Tag Archives: Richard Sibbes

Richard Sibbes, Sermons on Canticles, Sermon 1.5 (The Spirit Conveys Christ)

01 Wednesday May 2019

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We come to a second section of the sermon:

II. Christ’s invitation by the church to come into his garden, with the end thereof, ‘to eat his pleasant fruits.’

The principle idea here is:

Wheresoever grace is truly begun and stirred up, there is still a further desire of Christ’s presence; and approaching daily more and more near to the soul, the church, thinks him never near enough to her until she be in heaven with him.

What then causes this desire? Here Sibbes gives his understanding of the presence of Christ wrought by the Spirit. In doing this, he follows Calvin for the proposition that the Spirit conveys the presence of Christ:

Even though it seems unbelievable that Christ’s flesh, separated from us by such great distance, penetrates to us, so that it becomes our food, let us remember how far the secret power of the Holy Spirit towers above all our senses, and how foolish it is to wish to measure his immeasurableness by our measure. What, then, our mind does not comprehend, let faith conceive: that the Spirit truly unites things separated in space

John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion & 2, ed. John T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles, vol. 1, The Library of Christian Classics (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), 1370.

He gives two interrelated explains for this process. He first says that grace begets a desire for grace:

First, because grace helps to see our need of Christ, and so helps us to prize him the more; which high esteem breeds a hungering, earnest desire after him, and a desire of further likeness and suitableness to him.

This is the work of the Spirit to cause of see our unworthiness, our need of Christ. But that sight is not a sight of despair. Rather, a sight of need for Christ compels to seek him.

How then is this wrought? By the work of the Spirit:

the church well knows that when Christ comes to the soul he comes not alone, but with his Spirit, and his Spirit with abundance of peace and comfort. 

What conclusion can we draw from Spirit compelling us to Christ for comfort? Only those who desire the presence of Christ are those who do not know Christ. In particular, Sibbes singles out “the presence of Christ in his ordinances”. If we do not think carefully, we may think Sibbes is being a sacramentalist and holding to some sort of transubstantiation; but that would incorrect. Calvin holds to a real presence of Christ in the ordinances. 

For unless a man means to call God a deceiver, he would never dare assert that an empty symbol is set forth by him. Therefore, if the Lord truly represents the participation in his body through the breaking of bread, there ought not to be the least doubt that he truly presents and shows his body. And the godly ought by all means to keep this rule: whenever they see symbols appointed by the Lord, to think and be persuaded that the truth of the thing signified is surely present there. For why should the Lord put in your hand the symbol of his body, except to assure you of a true participation in it? But if it is true that a visible sign is given us to seal the gift of a thing invisible, when we have received the symbol of the body, let us no less surely trust that the body itself is also given to us.

 John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion & 2, ed. John T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles, vol. 1, The Library of Christian Classics (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), 1371.

This presence of Christ causes us to desire Christ:

He was now in a sort present; but the church, after it is once blown upon, is not satisfied without a further presence. It is from the Spirit that we desire more of the Spirit, and from the presence of Christ that we desire a further presence and communion with him. 

Richard Sibbes Sermons on Canticles, Sermon 1.4

23 Tuesday Apr 2019

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He comes to the next image: the wind blowing upon the garden so that the spice may disburse:

But to what end must these winds blow upon the garden?

‘That the spices thereof may flow out.’

The end of this blowing is, you see, ‘that the spices thereof may flow out.’ Good things in us lie dead and bound up, unless the Spirit let them out. We ebb and flow, open and shut, as the Spirit blows upon us; without blowing, no flowing. There were gracious good things in the church, but they wanted blowing up and further spreading, whence we may observe, that,

On this he makes three observations:

Obs. 1. We need not only grace to put life into us at the first, but likewise grace to quicken and draw forth that grace that we have. This is the difference betwixt man’s blowing and the Spirit’s. Man, when he blows, if grace be not there before, spends all his labour upon a dead coal, which he cannot make take fire. But the Spirit first kindles a holy fire, and then increases the flame. 

This image of a flame of grace in the Christian’s soul is a conceit which Sibbes uses elsewhere in his writing. He writes of our love being “enflamed,” “Come what will, all is welcome, when we are inflamed with the love of Christ; and the more we suffer, the more we find his love.” Of the flame of faith, “Prayer is the messenger, the ambassador of faith, the flame of faith.”

True faith has a divine “spark”: 

Christ will not quench the smoking flax. First, because this spark is from heaven, it is his own, it* is kindled by his own spirit. And secondly, it tendeth to the glory of his powerful grace in his children, that he preserveth light in the midst of darkness,—a spark in the midst of the swelling waters of corruption.

There is an especial blessing in that little spark; ‘when wine is found in a cluster, one saith, Destroy it not; for there is a blessing in it,’ Isa. 65:8.

This image of true faith and love being a flame or spark is quite common Sibbes and seems to direct his thinking. His sensitivity to the imagery contrasts with the manner in which much contemporary preaching would function in its desire to be “precise”. However, that precision comes at a cost of truncating the text. Yes there is a danger in run-away “allegorization”, but there is also a danger in turning poetical texts in technical manuals.

Obs. 2. Whence we see further, that it is not enough to be good in ourselves, but our goodness must flow out; that is, grow more strong, useful to continue and stream forth for the good of others. We must labour to be, as was said of John, burning and shining Christians, John 5:35. For Christ is not like a box of ointment shut up and not opened, but like that box of ointment that Mary poured out, which perfumes all the whole house with the sweetness thereof. For the Spirit is herein like wind; it carries the sweet savour of grace to others. 

