## The Bruised Reed

By

Richard Sibbes

## Publisher: The Banner of Truth Trust Source : http://www.monergism.com/bruisedreed.html

Updated language, notes, additional verses, corrections, and formatting © William H. Gross — www.onthewing.org 12/15/2007

There is no better introduction to the Puritans than the writings of Richard Sibbes, who is, in many ways, a typical Puritan. “Sibbes never wastes the student’s time,” wrote C. H. Spurgeon, “he scatters pearls and diamonds with both hands.”

The facts concerning Sibbes’ life can be briefly stated (there is a full account in Volume 1 of the Banner of Truth Trust edition of his Works). He was born at Tostock, Suffolk, in 1577 and went to school at Bury St Edmunds. His father intended Richard to follow his own trade as a wheelwright, but, with the help of friends, he went up to St John’s College, Cambridge, in 1595. Here he was converted under the powerful preaching of Paul Bayne, the successor of William Perkins in the pulpit of Great St Andrew’s Church. After earning his B.D. in 1610, he was appointed a lecturer at Holy Trinity Church, Cambridge. He was removed from this post five years later, however, because of his Puritan tendencies. Through the influence of powerful friends, he was chosen to be the preacher at Gray’s Inn, London, in 1617, and remained there till 1626. In that year he returned to Cambridge as Master of St Catherine’s Hall, and later returned to Holy Trinity, this time as its vicar. He was granted a Doctorate in Divinity in 1627, and was thereafter frequently referred to as “the heavenly Doctor Sibbes”, on account of both the matter and the manner of his preaching. He continued to exercise his ministry, at Gray’s Inn, London, as well as at Holy Trinity, Cambridge, while also remaining Master of St Catherine’s, until his death on 6 July 1635, at the age of 58. Of him Izaak Walton later wrote: “Of this blest man, let this just praise be given: heaven was in him, before he was in heaven.”

“The Lord took him away,” wrote a contemporary, “that his eyes might not see the great evils which were about to break out upon the land.” These great evils came to a head in the Civil War of the 1640s. Behind that event lay a movement away from the doctrines and practices of the Reformation on the part of a powerful faction in the Church of England, headed by William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury, and backed by royal favor. It was the Puritans who stood together to meet these inroads. To them moderation in maintaining the truth of God’s Word was but sinful lukewarmness. “A curse lies upon those”, said Sibbes, “that, when the truth suffers, have not a word to defend it.” For his boldness, Sibbes was reprimanded in 1627, and in 1632, along with eleven other Puritan ministers, he was sentenced to banishment. The sentence was never carried out, but Sibbes lived to see many of his dear friends, such as Samuel Ward, Thomas Goodwin, John Cotton, Thomas Hooker and others, imprisoned or forced into exile in Holland or New England. Concerning the final issue of this conflict Sibbes was in no doubt. Gardiner, in his History of the Puritan Revolution, writes, “Sibbes is distinguished by his triumphant confidence. . . [while] even Laud and Wentworth acknowledged to themselves that the chances were against them. Eliot in his prison, and Sibbes in his pulpit, are jubilant with exultation.”

Sibbes himself says:

A Christian is an impregnable person. He is a person that never can be conquered. Emmanuel became man to make the church and every Christian to be one with him. Christ’s nature is out of danger of all

that is hurtful. The sun shall not shine, the wind shall not blow, to the church’s hurt. For the church’s Head rules over all things and has all things in subjection. Therefore let all the enemies consult together, this king and that power, there is a counsel in heaven which will disturb and dash all their counsels. Emmanuel in heaven laughs them to scorn. And as Luther said, “Shall we weep and cry when God laughs?”

Since its first publication in 1630, The Bruised Reed has been remarkably fruitful as a source of spiritual help and comfort. Richard Baxter records: “A poor peddler came to the door. . . and my father bought from him Sibb’s Bruised Reed. . . It suited my state. . . and gave me a livelier apprehension of the mystery of redemption and how much I was beholden to Jesus Christ. . . God was pleased to resolve me to himself without any means but books.” Such testimonies could be multiplied. Speaking of the preacher’s need to suit his reading to the varying conditions he finds within, Dr. Martyn Lloyd Jones says in his Preaching and Preachers:

You will find, I think, in general that the Puritans are almost invariably helpful. . . I shall never cease to be grateful to one of them called Richard Sibbes who was balm to my soul at a period in my life when I was overworked and badly overtired, and therefore subject in an unusual manner to the onslaughts of the devil. In that state and condition. . . what you need is some gentle, tender treatment for your soul. I found at that time that Richard Sibbes, who was known in London in the early seventeenth century as “the heavenly Doctor Sibbes”, was an unfailing remedy. His books The Bruised Reed and The Soul’s Conflict quietened, soothed, comforted, encouraged and healed me.

The complete works of Sibbes were published in seven volumes in the Nichol Series between 1862 and 1864, and again by the Banner of Truth Trust, between 1973 and 1982. The present book is taken from the first volume in that series and is the first of Sibbes’ writings to be published separately in the present series. Some of the language and punctuation of the earlier edition have been modernized and headings have been introduced with the intention of making the work more accessible to present day readers.

