Category Archives: Richard Sibbes

Behold

01 Wednesday Mar 2023

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Richard Sibbes in his work A Description of Christ considers the word “Behold” in Matthew 12:18, “Behold my servant, whom I have chosen.” There are thigns to note in his consideration of the word (I have picked up mid-way through his consideration). First, what passes for exegesis often concerns itself with merely what a word means. But Sibbes asks a more useful question, Why is this word here? What is doing to us when we come upon it. This requires far more work than the Greek Word here means “Behold” which was an interjection with the meaning “to look at”. Sibbes asks, “What am I seeing? Why should I care?”

Next, consider what he does: He does not merely tells why the behold is here, he tells us what will happen when we do behold. Why should we change our attention? What will happen when we look.

He then applies the work of beholding to you: it becomes an encouragement and joy: that there is nothing that is dejecting and abasing in man, but there is comfort for it in Christ Jesus; he is a salve for every sore, a remedy for every malady; therefore, ‘Behold my servant.’

But that is not all. Another use of this word ‘behold,’ was to call the people’s minds from their miseries, and from other abasing objects that dejected them, and might force despair. Why do you dwell upon your unworthiness and sin? raise up your mind, ‘Behold my servant whom I have chosen,’ &c. This is an object worth beholding and admiration, especially of a distressed soul that may see in Christ whatsoever may comfort it.

A third end of it is to raise the mind from any vulgar, common, base contents.* You look on these things, and are carried away with common trivial objects, as the poor disciples when they came to the temple; they stood wondering at the stones. What wondrous stones! what goodly building is here! Mark 13:1. So shallow-minded men, they see any earthly excellency, they stand gazing. Alas, saith Christ, do you wonder at these things? So the prophet here raiseth up the minds of men to look on an object fit to be looked on, ‘Behold my servant,’ &c. So that the Holy Ghost would have them from this saving object, Christ, to raise satisfaction to their souls every way. Are you dejected? here is comfort; are you sinful? here is righteousness; are you led away with present contentments? here you have honours, and pleasures, and all in Christ Jesus. You have a right to common pleasures that others have, and besides them you have interest to others that are everlasting pleasures that shall never fail, so that there is nothing that is dejecting and abasing in man, but there is comfort for it in Christ Jesus; he is a salve for every sore, a remedy for every malady; therefore, ‘Behold my servant.’

This word ‘behold,’ it is a word of wonderment, and, indeed, in Christ there are a world of wonders, everything is wonderful in him. Things new and wonderful, and things rare, and things that are great, that transcend our capacity, are wonderful, that stop our understanding that it cannot go through them. Vulgar things, we see through them quickly, but when we see things that stay our understandings, that raise our understandings higher, and that are more capacious than our understandings, here is matter of admiration and wonder. Now whatsoever may make wonderment is in Jesus Christ, whose name is Wonderful, as it is in Isa. 9:7; therefore the prophet saith, ‘Behold.’

* That is, ‘contentments.’—Ed.

 Sibbes, Richard. The Complete Works of Richard Sibbes. Edited by Alexander Balloch Grosart, vol. 1, James Nichol; James Nisbet and Co.; W. Robertson, 1862, pp. 4–5.

Richard Sibbes, The Backsliding Sinner, 5.3 (wound and disease)

13 Friday May 2022

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How Sibbes develops the understanding of sin as a “wound and disease.” He begins with a partial observation on it is like to suffer a disease:

Now, as in sickness there is, 1, grief troubling and vexing the party who feels it; and, 2, deformity of the place affected, which comes by wounds and weaknesses;

This description is then applied from the metaphor to the original. If a disease in the body causes vexation and deformity, then so does sin. But sin, rather than troubling the body alone, troubles the mind and the body:

so in all sin, when we are sensible of it, there is first grief, vexation, and torment of conscience, and then, again, deformity. For it takes away the beauty and vigour of the soul, and dejects the countenance. It debaseth a man, and takes away his excellency.… So that sin is a wound and a disease, whether we consider the miseries it brings on soul and body, or both

It has always been the case that some sin or another is not a cause for shame in the culture but rather a boast. In some ages, extraordinary violence is a cause for praise; in others, greed; in others, lust. It is not just that such sins have always existed among us; it is that certain sins become a cause for praise. But to God, no amount of human praise will undo the deformity of sin:

Therefore, howsoever a sinful person think himself a goodly person, and wear his sins as ornaments about him, pride, lust, and the like, yet he is a deformed, loathsome person in the eyes and presence of God;

This judgment, “when the conscience is awakened” becomes our own evaluation of our own sin.