And finally, God’s goodness continues with us. I like Sibbes’ image here, “to trade”, to continue in business:

Obs. 3. Hence we see, also, that where once God begins, he goes on, and delights to add encouragement to encouragement, to maintain new setters up in religion, and doth not only give them a stock of grace at the beginning, but also helps them to trade. He is not only Alpha, but Omega, unto them, the beginning and the ending, Rev. 1:8. He doth not only plant graces, but also watereth and cherisheth them. Where the Spirit of Christ is, it is an encouraging Spirit; for not only it infuseth grace, but also stirs it up, that we may be ready prepared for every good work, otherwise we cannot do that which we are able to do. The Spirit must bring all into exercise, else the habits of grace will lie asleep. We need a present Spirit to do every good; not only the power to will, but the will itself; and not only the will, but the deed, is from the Spirit, which should stir us up to go to Christ, that he may stir up his own graces in us, that they may flow out.

This encouragement is necessary and useful, because in the midst of ministry, in the midst of merely trying to continue in this world as a follower of Christ, we think ourselves forgotten, we feel that we are on our in a land without water; but there in that seemingly forbidden place there is help. Let the wind blow upon the Garden.

Sibbes does not merely give doctrine information, but for use:

Use. Let us labour, then, in ourselves to be full of goodness, that so we may be fitted to do good to all. As God is good, and does good to all, so must we strive to be as like him as may be; in which case, for others’ sakes, we must pray that God would make the winds to blow out fully upon us, ‘that our spices may flow out’ for their good. For a Christian in his right temper thinks that he hath nothing good to purpose, but that which does good to others.

Richard Sibbes Sermons on Canticles, Sermon 1.3 (The Church is a Garden)

11 Thursday Apr 2019

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The previous post on this sermon may be found here. 

Next Sibbes asks

Quest. But, why is the church compared to a garden?

His general answer draws upon a principle which is at use in Jesus’ parables. When Jesus came to provide an example, an illustration of a proposition, he draws on what is available: a sower, a bird, grass, flowers, fishing. In Luke 12:24, Jesus says, “Consider the ravens”. In Matthew 6:26, they are “birds” to consider. 

And so Sibbes says that God here uses “garden” so that when we are in a garden, we can think about heavenly things. And when we are in a field, the same. When we think of a spouse or sister, a father or son, there are things to draw out our meditation. 

He then gives a series of 8 reasons why ‘garden’ in particular has been chosen:

First, “Because a garden is taken out of the common waste ground, to be appropriated to a more particular use. So the church of Christ is taken out of the wilderness of this waste world, to a particular use.” The true value of the church is that it has been chose by Christ.

Second, a garden depends upon what is planted — otherwise it will only be weeds (and having a garden I will attest to this truth). “So weeds and passions grow too rank naturally, but nothing grows in the church of itself, but as it is set by the hand of Christ, who is the author, dresser, and pruner of his garden.”

Third, a garden is curated: what is present has been chose for use and delight. “So there is no grace in the heart of a Christian, but it is useful, as occasion serves, both to God and man.”

Fourth, many different things will grow in a garden, a variety of flowers and spices. The Spirit of God raises up many different graces in the heart of a Christian. 

Fifth, a garden is a delightful place to be: and the church is a delight to Christ.

Sixth, “as in gardens there had wont to have fountains and streams which run through their gardens, (as paradise had four streams which ran through it); so the church is Christ’s paradise; and his Spirit is a spring in the midst of it, to refresh the souls of his upon all their faintings, and so the soul of a Christian becomes as a watered garden.” 

Seventh, “So also, ‘their fountains were sealed up,’ Cant. 4:12; so the joys of the church and particular Christians are, as it were, sealed, up. A stranger, it is said, ‘shall not meddle with this joy of the church,’ Prov. 14:10.” Sibbes has also provided sermons “A Fountain Sealed” and “The Fountain Opened”

Eighth, a garden takes attention “weeding and dressing.” The Church needs the constant of Christ. 

Knowing these things, we have some direction on how to live. If a garden is kept separated from a common field and is tended by the gardener, our lives should reflect this separation onto the gardener. We should you labor to produce those things which are most delightful to the gardener.

The third application is quite interesting in light of ethnic contention which seems to be part of the Christian church in America, “And then, let us learn hence, not to despise any nation or person, seeing God can take out of the waste wilderness whom he will, and make the desert an Eden.”

Fourth, we should be thankful that Christ has taken an interest in us, to tend us so.

Fifth, “For it is the greatest honour in this world, for God to dignify us with such a condition, as to make us fruitful.” And as we meditate upon the image of being fruitful, we recall the vast use of this image and the application of it throughout Scripture: from Eden to the vine John 15. The field burned in Hebrews 6 and the tree cut down in Matthew 3.

Finally, if the church is the garden of God, we can rest secure knowing that God will care for his garden. Since the grace which grows in us is of God, we can rest knowing that God will tend to his own. This will bring us comfort and hope. 

In the mean time, let us labour to keep our hearts as a garden, that nothing that defileth may enter. In which respects the church is compared to a garden, upon which Christ commands the north and south wind, all the means of grace, to blow.

 Richard Sibbes, The Complete Works of Richard Sibbes, ed. Alexander Balloch Grosart, vol. 2 (Edinburgh; London; Dublin: James Nichol; James Nisbet And Co.; W. Robertson, 1862), 10–12.

