Mike Reeves' second session was on the Puritan Richard Sibbes (1577-1635). He gave some brief biographical background, pointing out that Sibbes saw that big problem not just outward sins but matters of the heart (see The Tender Heart). He gave us some great quotations
“There is more grace in Christ, than there is sin in us!”
“When we are drawn therefore to duties … with foreign motives, for fear, or out of custom, with extrinsic motives, and not from a new nature, this is not from the Spirit. This performance is not from the true liberty of the Spirit. For the liberty of the Spirit is, when actions come off naturally without force of fear or hope, or any extrinsic motive. A child needs not extrinsic motives to please his father. When he knows he is the child of a loving father, it is natural.”
“Many say that an adamant cannot be melted with fire, but by blood. I cannot tell whether this be true or no; but I am sure nothing will melt the hard heart of man but the blood of Christ.”
“As when things are cold we bring them to the fire to heat and melt, so bring we our cold hearts to the fire of the love of Christ; consider we of our sins against Christ, and of Christ’s love towards us; dwell upon this meditation. Think what great love Christ hath shown unto us, and how little we have deserved, and this will make our hearts to melt, and be as pliable as wax before the sun … If thou wilt have this tender and melting heart, then … be always under the sunshine of the gospel.”
“The papists, after they have been at their superstitious devotion, are fittest for powder-plots and treasons, because their hearts are so much more hardened.”
“What will come of it if Christ be set in the highest place in our heart? If we crown him there, and make him 'King of kings and Lord of lords,' in a hearty submitting of all the affections of the soul to him? While the soul continues in that frame it cannot be drawn to sin, discomfort, and despair. The honours, pleasures, and profits that are got by base engagements to the humours of men, what are these to Christ? When the soul is rightly possessed of Christ and of his excellency, it disdains that anything should come in competition with him.”
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