# “The mercy of an infinite God” by Richard Sibbes

- Link: https://tollelege.net/2012/01/31/the-mercy-of-an-infinite-god-by-richard-sibbes/
- Published: 2012-01-31T12:04:56-06:00
- Author: tollelege

“‘He will not quench the smoking wick or flax.’ It adds strength to faith to consider
that all expressions of love issue from nature in Christ, which is constant. God
knows that, as we are prone to sin, so, when conscience is thoroughly awakened, 
we are prone to despair for sin.

And therefore He would have us know that He setteth Himself in the covenant of grace
to triumph in Christ over the greatest evils and enemies we fear, and that His thoughts
are not as our thoughts are, and that He is God and not man, and that there are 
heights, and depths, and breadths of mercy in Him above all the depths of our sin
and misery, and that we should never be in such a forlorn condition, wherein there
should be ground of despair, considering our sins be the sins of men and His mercy
the mercy of an infinite God.

But though it be a truth clearer than the sunbeams, that a broken-hearted sinner
ought to embrace mercy so strongly enforced, yet there is no truth that the heart
shutteth itself more against than this, especially in sense of misery, when the 
soul is fittest for mercy, until the Holy Spirit sprinkleth the conscience with 
the blood of Christ, and sheddeth His love into the heart, so that the blood of 
Christ in the conscience may cry louder than the guilt of sin.

For only God’s Spirit can raise the conscience with comfort above guilt, because
He only is greater than the conscience. Men may speak comfort, but it is Christ’s
Spirit than can only comfort.”

–Richard Sibbes, “To the General Reader,”[ _The Bruised Reed and the Smoking Flax_](https://www.amazon.com/dp/0851513980?tag=toletaupanre-20),
in _[The Works of Richard Sibbes](https://www.amazon.com/dp/0851513980?tag=toletaupanre-20)_,
Ed. Alexander Grosart (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, Repr. 2001), 1:89.

More quotes from [Richard Sibbes](https://tollelege.net/category/richard-sibbes/)·
More on [Mercy](https://tollelege.net/category/mercy/)