Richard Sibbes Sermons on Canticles, Sermon 1.2 (The Spirit & the wind)

10 Wednesday Apr 2019

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Sermon 1.2

Song of Solomon 4:16 (AV)

Awake, O north wind; and come, thou south; blow upon my garden, that the spices thereof may flow out. Let my beloved come into his garden, and eat his pleasant fruits.

From the verse quoted, Sibbes meditates upon it means for the wind to blow upon the garden. In both Hebrew and Greek, the same word can be used for “wind” and “spirit”. You can see interesting example of this in John 3:8

John 3:8 (NASB95) “The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit.” Where the word “wind” and the word “Spirit” are the same word. 

Thus, the mention of winds in Canticles 4:16 suggests such a reading, even though the poem uses specific words for “north wind” and “south wind”, rather than the word which can mean spirit or wind.

Why would God call the Spirit to blow into and through the Garden? Here is where Sibbes may seem different from what we would “normally” consider in an expository sermon. The exposition would be about the meaning of the phrase, which is quite clear. Sibbes asks a different question, “Why? Why is the wind called to blow?”

He begins with an observation about desire:

The church being sensible of some deadness of spirit, secretly desires some further quickening. Christ then answers those desires by commanding the winds to blow upon her. For ordinarily Christ first stirs up desires, and then answers the desires of his own Spirit by further increase, as here, ‘Awake, thou north wind; and come, thou south; and blow upon my garden,’ &c.

He first notes the basis for the image: Christ has control over all things, even the wind. Matt. 8:72. “The wind is nature’s fan. What winds are to the garden, that the Spirit of Christ, in the use of means, is to the soul. From comparison fetched from Christ’s commanding the winds, we may in general observe, that all creatures stand in obedience to Christ, as ready at a word, whensoever he speaks to them.”

He then makes an application (note that he does not wait until the end of the sermon to make some general application). An all-controlling Christ is a great comfort to us.

Next he notes the north and south wind blow, “winds contrary to one another.” This is because we need more correction and encouragement. This shows the wisdom of God in providing various remedies. For sometimes we are full and sluggish and thus need to be moved along. At other times, we are weak and need more strength. Since Christ is in control of both comfort and pruning, we need to acknowledge his presence in both difficult and pleasant places. “Therefore, we must acknowledge him in want or plenty of means. The Spirit of Christ in the use of means is a free agent, sometimes blows strongly, sometimes more mildly, sometimes not at all.”

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He then thinks of all the ways in which the Spirit is like the wind. This section is not strictly exegetical, but it is interesting. By pondering the nature of the wind, we gain an understanding of the nature of the Spirit: not that the Spirit is limited to the operation of the wind. Rather, Sibbes uses the metaphor to understand the original. I found this to be a useful item on the list:

5. The wind being subtle, searcheth into every corner and cranny. So the Spirit likewise is of a searching nature, and discerneth betwixt the joints and the marrow, betwixt the flesh and the Spirit, &c., searching those hidden corruptions, that nature could never have found out.

If the Spirit is the wind, what does it mean to say that the wind will blow upon the garden (the Church?):

And we need blowing: our spirits will be becalmed else, and stand at a stay; and Satan will be sure by himself, and such as are his bellows, to blow up the seeds of sinful lusts in us. For there are two spirits in the church, the one always blowing against the other. Therefore, the best had need to be stirred up; otherwise, with Moses, Exod. 17:12, their hands will be ready to fall down, and abate in their affection. Therefore we need blowing—

1. In regard of our natural inability.

2. In regard of our dulness and heaviness, cleaving to nature occasionally.

3. In regard of contrary winds from without.

Satan hath his bellows filled with his spirit, that hinders the work of grace all they can; so that we need not only Christ’s blowing, but also his stopping other contrary winds, that they blow not, Rev. 7:1.

4. In regard of the estate and condition of the new Covenant, wherein all beginning, growth, and ending, is from grace, and nothing but grace.

5. Because old grace, without a fresh supply, will not hold against new crosses and temptations.

Use. Therefore when Christ draws, let us run after him; when he blows, let us open unto him. It may be the last blast that ever we shall have from him. And let us set upon duties with this encouragement, that Christ will blow upon us, not only to prevent us, but also to maintain his own graces in us. But O! where is this stirring up of ourselves, and one another, upon these grounds!

 Richard Sibbes, The Complete Works of Richard Sibbes, ed. Alexander Balloch Grosart, vol. 2 (Edinburgh; London; Dublin: James Nichol; James Nisbet And Co.; W. Robertson, 1862), 7–10.

Richard Sibbes Sermons on Canticles, Sermon 1.1 (Why Poetry in the Bible)

09 Tuesday Apr 2019

Posted by in Richard Sibbes, Sanctification, Sanctifictation, Song of Solomon, Uncategorized

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Geitrams på vollen i Grythengen

(Photo by Øyvind Holmstad)

The second volume of Richard Sibbes collected works contains a series of 20 sermons on Canticles, better know as the Song of Solomon. The title of this work is called “Bowels Opened”, which is rather unfortunate to our ears. It means the depth of compassion which was believed to be in the gut. A Greek word for compassion or mercy was “σπλάγχνον”, which means the gut or heart (I have no idea what the word would be in modern Greek).

While these sermons are textual (they are based upon the text), they wouldn’t sound much like a modern expository sermon. Sibbes reads the text in an allegorical manner, but I’m not precisely sure that allegory really covers his understanding. 

He takes a text, draws a generally allegorical reading — and then he proceeds to consider the way in which a image or theme is developed in Scripture.