And when conscience is awakened, sin will be loathsome, irksome, and odious unto himself, fill him full of grief and shame, so that he cannot endure the sight of his own soul.

The language when “awakened” is important to understand. It is not bare conscience alone which is the judge of all things. On this point Bloesch writes:

The inner light or the light of conscience also reflects the indissoluble mystery of the divine in the human. Conscience is both the voice of Christ and the superego. Only a conscience that is captive to the Word of God (Luther) is absolutely normative for the Christian. Conscience is not so much a criterion as a clarification of the truth of faith (Ellul). Moreover, conscience can be lost with the demise of faith (1 Tim 1:19–20 NIV). Like the church it can be seared and maimed (1 Tim 4:2), but so long as the believer is linked with Christ in the mystery of faith, conscience will always be somewhat of a guide on the pilgrimage of faith.

The Enlightenment severed conscience from faith in the living God, elevating it to an independent criterion that actually opposed the claims of faith. This new understanding is to be found in Rousseau: “Conscience! Conscience! Divine instinct, immortal voice from heaven; sure guide for a creature ignorant and finite indeed, yet intelligent and free; infallible judge of good and evil, making man like to God!”40 It is also reflected in the idealist philosopher Fichte: “Conscience alone is the root of all truth: whatever is opposed to conscience, or stands in the way of the fulfillment of her behests, is assuredly false.”

Donald G. Bloesch, A Theology of Word & Spirit: Authority & Method in Theology (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2005), 201.

Continuing with the metaphor of disease, Sibbes continues that our current disease of sin flows from the hereditary disease of Adam’s sin:

Now, all sins whatsoever are diseases. The first sin of all sins, which we call hereditary, original sin, what was it but an hereditary disease? Now, all other particular, actual sins be diseases flowing from hence.

What are the sources of our diseases: flesh (ourselves), the world (others), the devil.[1]

So that all diseases in this kind arise either, 1, from ourselves, as we have a seminary of them in our own hearts; or else, 2, from the infection and contagion of others; or, 3, from Satan, who hath society with our spirits, as men have with the outward man, coming in by his suggestions, and our entertaining of them. So that in that respect sin is like unto a wound and a disease, in regard of the cause of them.

Having consider causes of this disease, he now turns to the effects of considered as a disease. A disease left unchecked will kill: “And, in regard of the effects, sin is like a disease. Diseases, if they be neglected, breed death itself, and become incurable. So it is with the diseases and sins of the soul. Neglect them, and the best end of them will be despair in this world.“

Sibbes does not wait unti the end of the sermon to make his application. The constant movement of his preaching is to make a point and then apply it. Sin is a disease which will kill us. He then immediately moves to the cure: “Whereupon we may have advantage to fly unto the mercy of God in Christ. This is the end of sin, either to end in a good despair or in a fruitless barren despair, at the hour of death leading to hell, when they have no grace to repent. ‘The wages of sin is death,’ &c., Rom. 6:23.“

In this section, Sibbes is seeking to obtain an emotional effect. He does this by using figures of expansion and repetition. Notice how often he repeats the words “disease” and “sin” and “wound”. Following that, he gives a series of six questions, all which use the form, “What is X … but”:

Sin itself is a wound, and that which riseth from sin is a wound too, doubting and despair; for this disease and wound of sin breeds that other disease, a despair of mercy, which is the beginning of hell, the second death. These things might be further enlarged. But for the present only in general know that sin is a disease and a wound of the soul; so much worse than the diseases of the body, by how much the soul is more precious than it, and the death of the soul more terrible than the death of the body.

Sin is a disease and a wound; for

what is pride but a swelling?

What is anger but an intemperate heat of the soul, like an ague, as it were?

What is revenge but a wildfire in the soul?

