Top 87 Sibbes Quotes
#1. holy despair in ourselves is the basis for true hope. In God the fatherless find mercy (Hos. 14:3). If men were more fatherless, they should feel more God's fatherly affection from heaven, for the God who dwells in the highest heavens dwells likewise in the lowest soul (Isa. 57:15).
Richard Sibbes
#2. 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
#3. 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
#4. What coward would not fight when he is sure of victory?
Richard Sibbes
#5. Christ came down from heaven, and emptied himself of majesty in tender love to souls; shall we not come down from our high conceits to do any poor soul good? Shall man be proud after God hath been humble?
Richard Sibbes
#6. It is evident that our conversion is sound when we loathe and hate sin from the heart.
Richard Sibbes
#7. 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
#8. 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
#9. A man may be a false prophet and yet speak the truth.
Richard Sibbes
#10. 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
#11. God has decreed it so, that where tenderness of heart is, there mercy shall follow ...
Richard Sibbes
#12. 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
#13. Ministers by their calling are friends of the Bride, and to bring Christ and his Spouse together, and therefore ought, upon all good occasions, to lay open all the excellencies of Christ,
Richard Sibbes
#14. To show that the creature cannot be so low but there is somewhat in God above the misery of the creature, his mercy shall triumph over the basest estate where he will show mercy. Therefore there is mercy above all mercy and love above all love, in that Christ was a servant.
Richard Sibbes
#15. A sharp reproof sometimes is a precious pearl, and a sweet balm. The wounds of secure sinners will not be healed with sweet words.
Richard Sibbes
#17. 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
#19. Glory follows afflictions, not as the day follows the night but as the spring follows the winter; for the winter prepares the earth for the spring, so do afflictions sanctified prepare the soul for glory.
Richard Sibbes
#20. What unthankfulness is it to forget our consolations, and to look upon matters of grievance. To think so much upon two or three crosses as to forget an hundred blessing.
Richard Sibbes
#21. Providence is the perpetuity and continuance of creation.
Richard Sibbes
#22. In the small seeds of plants lie hidden both bulk and branches, bud and fruit. In a few principles lie hidden all comfortable conclusions of holy truth. All these glorious fireworks of zeal and holiness in the saints had their beginning from a few sparks.
Richard Sibbes
#23. What the heart liketh best, the mind studieth most.
Richard Sibbes
#24. He establishes every purpose by counsel (Prov. 20:18). God, indeed, uses carnal men to very good service, but without a thorough altering and conviction of their judgment. He works by them, but not in them. Therefore they do neither approve the good they do nor hate the evil they abstain from.
Richard Sibbes
#26. 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
#27. That which is begun in self-confidence will end in shame.
Richard Sibbes
#28. 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
#29. We cannot say this or that trouble will not befall, yet we may, by the help of the Spirit, say, Nothing that does befall will make me do that which is unworthy of a Christian.
Richard Sibbes
#30. Nothing is so certain as that which is certain after doubts. Shaking settles and roots.
Richard Sibbes
#31. Discouragements, then, must come from ourselves and Satan, who laboureth to fasten on us a loathing of duty.
Richard Sibbes
#32. It is better to go bruised to heaven than sound to hell.
Richard Sibbes
#33. Better to be in trouble with Christ, than in peace without him.
Richard Sibbes
#34. It is Christ's manner to trouble our souls first, and then to come with healing in his wings.
Richard Sibbes
#35. When a man is to travel into a far country ... one staff in his hand may comfortably support him, but a bundle of staves would be troublesome. Thus a competency of these outward things may happily help us in the way to heaven, whereas abundance may be hurtful.
Richard Sibbes
#36. It is a destructive addition to add anything to Christ
Richard Sibbes
#37. 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
#38. Every creature thinks itself best in its own element, that is the place it thrives in, and enjoys its happiness in; now Christ is the element of a Christian.
Richard Sibbes
#39. Christ does not choose you because you are good, but to make you good.
Richard Sibbes
#40. Beauty. We must know for our comfort that Christ was not anointed to this great work of Mediator for lesser sins only, but for the greatest,
Richard Sibbes
#41. Let weak Christians know that a spark from heaven, though kindled under green wood that sobs and smokes, yet it will consume all at last.
Richard Sibbes
#42. The whole conduct of a Christian is nothing else but knowledge reduced to will, affection and practice.
Richard Sibbes
#43. Possibilitas tua mensura tua'(What is possible to you is what you will be measured by).
Richard Sibbes
#44. 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
#45. It were a good strife amongst Christians, one to labour to give no offence, and the other to labour to take none. The best men are severe to themselves, tender over others.