For instance the first sermon begins by developing this text:

‘Awake, O north wind; and come, thou south; blow upon my garden, that the spices thereof may flow out. Let my beloved come into his garden, and eat his pleasant fruits,’ Cant. 4:16.

He first draws out a general basis for the allegory, Christ and the Church. And then he asks questions about the “wind” and the Spirit. He meditates upon the garden and spices. He considers the pleasant fruits. The structure is different than what one would learn at a seminary which would still hold to the Gospel which Sibbes preached and which still held Scripture to be inerrant and sufficient, as Sibbes did.

What is quite remarkable in this methodology, is the profundity of Sibbes’ understanding and exegesis. Although he has a generally allegorical reading, he never wanders off into nonsense or speculation. 

And while I am not completely comfortable with an allegorical reading of the text (this being my own admitted prejudice here), I do believe that there is a deep structure between divine and human love — because human love in marriage between a man and woman was given as a basis upon which we could begin to understand divine love.  And while there is certainly no identity between the two loves, there is an analogy which makes the one comprehensible in terms of the other.

Another thing about Sibbes’ sermons must be noted: the sheer volume of insight and beauty he mines and reveals. Spurgeon’s comment on Sibbes is certainly true, “Sibbes never wastes the student’s time, he scatters pearls and diamonds with both hands.”

Sibbes begins his discussion of Canticles with the general observation that the book concerns the most profound love between Christ and the Church. He deals with the obvious topic of a prurient reading of the text (as was infamous done by a preacher of some note who has taken up shop in a new city and of whom I will nothing more to say).

He then comes to the purpose of the book of Canticles. Why was this discourse written in a such a beautiful manner? Why doesn’t the Scripture just tell us plainly that Christ loves the Church, rather than give us this drama and poetry? The purpose of the Spirit inspiring the text 

is by stooping low to us, to take advantage to raise us higher unto him, that by taking advantage of the sweetest passage of our life, marriage, and the most delightful affection, love, in the sweetest manner of expression, by a song, he might carry up the soul to things of a heavenly nature. We see in summer that one heat weakens another; and a great light being near a little one, draws away and obscures the flame of the other. So it is when the affections are taken up higher to their fit object; they die unto all earthly things, whilst that heavenly flame consumes and wastes all base affections and earthly desires. Amongst other ways of mortification, there be two remarkable—

    1. By embittering all earthly things unto us, whereby the affections are deaded* to them.
    2. By shewing more noble, excellent, and fit objects, that the soul, issuing more largely and strongly into them, may be diverted, and so by degrees die unto other things. The Holy Spirit hath chosen this way in this song, by elevating and raising our affections and love, to take it off from other things, that so it might run in its right channel. It is pity that a sweet stream should not rather run into a garden than into a puddle. What a shame is it that man, having in him such excellent affections as love, joy, delight, should cleave to dirty, base things, that are worse than himself, so becoming debased like them! Therefore the Spirit of God, out of mercy and pity to man, would raise up his affections, by taking comparison from earthly things, leading to higher matters, that only deserve love, joy, delight, and admiration. Let God’s stooping to us occasion our rising up unto him.
  • That is, ‘deadened.’—G.

 Richard Sibbes, The Complete Works of Richard Sibbes, ed. Alexander Balloch Grosart, vol. 2 (Edinburgh; London; Dublin: James Nichol; James Nisbet And Co.; W. Robertson, 1862), 5–6.

And so ends the introduction to this sermon.

Listening to Ourselves (a comparison of some recent psychology and a Puritan and a 20th Century Preacher)

14 Tuesday Aug 2018

Posted by in Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Psychology, Richard Sibbes, Uncategorized

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Suicide because we “listen to ourselves”:

the consistent finding of the role of the destructive inner voice in suicide. This voice drives suicidal tendencies, deceptively convincing people that it is better to end their lives than to find an alternate solution to their suffering

This author picks up on that idea and applies to other self-destructive behavior short of suicide:

For many, understanding there is an innate voice that wishes for death and destruction can help to separate, and thereby distance, one from these thoughts. Distance from the thoughts helps one disown them and take away their power. You are not your thoughts. Once these thoughts are recognized, they can be challenged, minimized, and disregarded. Healthier thoughts can be put in their place.

This observation is actually much older than these psychologists realize. First, Richard Sibbes in “The Soul’s Conflict With Itself”, writing of depression, explains:

Whence we may further observe, that we are prone to cast down ourselves, we are accessory to our own trouble, and weave the web of our own sorrow, and hamper ourselves in the cords of our own twining. God neither loves nor wills that we should be too much cast down. We see our Saviour Christ, how careful he was that his disciples should not be troubled, and therefore he labours to prevent that trouble which might arise by his suffering and departure from them, by a heavenly sermon; ‘Let not your hearts be troubled,’ &c., John 14:1. He was troubled himself that we should not be troubled. The ground, therefore, of our disquiet is chiefly from ourselves, though Satan will have a hand in it. We see many, like sullen birds in a cage, beat themselves to death. This casting down of ourselves is not from humility, but from pride; we must have our will, or God shall not have a good look from us, but as pettish and peevish children, we hang our heads in our bosom, because our wills are crossed.

