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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, 4.4

05 Wednesday Jan 2022

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The esteem of God and the esteem of the creature are in “balance”: what esteem we have for one is esteem we do not place upon the other. In the definition of idolatry which explains an esteem of the creature as the basis for our security and trust also contains a corollary: to that same extent, we denigrate God:

In what measure and degree we apprehend God aright to be the all-sufficient true God, in that measure we cast away all false confidence whatsoever.

We are finite creatures with finite love and faith. When we bestow faith upon the creature, that is faith we do not bestow upon God:

The more or less we conceive of God as we should do, so the more or less we disclaim confidence in the creature. Those who in their affections of joy, love, affiance, and delight, are taken up too much with the creature, say what they will, profess to all the world by their practice that they know not God. By the contrary, those who know and apprehend him in his greatness and goodness as he should be apprehended, in that proportion they withdraw their affections from the creature and all things else. 

He then provides an illustration, based upon a balance with two scales. As one sides goes up, the other side necessarily goes down:

It is with the soul in this case as with a balance. If the one scale be drawn down by a weight put in it, the other is lifted up. So where God weighs down in the soul, all other things are light; and where other things prevail, there God is set light. 

I think that this underscores a problem with our sanctification, our discipleship, our living for God. We begin with a natural inclination toward the creature: it seems more real, more tangible. We have a personal sense of control. Perhaps that is why Jesus uses money as the opposite to God: you can serve one or the other. Money gives one the ability to command the creature. 

Then we learn such trust in the creature is idolatrous, so we take our hands off of the creature, but we don’t lay hold of God. We for a moment will say we do not trust the creature, but we do not place that trust wholeheartedly upon God. That leaves us unstable; then, too easily we return to the creature. 

There is a scene where one is dangling from a rope. The hero says let go of the rope and take my hand. It is as we let go of the rope and then do not grab for the hero. Trusting in our strength we return to the rope and are no better off, and likely much worse for the effort. 

That which is taken from the creature, they find in God. And this is the reason why the world so malign good and sound Christians. They think, when God gets, that they lose a feather, as we say, some of their strength. 

Surely so it is; for when a Christian turns to God and becomes sound, he comes to have a mean esteem of that which formerly was great in his sight. His judgment is otherwise, as we see here, Asshur, horses, idols, and all, they esteem nothing of them. Horses and the like are good, useful, and necessary to serve God’s providence in the use of means; not to trust in, or make co-ordinate with God. 

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.’

Richard Sibbes, The Backsliding Sinner 3.8

10 Friday Sep 2021

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If these things are true, then what must we do? If this is what is entailed in repentance, then we must consider how far we fall short of repentance. It is interesting that Sibbes does not ask the question, see whether you fall short. Luther says in his famous 95 Theses that the Christian life is all one of repentance. And there was a saying of the Puritans that we must repent of our repentance. 

Use 1. Let us therefore enter into our own souls, and examine ourselves, how far forth we are guilty of this sin, and think we come so far short of repentance. 

He draws out one element of their sin: trust, or boasting in the creature:

For the ten tribes here, the people of God, when they repented, say, ‘Asshur shall not save us; we will not ride upon horses.’ He speaks comparatively, as trusted in. 

Therefore, let us take heed of that boasting, vain-glorious disposition, arising from the supply of the creature. Saith God, ‘Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom; neither let the mighty man glory in his might: let not the rich man glory in his riches; but let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth this, that I am the Lord, which exercise lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth,’ &c., Jer. 9:23, 24.

This is sinful, because our glory is to be elsewhere:

Let a man glory that he knows God in Christ to be his God in the covenant of grace; that he hath the God of all strength, the King of kings and Lord of lords to be his: who hath all other things at his command, who is independent and all-sufficient. 

If a man will boast, let him go out of himself to God, and plant himself there; and for other things, take heed the heart be not lift up with them.

He now delineates why boasting or trust in the creature is sinful:

1. Consider what kind of thing boasting is. It is idolatry, for it sets the creature in the place and room of God.

2. And it is also spiritual adultery, whereby we fix our affections upon the creature, which should be placed on God; as it is in James, ‘Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God?’ &c., James 4:4.

These last two explanations of the sinfulness of trusting in the creature draw upon a doctrine known as the “noetic effect” of sin: the way in which sin affects our thoughts and affections and perceptions. 

3. Habakkuk calls it drunkennness, Hab. 2:4, 5, for it makes the soul drunk with sottishness and conceitedness, so as a man in this case is never sober, until God strip him of all.