What is lust but a spreading canker in the soul, tending to a consumption?

What is covetousness but a sword, a perpetual wounder of the soul, piercing it through with many sorrows?

What is security but, as it were, the lethargy and apoplexy of the soul?

At this point, he anticipates a question:

Quest. But, it may be demanded, how shall we know that we are sick of this sickness and disease you speak of?

This is interesting: we can know our spiritual state from the nature of our affections or “passions” (emotions). The Puritans, and those who followed in their wake, had an intense concern with the nature of human emotion:

Ans. How do we know that we are sick in body? If the body be extreme cold we know there is a distemper, or if it be extreme hot. So if the soul be so extreme cold that no heavenly motives or sweet promises can work upon it, stir it up, then certainly there is a disease upon the soul.

If the soul be inflamed with revenge and anger, that soul is certainly diseased. The temper of the soul is according to the passions thereof. A man may know by his passions when he hath a sick soul.

He then develops this idea by means of the analogy. Look at the human body. A man must be very sick to be unaware of what is taking place in his body. The same with the soul: a must be very spiritually sick when he is unaware of what is taking place spiritually or morally. In particular, again, working through the analogy to the body, an inability to respond to the Word of God is evidence of sickness, “And there is certainly some sickness, some dangerous obstruction in that soul that cannot digest the wholesome word of God, to make use of it; some noisome lust then certainly obstructs the soul, which must be purged out.”

Now if this is sickness then the greatest sickness must be not merely an inability to use the Word of God, but even more refuse it:

It is a pitiful thing to see the desperate condition of many now, who, though they live under the tyranny of sin, yet flatter their own disease, and account them their greatest enemies who any way oppose their sick humour. What do they most cordially hate? The sound preaching of the word.

After having developed that theme at some length he comes to the end of such a state. The desire to live without limitation on my desires (and thus without the Word of God) is the worst of all possible states:

O that I might live as I list, that I might have what would content my pleasures without control, that I might have no crosses, but go smoothly on! Yet this, which is the desire of most men, is the most cursed estate of all, and most to be lamented. Thus it appeareth sin is a wound and a disease. What use may we make of it?

[1] Friend, if God hath thy negative obedience, some other hath thy positive,—for I cannot suppose thee idle all the time of thy life,—either the devil, or the world, or the flesh; man cannot live without a master, whose work and business he will do

George Swinnock, The Works of George Swinnock, M.A., vol. 5 (Edinburgh; London; Dublin: James Nichol; James Nisbet and Co.; G. Herbert, 1868), 397.

Richard Sibbes, The Backsliding Sinner 5.2 (prayer)

12 Thursday May 2022

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Sibbes argues from the structure of the text that:  “God answers all those desires which formerly he had stirred up in his people.” Which leads to this observation, “Where God doth give a spirit of prayer, he will answer.” To support this position, begins with the contention that it needs no proof, “It needs no proof, the point is so clear and experimental [that is a matter of experience].” He then provides Scriptural examples, such as Ps. 50:15, “Call upon me in the day of trouble, I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me.”

Why is this so? Because the motivation to pray is a motivation which comes from God himself. “The reason is strong, because they are the motions of his own Spirit, which he stirs up in us. For he dictates this prayer unto them, ‘Take with you words,’ &c., ‘and say unto the Lord, Take away all iniquity, and receive us graciously.’”

What then of prayers which are not well-formed, which may not even amount to clear words due to our distress?

‘the Spirit also helps our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself makes intercession for us, with groanings which cannot be uttered,’ Rom. 8:26. Therefore there cannot a groan be lost, nor a darting of a sigh. Whatsoever is spiritual must be effectual, though it cannot be vented in words. For God hath an ear, not only near a man’s tongue, to know what he saith; but also in a man’s heart, to know what he desires, or would have.

Thus, prayer begins and ends with God, “God, he first prepares the heart to pray, then his ear to hear their prayers and desires.” This should be a strong encouragement to prayer:

a Christian hath the ear of God and heaven open upon him; such credit in heaven, that his desires and groans are respected and heard. And undoubtedly a man may know that he shall be heard when he hath a spirit of prayer; in one kind or other, though not in the particulars or kinds we ask, hear he will for our good. God will not lose the incense of his own Spirit, of a spirit of prayer which he stirs up, it is so precious. Therefore let us labour to have a spirit of prayer,

He raises the question of how God answered their prayer. The prayer was “take away all mine iniquity.” Yet God anwers that he will “heal their backsliding”. Backsliding being a more serious crime than mere sin.

