Richard Sibbes Quotes

28 Sourced Quotes

Whatsoever is good for God's children they shall have it, for all is theirs to further them to heaven; therefore, if poverty be good, they shall have it; if disgrace be good, they shall have it; if crosses be good, they shall have them; if misery be good, they shall have it; for all is ours, to serve for our greatest good.

Richard Sibbes
God will have the body partake with the soul-as in matters of grief, so in matters of joy; the lanthorn shines in the light of the candle within.

Richard Sibbes
A curse lies upon those that, when the truth suffers, have not a word to defend it.

Richard Sibbes
A man knows no more in religion than he loves and embraceth with the affections of his soul.

Richard Sibbes
It is evident that our conversion is sound when we loathe and hate sin from the heart.

Richard Sibbes
When we go to God by prayer, the devil knows we go to fetch strength against him, and therefore he opposes us all he can.

Richard Sibbes
It would be a good contest amongst Christians, one to labor to give no offense, & the other labor to take none. The best of men are severe to themselves, tender over others.

Richard Sibbes
It is Christ's manner to trouble our souls first, and then to come with healing in his wings.

Richard Sibbes
Christ quickens none but the dead. Why do not the papists attain to this grace of justification? They never see themselves wholly dead, but join some life to the natural estate of man. Therefore Christ quickens them not.

Richard Sibbes
A Christian is the greatest freeman in the world; he is free from the wrath of God, free from hell and damnation, form the curse of the law; but then, though he be free in these respects, yet, in regard of love, he is the greatest servant. Love abaseth him to do all the good that he can; and the more the Spirit of Christ is in us, the more it will abase us to anything wherein we can be serviceable.

Richard Sibbes
There are no men more careful of the use of means than those that are surest of a good issue and conclusion, for the one stirs up diligence in the other. Assurance of the end stirs up diligence in the means. For the soul of a believing Christian knows that God has decreed both.

Richard Sibbes
It is good to divert our sorrow for other things to the root of all, which is sin. Let our grief run most in that channel, that as sin bred grief, so grief may consume sin.

Richard Sibbes
Faith, whereby especially Christ rules, sets the soul so high that it looks down on all other things as far below, as having represented to it, by the Spirit of Christ, riches, honor, beauty and pleasures of a higher nature.

Richard Sibbes
The whole life of a Christian should be nothing but praises and thanks to God; we should neither eat nor sleep, but eat to God and sleep to God and work to God and talk to God, do all to His glory and praise.

Richard Sibbes
The life of a Christian is wondrously ruled in this world, by the consideration and meditation of the life of another world.

Richard Sibbes
See here, for our comfort, a sweet agreement of all three persons: the Father giveth a commission to Christ; the Spirit furnisheth and sanctifieth to it; Christ himself executeth the office of a Mediator. Our redemption is founded upon the joint agreement of all three persons of the Trinity.

Richard Sibbes
What is the gospel itself but a merciful moderation, in which Christ's obedience is esteemed ours, and our sins laid upon him, wherein God, from being a judge, becomes our Father, pardoning our sins and accepting our obedience, though feeble and blemished? We are now brought to heaven under the covenant of grace by a way of love and mercy.

Richard Sibbes
We are only safe when we wisely make use of all good advantages that we have access to. By going out of God's ways we go out of His government, and so lose our good frame of mind, and find ourselves overspread quickly with a contrary disposition. When we draw near to Christ (James 4:8), in His ordinances, He draws near to us.

Richard Sibbes
In the godly, holy truths are conveyed by way of a taste; gracious men have a spiritual palate as well as a spiritual eye. Grace alters the spiritual taste.

Richard Sibbes
See a flame in a spark, a tree in a seed. See great things in little beginnings.

Richard Sibbes
As the strongest faith may be shaken, so the weakest, where truth is, is so far rooted that it will prevail. Weakness with watchfulness will stand, when strength with too much confidence fails. Weakness, with acknowledgement of it, is the fittest seat and subject for God to perfect His strength in; for consciousness of our infirmities drives us out of ourselves to Him in whom our strength lies.

Richard Sibbes
Christ chiefly manifests Himself in times of affliction, because then the soul unites itself most closely by faith to Christ. The soul, in time of prosperity, scatters its affections, and looses itself in the creature; but there is a uniting power in sanctified afflictions, by which a believer, (as in rain a hen collects her brood) gathers his best affections unto his Father and his God.

Richard Sibbes
God takes a safe course with His children, that they may not be condemned with the world, He permits the world to condemn them, that they may not love the world, the world hates them....

Richard Sibbes
No sin is so great but the satisfaction of Christ and His mercies are greater; it is beyond comparison. Fathers and mothers in tenderest affections are but beams and trains to lead us upwards to the infinite mercy of God in Christ.

Richard Sibbes
When we grow careless of keeping our souls, then God recovers our taste of good things again by sharp crosses.

Richard Sibbes
God's children improve all advantages to advance their grand end; they labour to grow better by blessings and crosses, and to make sanctified use of all things.

Richard Sibbes
If Christ has once possessed the affections, there is no dispossessing of him again. A fire in the heart overcomes all fires without.

Richard Sibbes
God knows we have nothing of ourselves, therefore in the covenant of grace he requires no more than he gives, but gives what he requires, and accepts what he gives.

Richard Sibbes