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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.

Richard Sibbes, The Backsliding Sinner 3.4

27 Friday Aug 2021

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(The previous post on these sermons may be found here)

Thus much in general, which things premised, I come to the forenamed particulars. 

First,

Doct. That naturally we are apt and prone to confidence in outward helps and present things.

He develops this point using a conception from Augustine, that with the Fall the love of humanity turns inward and away from God. It creates a defect in the functioning of the creature. This is an idea which even more importantly derives from Paul, particularly Romans 1, particularly 1:25, “they worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator.” If you couple that with 2 Cor. 3:18, you can see that proper functioning of the human creature takes place when the creature is rightfully reflecting the Creator. In Col. 3:10 Paul writes that we are “being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.” This is the “new self”.

This came to our nature from the first fall. 

What was the most basic event of the Fall?

What was our fall at first? A turning from the all-sufficient, unchangeable God, to the creature. 

Thus, sin is relational:

If I should describe sin, it is nothing but a turning from God to one creature or other. When we find not contentment and sufficiency in one creature, we run to another. 

The proposition is then illustrated by something familiar to all. A note on the illustration, the point is not to demonstrate the preacher’s brilliance, but to make it easier for the listener to grasp and retain the abstract principle:

As the bird flies from one tree and bough to another, so we seek variety of contentments from one thing to another. Such is the pravity of our nature since the fall. This is a fundamental conclusion. 

He here provides some evidence: we must have external support to function correctly. He considers the matter at a “psychological” proposition. He states and elaborates the proposition, then provides a brief illustration. The illustration is common and easy to understand. Remember the hearer of a sermon does not have the ability to re-wind or underscore or ponder during the sermon:

Man naturally will, and must, have somewhat to rely on. The soul must have a bottom, a foundation to rest on, either such as the world affords, or a better. Weak things must have their supports. As we see, the vine being a weak thing, is commonly supported by the elm, or the like supply. 

He then reiterates the evidentiary argument, but this time he substitutes “soul” for “man” and explains the same state as a “spiritual” matter (rather than a bare “psychological”) proposition:

So is it with the soul since the fall. Because it is weak, and cannot uphold nor satisfy itself with itself, therefore it looks out of itself. Look to God it cannot, till it be in the state of grace; for being his enemy, it loves not to look to him or his ways, or have dealing with him. 

He has stated the proposition, provided some evidence for the proposition and then concludes:

Therefore it looks unto the creature, that next hand unto itself. This being naturally since the fall, that what we had in God before when we stood, we now labour to have in the creature.

Having established the observation, then gives the reason why such takes place. The first “reason” is given briefly because it is primarily a summary of above. 

Reason 1. Because, as was said, having lost communion with God, somewhat we must have to stay the soul.

The second “reason” brings in a new element: the ability of Satan to deceive. This is an interesting explanation, he puts Satan’s work at the level of “fancy.” By “fancy” he means something like “imagination”. The basic understanding of the psychology here is that something is observed and recognized. Next, the fancy operates upon the thing seen to provide understanding of it. We see things, and then the fancy, which has been influenced, will mis-value the thing seen. This is not a passive process of being solely acted upon, because this “spirit of error join[s] with our own spirit[], and with the deceit of our nature[]”.

2. Secondly, Because Satan joins with our sense and fancy, by which we are naturally prone to live, esteeming of things not by faith and by deeper grounds, but by fancy. Now, fancy having communion with sense, what it discovers and presents for good and great, fancy makes it greater. And the devil, above all, having communion with that faculty of fancy, and so a spirit of error being mixed therewith, to make our fancy think the riches of the world to be the only riches; the greatness and goodness of the creature to be the only greatness and goodness; and the strength thereof the only strength. This spirit of error joining with our own spirits, and with the deceit of our natures, makes us set a higher value on the creature, enlargeth and enrageth the fancy, making it spiritually drunk, so as to conceive amiss of things.