Ans. To shew that he would answer them fully; that is, that he would heal all sins whatsoever, not only of ignorance and of infirmity, but also sins willingly committed, their rebellions and backslidings. For, indeed, they were backsliding.

He recounts the gravity of Israel’s sin and idolatry. It was such as to seem a hopeless case. But God offers to cure this hopeless case. Here, the rhetorical form of Sibbes’ sermon becomes objection and answer:

So that we see, God, when he will comfort, will comfort to purpose, and take away all objections that the soul can make, a guilty soul being full of objections. Oh! my sins are many, great, rebellions and apostasies. But, be they what they will, God’s mercy in Christ is greater and more. ‘I will heal their backsliding,’ or their rebellion. God is above conscience. Let Satan terrify the conscience as he will, and let conscience speak the worst it can against itself, yet God is greater. Therefore, let the sin be what it will, God will pardon all manner of sins. As they pray to pardon all, so he will ‘take away all iniquity, heal their backsliding.’

By putting this into the form of objection-answer, Sibbes can deal with the objections which will naturally cause one to hesitate: I am simply too evil to be forgiven.

Another practical preaching point: Rather than ask, perhaps one someone here may feel, someone here may thing; which is the common way of presenting objections: Sibbes merely states the objections. To ask, “Maybe you feel, maybe you have experienced” is to give the hearer a ground to create a distance. We have a natural tendency to wish to not be drawn in. But to merely state the objection allows us to listen and respond. We are lead to consider our own hearts by this indirect approach.

Why then does God use the word “heal” (“I will heal their backsliding”) rather than forgive and sanctify? To heal implies a wound, disease. From this we have:

  1. The malignity and venom of it; and then,
  2. The wound itself, so festered and rankled.

Now, pardoning grace in justification takes away the anguish and malice of the wound, so that it ceaseth to be so malignant and deadly as to kill or infect. And then sanctification purgeth and cleanseth the wound and heals it up.

Here, Sibbes again speaks with utter frankness at the horror of sin and the guilty of humanity. But in all of this there is no condemning tone of I am better than you sinful congregation! He is both plain and sympathetic. It is a tone I have rarely seen preachers achieve.

First, he states the general proposition: God heals sin:

Now, God through Christ doth both. The blood of Christ doth heal the guilt of sin, which is the anger and malignity of it; and by the Spirit of Christ he heals the wound itself, and purgeth out the sick and peccant humour by little and little through sanctification. God is a perfect healer. ‘I will heal their backsliding.’

He then notes our weakness generally, by referring to the “church” being prone to backsliding:

See here the state of the church and children of God. They are prone to backsliding and turning away. We are naturally prone to decline further and further from God. So the church of God, planted in a family in the beginning of the world, how soon was it prone to backsliding. This is one weakness since the fall.

He then develops the general idea by making it more personal: it is not the abstract “church” but our very nature which is subject to this weakness:

It is incident to our nature to be unsettled and unsteady in our holy resolutions. And whilst we live in the midst of temptations, the world, together with the fickleness of our own nature, evil examples, and Satan’s perpetual malice against God and the poor church, are ill pilots to lead us out of the way.

He now turns to the matter of healing a “wound and disease.” This again is a move which is not common in most contemporary preaching. Sibbes is chasing down the understanding of the metaphor: If we must be healed, then we must have a wound or disease. If we have a wound or disease, what does that entail? It the second move, what is inherent in a wound or disease which goes beyond most preaching.

It is not necessarily bad that most preachers do not make this move, because the secondary move can easily lead to idea wholly unsupported and purely speculative. But as we shall see, Sibbes avoids the error or rank speculation. Another fault other than speculation is that the preacher could easily be led off into nonsense or matters well beyond the task at hand.

However, when this second move is handled with great care and wisdom, a sound theology and constant Scriptural application, the result can be something quite profound.