4. And then again, it puts forth the eye of the soul. It is a kind of white, that mars the sight. When a man looks to Asshur, horses, and to outward strength, where is God all this while? These are so many clouds, that they cannot see God, but altogether pore upon the creature. He sees so much greatness there, that God seems nothing. But when a man sees God in his greatness and almightiness, then the creature is nothing, Job 42:6. But until this be, there is a mist and blindness in the eye of the soul.

When we have identified the defects and limitations of our repentance, and have come to see the extent to which we still rely upon the creature, we must seek a change:

And when we have seen our guiltiness this way (as who of us in this case may not be confounded and ashamed of relying too much on outward helps?), then let us labour to take off our souls from these outward things, whether it be strength abroad or at home. 

We must not think that this reformation will come from our own devices:

Which that we may do, we must labour for that obedience which our Saviour Christ exhorts us unto in self-denial, Mat. 16:24, not to trust to our own devices, policy, or strength, wit, will, or conceits, that this or that may help us, nor anything. 

He makes an observation about the relationship between justification and sanctification: in both we cannot trust in ourselves: 

Make it general; for when conversion is wrought, and the heart is turned to God, it turns from the creature, only using it as subordinate to God. We see, usually, men that exalt themselves in confidence, either of strength, of wit, or whatsoever, they are successless in their issue.

It is a principle with God to thwart the creature who seeks to itself over the Creator:

For God delights to confound them, and go beyond their wit, as we have it, Isa. 30:3. They thought to go beyond God with their policy, they would have help out of Egypt, this and that way. 

What then does this look like? Does this mean that we should neglect any effort of our own? Some sort of “let go and let God” transformation? No. This would be relying upon the creature by ignoring obedience to what God has directed.

Oh, saith the prophet, but for all this, God is wise to see through all your devices; secretly hereby touching them to the quick, as sottish persons, who thought by their shallow brains to go beyond God. You think religious courses, and the obedience God prescribeth to you, to be idle, needless courses; but, notwithstanding, God is wise. He will go beyond you, and catch you in your own craft.

He now proves the point with biblical examples:

 ‘Therefore, the strength of Pharaoh shall be your shame, and the trust in the shadow of Egypt your confusion,’ Isa. 30:3. Thus God loves to scatter Babels fabrics, Gen. 11:8, and holds that are erected in confidence of human strength against him. He delights to catch the wise in their own craft, to beat all down, lay all high imaginations and things flat before him, that no flesh may glory in his sight. There is to this purpose a notable place in Isaiah: ‘Behold, all ye that kindle a fire, that compass yourselves about with sparks,’ Isa. 50:11. For they kindled a fire, and had a light of their own, and would not borrow light from God: ‘Walk in the light of your fire, and in the sparks that ye have kindled.’ But what is the conclusion of all? ‘This shall ye have of mine hand.’ I dare assure you of this, saith the prophet. ‘You shall lie down in sorrow.’ Those that walk by the light and spark of their own fire, this they shall have at God’s hands: ‘they shall lie down in sorrow.’

He cautions against taking the counsel of your age. There is always some sort of “religious” or “spiritual” wisdom which is popular in any time or place. But we are not to trust in these things. Pilgrim’s Progress has a notable picture of this error when the smooth talking Worldly Wiseman misleads Christian and draws him out of the way.

Sibbes comes to an exhortation. There is a school of thought which counsels that such exhortations should always be addressed as “You.” I prefer the method of Sibbes here to use the “we”: Let us. He is not standing above the congregant but alongside. I know these traps and errors so well because I have wrestled with him. Come with me and I will show you through:

Let us therefore take heed of carnal confidence. 

Carnal confidence is an abstraction. To say this and nothing more is to say nothing sensible. The abstraction is fine to introduce an idea, but it must be followed up with something concrete: What does that “carnal confidence” look like in practice?

You have a number who love to sleep in a whole skin, and will be sure to take the safest courses, as they think, not consulting with God, but with ‘flesh and blood.’ It might be instanced in stories of former times, how God hath crossed emperors, and great men in this kind, were it not too tedious. 

