Sunday, February 25, 2018

True or False with Richard Sibbes #2

TRUE OR FALSE. There is no condition but therein we may exercise some grace, and honour God in some measure.

TRUE OR FALSE. Men are not damned because they cannot do better, but because they will do no better; if there were no will, there would be no hell.

TRUE OR FALSE. Many out of a misconceit think that corruption is greatest when they feel it most, whereas indeed, the less we see it and lament it, the more it is. The more we see and grieve for pride, which is an immediate issue of our corrupted nature, the less it is, because we see it by a contrary grace; the more sight the more hatred, the more hatred of sin, the more love of grace, and the more love the more life, which the more lively it is, the more it is sensible of the contrary. Upon every discovery and conflict corruption loses some ground, and grace gains upon it.

TRUE OR FALSE. This imagination of ours is become the seat of vanity, and thereupon of vexation to us, because it apprehends a greater happiness in outward good things than there is, and a greater misery in outward evil things than indeed there is; and when experience shews us that there is not that good in those things which we imagine to be, but, contrarily, we find much evil in them which we never expected, hereupon the soul cannot but be troubled.

TRUE OR FALSE. It mars all in religion when we go about heavenly things with earthly affections, and seek not Christ in Christ, but the world.

TRUE OR FALSE. A good Christian begins his repentance where his sin begins, in his thoughts, which are the next issue of his heart.

TRUE OR FALSE. We cannot have too much care upon what we fix our thoughts.

TRUE OR FALSE. It is not so much the having of grace, as grace in exercise, that preserves the soul.

TRUE OR FALSE. And it is good to renew our resolutions again and again: for every new resolution brings the soul closer to God, and gets further in him, and brings fresh strength from him; which, if we neglect, our corruption joining with outward hindrances will carry us further and further backward, and this will double, yea multiply our trouble and grief to recover ourselves again.

TRUE OR FALSE. Trust or confidence is nothing else but the strength of hope. If the thing hoped for be deferred, then of necessity it enforces waiting, and waiting is nothing else but hope and trust lengthened.

TRUE OR FALSE. God only is the fit object of trust. He hath all the properties of that which should be trusted on. A man can be in no condition wherein God is at a loss and cannot help him. If comforts be wanting, he can create comforts, not only out of nothing, but out of discomforts.

TRUE OR FALSE. Only they that know God will trust in him; not that knowledge alone is sufficient, but because the sweetness of God’s love is let into the soul thereby, which draweth the whole soul to him. We are bidden to trust perfectly in God; therefore, seeing we have a God so full of perfection to trust in, we should labour to trust perfectly in him.

TRUE OR FALSE. He knows our souls best, and our souls know him best, in adversity.

TRUE OR FALSE. Sin makes us afraid of that which should be our greatest comfort; it puts a sting into every other evil. Upon the seizing of any evil, either of body, soul, or condition, the guilty soul is embittered and enraged; for from that which it feels, it fore-speaks to itself worse to come, it interprets all that befalls as the messengers of an angry God, sent in displeasure to take revenge upon it.

TRUE OR FALSE. When men will know us least, God will know us most. He knows our souls in adversity, and knows them so as to support and comfort them, and that from the spring-head of comfort, whereby the sweetest comforts are fetched.

© Becky Laney of Operation Actually Read Bible

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