Honey-mouthed, Winsome Preaching

"Knowing, as he once said, that there is more grace in Christ than there is sin in us, he always sought in his preaching to win the hearts of his listeners to Christ. This, he believed, was the special duty of ministers: ‘they woo for Christ, and open the riches, beauty, honour, and all that is lovely in him.’ The result was preaching so winsome that struggling believers began to call him the ‘honey-mouthed’, the ‘sweet dropper’, and, apparently, hardened sinners deliberately avoided his sermons for fear he would convert them. One listener, Humphrey Mills, recorded his experience of Sibbes’s ministry, and it seems to have been typical:

'I was for three years together wounded for sins, and under a sense of my corruptions, which were many; and I followed sermons, pursuing the means, and was constant in duties and doing; looking for Heaven that way. And then I was so precise for outward formalities, that I censured all to be reprobates, that wore their hair anything long, and not short above their ears; or that wore great ruffs, and gorgets, or fashions, and follies. 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 Sibbes, 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."

Michal Reeves,  from the introduction of the Banner of Truth edition of Richard Sibbes work Josiah s Reformation