In Sibbes’ day there was great and often violent conflict over religious disputes: At this time, one’s religion and one’s political allegiance were not easily separable. The religious disputes had very tangible political consequences. Thus, some would seek to be of no firm religious position so as to avoid any political difficulty. The same would be one now who religious convictions drift with the latest popular conceit. The rapid change in doctrinal statements beginning in the early 20th century would be this same process in modern garb:

But for present instance, you have many who will be of no settled religion. Oh, they cannot tell, there may be a change. Therefore they will be sure to offend neither part. This is their policy, and if they be in place, they will reform nothing. Oh, I shall lay myself open to advantages, and stir up enemies against me. And so they will not trust God, but have carnal devices to turn off all duty whatsoever. It is an ordinary speech, but very true, policy overthrows policy. It is true of carnal policy. 

But to do this is not a way to safety:

When a man goes by carnal rules to be governed by God’s enemy and his own, with his own wit and understanding, which leads him to outward things, this kind of policy overthrows all policy, and outward government at length. Those that walk religiously and by rule, they walk most confidently and securely, as the issue will shew. Therefore, consider that, set God aside, all is but vanity. And that,

First, In regard they do not yield that which we expect they should yield. There is a falsehood in the things. They promise this and that in shows, but when we possess them, they yield it not. As they have no strength indeed, so they deceive.

2. Then, also, there is a mutability in them; for there is nothing in the world but changes. There is a vanity of corruption in them. All things at last come to an end, save God, who is unchangeable.

He will conclude here with the vanity of the creature. This final section is a plea to not trust in the creature, because the creature will disappoint us. The repentance concerned a trust in the creature and not God. In this section, he is pleading with us to avoid the sin in the first place. 

To bring us to this point he uses a combination of logical argument and emotional persuasion. 

3. Then again, besides the intrinsical vanity in all outward things, and whatsoever carnal reason leads unto, they are snares and baits unto us, to draw us away from God, by reason of the vanity of our nature, vainer than the things themselves. 

Consider the sentence just quoted: The danger of the vanity is that it is a “snare and bait.” This sort of language may seem a bit distant from our experience, but physical traps to catch animals. These images would have brought to mind crushed limbs, blood, death.

Therefore take heed of confidence in anything, or else this will be the issue: we shall be worse than the things we trust. 

This is an interesting observation: If I trust in this creature, I will become worse than the creature I have trusted. How can he prove this up?

‘Vanity of vanities, all things are vanity,’ Eccles. 1:1; and man himself is lighter than vanity, saith the psalmist, Ps. 62:9. He that trusts to vanity, is worse than vanity. A man cannot stand on a thing that cannot stand itself,—stare non stante. A man cannot stand on a thing that is mutable and changeable. If he doth, he is vain with the thing. 

The argument here is quite similar to the conclusion of Shakespeare’s Sonnet 94, “Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds.” A human being who has been corrupted by trusting in a vain creature has become worse than even the creature.

Even as a picture drawn upon ice, as the ice dissolves, so the picture vanisheth away. So it is with all confidence in the creature whatsoever. It is like a picture upon ice, which vanisheth with the things themselves. He that stands upon a slippery thing, slips with the thing he stands on. 

Here again he relies upon a very common experience to prove his point. At this time, Europe was moving into what was know as the “Little Ice Age.” Sibbes readers or hearers would have been intimately acquainted with ice.

He then argues that this proposition is so obvious to all that one does not revelation to know that it is true. It is a point which cannot be avoided:

If there were no word of God against it, yet thus much may be sufficient out of the principles of reason, to shew the folly of trusting to Asshur, and horses, and the like.

He ends with a conclusion and a series of six exhortations in the form of “let us”:

Let this be the end of all, then, touching this carnal confidence: to beware that we do not fasten our affections too much upon any earthly thing, at home or abroad, within or without ourselves. For ‘God will destroy the wisdom of the wise,’ 1 Cor. 1:19. 

First:

Let us take heed, therefore, of all false confidence whatsoever.

Second, 

Let us use all outward helps, yet so as to rely upon God for his blessing in the use of all. And when they all fail, be of Jehoshaphat’s mind: ‘Lord, we know not what to do,’ 2 Chron. 20:12. 

The rationale: 

The creature fails us, our helps fail us; ‘but our eyes are upon thee.’ So when all outward Asshurs, and horses, and helps fail, despair not; for the less help there is in the creature, the more there is in God. As Gideon with his army, when he thought to carry it away with multitudes, God told him there were too many of them to get the victory by, lest Israel should vaunt themselves of their number, and so lessened the army to three hundred, Jud. 7:2; so it is not the means, but the blessing on the means which helps us. If we be never so low, despair not. 