Sibbes once said to Thomas Goodwin, “Young man, if ever you would do good, you must preach the gospel and the free grace of God in Christ Jesus.” The Bruised Reed shows us how Sibbes himself did this. May he, by this work, though dead, yet speak (Hebrews 11:4), both to readers who are already familiar with his writings and to those who have still to discover him.

January 1998

## 1. The Reed and the Bruising

Christ’s calling — How Christ pursues his calling –What it is to be bruised -The good effects of bruising

The prophet Isaiah, being lifted up and carried with the wing of a prophetic spirit, passes over all the time between him and the appearing of Jesus Christ in the flesh. Seeing with the eye of prophecy, and with the eye of faith, Christ as present, he presents him in the name of God to the spiritual eye of others in these words:

“Behold my servant, whom I uphold; my elect, in whom my soul delights; I have put my spirit upon him: he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles. He shall not cry, nor lift up, nor cause his voice to be heard in the street. A bruised reed, he shall not break, and the smoking flax, he shall not quench: he shall bring forth judgment unto truth” (Isaiah 42:1 3).

These words are alleged by Matthew to be now fulfilled in Christ (Matthew 12:18 20). In these words are propounded, first, the calling of Christ to his office; and secondly, the manner in which he carries out his office.

## Christ’s Calling

God calls him here his servant. Christ was God’s servant in the greatest piece of service that ever was, a chosen and a choice servant who did and suffered all by commission from the Father. In this we may see the sweet love of God toward us, in that he counts the work of our salvation by Christ his greatest service, and in that he will put his only beloved Son to that service. He might well prefix it with “Behold” to raise up our thoughts to the highest pitch of attention and admiration. In time of temptation, apprehensive consciences look so much to the present trouble they are in, that they need to be roused up to behold the one in whom they may find rest for their distressed souls. In temptations it is safest to behold nothing but Christ, the true brazen serpent, the true “Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world”, (John 1:29). This saving object has a special influence of comfort to the soul, especially if we look not only on Christ, but upon the Father’s authority and love in him. For in all that Christ did and suffered as Mediator, we must see God in him reconciling the world to himself (2 Corinthians 5:19).

What a support to our faith this is, that God the Father, the party offended by our sins, is so well pleased with the work of redemption! And what a comfort this is, that seeing God’s love rests on Christ as well pleased in him, we may conclude that he is as well-pleased with us if we are in Christ! For his love rests in a whole Christ, in the mystical Christ, as well as in the natural Christ, because he loves him and us with one love. Let us, therefore, embrace Christ, and in him embrace God’s love, and build our faith safely on a Savior who is furnished with so high a commission.

See here, for our comfort, a sweet agreement of all three persons: the Father gives a commission to Christ; the Spirit furnishes and sanctifies it, and Christ himself executes the office of a Mediator. Our redemption is founded upon the joint agreement of all three persons of the Trinity.

## How Christ Pursues His Calling

This is said here to be done modestly, without making a noise, or raising dust by any pompous coming, as princes are accustomed to doing. “His voice shall not be heard.” His voice indeed was heard, but what voice? “Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy-laden” (Matthew 11:28). He cried, but how? “Hear, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters” (Isaiah 55:1). And just as his coming was modest, so it was mild, which is set down in these words: “A bruised reed, he shall not break, and smoking flax, he shall not quench.”

We see, therefore, that the condition of those with whom he was to deal was that they were bruised reeds and smoking flax; not trees, but reeds; and not whole, but bruised reeds. The church is compared to weak things: to a dove among the fowls; to a vine among the plants; to sheep among the beasts; to a woman, which is the weaker vessel.

God’s children are bruised reeds before their conversion and oftentimes after. Before conversion all (except those who, being brought up in the church, God has delighted to show himself gracious to from their childhood) are bruised reeds, yet in different degrees, as God sees fit. And as there are differences with regard to temperament, gifts and manner of life, so there are in God’s intention to use men in the time to come; for usually he empties them of themselves, and makes them nothing, before he will use them in any great services.

## What It Is To Be Bruised

The bruised reed is a man who for the most part is in some misery, just as those were who came to Christ for help, and by misery he is brought to see sin as its cause, for, whatever pretences sin makes, they come to an end when we are bruised and broken. He is sensible of his sin and misery, even to his bruising; and, seeing no help in himself, he is carried with restless desire to have supplies from another, with some hope, which raises him a little out of himself toward Christ, though he dare not claim to have gained any present interest of mercy. This spark of hope being opposed by doubts and fears rising from his corruption makes him like smoking flax; so that both these together, a bruised reed and smoking flax, make up the state of a poor distressed man. This is such a person as our Savior Christ terms “poor in spirit” (Matthew 5:3), who sees his wants, and also sees himself indebted to divine justice. He has no means of supply from himself or the creature, and thereupon he mourns, and, upon some hope of mercy from the promise, and examples of those that have obtained mercy, he is stirred to hunger and thirst after it.

