Richard Sibbes? unique Bible commentary discusses how various passages in scripture explain the human condition; the soul, the believer's relationship to the divine, and their battles with sin. For Sibbes, the Biblical lore explained much about the difficulties of living, the challenges each person must face, and endeavouring to reconcile the qualities of the soul with the eternal nature of the heavenly divine. Through devotion to God and spurning the influence and temptations of Satan, Christian believers can attain greater happiness and fulfillment, together with a capacity to cope with the difficulties inherent to life. Traversing the Bible and psalms, Sibbes reveals lessons on soul nurturing from a variety of sources; of particular interest is the book of Ecclesiastes, which is a frank explanation of the human condition. Sibbes is keen to demonstrate strategies which observant and moral people use to fend off sin and the misfortunes of succumbing to it.
Richard Sibbes was an English theologian. He is known as a Biblical exegete, and as a representative, with William Perkins and John Preston, of what has been called "main-line" Puritanism.
He attended St John's College, Cambridge from 1595. He was lecturer at Holy Trinity Church, Cambridge, 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 Puritanism. 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, London, from 1617, returning to Cambridge as Master of Catherine Hall in 1626, without giving up the London position.
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.
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