Third,

Let us make God ours, who is all-sufficient and almighty, and then if we were brought a hundred times lower than we are, God will help and raise us. Those who labour not to have God, the Lord of hosts, to go out with their armies, if they had all the Asshurs and horses in the world, all were in vain. It was therefore a good resolution of Moses. Saith he to God, ‘If thy presence go not with us, carry us not hence,’ Exod. 33:15. He would not go one step forward without God. 

This last line if a fine aphorism:

So, if we cannot make God our friend to go out before us, in vain it is to go one step forward. 

Fourth,

Let us therefore double our care in holy duties, renewing our covenant with God, before the decree come out against us. The more religious, the more secure we shall be. If we had all the creatures in the world to help us, what are they but vanity and nothing, if God be our enemy! These things we know well enough for notion; but let us labour to bring them home for use, in these dangerous times abroad. 

Fifth,

Let us begin where we should, that our work may be especially in heaven. 

Sixth

Let us reform our lives, being moderately careful, as Christians should, without tempting God’s providence, using rightly all civil supports and helps seasonably, and to the best advantage; for, as was said, the carelessness herein for defence may prove as dangerous and fatal to a State, as the too much confidence and trust in them.

Richard Sibbes, The Backsliding Sinner, 3.7

04 Saturday Sep 2021

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Sibbes has been arguing that it is ultimately irrational to put our trust in the creature. To this extent, he has been making an objective argument. At this point, he makes an observation of the subjective nature of repentance. The one who is repentant will naturally (if you ) not put trust in the creature.  He argues that means of repentace, the relationship to God has changed and therefore, the relationship to the creature likewise changes.

So we see the second point made good, that these outward things of themselves cannot help. Therefore comes this in the third place:—

Obs. That when God alters and changes and mouldeth anew the heart of a man to repentance, he altereth his confidence in the creature.

A Christian State will not trust in Asshur, nor in horses. It is true both of State and persons. 

The relationship to God changes:

The reason will follow after in the end of the verse, ‘For in thee the fatherless findeth mercy.’ Because, when a man hath once repented, there is a closing between God and him, and he seeth an all-sufficiency in God to satisfy all his desires. Therefore he will use all other things as helps, and as far as it may stand with his favour. 

This new relationship to God causes a new understanding of God:

For he hath Moses’s eye put in him, a new eye to see him that is invisible, Heb. 11:27, to see God in his greatness, and other things in their right estimate as vain things. What is repentance but a change of the mind, when a man comes to be wise and judicious, as indeed repentant men are the only wise men? 

We understand God as constant and able in a manner that the creature cannot be:

Then a man hath an esteem of God to be El-shadai, all-sufficient, and all other things to be as they are, uncertain; that is, they are so today, as that they may be otherwise to-morrow, for that is the nature of the creatures. They are in potentia, in a possibility to be other things than they are. God is alway ‘I am,’ alway the same. There is not so much as a shadow of changing in him. 

This sight of God then leads to a change in the way the creature is understood. Before looking here, consider the matter. The way in which we know and understand a thing depends upon its context. We know things in some sort of relationship. Consider some trinket which bears a sentimental attachment: This trinket was my mother’s and so it is valuable to me. I have never seen this trinket before and so it is worthless to me. The same item has different meaning due to its relationship to us. 

As we know things in their relationship to God and us, our valuation of the thing will change. You could understand repentance as in part a continual revaluation of the creature (and Creator).

Wherefore, when the soul hath attained unto this spiritual eyesight and wisdom, if it be a sinful association with Egypt or Asshur, with this idolater or that, he will not meddle; and as for other helps, he will not use them further than as subordinate means. When a man is converted, he hath not a double, not a divided heart, to trust partly to God and partly to the creature. If God fail him,* he hath Asshur and horses enough, and association with all round about. But a Christian he will use all helps, as they may stand with the favour of God, and are subordinate under him. Now for trial.

By “trial” Sibbes means let us consider this matter in our own lives:

Quest. How shall we know whether we exceed in this confidence in the creature or not?

Sibbes provides two tests: First: We can know that we have placed excess trust in the creature when the creature fails us. Second: How do we think, act, and speak about the relationship to the creature? Are we conscious that this is a means to be used by God and not a means which is effacious in itself?

