In our worst condition we have cause to praise God.
— Richard Sibbes
Emotions
Measure not God’s love and favor 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
Humility
It is God’s free love that has cast us into these happy times of the Gospel, and it is further love that makes choice of some and leaves others. This should therefore teach us sound humility, considering that God must open the heart or else it will remain eternally shut.
— Richard Sibbes
Props of Inward Comforts
As men cherish young plants at first, and fence them about to keep them from hurt, but when they are grown, they remove them, and then leave them to the wind and weather, so God besets His children first with props of inward comforts, but afterwards exposes them to storms and winds, because they are better able to bear it. Therefore let no man think himself the better because he is free from troubles. It is because God sees him not fit to bear greater.
— Richard Sibbes
Answers to Prayer
When we shoot an arrow, we look to the fall of it; when we send a ship to sea, we look for the return of it; and when we sow seed, we look for a harvest; and so when we sow our prayers into God’s bosom, shall we not look for an answer?
— Richard Sibbes