Richard Sibbes, The Backsliding Sinner, 5.1

12 Thursday May 2022

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Sibbes begins his fifth sermon in this series (the prior post is found here) with a recap of what has been covered so far. But he uses this recap as a sort of mini sermon. Rather than merely say, God has provided us with encouragement to repent, he in fact lays out that encouragement and provides an encouragement to repent.

The structure of this section is interesting, because he varies the rhetorical technique to underscore his conceptual point. The sort of movement between various rhetorical structures is not something can be easily formulated. There is no strict pattern of movement between structures. It is a matter of art not science. It is an ability which could only be obtained through exposure, through much listening and reading to such work.

However, by looking at he has done, one can become more consciously aware of this aspect of the sermon.

Based upon the text (Hosea 14), Sibbes makes an observation about God and uses that observation as a basis for praise. God is gracious and he cares for his miserable creatures. He demonstrates God’s care by looking to what God has done with this chapter so far. Notice, it is not a promise of God will do; rather, it is what God has done by the very words of the prophecy.

The purpose of this introduction is two-fold. First, it declares to us the nature of God and praises God. Second, it is an encouragement to us to come to God despite our sin:

The superabounding mercies and marvellous lovingkindnesses

            of a gracious and loving God

            to wretched and miserable sinners,

                        as we have heard,

is the substance and sum of this short, sweet chapter,

He then offers six benefits God has provided. Notice that he does this be means of short clauses which all begin with the word “their” followed by “is” and then a final noun. In the fifth clause, the “is” becomes “are”. In the final clause, which ends the series, the “is+noun” becomes a conjugated verb, “answered.”

wherein

their ignorance is taught,

their bashfulness is encouraged,

their deadness is quickened,

their untowardness is pardoned,

their wounds are cured,

all their objections and petitions answered;

so as a large and open passage is made unto them, and all other miserable penitent sinners, for access unto the throne of grace.

He does not state this merely once. He repeats what God has done, but this time he phrases it in terms of conditional clauses: If X is lacking, then X is supplied. This list does not precisely duplicate the six categories. In addition, the explanation for what God does is provided in more detail

If they want words,

            they are taught what to say;

if discouraged for sins past,

they are encouraged that sin may be taken away;

yea, all iniquity may be taken away. ‘Take away all iniquity.’

If their unworthiness hinder them,

they are taught for this, that God is gracious.

‘Receive us graciously.’

If their by-past unthankfulness be any bar of hindrance unto them,

they are taught to promise thankfulness.

‘So will we render the calves of our lips.’

The passage also makes plain what our repentance must entail: a relinquishment of all reliance upon another other than God:

And that their repentance may appear to be sound and unfeigned,

they are brought in, making profession

of their detestation of their bosom sins,

of false confidence and idolatry.

‘Asshur shall not save us; we will not ride upon horses; neither will we say any more to the works of our hands, Ye are our gods.’

He then ends with an encouragement to come to God in repentance:

And not only do they reject their false confidence, to cease from evil, but they do good, and pitch their affiance where it should be. For ‘in thee the fatherless findeth mercy.’

None must therefore be discouraged, or run away from God, for what they have been, for there may be a returning. God may have a time for them, who, in his wise dispensation, doth bring his children to distress, that their delivery may be so much the more admired by themselves and others, to his glory and their good. He knows us better than we ourselves.

Sibbes returns his general proposition, but this from from a third point of view. This final section is more direct, it is far less rhetorically charged. He does include short expansion of three phrases which begin with “not/nor”, but the beginning end of the section consists of rather straightforward sentences and clear propositions: God seeks to turn us to himself, alone. To do this he removes from us all things which we trust upon other than him.

How prone we are to lean upon the creature. Therefore, he is fain to take from us all our props and supports, whereupon we are forced to rely upon him.