Sol. 1. We may know it by adventuring on ill courses and causes, thinking to bear them out with Asshur and with horses. But all the mercenary soldiers in the world, and all the horses at home and abroad, what can they do when God is angry? Now, when there is such confidence in these things as for to out-dare God, then there is too much trust in them. That trust will end in confusion, if it be not repented of, for that lifts up the heart in the creature. And as the heathen man observes, ‘God delights to make great little, and little great.’ It is his daily work to ‘cast down mountains, and exalt the valleys,’ Isa. 40:4. Those that are great, and boast in their greatness, as if they would command heaven and earth, God delights to make their greatness little, and at length nothing, and to raise up the day of small things. Therefore the apostle saith, ‘If I rejoice, it shall be in my infirmities,’ 2 Cor. 12:9, in nothing else; for God delights to shew strength in weakness.

2. By security and resting of the soul in meaner things, never seeking to divine and religious helps when we are supplied with those that are outward. For these people, when they trusted to Assyria and Egypt, those false supports and sandy foundations, they were careless of God, and therefore must trust in somewhat else. Wherefore, if we see a man secure and careless, certainly he trusts too much to uncertain riches, to Asshur, to Egypt, to friends, or to outward helps. His security bewrays that. 

He restates this test in a positive manner. What would it look like to use the creature in the proper manner?

If a man trust God in the use of the means, his care will be to keep God his friend by repentance and daily exercises of religion, by making conscience of his duty. But if he trust the means and not God, he will be careless and weak in good duties, dull and slow, and, out of the atheism of his heart, cry, Tush! if God do not help me, I shall have help from friends abroad, and be supported with this and that at home, horses and the like, and shall be well.

* That is, the ‘double-minded’ man.—G.

Richard Sibbes, The Backsliding Sinner 3.5

02 Thursday Sep 2021

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There is an absurdity sin. In the fact of repentance, one element which must concern us is a realization that our sin is absurd. Sibbes draws this out by demonstrating that the things which had become idolatrous snares to Israel were also things which could not provide succor. We rely upon solutions which simply do not work.

Doct. How these outward things cannot help us.

How prone soever we are to rely upon them, they are in effect nothing. They cannot help us, and so are not to be relied upon. ‘Asshur shall not save us.’ Indeed it will not, it cannot. These things cannot aid us at our most need. So that that which we most pitch upon, fails us when we should especially have help. Some present vanishing supply they yield, but little to purpose. They have not that in them which should support the soul at a strait, or great pinch, as we say.

Having made the accusation: these things cannot help us, Sibbes now seeks to prove-up his point: They are vanity.

Reason. The reason is largely given by Solomon in the whole book of Ecclesiastes, ‘All is vanity and vexation of spirit,’ Eccles. 1:14. 

He is going to use the phrase “to support the soul.” His point is that riches (he will give that as a particular example) cannot be used to buy food. Of course it can. But riches are of limited value. We sinfully place a reliance upon the creature which it cannot bear:

There is a vanity in all the creatures, being empty and not able to support the soul. They are vain in their continuance, and empty in regard of their strength. They are gone when we have need of them. 

Riches, as the wise man saith, are gone, and have wings to fly away, in our most need, Prov. 23:5. So friends are fugitive good things, being like to the brooks mentioned in Job, 6:15: which when in summer there is need of, then they are dried up, and yet run amain in winter, when there is no need of them. 

He is trying to explain the way in which money or friends are of limited use: 

So, earthly supports, when there is no need of them, then they are at hand; but when we have most need of them, are gone. ‘They are broken cisterns,’ as the prophet calls them, Jer. 2:13. Cisterns, that is, they have a limited capacity. 

He picks up on the image of a cistern from Jeremiah and develops it as follows:

A cistern is not a spring. 

A cistern, even a broken cistern, is not wholly lacking in use; but it is nothing compared to a spring. The cistern will soon run dry; the spring will not.

So all their support, at the best, is but a bounded and a mixed sufficiency; and that also which will quickly fail: like water in a cistern, which if it be not fed with a continual spring, fails or putrefies presently. 

Likewise these outward things are not sufficient for the grievance; for being limited and bounded, the grievance will be above the strength of the creature; which though sometime it be present and do not fail, yet the trouble is such, that it is above the strength of the creature to help. So that for these and the like respects, there is no sufficiency, nor help to be expected from the creature. 

He has stated his proposition with some emphasis, but it still may be unclear. In particular way is Assyria, the most power country in the world at that time, insufficient?

‘Asshur shall not save us.’ He is not a sufficient ground of trust. Why?

