I was reading The Bruised Reed by Richard Sibbes with the “Reading Classics Together” group over at Tim Challies’ blog but I fell behind! So even though it’s a little bit late (okay, a few weeks late), here are my thoughts about the book.
This really just an excellent book. I can see why it is being printed 380 years after it was originally published. I know that many have recommended reading books by the “old dead theologians,” and I’m beginning to see just why that is, after recently finishing Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress and now Sibbes’ The Bruised Reed.
The book offers solid encouragement, describes the Christian walk and growth (or lack thereof) in some of the easiest to understand imagery I have encountered. It was as though it put all of these thoughts that I had been gathering over the past couple of years and describing them in a way that I could not put to words. I kept finding myself saying, “Yes! That’s exactly what I thought!” or “That makes so much more sense now!” (With the exclamation points).
I have used his descriptions of the bruised reed and smoking flax and Christ’s use of judgment in his government which reigns over individuals repeatedly over the past two months in my lessons at church and in conversation. I have underlined more of this book than probably any other I own, and I intend to reread it.

The chapters are:
1.The Reed and the Bruising
2. Christ Will Not Break the Bruised Reed
3. The Smoking Flax
4. Christ Will Not Quench the Smoking Flax
5. The Spirit of Mercy Should Move Us
6. Marks of the Smoking Flax
7. Help for the Weak
8. Duties and Discouragements
9. Believe Christ, Not Satan
10. Quench Not the Spirit
11. Christ’s Judgment and Victory
12. Christ’s Wise Government
13. Grace Shall Reign
14. Means to Make Grace Victorious
15. Christ’s Public Triumph
16. Through Conflict to Victory

Sibbes describes the Christian as a “bruised reed” and the presence of the Spirit within us as the “smoking flax,” taken from Isa 42:1-3: “A bruised reed shall he not break, and the smoking flax shall he not quench: he shall bring forth judgment unto truth.”
He offers why we are bruised but not broken and why the smoking flax, though perhaps only a smoldering ember rather than a great flame, will never be quenched. He explains how Christ displays his knowledge leading to proper judgment by those he raises up to establish his government within them. He also describes hallmarks of a Christian as the bible describes, not as the modern American church describes. (Which I’ve written about in the past). He also illustrates the struggles that come with it and how to deal with those doubts and discouragements. Some of my favorite quotes about this:

“It takes much trouble to bring Christ into the heart, and to set up a tribunal for him to judge there. There is an army of lusts in mutiny against him. The utmost strength of most men’s endeavors and abilities is directed to keeping Christ from ruling in the soul.”

“…the desperate madness of men is laid open, that they would rather be under the guidance of their own lusts, and in consequence of Satan himself, to their endless destruction, than put their feet into Christ’s fetters and their necks under his yoke; though, indeed, Christ’s service is the only true liberty.”

“Since there is such comfort where there is little truth of grace, that it will be so victorious, let us often try what God has wrought in us, search our good as well as our ill, and be thankful to God for the least measure of grace, more than any outward thing. It will be of more use and comfort than all this world which passes away and comes to nothing… See a flame in a spark, a tree in a seed. See great things in little beginnings. Look not so much to the beginning as to the perfection, and so we shall be, in some degree, joyful in ourselves, and thankful to Christ.”

I also love his description of how Christ changes us and conforms us better to His image-how he does it, why we mess it up, and why it is important to know:

“…Christ brings about all that is good in the should through judgment, and that so sweetly that many, by a dangerous error, think that good which is in them and issues from them is from themselves, and not from the powerful work of grace. So it is in evil, where the devil so subtly leads us according to the stream of our own nature that men think that Satan had no hand in their sin; but here a mistake is with little peril, because we are evil of ourselves , and the devil only promotes ill he finds in us. … Now when he clearly reveals what is good in particular, we are attracted to it; and when he shows us convincingly what is evil we abhor it as freely as we embraced it before. From this we may know whether we work as we should or not.”

If you have the opportunity to read this, I highly recommend it. You can purchase it through Westminster Books  or Monergism Books.  Both sell it for under $5.
If you like you may read it online at monergism.com.