If we could do this of ourselves, it were an excellent work, and an undoubted evidence of the child of God, that hath a weaned soul in the midst of outward supports, to enjoy them, as if he possessed them not;

not to be puffed up with present greatness,

not to swell with riches,

nor be high-minded;

to consider of things to be as they are, weak things, subordinate to God, which can help no further than as he blesseth them

But to come to the words now read

Richard Sibbes, The Backsliding Sinner 4.3

31 Friday Dec 2021

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John Street (director of the MABC program at TMU) when teaching on the change which should take place in the Christian refers to the passage in Ephesians 4, where Paul writes a thief must stop stealing and then get a job and give to others. To merely stop stealing is to be a thief between jobs. But to work and give is to be something new. John Owen explains that the death of sin is to abound in grace:

The first is, How doth the Spirit mortify sin?

I answer, in general, three ways:—

[1.] By causing our hearts to abound in grace and the fruits that are contrary to the flesh, and the fruits thereof and principles of them.

John Owen, The Works of John Owen, ed. William H. Goold, vol. 6 (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, n.d.), 19.

Sibbes makes a similar point about faith. It is not sufficient to merely stop trusting in the creature, we must put our trust in God:

Obs. That it is not sufficient to disclaim affiance in the creature, but we must pitch that affiance aright upon God.

We must cease one thing and begin another. Our faith will be somewhere. If we take it off of the creature and do not place it upon God, we will be like the soul where a demon has been driven out only to return with others worse than himself. Thus, the Scripture commands us repeatedly to take our trust off of the creature and to place it upon God:

We must not only take it off where it should not be placed, but set it where it should be. ‘Cease from evil, and learn to do well,’ Isa. 1:16, 17. Trust not in the creature. ‘Cease from man,’ as the prophet saith, ‘whose breath is in his nostrils,’ Isa. 2:22; ‘Commit thy ways to God, trust in him,’ Ps. 37:5. 

He then makes an argument from common grace. We can read in many heathen authors the reasonable argument that we must stop trusting in the creature. The world will disappoint us. It reminds me of the Fire Sermon of Buddha, ““Everything, monks, is burning. What, monks, is everything that is burning? The eye, monks, is burning, form is burning, eye-consciousness is burning, eye-contact is burning. The feeling that arises dependent on eye-contact, whether pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral, that also is burning. 

With what is it burning? It is burning with the fire of passion, the fire of hatred, the fire of delusion. I declare that it is burning with the fire of birth, decay, death, grief, lamentation, pain, sorrow, and despair.” 

He can see the vanity of the creature, but he then can offer no solution beyond rejecting creation. 

This much can be seen without grace:

The heathen, by the light of nature, knew this, that for the negative there is no trusting in the creature, which is a vain thing. They could speak wonderful wittily* and to purpose of these things, especially the Stoics. They could see the vanity of the creature. But for the positive part, where to place their confidence, that they were ignorant in. And so for the other part here, ‘Neither will we say any more to the works of our hands, Ye are our gods.’ Idolaters can see the vanity of false gods well enough. 

But this rejection is insufficient; it is not salvation:

It is not enough therefore to rest in the negative part. A negative Christian is no Christian; 

There must be a movement to trust in God

Oh! such make religion nothing but a matter of opinion, of canvassing an argument, &c. But it is another manner of matter, a divine power exercised upon the soul, whereby it is transformed into the obedience of divine truth, and moulded into it. So that there must be a positive as well as a negative religion; a cleaving to God as well as a forsaking of idols.

* That is, ‘with wit’ = wisdom.—G.

Richard Sibbes, The Backsliding Sinner, 4.2

30 Thursday Dec 2021

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In this section, Sibbes explains the psychology of remaining in unrepentant sin. We will trust in the creature until the creature fails us:

They said so when they had smarted by Asshur, and by idolatry. Then ‘Asshur shall not save us,’ &c. They knew it by rule before; but till God plagued them, as he did oft by Asshur and by Egypt, when he broke the reed that it did not only not uphold them, but run into their hands, they made no such acknowledgment. [They had leaned upon Egypt as a walking stick. But when the stick broke, they stumbled and the stick went through their hand. Sibbes is alluding to Is. 36:6, “Behold, you are trusting in Egypt, that broken reed of a staff which will piece the hand of any man who leans on it.”]

Sibbes states his proposition, 

Usually it is thus with man, he never repents till sin be embittered to him. He never alters his confidence till his trusts be taken away. 