And as for speaking to ourselves about such things, Martyn Lloyd-Jones, taking his cue from Sibbes, formulates the answer thus:

The main art in the manner of spiritual living is to know how to handle yourself. You have to take yourself in hand, you have to address yourself, you have to preach to yourself, question yourself. You must say to your soul, “Why art thou cast down?” — what business have you to be disquieted? You must turn on yourself, upbraid yourself, condemn yourself, exhort yourself, and say to yourself: “Hope thou in God” — instead of muttering in this depressed unhappy way. And you must go on to remind yourself of God, Who God is, and God is and what God has done, and what God has pledged Himself to do. Then having done that, end on this great note: defy yourself, and defy other people, and defy the devil and the whole world, and say with this man: “I shall yet praise Him for the help of His countenance, who is also the health of my countenance and my God.”

Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Spiritual Depression, “General Consideration”

Balaam’s Wish.3 (Richard Sibbes)

26 Thursday Jul 2018

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At this point, Sibbes takes a turn which is contrary to the thinking of most people in this world at this time. Everything thinks that he will gain heaven. I one-time spoke with members of a gang, whose fellow had been murdered in a shooting. They were quite certain he was in some sort of “heaven”, where he evil actions could be taken with full vent to his desires and without the fear of the police or rival gangs. The men and women with whom I spoke seemed quite certain that his end was not in doubt – but to make sure, a few had lit the candles bearing a supposed picture of Mary, which candles can be purchased at a dollar store.

But Sibbes makes plain, it matters quite a bit whether one is “godly” or “wicked” at death:

Obs.3. There is a wide, broad difference between the death of the godly and of the wicked.

Even Balaam knows this – but he seems unable to see the way there:

The godly are happy in their death, for here we see it is a matter desirable. This caitiff, this wretched man Balaam, Oh, saith he, ‘let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his.’ It being the object of his desire, it is therefore certainly precious, ‘the death of the righteous.’

However, unlike Balaam, the godly have a happiness which begins here and which fully comes to fruition after death:

And indeed so it is; holy and gracious men, they are happy in their life. While they live they are the sons of God, the heirs of heaven; they are set at liberty, all things are theirs; they have access to the throne of grace; all things work for their good; they are the care of angels, the temples of the Holy Ghost. Glorious things are spoken of these glorious creatures even while they live.

But they are more happy in their death, and most happy and blessed after death.

In their death they are happy in their disposition, and happy in condition.

That is, there is a subjective (disposition) and objective (condition) basis for the happiness of the godly. Sibbes does not present this as mere wish fulfillment or psychological word-games, but as an incontestable fact. I wonder the extent to which our apologetics suffers at this point with the question of “proof”. Very few people have much reason at all for those things which they assuredly believe. The default of a culture is not the product of consideration, but rather the laziness of the people who have other things taking their attention. Even though I have not taken a statistically significant survey, I would imagine that most people have more certain reasons for their expectations of a sports team or their enjoyment of a movie than they have believe in some god – or do not – or believe their morals are rights, and other are wrong, or any of the other things which one would think are “most important.”

Anyway, Sibbes first asserts, that faith in God itself creates a subjective disposition of happiness:

(1.) Happy in their disposition. What is the disposition of a holy and blessed man at his end? His disposition is by faith to give himself to God, by which faith he dies in obedience; he carries himself fruitfully and comfortably in his end. And ofttimes the nearer he is to happiness, the more he lays about him to be fruitful.

His last point is certainly true. I have often seen Christians who know they will die soon possessed of an ease and joy, coupled to a profound desire to work for God. It is not an urgent hope to be good enough at the end – that question of “good enough” seems to not enter their thinking. They know salvation is of grace, and think nothing of their works. Indeed, the harder they work at their end, the less their works hold “merit” for them.

What then are the blessings which come with death:

(2.) Besides his disposition, he is happy in condition;for death is a sweet close. God and he meet; grace and glory meet; he is in heaven, as it were, before his time. What is death to him? The end of all misery, of all sin of body and soul. It is the beginning of all true happiness in both. This I might shew at large, but I have spoken somewhat of this point out of another text. They are happy in their death, for ‘their death is precious in God’s sight.’ The angels are ready to do their attendance, to carry their souls to the place of happiness. They are happy in their death, because they are ‘in the Lord.’ When death severs soul and body, yet notwithstanding neither soul nor body are severed from Christ. ‘They die in the Lord;’ therefore still they are happy. Much might be said to this purpose, and to good purpose, but that the point is ordinary, and I hasten to press things that I think will a little more confirm it. They are blessed in death.

And even death is not the end of their hope and expectation:

(3.) And blessed after death especially;for then we know they are in heaven, waiting for the resurrection of the body. There is a blessed change of all; for after death we have a better place, better company, better employment; all is for the better.

Here he makes a kind of digression: he backs up and examines the matter from a slightly different vantage point. He explains the life of the godly as an ever increasing freedom; it is a movement toward greater liberty (and the wicked are moving toward the close world of the grave):

There are three degrees of life:

The life in the womb, this world, heaven.

The life in the womb is a kind of imprisonment; there the child lives for a time. The life in this world, it is a kind of enlargement; but, alas! it is as much inferior to the blessed and glorious life in heaven, as the life in the womb is narrower and straiter and more base than this life wherein we behold the blessed light and enjoy all the sweet comforts of this life. They are happy after death; then the image of God is perfect in the soul. All graces are perfected, all wants supplied, all corruptions wrought out, all enemies subdued, all promises accomplished, waiting their time for the resurrection of the body; and then body and soul shall sit as judges upon the wretches that have judged them on earth, and they shall be both together ‘for ever with the Lord.’ I might enlarge the point much. It is a comfortable meditation; and before I pass it, let us make some use of it.

