Richard Sibbes Quotes

There is more mercy in Christ than sin in us.

Measure not God's love and favour by your own feeling. The sun shines as clearly in the darkest day as it does in the brightest. The difference is not in the sun, but in some clouds which hinder the manifestation of the light thereof.

Satan gives Adam an apple, and takes away paradise. Therefore in all temptations consider not what he offers, but what we shall lose.

The whole life of a Christian should be nothing but praises and thanks to God; we should neither eat nor sleep, but eat to God and sleep to God and work to God and talk to God, do all to His glory and praise.

The life of a Christian is wondrously ruled in this world, by the consideration and meditation of the life of another world.

God is goodness itself, in whom all goodness is involved. If therefore we love other things for the goodness which we see in them, why do we not love God, in whom is all goodness? All other things are but sparks of that fire, and drops of that sea. If you see any good in the creature, remember there is much more in the Creator. Leave therefore the streams, and go to the fountainhead of comfort.

The love of a wife to her husband may begin from the supply of her necessities, but afterwards she may also love his person: so the soul first loves Christ for salvation, but when it is brought to him, and finds what sweetness there is in him, then the soul loves him for himself, and esteems his person, as well as rejoices in his benefits.

Gospel repentance is not a little hanging down of the head. It's a working of the heart until your sin becomes more odious to you than any punishment for it.

It would be a good contest amongst Christians, one to labour to give no offence, and the other to labour to take none. The best men are severe to themselves, tender over others.

It is better to go bruised to heaven than sound to hell.

Times are bad, God is good.

Whatsoever is good for God's children they shall have it, for all is theirs to further them to heaven; therefore, if poverty be good, they shall have it; if disgrace be good, they shall have it; if crosses be good, they shall have them; if misery be good, they shall have it; for all is ours, to serve for our greatest good.

Poverty and affliction take away the fuel that feeds pride.

God knows we have nothing of ourselves, therefore in the covenant of grace he requires no more than he gives, but gives what he requires, and accepts what he gives.

God takes a safe course with His children, that they may not be condemned with the world, He permits the world to condemn them, that they may not love the world, the world hates them.

Self-emptiness prepares us for spiritual fullness.

It is a destructive addition to add anything to Christ

The wronged side is always the safest.

When we shoot an arrow, we look to the fall of it; when we send a ship to sea, we look for its return; and when we sow seed, we look for a harvest; so likewise when we sow our prayers, through Christ, in God's bosom, shall we not look for an answer and observe how we speed? It is a seed of atheism to pray and not to look how we speed. But a sincere Christian will pray and wait, and strengthen his heart with promises out of the Word, and never leave praying and looking up till God gives him a gracious answer.

The winter prepares the earth for the spring, so do afflictions sanctified prepare the soul for glory.

Whatsoever God takes away from His children, He either replaces it with a much greater favor or else gives strength to bear it.

What is the gospel itself but a merciful moderation, in which Christ's obedience is esteemed ours, and our sins laid upon him, wherein God, from being a judge, becomes our Father, pardoning our sins and accepting our obedience, though feeble and blemished? We are now brought to heaven under the covenant of grace by a way of love and mercy.

If Christ has once possessed the affections, there is no dispossessing of him again. A fire in the heart overcomes all fires without.

Christ chiefly manifests Himself in times of affliction, because then the soul unites itself most closely by faith to Christ. The soul, in time of prosperity, scatters its affections, and looses itself in the creature; but there is a uniting power in sanctified afflictions, by which a believer, (as in rain a hen collects her brood) gathers his best affections unto his Father and his God.

See here, for our comfort, a sweet agreement of all three persons: the Father giveth a commission to Christ; the Spirit furnisheth and sanctifieth to it; Christ himself executeth the office of a Mediator. Our redemption is founded upon the joint agreement of all three persons of the Trinity.

There is not a minute of time in all of our life but we must either be near to God or we will be undone.

In trouble we are prone to forget all that we have heard and read that makes for our comfort. Now what is the reason that a man comes to think of that which otherwise he should never have called to mind? The Holy Spirit brings it to his remembrance; He is a Comforter, bringing to mind useful things at such times when we have most need of them.

God can pick sense out of a confused prayer.

This is a life of faith, for God will try the truth of our faith, so that the world may see that God has such servants as will depend upon His bare word.

Possibilitas tua mensura tua'(What is possible to you is what you will be measured by).

When we grow careless of keeping our souls, then God recovers our taste of good things again by sharp crosses.

When we go to God by prayer, the devil knows we go to fetch strength against him, and therefore he opposes us all he can.

Those that look to be happy must first look to be holy.

What coward would not fight when he is sure of victory?

A Christian is the greatest freeman in the world; he is free from the wrath of God, free from hell and damnation, from the curse of the law; but then, though he be free in these respects, yet, in regard of love, he is the greatest servant. Love abaseth him to do all the good that he can; and the more the Spirit of Christ is in us, the more it will abase us to anything wherein we can be serviceable.

The tenets of [the Christian life] seem paradoxes to carnal men; as first, that a Christian is the only freeman, and other men are slaves; that he is the only rich man, though never so poor in the world; that he is the only beautiful man, though outwardly never so deformed; that he is the only happy man in the midst of all his miseries.

Providence is the perpetuity and continuance of creation.

See a flame in a spark, a tree in a seed. See great things in little beginnings.

Therefore, when we find our heart inflamed with love to God, we may know that God hath shined upon our souls in the pardon of sin; and proportionally to our measure of love is our assurance of pardon. Therefore we should labour for a greater measure thereof, that our hearts may be the more inflamed in the love of God.

No sin is so great but the satisfaction of Christ and His mercies are greater; it is beyond comparison. Fathers and mothers in tenderest affections are but beams and trains to lead us upwards to the infinite mercy of God in Christ.

In the godly, holy truths are conveyed by way of a taste; gracious men have a spiritual palate as well as a spiritual eye. Grace alters the spiritual taste.

What unthankfulness is it to forget our consolations, and to look upon matters of grievance. To think so much upon two or three crosses as to forget an hundred blessing.

Death is only a grim porter to let us into a stately palace.

Let weak Christians know that a spark from heaven, though kindled under green wood that sobs and smokes, yet it will consume all at last.

As the strongest faith may be shaken, so the weakest, where truth is, is so far rooted that it will prevail. Weakness with watchfulness will stand, when strength with too much confidence fails. Weakness, with acknowledgement of it, is the fittest seat and subject for God to perfect His strength in; for consciousness of our infirmities drives us out of ourselves to Him in whom our strength lies.

It is Christ's manner to trouble our souls first, and then to come with healing in his wings.

It is good to divert our sorrow for other things to the root of all, which is sin. Let our grief run most in that channel, that as sin bred grief, so grief may consume sin.

It is atheism to pray and not wait on hope.

What the heart liketh best, the mind studieth most.

We cannot say this or that trouble shall not befall, yet we may, by help of the Spirit, say, nothing that doth befall shall make me do that which is unworthy of a Christian.