Notice that Sibbes attributes the ultimate failure and the timing of the failure to the providence of God:

When God overthrows the mould of his devices, or brings them upon his own head, setting him to reap the fruit of his own ways, embittering sinful courses to him, then he returns. 

Next notice that God works this way, because merely telling us something does not work, we don’t take instruction well until we experience the truth. It reminds of Blake’s proverb of hell, the road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom; we don’t know the truth of thing until we experience it:

Instruction without correction doth for the most part little good. When Asshur had dealt falsely with them, and idolatry would do them no good, then they begin to alter their judgment. What makes men, after too much confidence in their wit, when they have, by their plots and devices, gone beyond what they should do, and wrapped and entangled themselves in a net of their own weaving, as we say, alter their judgment? They are then become sick of their own devices. This makes the change. 

Sibbes uses an interesting psychological explanation: our brain weaves a net; we have an irrational streak which keeps us from being able to change our course:

For till then the brain hath a kind of net to wrap our devices in. 

So, many have nets in their brains, wherewith they entangle themselves and others with their idle devices; which, when they have done, and so woven the web of their own misery, then they begin to say, as the heathen saith when he was deceived, ‘O fool am I, I was never a wise man!’ Then they begin to say, I was a fool to trust such and such. I have tried such and such policies, and they have deceived me. I will now alter my course.

Sin is irrational. We can see this most easily when we look at another’s sin. Why would a successful musician destroy his life with drugs? Why would a famous politician destroy his life with adultery? Why would another gamble themselves into ruin? When we see these things from the outside, they are plainly madness. But inside, we weave a net which permits and perpetuates the madness.

What should we do this knowledge?

Use. Therefore make this use of it, not to be discouraged when God doth confound any carnal plot or policy of ours, as to think that God hates either a nation or a person when they have ill success in plots and projects which are not good. 

By causing the creature to fail, by permitting our confidence to be shaken God intends to do us good:

Nay, it is a sign rather that God intends good, if they make a right use it. God intends conversion, to translate false confidence from the creature to himself, and to learn us to make God wise for us. It is a happy thing when in this world God will disappoint a man’s courses and counsels, and bring him to shame, rather than he should go on and thrive in an evil and carnal course, and so end his days. 

Sibbes makes this point in another place by means of a brilliant image. (To “post” means to ride a quickly as possible. There is a new horse at every “post,” thus permitting the rider to travel at the maximum possible speed):

“If God should have let us alone to our own desires, we were posting to hell. It is the greatest misery in the world, next to hell itself, to be given up to our own desires. A man were better to be given up to the devil than to his own desires.”

Richard Sibbes, The Complete Works of Richard Sibbes, ed. Alexander Balloch Grosart, vol. 4 (Edinburgh; London; Dublin: James Nichol; James Nisbet and Co.; W. Robertson, 1863), 512.

Thus, conversely, to be permitted to profit without repentance is a sign that God has marked one for destruction, 

There is no evidence at all which can be given of a reprobate, because there may be final repentance, repentance at the last. But this is one and as fearful a sign as may be, to thrive and go on in an evil course to the end. When God shall disappoint and bring a man to shame in that he prided in and built upon, it is a good sign.

The end is for us to “fix and pitch” our confidence upon God. This will be his next point.

Richard Sibbes, The Backsliding Sinner 4.1

28 Tuesday Dec 2021

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In the fourth sermon, Sibbes continues his examination of the nature of the prayer of repentance. He summarizes his previous points as follows:

The Holy Ghost therefore doth prescribe them, together with prayer and thanksgiving, reformation. ‘Asshur shall not save us; we will not ride upon horses; neither will we say any more to the works of our hands, Ye are our gods: for in thee the fatherless findeth mercy.’ So that here you have reformation joined with prayer and praise. Whence we observed divers things: that without reformation our prayers are abominable; that in repentance there must be reformation of our special sin; which here they do. 

He now adds a further observation, “In reformation, we must go not only to the outward delinquencies, but to the spring of them, which is some breach of the first table.”

