for life, to genuinely understanding and then applying the Bible to our lives (or even applying our lives to the Bible).  This is fundamentally a hermeneutics issue.  After all, preaching involves the fruit of the preacher’s hermeneutics communicated to the community.  Instead of combing the text seeking departure points for our own gems of practical wisdom, we need to give ourselves to the joyful agony of wrestling with the text, allowing the text to wrestle with us.  We must not rest until we can speak with humble confidence that what we speak are not our words superimposed on a passage, but God speaking from His Word.  True expository preaching involves letting the Word of God be the master of that which is said. 

True exposition should not be boring, for we would not want to give the impression that God gives of Himself in self-revelation in a way that is boring.  True exposition should not be disconnected from real life, for in the incarnation we see God giving of Himself, His ultimate self-revelation, in the most relevant manner imaginable.  Perhaps if more preachers would truly grasp the need for effective hermeneutics in their sermon preparation, perhaps then we would not have so much occasion to point the finger at others and complain of dumbed-down diet sermonettes abounding in our generation. 

However, answering the first reason for contemporary interest in preaching (the failure of others), doesn’t address our own feelings of failure.  What if our well-trained orthodox hermeneutics are not resulting in sermons that genuinely feed the soul, win hearts, give peace and joy in the spirit?  What if our technically right hermeneutics do not result in giving much of God or genuine confidence in Christ?  The fact is that there are many preachers today who do not fall into the Diet Sermon category, and yet something is still missing.  With “good understanding” of the text many are still tending toward pragmatics, dogmatics and duty-driven responsibility.  This is not what we long for in our ministry.

So we progress to the second move, one which perhaps addresses this issue with our own preaching.

Move 2 – From Well-Informed Biblical Exposition to Heart-Level Biblical Exposition

The first move highlighted the need for effective biblical study by means of well-informed hermeneutics.  Yet how is it that the best hermeneutics that the academy can offer fails to guarantee good results?  Obviously preaching is much more than the fruit of hermeneutics on show, but rather than moving on to speak of gifting, anointing, etc., I’d like to push the hermeneutics issue a bit harder.  Michael Quicke notes that churches are suffering from one-dimensional engagement with Scripture: either just with the head or just with the heart.  As a result, “The two edged sword becomes a plastic butter knife.”  We need to engage the Bible with the head and the heart.

Perhaps the best hermeneutics on offer in our seminaries is lacking something?  Perhaps, as Ron might suggest, the combination of a pervasive stoic influence, a cold-and-distant-God theology and duty-driven spirituality so pervades our Christian thinking and practice that we view all through colored lenses – evidently not rose-tinted ones?  Like Ron, I am not rejecting academics.  I believe our skill in Bible study and sermon preparation should be informed by the best that the academy has to offer, but we should not be blinded by an intellectual arrogance that suggests an informed will is all that is required for, or even offered by, a biblical spirituality.

Just as move 1 amounted to improving the hermeneutics underlying preaching, so too move 2 calls on us to improve our hermeneutics.  The weakness in much of the hermeneutics taught today is that it amounts to heady exegesis that misses the heart-level revelation of God in His Word.  Genuine exegesis cannot, and must not, be divorced from spirituality.  Indeed, true spirituality demands careful exegesis.  The nature of Scripture is that it is God’s self-giving, self-revelation, through which we are privileged to know Him.  This knowledge is not mere mental classification, but heart-level relationship. 

So in order to preach the Word in such a way that hearts are won, souls are fed, and our listeners receive much of God and genuine confidence in Christ, we must do more than study the Bible merely to the point of intellectual understanding.  We must engage with God as we seek to be both transformed by and understanding of His self-giving through the Word.  We must engage with Him through a more complete hermeneutic, then present the fruit of our “study” in a manner that goes deeper:

Our preaching must go deeper than the conduct of our listeners (either through practical tips for life, or duty-driven guilt-pressed responsibility).  Our preaching must go deeper than the beliefs and brains of our listeners (through intellectual information transfer, seeking to inform the mind that informs the will of our listeners).  Our preaching must go deep enough to touch the affections of our listeners (hearts touched that then give values to the mental processing faculties, and thus determine the conduct of the believers in everyday life).

We need preaching that touches the affections.  This is critical.  But how do we achieve “affective preaching?”  Let’s consider two possible solutions:

Solution 1 – Adding “affective” to our preaching through classical rhetoric

A typical solution is to seek to introduce an emotive element at the level of content and delivery.  Some may simply introduce engaging, entertaining or emotional content in the form of “illustrations.”  Others may unleash some passion in delivery since passion and enthusiasm are known to be contagious.  Still others may strategize rhetorically, looking to classical rhetoric for that aspect that goes beyond presentation to persuasion, which is the core issue in classical rhetoric.  Perhaps a good old “peroratio” is key?  That is, the final appeal to the emotions designed to cement consent to that which has been presented.  Whether the latin language of classical rhetoric is known or not, many preachers seek to introduce the critical affective element into preaching by means of that final applicational appeal – a tear-jerker of a story, an impassioned plea, or just a plain-old guilt trip!

Defaulting to classical rhetoric is not the only solution.  In fact, it can be a problematic solution.  Augustine was an expert in the art of rhetoric.  He knew the power of speech and its capacity for ill when divorced from the goodness of God’s truth.  He looked back on his earlier work in the realm of rhetoric as a dishonest pursuit, a peddling in “crafty tricks.”  How easily a desire to communicate effectively can slide into a contemporized form of rhetoric that depends on the skill, charisma and technique of the preacher, rather than on the power of the Holy Spirit. 