What then do we do with this information? When we are injured by reliance upon the creature, it is a good gift of God: we are being taught that we are trusting in the wrong things (the creature) rather than the Creator.

Use. Briefly for use hereof, it being but a directing point to others. Let us take notice of our corruption herein, and be humbled for it; taking in good part those afflictions and crosses which God sends us, to convince and let us see that there is no such thing in the creature as we imagined; because naturally, we are desperately given to think that there is somewhat more therein than there is. Now affliction helps this sickness of fancy, embittering unto us all confidence in the creature. Therefore it is a happy and a blessed thing to be crossed in that which we over-value, as these Israelites here did the Assyrians and the Egyptians: for being enemies, they trusted in a ‘broken reed,’ 2 Kings 18:21, as we shall see further in the second point.

Richard Sibbes, The Backsliding Sinner, 3.3

13 Friday Aug 2021

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The previous post on this work is found here:

At this point, Sibbes makes two general observations about the nature of repentance itself. The first is that repentance takes place within the whole of our relationship to God: If we are truly repentant, that will be reflected by the expression of prayer and praise toward. And, conversely, if we do not repent and yet seek to enter into this intimate relationship with God, our prayer and praise will be not accepted. Second, he stress the particularness of repentance. 

But, to make way to these things, we must first observe two things for a preparative.

Doctrine. First, That reformation of life must be joined with prayer and praise. 

There was prayer before, and a promise of praise; but, as here, there must be joined reformation of their sin. 

This observation comes from the text of the passage. Hosea 14:1 contains the command to repent. Verse 2 provides, 

Take with you words and return to the LORD;

Say to him, Take away all iniquity

Accept what is good,

And we will pay with bulls the vows of our lips.

Verse 3 containes the details of the repentance (which will be discussed, below). Notice something here about the nature of his exegesis: He is not merely looking at the text of the passage and saying, this means this. He is thinking about the context of the passage: not merely to understand the words, but to understand the reason why these matters are placed together. The passage does not expressly state the doctrine proposed by Sibbes. But, by thinking carefully about the passage, Sibbes has seen what the passage does: It contains a command, but it also provides a model. 

And, so that his understanding does not become fanciful, he is able to anchor individual elements of the chain with other passages which are explicit about the relationship:

That it must be so, it appears, first, for prayer. It is said, ‘If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear my prayer,’ Ps. 66:18. And for praise, ‘The very sacrifice of the wicked (who reforms not his ways) is abominable,’ Prov. 15:8. So that, without reformation, prayer and praise is to no purpose. 

Therefore, it is brought here after a promise of praise. Lord, as we mean to praise thee, so we intend a thorough reformation of former sins, whereof we were guilty. We will renounce Asshur, and confidence in horses, idols, and the like. 

Notice how he does not delay application to the end of the sermon, but makes the application in his exegesis. Moreover, note the tone of the application: it is not bare command, but rather it is exhortation “let us.”

Therefore, let us, when we come to God with prayer and praise, think also of reforming what is amiss. Out with Achan, Josh. 7:19. If there be any dead fly, Eccles. 10:1, or Achan uncast out, prayer and praise is in vain. 

Achan coveted gold and sinned against God’s explicit command. Eccl. 10:1 is the source of the proverbial “fly in the ointment.” Our prayer or praised mixed with unrepentant sin is nauseous. He then proves this point by citing to two other passages which are consistent with his observation:

‘Will you steal, lie, commit adultery, swear falsely, and come and stand before me,’ saith the Lord, by the prophet Jeremiah, Jer. 7:9. Will you offer to pray to me, and praise me, living in these and these sins? No; God will abhor both that prayer and praise, where there is no reformation. ‘What hast thou to do to take my name in thy mouth, since thou hatest to be reformed, and hast cast my words behind thee, saith God,’ Ps. 50:16, where he pleads with the hypocrite for this audacious boldness in severing things conjoined by God. 

He returns to the original point in much the manner of a recapitulation which restates the original them but also makes use of the “development”.

