After conversion we need bruising so that reeds may know themselves to be reeds, and not oaks…The heroic deeds of those great worthies do not comfort the church so much as their falls and bruises do.
pg. 5, Sibbes
Men, for the most part, are not lost enough in their own feeling for a Saviour. A holy despair in ourselves is the ground of true hope. In God the fatherless find mercy (Hos. 14:3); if men were more fatherless, they should feel more God’s fatherly affection from heaven, for the God who dwells in the highest heavens dwells likewise in the lowest soul (Isa. 57:15).
pg. 14, Sibbes