What then does all this amount to:

If godly men be blessed and happy, not only before death, in the right and title they have to heaven, but in death, because then they are invested into possession of that that makes them every way happy,

What do we do with this promise of happiness? Sibbes makes two applications: a correction of our thinking, and an encouragement toward our action. First, are thinking:

 Use1. Therefore this may teach us who are truly wise. A wise man is he that hath a better end than another, and works to that end.

Having made the assertion, Sibbes then explains the basis of his meaning by drawing in brief the nature of the contrast. This is a good example of how to teach well. State the proposition to be known. Then explain the proposition at some length – here by dividing it into its two parts to better see the wisdom of the godly by contrasting it with the foolishness of the “worldling”. He will then repeat and expound the original point: tell them what you’re going to say, say it, tell them what yous said. First, the Christian:

A true Christian man, he hath a better end than any worldling. His end is to be safe in another world, and he works and carries his forces to that end. ‘Let my last end be like his,’ saith Balaam, insinuating that there was a better end in regard of condition and state than he had aimed at. A gracious man, his end is not to be happy here; his end is to enjoy everlasting communion with God in the heavens, and he frames all his courses in this world to accomplish that end, and he is never satisfied in the things that make to that end.

Here he raises the worldling; he does not over pain the worldling’s vice (this is a common filler of many preachers; it is easier to ramble on about sin, because it is easier to know and describe; it is also an error in almost all cases). Notice how he says the worldling “prowls”; this both makes the worldling more an animal than a man; second, it alludes to the Devil prowling about as a lion:

A worldling he hath no such end. He hath a natural desire to be saved,—as we shall see afterwards,—but a man may know that is not his end, for he works not to it. He is not satisfied in prowling for this world; he is not weary of getting wealth; he is not satisfied with pleasure. So that his end is the things of this life.

He then concludes and repeats:

Therefore let him be never so wise, he is but a fool, for he hath not the true end, nor works to it. Wicked men are very fools in the manner of their reasoning; for they will grant that there is a happy estate of godly men in death, and after death better. If it be so, why do they not work and frame their lives to it? Herein they are fools, because they grant one thing and not another which must needs follow. They do believe there is such a happiness to God’s children, and yet seek not after it.

Note that last bit: their foolishness exists because they will not seek that which they hope to obtain. Rather than seek the life which cannot end, they prowl about.

Next, he makes an exhortation to live in accordance with wisdom:

Use2. If there be such a blessed estate of God’s children in death and after death, I beseech you let us carry ourselves so as that we may be partakers of that happiness;let us labour to be righteous men, labour to be in Christ, to have the righteousness of Christ to be ours, to be out of ourselves, in Christ; in Christ in life, in Christ in death, and at the day of judgment in Christ, ‘not having our own righteousness,’ as the apostle saith, ‘but his righteousness,’ Philip 3:9, and then the righteousness of grace and of a good conscience will alway go with the other. For this makes a righteous man to be in Christ, and to have his righteousness, and to have his Spirit, and the beginnings of the new creature in us. Let us labour to be such as may live and die happily and blessedly, and be for ever happy. So much for that third point.

 

Balaam’s Wish.2 (Richard Sibbes)

21 Saturday Jul 2018

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Having faced the fact that we must die, Sibbes now turns to the fact that we must live:

Obs. 2. The estate of the soul continues after death.

This point is nearer to what Balaam desires. If he merely desired the death of the righteous, and if the righteous died in precisely the same way as the wicked, that would be nothing. Balaam did not desire the death, but the life which surpasses death:

For here he wisheth to die the death of the righteous, not for any excellency in death, but in regard of the subsistence and continuance of the soul after death.

This, of course, raises the question, is there life which consists after death? The near contemporary of Sibbes, Shakespeare has his hero Hamlet ask this question:

But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscovered country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,

Sibbes affirms that life does persist – and he makes two points, both Scripture and reason:

Scripture and reason and nature enforceth this, that the soul hath a subsistence of itself, distinct from the life it communicates to the body. There is a double life, a life proper to the soul, and the life it communicates to the body. Now when the life it communicates to the body is gone to dissolution, itself hath a life in heaven. And indeed it is in a manner the whole man; for Abraham was Abraham when he was dead, when his soul was in heaven, and his body in the grave. It is the whole man.

First, there is a principle in the soul which is segregable from the body:

Reas. 1. And it discovers, indeed, that it hath a distinct life and excellency in itself, by reason that it thwarts the desires of the body when it is in the body. Reason, if there be no grace in the soul, that crosseth the inclination of the body, grace much more.

Second, the soul seems to operate separate from and above (if you will) the operation of the body:

Reas. 2. And we see ofttimes, when the outward man is weak, as in sickness, &c., then the understanding, will, and affections, the inward man, is most sublime, and rapt unto heaven, and is most wise. Take a man that hath been besotted all his lifetime, that hath been drunk with the pleasures of a carnal life, that hath been a covetous wretch, an earth-worm, that enjoys not heaven, but lives as his wealth and lusts carry him in slavery, yet at the hour of death, when he considers that he hath scraped together, and considers the way that his lusts have led him, and that all must leave him, now he begins to be wise, and speaks more discreetly. He can speak of the vanity of these things, and how little good they can do. Indeed many, nay the most men, are not wise until that time. Therefore the soul of itself hath a distinct being, because, when the body is lowest, it is most refined and strong in its operations.