Therefore, as we would not have our prayers turned back from heaven, which should bring a blessing upon all other things else: as we would not have our sacrifices abominable to God, labour to reform what is amiss, amend all, or else never think our lip-labour will prove anything but a lost labour without this reformation.

Here he makes an observation about the nature of repentance: In this he makes an interesting psychological observation. It is a common that you must repent of all sin. Sibbes unpacks what is so easily done: to reserve one sin:

A second thing, which I observe in general, before I come to the particulars, is,

Doctrine. That true repentance is, of the particular sin which we are most addicted to, and most guilty of.

The “particular” sin he takes directly from the text. If time permitted, we could tie these particular sins to their development throughout the Scripture. What strikes me at this moment is the degree to which these particular sins could be charged against contemporary Christians in N.A. There is an excessive trust in and reliance upon political means, various forms of power (on right and left). There is a commensurate lack of trust in the power of “normal means of grace,” the providence of God, the wisdom of God to the point that politics and power become idolatrous (and the idols were seen as means to obtain and expend supernatural power, which is often the way in which we view God as a charging station for our political position). 

The particular sin of this people, whom God so instructs here, was their confidence in Assyria, horses, and idols. 

Note the connection between the particular and the many (note also the structure of this paragraph proposition and illustration/application:

Now therefore repenting, they repent of the particular, main sins they were most guilty of; which being stricken down, all the lesser will be easy to conquer. As when Goliath himself was stricken down, all the host of the Philistines ran away, 1 Sam. 17:51. So when Goliath shall be slain in us, the reigning, ruling, domineering sin, the rest will easily be conquered.

Here, he develops the application of repenting of the particular:

Use. Therefore let us make an use of examination and trial of our repentance.

Stop and ask yourself, am I truly repentant of the particular sin(s) which most beset me? “If it be sound”: if you are truly repentant for the particular;

 If it be sound, it draws with it a reformation; as in general, so especially of our particular sins. As those confess and say, ‘Above all other things we have sinned in this, in asking a king,’ 1 Sam. 12:8. We were naught, and had offended God many ways before; but herein we have been exceeding sinful, in seeking another governor, being weary of God’s gracious government over us. 

True repentance of the particular sin will bring about a general reformation of the soul before God.  He now makes this point with a precise description and then an illustration:

So a gracious heart will say, I have been a wretch in all other things, but in this and that sin above all other. Thus it was with the woman of Samaria, when she was put in mind by Christ of her particular grand sin, that she had been a light woman, and had had many husbands, he whom she lived with now not being her husband, John 4:18. This discovery, when Christ touched the galled part, did so work upon her conscience that it occasioned a general repentance of all her other sins whatsoever. 

This exposing to us our particular sin is a great part of the work which the Spirit does when he brings conviction:

And, indeed, sound repentance of one main sin will draw with it all the rest. And, for the most part, when God brings any man home to him, he so carries our repentance, that, discovering unto us our sinfulness, he especially shews us our Delilah, Isaac, Herodias, our particular sin; which being cast out, we prevail easily against the rest. 

Repentance can actually be a dodge and a cover for sin: If X is my great sin, I will happily repent of Y that I may retain X.

As the charge was given by the king of Aram against Ahab, ‘Fight neither against great nor small, but only against the king of Israel,’ 2 Chron. 18:30; kill him, and then there will be an end of the battle. So let us not stand striking at this and that sin (which we are not so much tempted to), if we will indeed prove our repentance to be sound; but at that main sin which by nature, calling, or custom we are most prone unto. Repentance for this causes repentance for all the rest; as here the church saith, ‘Asshur shall not save us; we will not ride upon horses,’ &c.

Here is something interesting: The one who retains a sin may be in the place of putting a great show of work as a means of atonement or payment for the sin which is kept. 

It is a grand imposture, which carries many to hell; they will cherish themselves in some gross main sin, which pleases corrupt nature, and is advantageous to them; and by way of compensation with God, they will do many other things well, but leave a dead fly to mar all; whereas they should begin here especially. 

