"These were more fair-minded than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness, and searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so."

Acts 17:11

QUOTATIONS: WORDS OF WISDOM by Richard Sibbes

The Hail & Fire Books Library is a free online resource for Biblical Christian books, excerpts, and quotations; Protestant, Puritan, Reformed, and Reformation era sermons and theological works; Roman Catholic and Protestant Christian polemical and apologetical works; bible translations

and historical commentaries; histories; martyrologies; and works on eschatology (end times theology); in real text, audio, pdf, and scanned image formats. By using the Hail & Fire Library you agree to the following copyright notice.

back to author list

Richard Sibbes (1577-1635)

The Bruised Reed by Richard Sibbes (1577-1635) First published in 1630. Reprint: Banner of Truth, Puritan Paperback series  Buy the Book

Richard Sibbes, 1577-1635, was an English Puritan Preacher.

"God ... will be with us in the trial and at length bring us out, more refined"

"Suffering brings discouragements, because of our impatience. 'Alas!' We lament, 'I shall never get through such a trial.' But if God brings us into the trial he will be with us in the trial and at length bring us out, more refined. We shall lose nothing but dross (Zechariah 13:9). From our own strength we cannot bear the least trouble, but by the Spirit's assistance we can bear the greatest."

Richard Sibbes, "The Bruised Reed"

"God ... will be with us in the trial and at length bring us out, more refined"

"Those who are given to quarrelling with themselves always lack comfort, and through their infirmities they are prone to feed on such bitter things as will most nourish that disease which troubles them ... We must not judge of ourselves always according to present feeling ... We must beware of false reasoning, such as: because our fire does not blaze out as others, therefore we have no fire at all. By false conclusions we may come to sin against the commandment in bearing false witness against ourselves. The prodigal would not say he was no son, but that he was not worthy to be called a son (Luke 15:19). We must neither trust to false evidences, nor deny true; for so we should dishonour the work of God's Spirit in us, and lose the help of that evidence which would cherish our love to Christ, and arm us against Satan's discouragements. Some are as faulty in this way as if they had been hired by Satan, the accuser of brethren' (Rev. 12:10), to plead for him in accusing themselves!"

Richard Sibbes, "The Bruised Reed"