There is a principle of the soul which concerns itself with the future. If we were merely animals confined to a single life, then there would be no purpose in the soul:

Reas. 3. Likewise it appears by the projects that it hath of the time to come. The soul, especially of men that are of more elevated and refined spirits, it projects for the time to come what shall become of the church and commonwealth, what shall become of posterity and of reputation and credit in the world. Certainly, unless there were a subsistence of itself, it would never look so much beforehand, and lay the grounds of the prosperity of the church and commonwealth for the time to come. I will not stand further on it, but rather make some use of it.

If the soul continues to exist, then we must be careful of how it is used now:

Use. Let us know which is our best part, namely, the soul, that hath a being after death, that we do not employ it to base uses, for which it was not made nor given us.

First, our soul must be used for that which it was created:

Do we think that these souls of ours were made and given us to scrape wealth? to travel in our affections to base things worse than our souls? Are they not capable of supernatural and excellent things? Are they not capable of grace and glory, of communion with God, of the blessed stamp of the image of God? Let us use them, therefore, to the end that God gave them. And let us not deserve so ill of our souls as to betray them, to cast them in the dirt, to lay our crown in the dust. This is our excellency.

Living merely for the bestial operation of the body (which is a misuse of the body) is the life of too many men:

What can keep our bodies from being a deformed, loathsome thing, if the soul be taken away? Yet so we abase this excellent part! Ofttimes we abase it to serve the base lusts of the body, which is condemned to rottenness. What is the life of most men but a purveying and prowling for the body? The lusts of the body set the wit and affections on work to prowl for itself. What a base thing is this! Were our souls given us for this end? And especially considering this, that our souls are immortal, that they shall never die, but be forever.

If our soul lives forever, the proper object of its happiness must be something fitting to an eternal existence. If our soul is fitted to a happiness which is dependent upon things which will perish with our death, then our soul will outlive its happiness:

Let us not altogether spend this precious time that is given us to save our souls, and to get the image of God stamped upon them, I say let us not spend this precious time in things that will leave us when our souls shall live still; let us not carry the matter so, that our souls shall outlive our happiness. All worldlings and base creatures, they outlive their happiness. For where do they plant it? In the base things of this life. All their life long they are prowling for those things that they must leave when they die, whereas their souls shall not die, but everlastingly subsist.

Here is a basis for eternal sorrow, to have souls fitted for that only which has perished and which shall never be regained:

What a misery is this, that these souls of ours shall have a being when the things wherein we placed our happiness, and abused our souls to gain them, they shall have an end! The souls of such men that seek the things of this life shall have a being in eternal misery. Indeed, so it is; for these souls of ours, the same degree they have in excellency if they be used as they should, if we do not abase them, the same degree they shall have in baseness and misery if we abuse them, and make them slaves to earthly things.

This degeneracy is seen in the devils who fell from their height of glory:

For as the devils, the same degree they had of excellency when they were angels, the same degree they have in misery now they be devils. The more excellent the creature is when it keeps its excellency, the more vile it is when it degenerates. So these souls of ours that next to angels are the most excellent creatures of God, the more excellent it is if it get the image of God stamped upon it, and the new creature, and have the life of grace, the more cursed is the state of the soul if it subsist to everlasting misery.

This again is theme sounded in Shakespeare, Sonnet 94, which ends with the lines,

For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds;
Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds.

Sibbes ends with a closer application of the point: it is not only those who are utterly outside the church, but often those within the church who live as if their souls would not continue after their death:

It were happy if the souls of such creatures were mortal that labour for a happiness in this life. Oh that we would think of this! Most men in the bosom of the church, which is lamentable to think, they live as if they had no souls. They overturn the order that God hath set, and hath given us our bodies to serve our souls. They use all the strength and marrow of their wits, all the excellencies in their souls, for the base satisfaction of the lusts of the body. So much for that point.

In making this point, Sibbes echoes and applies a point from Paul:

1 Corinthians 9:24–27 (ESV)
24 Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. 25 Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. 26 So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. 27 But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.

Richard Sibbes’ Balaam’s Wish.1

20 Friday Jul 2018

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Richard Sibbes’ sermon “Balaam’s Wish” published in 1639 considers the statement of Balaam recorded in Numbers 23:10, Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his!

To consider this verse, Sibbes begins by making observations. Before we look at what he writes, just look at the text itself: It concerns life (by implication) and death. He speaks of the righteous dying (which is a common experience); and the death of the righteous has unique element – which Balaam desires. When we come to a text, the first thing we must do is simply observe: what is this like? What is unlike this? What the parts? What causes this, and what does it cause? Any number of such questions should applied to the text.

Sibbes offers four observations:

First, That the righteous men die, and have an end as well as others.
Secondly, That the state of the soul continues after death. It was in vain for him to desire ‘to die the death of the righteous,’ but in regard of the subsistence of the soul.
Thirdly, That the estate of righteous men in their end is a blessed estate, because here it was the desire of Balaam, ‘Oh that I might die the death of the righteous!’
Fourthly, There is an excellent estate of God’s people, and they desire that portion: ‘Oh let me die the death of the righteous.’ These are the four things I shall unfold, which discover the intendment of Balaam in these words.

Concerning the first observation, he begins by answering a possible objection: if Christ came ot free us from death, then why do we still die?

For Christ, in his first coming, came not to redeem our bodies from death, but our souls from damnation. His second coming shall be to redeem our bodies from corruption into a ‘glorious liberty.’ Therefore wise men die as well as fools.