The Apostle Paul also had concerns with a classical rhetorical approach to persuasion in preaching.  Duane Litfin has studied Paul’s teaching in 1^st Corinthians 1-4 at length.  He contends that Paul is distancing his own preaching ministry from the public speaking of the classic orators, the public entertainers of that era.  Paul identifies his ministry with that of the herald, as opposed to the rhetorician/orator.  Many would suggest that his focus is on content alone – the foolishness of the kerygma (defined as just the content of the gospel).  Litfin makes a very strong case that for Paul, being a herald involved a distinction in form as well as content.  The effectiveness of the communication was ultimately not determined by the convincing content and irresistible technique of the speaker, but by God’s using the “foolishness” of both the content and form in the presentation of His Word.  As Litfin puts it, “Faith, if we are thinking in biblical terms, means taking God at his word, and when it comes to the gospel, that word is all he is inclined to give us.” 

Solution 2 – Being “affectively” aware in our spiritual hermeneutics so that we represent an affectively attractive sacred rhetoric

If classical rhetoric does not provide the solution for the problem of affective preaching, perhaps the answer lies in what Michael Pasquarello calls Sacred Rhetoric.  Instead of somehow introducing the affective element into the preaching event as an extrinsic addendum, genuinely affective hermeneutics will recognize the affective nature of Scripture itself.  Thus, the task of the preacher is not to skillfully manipulate affections by technique in preaching or a worked-up passion in presentation, but merely to act as a herald, a presenter of that which is there in the Word – the source of the message he brings.

A heart-to-heart engagement with God through His Word, an affective hermeneutic, will provide a far more genuine form of affective preaching. Affective elements are not somehow added in, but are genuinely there in the message, and hopefully, in the messenger too.  As Harrison wrote in Augustine, “Love is the hermeneutical principle of Scripture . . . God has chosen to motivate man’s fallen will to the true and good through the delight occasioned by His beautiful revelation of Himself – and this includes, centrally, Scripture and preaching.”

Pasquarello writes of “the divine artistry inscribed in the scriptural narrative” and says of its power that it “delights, captivates, and persuades us, rather than teaching us something (since knowledge puffs up), of the divine generosity and goodness that is creation’s source and end.”  In the Bible we have “God’s truth and goodness, expressed in an abundance and excess of self-giving love.”

Conclusion

So in conclusion, does the field of preaching benefit from an encounter with trinitarian/affective theology?   It benefits greatly. While the field of homiletics can and must teach methodology and “how to” – this must be integrated with genuine spirituality, for the central calling of preachers is to be listeners to God’s Word, prayerfully attentive to God’s self-revelation in His Word and communicators of that divine devotion to the community of God’s people.  Ultimately preaching goes beyond content and form to a function of the “activity of the Triune God, who speaks.”  Hence the dual focus of this post on hermeneutics and spirituality.

True preaching preaches from the heart of God to the heart of humanity.  All who preach need to pursue further the true role of the heart in preaching: God’s heart in His self-revelation, our engagement with His heart in our study and preparation, and the effective contagious presentation of that relationality in our preaching to the hearts of His people.

As Pasquarello puts it, “When situated within this Trinitarian vision, preaching is a form of graced participation in God’s expression of himself in the Word, an inspired witness of praise through which God the Father lovingly communicates himself in the abundant generosity and joy of self-giving.”

Much of the preaching in evangelical pulpits today would be strengthened by greater attention to the hermeneutics used in sermon preparation.  However, having accurate understanding is not enough, if somehow that “accuracy” is missing the heart of the God who gives Himself through His Word.  Most will agree that effective preaching must touch the heart as well as the head.  But how are we to preach “affectively?”  The solution is not found in the techniques of rhetoric, ancient or modern.  The solution is essentially a spirituality/hermeneutical solution.  We are not to make the message touch the hearts, we are to effectively understand and then present the Word of God which itself touches hearts.  Pasquarello again, “The Word itself is invested with the character of rhetoric or persuasion.  It appears to the eye as beauty, as possessing a certain splendor, as an intrinsic, luminous, graceful style that attracts and kindles love of love itself.”  Or better, of Love Himself.

Affective preaching is not about rejecting all rhetoric, but recognizing the beauty and power of the revealed divine rhetoric that is Scripture.  When we preach Scripture well, His self-giving love and beautiful wisdom will do the persuading, not our technique.  Indeed, homiletics is not a field focused on technique.  It is primarily a matter of spiritual hermeneutics – of participating in the loving self-revelation of a God who gives of Himself through His Word.  When we are gripped by that truth, then perhaps we will preach in such a way that listeners can taste and see that the Lord is good.  Perhaps then the words of Humphrey Mills at hearing the preaching of Richard Sibbes will be echoed in the church today.  After giving himself to the duty-bound “spirituality” found in the sermons of other preachers, Mills wrote:

“But yet I was distracted in my mind, wounded in conscience, and wept often and bitterly, and prayed earnestly, but yet had no comfort, till I heard that sweet saint . . . Doctor Sibbs, by whose means and ministry I was brought to peace and joy in my spirit.  His sweet soul-melting Gospel-sermons won my heart and refreshed me much, for by him I saw and had much of God and was confident in Christ, and could overlook the world. . . . My heart held firm and resolved and my desires all heaven-ward.”