1. He is but a creature.

2. He is an enemy.

3. He is an idolater.

Photo courtesy of Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin. He has a wonderful feed with countless photographs: @OsamaSMAmin

So that, take him in all these three relations, he is not to be trusted.

What are the limitations of being a creature?

1. He is a creature. What is a creature? Nothing, as it were. Saith the prophet, ‘All creatures before him are as nothing, and as a very little thing.’ And what it is, when he pleaseth, he can dissolve it into nothing, turn it into dust. Man’s breath is in his nostrils, Isa. 2:22. ‘All flesh is grass, and all his glory as the flower of grass,’ Ps. 103:15. 

Creatures have finite duration: they can die. Creatures are dependent upon the sufferance of God to even exist. Therefore, if you trust in the creature, it might fail you. Sibbes puts this nicely:

If a man trust the creature, he may outlive his trust. 

The repeated use of “trust” is well done. The first use is as a verb; the second a noun indicating the state of the verb in action.

His prop may be taken from him, and down he falls. 

The abstract statement about trust becomes a comic, concrete image of the clown falling which the prop against he leans is moved. 

He then moves to another trouble with creature: to trust it is to incur a curse:

Asshur must not be trusted, therefore, as a creature, nor as a man, for that brings us within the curse. Thus saith the Lord, ‘Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm,’ &c., Jer. 17:5. So trusting in the creature not only deceives us, but brings us within the curse. In that respect, Asshur must not be trusted.

The connection made between Hosea and Jeremiah is not the sort of connection which will appear in margin notes or word studies. It is a connection made from countless hours of study and meditation such that Sibbes can see conceptual ties between disparate passages.

2. But Asshur likewise was an enemy, and a secret enemy. For howsoever the ten tribes unto whom Hosea prophesied were great idolaters, yet they were somewhat better than Asshur, who was without the pale of the church, and a wholly corrupted church. Therefore, they were enemies to the ten tribes, and, amongst other reasons, because they were not so bad as they, nor deeply enough dyed with idolatry.

Before we consider the “present time” examples which Sibbes offers is perhaps wise to consider the ways in which we personally have made reliance upon an enemy. At the time of Sibbes’ writing it must be understood what a grave danger rested in religious opinions. There would be repeated wars involving England which concerned the question of what religious practice would be permitted in England. There would be attempts by the house of Stewart to forcibly impose Roman Catholicism upon England. People were going to die over this question.

Many think they may comply with popery in some few things, to gain their love, and that there may be joining with them in this and that; but do we think that they will ever trust us for all this? No; they will alway hate us, till we be as bad as they, and then they will despise us, and secure themselves of us. Therefore, there is no trusting of papists, as papists; not only creatures, but as false, and as enemies. 

He then personalizes this principle: In personal relationships, the wicked will seek to first corrupt the morals of the other. “Bad company corrupts good morals.” 1 Cor. 15:33.

For this is the nature of wicked men. They will never trust better than themselves, till they become as bad as they are, after which they despise them. Say they, Now we may trust such and such a one; he is as bad as we, becom’d one of us. 

But the one who willing corrupts is not one whom you can trust for constancy:

Which is the reason why some of a naughty disposition take away the chastity and virginity of men’s consciences, making them take this and that evil course, and then they think they have such safe, being as bad as themselves. Wherein they deal as Ahithophel’s politic, devilish counsel was, that Absalom should do that which was naught, and then he should be sure that David and he should never agree after that, 2 Sam. 16:21; and that then by this discovery the wicked Jews, set on mischief, might secure themselves of Absalom. So they, now that they join with us, God will forsake them; we shall have them our instruments for anything. First, they would have the ten tribes as bad as they, and then give them the slip whensoever they trusted them.

He hears so the proper limits which the Christian can have with others. We cannot live in such a way as to have no “commerce and traffic” with such people “since then you would need to go out of the world.” (1 Cor. 5:10). But we cannot place that ultimate trust upon them:

3. Again, neither were they to be trusted as idolaters, to have league and society with them. There may be some commerce and traffic with them, but amity and trust, none. Asshur and Egypt were horrible idolaters, and therefore not to be trusted in that respect. As we see the prophet in this case reproved good Jehoshaphat, when he had joined with wicked Ahab, king of the ten tribes, ‘Shouldst thou help the ungodly, and love them that hate the Lord? therefore wrath is upon thee from before the Lord,’ 2 Chron. 19:2. So we see it is a dangerous thing to be in league with idolaters, even such as the ten tribes were, who had some religion amongst them. This good king was chidden for it.