Richard Sibbes
Encyclopedia
John Preston (clergyman)
John Preston D.D. was an English puritan minister of the church, and master of Emmanuel College, Cambridge.-Upbringing:John Preston was the son of Thomas Preston, a farmer, was born at Upper Heyford in the parish of Bugbrook, Northamptonshire, and was baptised at Bugbrook church on 27 October...
, of what has been called "main-line" Puritan
Puritan
The Puritans were a significant grouping of English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries. Puritanism in this sense was founded by some Marian exiles from the clergy shortly after the accession of Elizabeth I of England in 1558, as an activist movement within the Church of England...
ism.
Life
He was born in TostockTostock
Tostock is a small village around eight miles east of Bury St. Edmunds in the county of Suffolk. It is a very traditional Suffolk village, with a good example of a fourteenth century church....
, Suffolk
Suffolk
Suffolk is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in East Anglia, England. It has borders with Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south. The North Sea lies to the east...
, where his father was a wheelwright
Wheelwright
A wheelwright is a person who builds or repairs wheels. The word is the combination of "wheel" and the archaic word "wright", which comes from the Old English word "wryhta", meaning a worker or maker...
; other sources say Sudbury
Sudbury, Suffolk
Sudbury is a small, ancient market town in the county of Suffolk, England, on the River Stour, from Colchester and from London.-Early history:...
. He attended St John's College, Cambridge
St John's College, Cambridge
St John's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college's alumni include nine Nobel Prize winners, six Prime Ministers, three archbishops, at least two princes, and three Saints....
from 1595. He was lecturer at Holy Trinity Church, Cambridge
Holy Trinity Church, Cambridge
Holy Trinity Church is a church in Market Street, central Cambridge, England, on the corner with Sidney Street. Its current vicar is Rupert Charkham, and theologically, it stands within the open evangelical tradition of the Church of England...
, from 1610 or 1611 to 1615 or 1616. It is erroneously held by 18th and 19th century scholars that Sibbes was deprived of his various academic posts on account of his Puritan
Puritan
The Puritans were a significant grouping of English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries. Puritanism in this sense was founded by some Marian exiles from the clergy shortly after the accession of Elizabeth I of England in 1558, as an activist movement within the Church of England...
ism. In fact he was never deprived of any of his posts, due to his ingenuity of the system.
He was then preacher at Gray's Inn
Gray's Inn
The Honourable Society of Gray's Inn, commonly known as Gray's Inn, is one of the four Inns of Court in London. To be called to the Bar and practise as a barrister in England and Wales, an individual must belong to one of these Inns...
, London, from 1617, returning to Cambridge as Master of Catherine Hall
Catherine Hall
Catherine Hall is a feminist historian from Great Britain. Since 2009 she has been Professor of Modern British Social and Cultural History at University College London...
in 1626, without giving up the London position.
Also in 1626, the support group known as the Feoffees for Impropriations was set up, and Sibbes was a founder member (it built on an informal grouping dating back to 1613). It was closely linked to St Antholin, Budge Row
St Antholin, Budge Row
St Antholin, Budge Row, or St Antholin, Watling Street, was a former church in the City of London, demolished in 1874. Its successor church is still in existence as St Anthony and St Silas, Nunhead..-History:...
, for its seven years of existence: it was shut down in 1633. With others, he worked to fund and provide platforms for preachers. He was one of four ministers in the original feoffees, the other members being chosen as four lawyers and four laymen.
Works
He was the author of several devotional works expressing intense religious feeling — The Saint's Cordial (1629), The Bruised Reed and Smoking Flax (1631, exegesis of Isaiah 42:3), The Soules Conflict (1635), etc.A volume of sermons appeared in 1630, dedicated to Horace Vere, 1st Baron Vere of Tilbury and his wife Lady Mare. Most of the other works were first published by Thomas Goodwin
Thomas Goodwin
Thomas Goodwin , known as 'the Elder', was an English Puritan theologian and preacher, and an important leader of religious Independents. He served as chaplain to Oliver Cromwell, and was imposed by Parliament as President of Magdalen College, Oxford in 1650...
and Philip Nye
Philip Nye
Philip Nye was a leading English Independent theologian.-Life:He graduated with an M.A. from Magdalen Hall, Oxford in 1622. He spent the years 1633 to 1640 in exile, in Holland.....
, after Sibbes died. The content belied the mainly moderate and conforming attitudes for which Sibbes was known in his lifetime. Beames of Divine Light, A Description of Christ in Three Sermons and Bowels Opened appeared in 1639, as did The Returning Backslider, sermons on the Book of Hosea
Book of Hosea
The Book of Hosea is one of the books of the Hebrew Bible. It stands first in order among what are known as the twelve Minor Prophets.-Background and Content:...
.
A complete edition was published 1862-4 in Edinburgh, in seven volumes, by James Nichol, with a biographical memoir by Alexander Grosart.
