Number of
books reviewed |
|
2 |
| Average Grade |
|
A- |
| Highest: A+ |
Lowest: B- |
|
 |
The
Tender Heart
Richard Sibbes // 65 pages | (2011)
Main Heading: Theology
Sub Headings: |
B- |
|
Sibbes takes up the condition of man’s heart, examining its
natural state and how it can only be made tender by a work of
God upon it. He writes with the passion and meticulous nature
typical of Puritans, yet it is hard to judge this book
completely as it is actually just the introduction to a longer
work (Josiah’s Reformation)
and while it can stand alone with some effectiveness, it suffers
for not being meant to.
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A tender heart is made tender
by Him that made it.
For no creature in the world can soften and turn the heart,
only God must alter and change it; for we are all by nature
earthly, dead, and hard. [18]
Nothing will melt the hard heart of man but the blood of Christ,
the passion of our blessed Savior. When a man considers of the
love that God has showed him in sending of His Son, and doing
such great things as He has done, in giving of Christ to satisfy
His justice, in setting us free from hell, Satan and death: the
consideration of this, with the persuasion that we have interest
in the same, melts the heart, and makes it become tender. And
this must needs be so, because that with the preaching of the
gospel unto broken-hearted sinners cast down, there always goes
the Spirit of God, which works an application of the gospel.
[22]
It is the nature of faith to set things absent as present before
us. [27]
When men will live in sins against conscience, He takes away His
Spirit, and gives up the heart from one degree of hardness to
another. For the heart at first being tender, will endure
nothing, but the least sin will trouble it. As water, when it
begins to freeze, will not endure anything, no not so much as
the weight of a pin upon it, but after a while will bear the
weight of a cart; even so at the beginning the heart being
tender, trembles at the least sin, and will not bear with any
one; but when it once gives way to sins against conscience, it
becomes so frozen that it can endure any sin, and so becomes
more and more hard. [29]
As when things are cold we bring them to the fire to heat and
melt, so we bring our cold
hearts to the fire of the love of Christ; we consider of our
sins against Christ, and of Christ’s love toward us; dwell upon
this meditation. 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. [57]
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The
Bruised Reed
Richard Sibbes // 128 pages | 1630
Main Heading: Theology
Sub Headings: Mercy |
A+ |
|
Christians are encouraged to remember the mercy shown to us by
Christ for salvation, and to understand that this same Christ
continues to extend mercy to us each day of our lives, even when
we stumble or fall. He will never leave us or forsake us. There
is a great deal of truth squeezed into this little book, and I
am quite honest when I say that it has instantly become one of
my all-time favorites.
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There is more mercy in Christ than sin in
us. [13]
All scandalous actions are only thoughts at
the first. Ill thoughts are as little thieves, which,
creeping in at the window, open the door to greater.
Thoughts are seeds of actions. [47]
Truth is truth, and error, error, and that
which is unlawful is unlawful, whether men think so or not.
[84]
Men of an ill-governed life have no true
judgment. No wicked man can be a wise man. [90]
The victory lies not with us, but with
Christ, who has taken on him both to conquer for us and to
conquer in us. [122]
TOP
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