Thus much in general, which things premised, I come to the forenamed particulars. 

Richard Sibbes, The Backsliding Sinner 3.2 (the two parts of repentance)

25 Friday Jun 2021

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An examination of the promises made in repentance. Sibbes will identify two: a leaving off, and a taking on. Although mentioned here, it is the pattern also found in Ephesians 4: The thief does not merely need to leave off stealing; he also must get a job and give. Owen explains mortification as abounding in the grace contrary to the sin. Thus, the remedy for greed is thankfulness. 

After this their solemn covenant and promise of yielding praise to God, that if he would forgive all their sins, and do good to them, then he should have the best they could do to him again: praise here is a promise of new obedience, which hath two branches,

1. A renunciation of the ill courses they took before.

‘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.’

2. Then there is a positive duty implied in these words, ‘For in thee the fatherless findeth mercy.’

I admit, I find Sibbes’ argument that positive duty is implied in the second clause difficult to follow. He is going to provide an explanation in the paragraph below. But the explanation actually supports a different proposition: The reason why I will not trust in Assyria is that such trust is ill-founded and unneeded. I can trust you. Even the weakest, the fatherless can find trust in you.

Whereof, the one springs from the other; ‘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.’ Whence comes all these? ‘For in thee the fatherless findeth mercy.’ Thou shalt be our rock, our trust, our confidence for ever. What will follow upon this? ‘Asshur shall not save us any longer; we will not ride upon horses,’ &c. For we have pitched and placed our confidence better; on him in whom ‘the fatherless findeth mercy.’

‘Asshur shall not save us.’ The confidence which this people had placed partly in Asshur, their friends and associates, and partly in their own strength at home, now promising repentance, they renounce all such confidence in Asshur, horses and idols. ‘Asshur shall not save us,’ &c.

He gives some consideration to the proposition that the people should not trust in Assyria. He begins by noting that the prophets note the running back and forth between Egypt and Assyria, hoping that one would save the from the other:

First, for this, ‘Asshur shall not save us,’ that is, the Assyrians, whom they had on the one side, and the Egyptians on the other: it being, as we see in the prophecies of Isaiah and Jeremiah, ordinary with God’s people, in any distress, to have recourse to the Assyrians, or Egyptians, as if God had not been sufficient to be their rock and their shield. We see how often the Lord complains of this manner of dealing. ‘Woe unto them that go down into Egypt for help, and stay on horses, and trust in chariots, because they are many,’ &c., Isa. 30:2, and 31:1. The prophets, and so this prophet, are very full of such complaints: it being one of the chief arguments he presseth, their falseness in this, that in any fear or peril, they ran to the shelter of other nations, especially these two, Egypt and Assyria, as you have it, ‘Ephraim feedeth on wind, and followeth after the east wind; he daily increaseth lies and desolation, and they do make a covenant with the Assyrians, and oil is carried into Egypt,’ Hosea 12:1, that is, balm, who had this privilege above all other nations, to abound in precious balms; which balm and oil they carried into Egypt, to win their favour against the Assyrians. Sometimes they relied on the one, and sometimes on the other, the story and causes whereof were too tedious to relate. 

He then draws a conclusion: We will continue to trust in the untrustworthy creature until a supernatural help comes to set out trust upon the trustworthy Creator:

Wherefore I come to the useful points arising hence. ‘Asshur shall not save us.’

1. That man, naturally, is prone to put confidence in the creature.

2. That the creature is insufficient and unable to yield us this prop to uphold our confidence.

3. That God’s people, when they are endowed with light supernatural to discern and be convinced hereof, are of that mind to say, ‘Asshur shall not save us.’

Having made theses observations, he goes onto explicate these propositions in three “doctrines”: Our repentance must include prayer and praise. (2) Our repentance must be directed to the sin to which we are “addicted.” (3) It is our nature to trust present creaturely things. But, these things cannot help us.