GOD'S PROPS---RICHARD SIBBES

(Let's look at another excellent thought from the Puritan, Richard Sibbes. A saint and a scholar).

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

UPS AND DOWNS OF FAITH--RICHARD SIBBES

RICHARD SIBBES--1577-1635

If believers decay in their first love, or in some other grace, yet another grace may grow and increase, such as humility, their brokenheartedness; they sometimes seem not to grow in the branches when they may grow at the root; upon a check grace breaks out more; as we say, after a hard winter there usually follows a glorious spring.

TO WHOM MUCH IS GIVEN, MUCH IS EXPECTED

Joseph Caryl

(Joseph Caryl, faithful Puritan preacher often had nuggets of wisdom, especially in his 12 volume commentary on Job).

The more outward blessings any one doth receive, the more he ought to serve God, and the more service God looks for at his hands Therefore we find still, that when God hath bestowed many outward blessings upon any, either persons or nations, he chargeth an acknowledgment upon them (Hosea 2:8) "She did not know that I gave her corn and wine and oil, and multiplied her silver and gold which she bestowed upon Baal." You having received this, you ought to have served me with it. You see how God upbraideth David, 2 Samuel 12:7-8 "I annointed thee King of Israel, and I delivered thee out of the hands of Saul, and I gave thy master's house and thy master's wives unto thy bosom, and if this been too little, I would more over have given thee such and such things How is it then that thou hast despised the Commandments of the Lord, to do evil in his sight?" As if he should say, the more I bestowed upon thee the more obligations thou shouldest feel thyself under to obey me faithfully.

(Pp. 110, Volume 1 of his massive commentary on Job)