Reprints
- Expositions of St. Paul (1977)
- Glorious Freedom: The Excellency of the Gospel Above the Law (2000)
Views
The clerical leaders of the Feoffees, Davenport, Gouge and Sibbes, all adhered to Calvinist covenant theologyCovenant Theology
Covenant theology is a conceptual overview and interpretive framework for understanding the overall flow of the Bible...
, as shaped by the English theologians Perkins, Preston, William Ames
William Ames
William Ames was an English Protestant divine, philosopher, and controversialist...
, and Thomas Taylor
Thomas Taylor (clergyman)
Thomas Taylor was an English clergyman.-Life:He was born in 1576 at Richmond, Yorkshire, where his father,was known as a friend to puritans and silenced ministers in the north. He distinguished himself at Cambridge, became fellow and reader in Hebrew at Christ's College, proceeded B.D. 1628, and...
. There was a tacit assumption of a state church
State church
State churches are organizational bodies within a Christian denomination which are given official status or operated by a state.State churches are not necessarily national churches in the ethnic sense of the term, but the two concepts may overlap in the case of a nation state where the state...
. Sibbes believed the Second Coming
Second Coming
In Christian doctrine, the Second Coming of Christ, the Second Advent, or the Parousia, is the anticipated return of Jesus Christ from Heaven, where he sits at the Right Hand of God, to Earth. This prophecy is found in the canonical gospels and in most Christian and Islamic eschatologies...
was necessary to complete the work that Christ had begun.
Efforts to define further the Puritanism of Sibbes - which is a term much debated - place him in various groups. Under pious "non-separatists", he is with Preston, Richard Baxter
Richard Baxter
Richard Baxter was an English Puritan church leader, poet, hymn-writer, theologian, and controversialist. Dean Stanley called him "the chief of English Protestant Schoolmen". After some false starts, he made his reputation by his ministry at Kidderminster, and at around the same time began a long...
, Robert Bolton
Robert Bolton
Robert Bolton was an English clergyman and academic, noted as a preacher.-Life:He was born on Whit Sunday in Blackburn, Lancashire, the sixth son of Adam Bolton of Backhouse. He attended what is now Queen Elizabeth's Grammar School, Blackburn, where his father was a founding governor, and was...
, and John Dod
John Dod
John Dod , known as “Decalogue Dod”, was a non-conforming English clergyman, taking his nickname for his emphasis on the Ten Commandments. He is known for his widely circulated writings...
. Under those who would conform to set forms of worship, he is with Dod, Nicholas Byfield
Nicholas Byfield
Nicholas Byfield was an English clergyman, a leading preacher of the reign of James I.-Life:He was a native of Warwickshire, son by his first wife of Richard Byfield, who became vicar of Stratford-on-Avon in January 1597...
, Richard Capel
Richard Capel
Richard Capel was an English nonconforming clergyman of Calvinist views, a member of the Westminster Assembly, and for a period of his life a practicing physician.-Life:...
, John Downame
John Downame
John Downame was an English clergyman and theologian in London, who came to prominence in the 1640s, when he worked closely with the Westminster Assembly. He is now remembered for his writings.-Life:...
, Arthur Hildersham
Arthur Hildersham
Arthur Hildersham was an English clergyman, a Puritan and nonconforming preacher.-Life:Arthur Hildersham was born at Stetchworth, and brought up as a Roman Catholic. He was educated in Saffron Walden and at Christ's College, Cambridge. Through the patronage of Henry Hastings, 3rd Earl of...
, and Richard Stock (another Feoffee). He is also a fully conforming Puritan, with Preston, Samuel Ward
Samuel Ward (scholar)
Samuel Ward was an English academic and a master at the University of Cambridge.-Life:He was born at Bishop Middleham, county Durham. He was a scholar of Christ's College, Cambridge, where in 1592 he was admitted B.A. In 1595 he was elected to a fellowship at Emmanuel, and in the following year...
, and Robert Hill
Robert Hill (clergyman)
Robert Hill was an English clergyman, a “conforming puritan” according to Anthony Milton.-Life:He was a native of Ashbourne, Derbyshire. He was educated at Christ's College, Cambridge, and graduated B.A. in 1584, M.A. in 1586. In 1588-9 he was admitted fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge, and...
. With Richard Bernard
Richard Bernard
Richard Bernard was an English Puritan clergyman and writer.-Life:Bernard was born in Epworth and received his education at Christ's College, Cambridge, where he matriculated in 1592, obtained his BA in 1595, and an MA in 1598. He was married in 1601 and had six children...
, he was a moderate Calvinist who promoted religious tolerance. With Perkins, Preston, Baxter and Henry Newcome
Henry Newcome
-Life:He was the fourth son of Stephen Newcome, rector of Caldicote, Huntingdonshire. He was born at Caldicote, and baptised on27 Nov. 1627. His mother was Rose, daughter of Henry Williamson, B. D. ,...
