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Richard Sibbes, pg 38 friendships - Coggle Diagram

- - - - "The church of Christ is a common hospital, wherein all are in some measure sick of some spiritual disease or other; that we should all have ground of exercising mutually the spirit of wisdom and meekness." 61
        
        However, he had earlier made comments about there needing to be enough zeal in the church to separate from that which was contrary to the faith. This put him in an interesting position, because people started making the claim that just as the situation had warranted separation from Rome, now it was also the case for the church of England. However, he defended the church of England as being a true church by properly preaching the Word, administering the sacraments, and exercising church, prayer, discipline, and the fruit of many spiritual children.
        
        "There will be a miscellany and mixture in the visible church, as long as the world endures... So it is no better than soule-murder for a man to cast himselfe out of the church, either for reall or imaginall corruptions... so let me admonish you to returne your selfe from these extravagant courses, and submissively to render your selfe to the sacred communion of this truly Evangelicall Church of England." 63
  - - - "What is the gospel itself but a merciful moderation, in which Christ's obedience is esteemed ours, and our sins laid upon him, and wherein God of a judge becometh the father, pardoning our sins and accepting our obedience, though feeble and blemished." 61
        
        Towards the end of his life, Sibbes seemed to be more and more on alone on his island of moderation. Friends of Sibbes were breaking away from the church, and likewise, the church was booting many of those who he had faithfully served with for years.
        
        he was at times harassed at times by Laud, his antagonist
  - - - He and some other ministers wrote a letter for aid for ministers in the Holy Roman Empire during the rumblings of the 30 Years War. This action, which could be seen as speaking up in the place of a silent king, and it could possibly hurt the king's diplomatic freedom, got him into trouble with Laud.
        
        With growing restrictions from the head of the Church of England, lectures became popular as a way to preach to the people while trying to skirt restrictions. Laud would try to convince Charles to limit lectures as well.
        
        Feoffees for Impropriations: A group of 12 men from London made themselves trustees of a group that sought to raise ecclesiastical funds for laymen for ministry. Sibbes was involved in launching this scheme.
- - - - Thomas Ball wrote in his biography of John Preston that Sibbes had been stripped of his fellowship at St. Johns and his lectureships at Holy Trinity. This was written in 1650, and at the time was the only writing that made such a suggestion. No works on Sibbes in the seventeenth century make mention of these two deprivations.
- - - - Sibbes' references primarily concerning predestination are limited, but they are not unclear.
        
        In an introduction of a book he praised Augustine and Thomas Bradwardine's support of the doctrine. He used the denial of Jesus by Judas and Peter as an example of the doctrine.
        
        He upheld the doctrine of reprobation, but did so sparingly. While he upheld the sovereignty of God in this issue, he nonetheless placed the blame for one's damnation squarely at his or her own feet.
        
        Particular Redemption - "Christ died alone and singular in this respect; because in him dying all died that were his, whom the Father gave him to die for. They go in parallel, God's gift and Christ's death." 76
        
        Election: this was to be proved out by our sanctification. God's elect are not merely those who profess faith, but remain in Christ and move towards perfection by degrees.
        
        Dever says that election for Sibbes was not to be debated, but demonstrated, and not to increase pride, but gratitude. 78-79
        
        The likely reason his sermons are not filled more with this doctrine is because he believed the sermon were for lay edification and not for deep theological debate. His longest treatment of the issue is found in one of his books.
    - - Some argue that Sibbes contributed to shifting some Protestant theology from a monergistic viewpoint to one of synergism through his view on the covenant.
        
        Covenant was applied in two ways. First, in describing God's saving covenant, of which was monergistic. Second, was the obligations belonging to each party upon inclusion. It is getting at an obedience that is not a meritorious condition of the covenant, but an instrumental nature whereby God grants the instrument of faith which produces obedience and he provides the Spirit which spurs our faith into action.
        
        Perkins, a friend and contemporary, stated that the "covenant-God offered grace and demanded obedience, but he did not recompense obedience by offering grace."
    - - He exhorted his people to be converted while also acknowledging that conversion is fundamentally God's doing as he opens our eyes to behold his beauty and unstops our ears so that we might heed the call to life and truth.
        
        Sibbes communicated conversion to be an even greater miracle than creation. At creation "He had to do with simply nothing. But when God comes to make the heart believe, he finds opposition and rebellion. He finds man against himself. 89
        
        "God knoweth we have nothing of ourselves, therefore in the covenant of grace he requireth no more than he giveth, and giveth what he requireth, and accepteth what he giveth. 90
- - - - No funeral manuscript.
        
        What manuscripts are had of his, are not dated, so it's hard to get a historical perspective of his thought.
- - - - He studied at Katherine Hall in Cambridge, and one of the conditions of his fellowship forbade him from marrying.
        
        Most of his family stayed in Thurston, where Richard was raised, but he moved away for the purposes of study and later, ministry. However, he still was well connected with his family likely due to the fact that he never married.
        
        His time at Cambridge was the result of a devotion to study, though his parents had hoped he would become a wheelwright like his father.
        
        At an early age he was leaning Latin and Greek through studying Erasmus, Cicero, Virgil, and other such thinkers.
        
        His studies were rigorous as he went through schooling from 6am to 5pm during the week, and until 3pm on Satuday. (Pre-Cambridge)
        
        Important for understanding his position in years to come with religious controversy was the fact that he faced religious controversy during his time at Bury and Cambridge as he witnessed people removed from positions of authority at those schools for religious convictions.
        
        Cambridge was not a place of unified thought. From the leadership, to instructors, to students there were those who were Calvinist, and those who were Arminians. You also had those who were conformists and non-conformist.
        
        He enrolled at St. Johns in 1595, and there he saw multiple people in leadership and positions of instruction leave due to religious controversy.
        
        1 more item...
  - - - The Act of Supremacy was passed when he was 1 year old. It re-established the independence of the church of England from Rome and also made the monarch head of the church.
        
        When he was 2, the Act of Uniformity was passed, requiring the worship of the church to conform to the book of Common Prayer.