Next he draws our the observation (from Ecclesiastes 2, that all men will die, wise and fool) and makes it concrete. Good preaching always makes concrete observations; it draws ideas down in the world in which we live:

Those whose eyes and hands have been lift up to God in prayer, and whose feet have carried them to the holy place, as well as those whose eyes are full of adultery, and whose hands are full of blood, they die all alike, in manner alike. Ofttimes it is the same in the eye of the world.

So far Sibbes makes the point of Ecclesiastes describing life under the sun. But he then points to what will come after (for death is not an end in itself; but rather a summons to judgment):

Death comes upon good and bad, but to the good for their greater glory; for the shell must be broken before they come to the pearl. Death it fits them for the blessed life after the body lying a while in the grave, the soul being in the hands of God. And death now it makes an end of sin, that brought in death; and it makes us conformable to the Son of God, our Elder Brother, that died for us.

Death is an end of the body’s life in this age, but it is also the end of sin. Sibbes then stops and urges meditation:

The point is pregnant, and full of gracious and serious meditations.

This is point too little considered: you are, I am, going to die. Consider this carefully – it will change how we consider this life. To this end, Sibbes offers two “uses”, that is applications of the text – and in particular, applications of this meditation:

The first use is that we make use of this life: this is the question of why do you live? There are two answers, what you will say and what you actually believe. What you actually believe is shown by what you do. Sibbes gives the answer which should be given:

Use 1. It should enforce this excellent duty, that considering we have no long continuance here, therefore, while we are here, to do that wherefore we come into the world. As a factor, that is sent into a place to provide such goods beforehand, let us consider that here we are sent to get into a state of salvation, to get out of the state of nature into the state of grace, to furnish our souls with grace, to fit us for our dissolution to come. Let us not forget the main end of our living here. Considering we cannot be here long, let us do the work that God hath put into our hands quickly and faithfully, with all our might.

Having shown us how we should live, Sibbes then cautions against abuse of this life. This gets to the second question above – how do we show what we believe about life, based upon the way we live. What should the knowledge of death do to us:

Use 2. And let it enforce moderation to all earthly things. ‘The time is short, therefore let those that use the world be as if they used it not,’ &c., 1 Cor. 7:29. Those friends that have been joined together will part. Therefore let us use our bodies and souls so, that we may present them both comfortably to God. Let us beg of God to make a right use of this fading condition. But I hasten.

Think of different Sibbes answers the question than is common in culture, which would exult following after whatever we desire. He councils, do you duty and do not be much taken with the pleasure of earthly things, since you are going to leave.

Richard Sibbes, The Art of Self-Humbling.3

17 Wednesday Jan 2018

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Sibbes then provides six directions on how one is to obtain humility. In a nutshell, humility will flow from knowing who God is and who we are. The first direction is a summary of the rest, “First, Get poor spirits.” He then defines what is meant by a “poor spirit”,

[1]to see the wants [that is, what we lack] in ourselves and in the creature;

[2]the emptiness of all earthly things without God’s favour;

[3]the insufficiency of ourselves and of the creature at the day of judgment;

for what the wise man saith of riches may be truly said of all other things under the sun: they avail not in the day of wrath, but righteousness delivereth from death, Prov. 11:4.

We need to consider what we are as a creature, we come from the dirt and we will return to the dirt and we are not able to do anything without the power of God. We need to consider how guilty we are before God, due to our sin. We need to see how liable we are to sin.

The second direction is to see ourselves before God,  “[L]et us bring ourselves into the presence of the great God: set ourselves in his presence, and consider of his attributes, his works of justice abroad in the world, and open* ourselves in particular.” Having thought of how lowly we are in ourselves, let us think of how great God is. I do not know the reference off hand, but in one place Spurgeon speaks of having a thought of God before creation — before anything when there was only God. As we try to consider the greatness of God in every way, we cannot persist in great thought of ourselves.

Third, we must be content to receive the words of others that exposure our sin. We “naturally” repel at anyone who points to our sin — Yes, but what about yours! We love flattery, but, “a true, wise man, will be content to hear of anything that may humble him before God.”

Fourth, remember you will die, you will come to dust and you will be brought to judgment, “look to the time to come, what we shall be ere long, earth and dust; and at the day of judgment we must be stripped of all. What should puff us up in this world? All our glory shall end in shame, all magnificency in confusion, all riches in poverty.” How strange that such creatures with such an end should ever be proud — yet we are idolaters, “We are both idols and idol-worshippers, when we think highly of ourselves, for we make ourselves idols. Now God hates idolatry; but pride is a sacrilege, therefore God hates pride.”

Fifth, if we would be humble, let us consider Christ:  For this he relies upon Phil. 2:

Philippians 2:5–11 (ESV)

5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

No Christian can truly hold this knowledge in contemplation and not become humble. “I say, is it possible that he which considers of this, should ever be willingly or wilfully proud? Do we hope to be saved by Christ, and will we not be like him?”

Sixth, reason with yourself — let us speak to ourselves. Consider our plight: other men can bring us low. What will we do when we stand before God? What will we do when we with our sins, with our body of dust are called to judgment? We cannot even keep our breath in our bodies, how will we stand? What can we do without Christ? How can we be proud when we have nothing in ourselves?

Further, There is an order, method, and agreement in these reflected actions, when we turn the edge of our own souls upon ourselves and examine ourselves; for the way that leads to rest is by the examination of ourselves. We must examine ourselves strictly, and then bring ourselves before God, judge and condemn ourselves; for humiliation is a kind of execution. Examination leads to all the rest. So, then, this is the order of our actions; there is examination of ourselves strictly before God, then indicting ourselves, after that comes judging of ourselves.