, he was a moderate and non-Presbyterian Puritan.
His perspective was European, or even wider, and he saw Catholicism
Catholicism
Catholicism is a broad term for the body of the Catholic faith, its theologies and doctrines, its liturgical, ethical, spiritual, and behavioral characteristics, as well as a religious people as a whole....
in terms of a repressive conspiracy. With Davenport, Gouge, Taylor, Thomas Gataker
Thomas Gataker
Thomas Gataker was an English clergyman and theologian.-Life:He was born in London and educated at St John's College, Cambridge. From 1601 to 1611 he held the appointment of preacher to the society of Lincoln's Inn, which he resigned on accepting the rectory of Rotherhithe...
, John Stoughton, and Josias Shute
Josias Shute
Josias Shute was an English churchman, for many years rector of St Mary Woolnoth in London, archdeacon of Colchester, and elected a member of the Westminster Assembly.-Life:...
, he helped raise money for Protestants of the Palatinate affected by the opening of the Thirty Year's War; and later for John Dury
John Dury
John Dury was a Scottish Calvinist minister and a significant intellectual of the English Civil War period. He made efforts to re-unite the Calvinist and Lutheran wings of Protestantism, hoping to succeed when he moved to Kassel in 1661, but he did not accomplish this...
's missions. Laud brought up Sibbes, Davenport, Gouge and Taylor in front of the Court of High Commission for this. The Fountain Opened (1638) advocated mission work.
Influence
His works were much read in New EnglandNew England
New England is a region in the northeastern corner of the United States consisting of the six states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut...
. Thomas Hooker
Thomas Hooker
Thomas Hooker was a prominent Puritan colonial leader, who founded the Colony of Connecticut after dissenting with Puritan leaders in Massachusetts...
, prominent there from 1633, was directly influenced by Sibbes, and his "espousal theology", using marriage as a religious metaphor, draws on The Bruised Reed and Bowels Opened.
The poet George Herbert
George Herbert
George Herbert was a Welsh born English poet, orator and Anglican priest.Being born into an artistic and wealthy family, he received a good education that led to his holding prominent positions at Cambridge University and Parliament. As a student at Trinity College, Cambridge, Herbert excelled in...
was a contemporary, and there are suggestions on parallels. Where Herbert speaks in The Church Militant about the westward movement of the propagation of the gospel, Christopher Hill
Christopher Hill (historian)
John Edward Christopher Hill , usually known simply as Christopher Hill, was an English Marxist historian and author of textbooks....
comments that this may have come from The Bruised Reed. Other examples have been proposed by Doerksen.
Sibbes was cited by the Methodist John Wesley
John Wesley
John Wesley was a Church of England cleric and Christian theologian. Wesley is largely credited, along with his brother Charles Wesley, as founding the Methodist movement which began when he took to open-air preaching in a similar manner to George Whitefield...
. The Baptist
Baptist
Baptists comprise a group of Christian denominations and churches that subscribe to a doctrine that baptism should be performed only for professing believers , and that it must be done by immersion...
preacher Charles Spurgeon
Charles Spurgeon
Charles Haddon Spurgeon was a large British Particular Baptist preacher who remains highly influential among Christians of different denominations, among whom he is still known as the "Prince of Preachers"...
studied his craft in Sibbes, Perkins and Thomas Manton
Thomas Manton
Thomas Manton was an English Puritan clergyman.-Life:Thomas Manton was baptized March 31, 1620 at Lydeard St Lawrence, Somerset, a remote southwestern portion of England. His grammar school education was possibly at Blundell's School, in Tiverton, Devon...
. The evangelical Martyn Lloyd-Jones
Martyn Lloyd-Jones
David Martyn Lloyd-Jones was a Welsh Protestant minister, preacher and medical doctor who was influential in the Reformed wing of the British evangelical movement in the 20th century. For almost 30 years, he was the minister of Westminster Chapel in London...
wrote in the highest terms of his own encounter with the work of Sibbes.
Further reading
- Ronald Norman Frost, Richard Sibbes' Theology of Grace and the Division of English Reformed Theology (1996)
- Mark Dever, Richard Sibbes: Puritanism and Calvinism in Late Elizabethan and Early Stuart England (2000).
External links
- Biography (Memoirs of the Puritans)
- Short biographical sketch with links to online versions of Sibbes's works
- Audio of Mark Dever delivering the 2002 Gheens Lecture at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary
- Text of The Bruised Reed
- Chapter-by-Chapter Commentary on The Bruised Reed
- 'Richard Sibbes and The Bruised Reed', J. William Black, Banner of Truth Magazine Issue 299-300, Aug-Sept 1988, pp. 49–58.
- Theopedia page
- "The Bruised Reed" by Richard Sibbes article by Ron Frost on www.theologynetwork.org
- A Description of Christ by Richard Sibbes, on www.theologynetwork.org