Richard Sibbes
#47. Measure not God's love and favour by your own feeling. The sun shines as clearly in the darkest day as it does in the brightest. The difference is not in the sun, but in some clouds which hinder the manifestation of the light thereof.
Richard Sibbes
#48. Self-emptiness prepares us for spiritual fullness.
Richard Sibbes
#49. There is not a minute of time in all of our life but we must either be near to God or we will be undone.
Richard Sibbes
#50. What do the Scriptures speak but Christ's love and tender care over those that are humbled?
Richard Sibbes
#51. 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
#54. If our faith were but as firm as our state in Christ is secure and glorious, what manner of men should we be?
Richard Sibbes
#55. The love of a wife to her husband may begin from the supply of her necessities, but afterwards she may love him also for the sweetness of his person; so the soul first loves Christ for salvation but when she is brought to Him and finds what sweetness there is in Him then she loves Him for Himself.
Richard Sibbes
#56. Nothing in the world of so good use, as the least dram of grace.
Richard Sibbes
#57. Think what great love Christ has showed 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.
Richard Sibbes
#58. Satan gives Adam an apple, and takes away Paradise. Therefore in all temptations let us consider not what he offers, but what we shall lose.
Richard Sibbes
#59. The depths of our misery can never fall below the depths of mercy.
Richard Sibbes
#60. For where God intends to do any good, he first works in them a gracious disposition: after which he looks upon his own work as upon a lovely object, and so doth give them other blessings. God crowns grace with grace. By
Richard Sibbes
#61. A man knows no more in religion than he loves and embraceth with the affections of his soul.
Richard Sibbes
#62. Death is only a grim porter to let us into a stately palace.
Richard Sibbes
#63. Gospel repentance is not a little hanging down of the head. It's a working of the heart until your sin becomes more odious to you than any punishment for it.
Richard Sibbes
#64. 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
#65. We must neither bind where God looseth, nor loose where God bindeth, nor open where God shutteth, nor shut where God openeth; the right use of the keys is always successful.
Richard Sibbes
#66. The life of a Christian is wondrously ruled in this world, by the consideration and meditation of the life of another world.
Richard Sibbes
#67. When we grow careless of keeping our souls, then God recovers our taste of good things again by sharp crosses.
Richard Sibbes
#68. 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
#69. The soul is never quiet till it comes to God ... and that is the one thing the soul desireth.
Richard Sibbes
#70. 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
#71. Does God take care of beasts, and not of his more noble creature? And therefore we ought to judge charitably of the complaints of God's people which are wrung from them in such cases. Job had the esteem with God of a patient man, notwithstanding those passionate complaints.
Richard Sibbes
#72. Where Christ's Spirit is, it will bring men from their altitudes and excellencies, and make them to stoop to serve the church, and account it an honour to be an instrument to do good.
Richard Sibbes
#73. Whatsoever God takes away from His children, He either replaces it with a much greater favor or else gives strength to bear it.
Richard Sibbes
#74. Poverty and affliction take away the fuel that feeds pride.
Richard Sibbes
#76. Those that look to be happy must first look to be holy.
Richard Sibbes
#77. A curse lies upon those that, when the truth suffers, have not a word to defend it.
Richard Sibbes
#78. And there is a proud kind of moderation likewise, when men will take upon them to censure both parties, as if they were wiser than both,
Richard Sibbes
#79. See a flame in a spark, a tree in a seed. See great things in little beginnings.
Richard Sibbes
#80. The more we see the grace of God in Christ, the spirit of fear is diminished and replaced by a spirit of love and boldness.
Richard Sibbes
#82. What a support to our faith is this, that God the Father, the party offended by our sins, is so well pleased with the work of redemption!
Richard Sibbes
#83. In all their jollity in this world, the wicked are but as a book fairly bound, which when it is opened is full of nothing but tragedies. So when the book of their consciences shall be once opened, there is nothing to be read but lamentations and woes.
Richard Sibbes
#84. The Christian will desire to see the beauty of God in his house, that his soul might be ravished in the excellency of the object, and that the highest powers of his soul, his understanding, will, and affections might be fully satisfied, that he might have full contentment.
Richard Sibbes
#85. Sin is not so sweet in the committing as it is heavy and bitter in the reckoning.
Richard Sibbes
#86. The way to cover our sin is to uncover it by confession.
Richard Sibbes
#87. This is a life of faith, for God will try the truth of our faith, so that the world may see that God has such servants as will depend upon His bare word.
Richard Sibbes
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