Here is the point: All sin, whether adultery, robbery, murder, et cetera, must trace its origin to a rebellion against God. When the relationship toward God is amiss, our relationship to the creation likewise suffers

The root of all sin, is the deficiency of obedience to some command of the first table. When confidence is not pitched aright in God, or when it is misapplied, and misfastened to the creature: when the soul sets up somewhat for a stay and prop unto it, which it should not do, this is a spiritual and subtle sin, and must be repented of,

He then explains that “the spring head” of sin is “false confidence.” This false confidence in the creature is idolatry. And we are “naturally prone to idolatry.”

He explains two species of idolatry:

1. By attributing to the creature that which is proper to God only, investing it with God’s properties; or,

2. By worshipping the true God in a false manner.

A great deal of the sermon then concerns whether images may be used in the worship of God and whether the worship (even under a different term) of angels or saints is permitted. Being a devout Puritan, Sibbes has no room for images or prayers directed to angels or saints. 

There is an interesting aside in his argument concerning a national religion. Sibbes rightly says, “Religion, though it cannot be forced.” He then says that the nation should train the child in the proper means of religion; which seems incoherent. If true religion can only be the product of faith and repentance, as opposed to outward behavior divorced from sincere faith and repentance; then religion cannot be forced it very nature. This is a point on which I disagree with the heavenly doctor.

Sibbes then takes up the idol set up in the heart, what one loves or fears is god

But this is not all; we must know that there be other idols than the idols which we make with our hands. Besides these religious idols, there be secular idols in the world, such as men set up to themselves in their own hearts. Whatsoever takes up the heart most, which they attribute more to than to God, that is their idol, their god. A man’s love, a man’s fear, is his god. 

Having made the proposition, he then illustrates the point:

If a man fear greatness rather than God, that he had rather displease God than any great person, they are his idols for the time. ‘The fear of a man brings a snare,’ Prov. 29:25, saith the wise man. And those who get the favour of any in place, sacrifice therefore their credit, profession, religion, and souls, it is gross idolatry; dangerous to the party, and dangerous to themselves. It was the ruin of Herod to have that applause given to him, and taken by him, ‘The voice of God, and not of man,’ Acts 12:22. So for any to be blown up with flatterers, that lift them up above their due measure, it is an exceeding wrong to them, prejudiceth their comfort, and will prove ill in the conclusion; indeed, treason against their souls.

This trusting in the creature always debases the man. We are created to have only God as our God: not the opinion of other human beings, or the accumulation of stones and metal. And so we become debased because we become what we worship:

So there is a baser sort of idolaters, who sacrifice their credit and state, whatsoever is good within them, their whole powers, to their base and filthy pleasures. Thus man is degenerate since his fall, that he makes that his god which is meaner than himself. Man, that was ordained for everlasting happiness and communion with God, is now brought to place his happiness and contentment in base pleasures. Whereas it is with the soul of man for good or ill, as it applies itself to that which is greater or meaner than itself. If it apply itself to confidence and affiance in God, then it is better. For it is the happiness of the soul to have communion with the Spring of goodness, as David speaks, ‘It is good for me to draw near to God,’ &c., Ps. 73:28. When we suffer the soul to cleave in affiance to earthly things, it grows in some measure to the nature of the things adhered to. When we love the world and earthly things, we are earthly. 

Only God can free us from idolatry:

Till the Spirit of God touch the soul, as the loadstone doth the heavy iron, drawing it up, as it were, it will cleave to the creature, to baser things than itself, and so makes the creature an idol, which is the common idolatry of these times.

And finally, the various idols made by different people are based in the temperament of the idolator:

Some make favour, as the ambitious person; some their pleasures, as baser persons of meaner condition; and some riches. Every man as their temper and as their temptations are.

Finally, the creature will make a god will prove our ruin; the idol rather than saving us, ruins us:

Now, it is not enough to be sound in religion one way in the main; but we must be sound every way, without any touch of idolatry. In a special manner the apostle calls the ‘covetous man an idolater,’ Eph. 5:5, because he makes riches his castle, thinking to carry anything with his wealth. But his riches oftentimes prove his ruin; for whatsoever a man loves more than God, God will make it his bane and ruin; at least, be sure to take it away, if God mean to save the party. Therefore, here they say, ‘Asshur shall not save us; we will not ride upon horses; neither will we say any more to the works of our hands, Ye are our gods.’