* This may fairly bo couBidered equal to a pound of our present money.
MEMOIR OF RICHAKD SIBBES, D.D. CXXUi
grace are the image of God himself, and where they are discerned by wis- dom's children they command the heart and are truly lovely and venerable, whereas carnal notions and unmortified affections (whereof this man of God was as free as any man I know living), they do render a man, whatever he be, if not hateful and contemptible, yet at least less lovely and honourable. But my love to this good man hath transported me beyond my pui'pose, which was to speak of some things less visible to others, especially con- cerning his first education. For when he came to the university and the city, there his life and actions were upon a public theatre, and his own words, without a trumpet, would praise him in the gates. As for his kind- ness to his kindred and to myself, I know none that took more notice of them than I, and therefore I could not hide them from the world upon this occasion without some kind of sacrilege.'
Thanks, chatty Zachary, for thy golden words 1 Thou wert a meet companion of Richard Sibbes ! Would that we might recover thy ' Hidden Treasure,' * for, of a truth, it must breathe thy very spirit ! All the notices of the author of The Bruised Reed and Soul's Conflict harmonise with the tribute of the vicar of Thurston. Whether it be Clark or Thomas Fuller, Prynne or Eachard, or his numerous ' prefacers,' he is invariably spoken of with the most touching kindliness.
CHAPTER XL
' THE BEGINNING OF THE END.'
Retrospect — Character — Humility — the English Leighton — his ' Cygnea-Cantio '
vel Concio.
We have now reached ' the beginning of the end.' A few months later, and Richard Sibbes lay dying. But at this point, I would observe, that up to the latest he continued faithfully to execute his office as a ' 'preacher of the word.' Left alone (for Preston was gone : and Cotton, and Davenport, and Hooker, and many others of his circle, were fugitives in New England), he had ever-increasing de- mands made upon him, and no ' door of entrance' was opened into which he did not enter, still
' Hoping through the darkest day.' f He continued to preach at Gray's Inn, in the good old way, the simple gospel that Paul preached, and that of all men John Cal- vin, following Augustine, in his estimate, had best interpreted.
* The following is the title, from Crowe's Catalogue of our English writers on Old and New Testament, &c., 1668 : — ' Hidden-Treasure, two sermons on Mat. xiii. 44. 4to. 1633,' Can any reader help to this?
t Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell, p. 34, 12mo. 1846.
CXXIV MEMOIR OF EICHAED SIBBES, D.D.
He resided with enlarged acceptability as Master of Catharine Hall, adding to its Fellows, and Students, and Revenues, and from 1632-3, he was, as already recorded, Vicar of Trinity, Cambridge. One incidental sentence informs us, that he was very fully, if not over, occupied, even before his presentation to the Vicarage of Trinity. It occurs at the close of the address ' To the Christian Reader' prefixed to ' The Bruised Reed :' ' What I shall be drawn to do in this kind,' he says, ' nnust be by degrees, as leisure in the midst of many interruptions tvill permit!
His was a self-sacrificing, self-consuming life. Quaintly does Mather put it of another. ' There,' he says, ' 'twas that, like a silk- worm, he spent his own bowels or spirits to procure the " garments of righteousness " for his hearers ; there 'twas ... he might chal- lenge the device and motto of the famous Dr Sibs, a wasting lamp, with this inscription, " Prcelucendo pereo," or, " My hght is my death." '*
Another casual reference indicates earlier personal sickness. He closes one of his ' Epistles ' prefixed to Ballf by saying, ' Mine own weakness of body taketh me off.'
His published writings afford the best evidence of what stamp his preaching Avas. The most cursory reader is struck with the Paul-like kindling of emotion, the Paul-like burning of utter- ance, as often as the name of Christ occurs ; and it is most interest- ing to mark the majestic procession of his words as he walks along some great avenue of thought, leading up to the cross, and from the cross, in farther vista, to the house of many mansions, and to the throne of sculptured light. Very beautifully does Clarke put this : —
His learning was mixed with humility, whereby he always esteemed lowly of himself, and was ready to undervalue his own labours, though others judged them to breathe spirit and life, to be strong of heaven, speaking with authority and power to men's consciences. His care in the course of his ministry was to lay a good ^foundation in the heads and hearts of his hearers. And though he were a wise master-builder, and that in one of the eminentest auditories for learning and piety that was in the land, as was said before, yet according to the grace which was given to him (which was indeed like that of Elisha in regard of the other prophets, 2 Ivings i. 9, the elder brother's privilege, a double portion), he icas still taking all occa- sions to jrn'ach of the fundamentals to them : and amongst the rest, of the incarnation of the Son of God, one of the chief fundamentals of our fixith, one of the chief of those wonders in the mercj'^-seat which the cherubim gaze at, which the angels desire to pry into, 1 Pet. i. 12. And preaching at several times, and by occasion of so many several texts of Scripture con- cerning this sulgect, there is scarce any one of those incomparable benefits which accrue to us thereby, nor any of those holy impressions which the meditation hereof ought to make on our hearts, which was not by him * Life of Urian Oakes. Magualia Am. as ante, b. iv. pp. 18G, 187. t -^nte p. cvi.