## The Good Effects Of Bruising

This bruising is required before conversion so that the Spirit may make way for himself into the heart by levelling all proud, high thoughts, and so that we may understand ourselves to be what indeed we are by nature. We love to wander from ourselves and to be strangers at home, till God bruises us by one cross or other, and then we “begin to think”, and come home to ourselves with the prodigal son (Luke 15:17). It is a very hard thing to bring a dull and evasive heart to cry with feeling for mercy. Our hearts, like criminals, never cry for the mercy of the judge until they are beaten from all evasions.

Again, this bruising makes us set a high price upon Christ. Then the gospel becomes the gospel indeed; then the fig leaves of morality will do us no good. And it makes us more thankful and, from our thankfulness, it makes us more fruitful in our lives; for what makes many so cold and barren except that bruising for their sin never endeared God’s grace to them?

Likewise this dealing of God establishes us more in his ways, having had knocks and bruises in our own ways. This is often the cause of relapses and apostasy, because men never smarted from sin at the start; they were not under the lash of the law long enough. Hence this inferior work of the Spirit in bringing down high thoughts (2 Corinthians 10:5) is necessary before our conversion. And, for the most part, the Holy Spirit, in order to further the work of conviction, joins with it some affliction which, when sanctified, has a healing and purging power.

After conversion we need bruising so that reeds may know themselves to be reeds, and not oaks. Even reeds need bruising, because of the remainder of pride in our nature, and to let us see that we live by mercy. Such bruising may help weaker Christians not to be too discouraged when they see stronger ones shaken and bruised. Thus Peter was bruised when he wept bitterly (Matthew 26:75). This reed, till he met with this bruise, had more wind in him than pith when he said,

“Though all forsake you, I will not” (Matthew 26:33). The people of God cannot be without these examples. The heroic deeds of those great worthies do not comfort the church so much as their falls and bruises do. Thus David was bruised until he came to a free confession, without guile of spirit (Psalms 32:3 5); indeed, his sorrows increased in his own feeling to the exquisite pain of breaking bones (Psalms 51:8). Thus Hezekiah complains that God had “broken his bones” like a lion (Isaiah 38:13). Thus the chosen vessel Paul needed the messenger of Satan to buffet him lest he should be lifted up above measure (2 Corinthians 12:7).

Hence we learn that we must not pass too harsh judgment upon ourselves or others when God exercises us with bruising upon bruising. There must be a conformity to our head, Christ, who “was bruised for us” (Isaiah 53:5) so that we may know how much we are bound to him.

Ungodly spirits, ignorant of God’s ways in bringing his children to heaven, censure broken- hearted Christians as miserable persons, whereas God is in fact doing a gracious, good work with them. It is no easy matter to bring a man from nature to grace, and from grace to glory, our hearts being so unyielding and intractable.

## 2. Christ Will Not Break the Bruised Reed

Christ’s dealings with the bruised reed — For ourselves — Who are the bruised reeds?

In pursuing his calling, Christ will not break the bruised reed, nor quench the smoking flax, in which more is meant than what is spoken, for not only will he not break or quench them, but he will cherish those with whom he deals in this way.

## Christ’s Dealings With The Bruised Reed

Physicians, though they put their patients to much pain, will not destroy their nature, but raise it up by degrees. Surgeons will lance and cut, but not dismember. A mother who has a sick and self-willed child will not therefore push it away. Will there be more mercy in the stream than there is in the spring from which it flows? Shall we think there is more mercy in ourselves than in God, who plants the affection of mercy in us?

But for further declaration of Christ’s mercy to all bruised reeds, consider the comfortable relationships he has taken upon himself of husband, shepherd, and brother, which he will discharge to the utmost. Shall others fulfill what he calls them to by his grace, and shall he not also fulfill what he has been called to, the one who, out of his love, has taken upon himself these relationships, so thoroughly founded upon his Father’s assignment, and his own voluntary undertaking? Consider the names he has borrowed from the mildest creatures, such as lamb and hen, to show his tender care. Consider his very name Jesus, a Savior, which was given to him by God himself. Consider that his office corresponds to his name, which is that he should “bind up the broken hearted” (Isaiah 61:1). At his baptism the Holy Ghost rested on him in the shape of a dove, to show that he should be dove-like, a gentle Mediator.

See the gracious way he executes his offices. As a prophet, he came with blessing in his mouth, “Blessed are the poor in spirit” (Matthew 5:3), and invited those to come to him whose hearts most suggested exceptions against themselves, “Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden” (Matthew 11:28). How his heart yearned when he saw the people “as sheep having no shepherd” (Matthew 9:36)! He never turned away anyone who came to him, though some went away by their own choice. He came to die as a priest for his enemies. In the days of his flesh he dictated a form of prayer to his disciples, and put petitions unto God into their mouths, and put his Spirit in their hearts to intercede. He shed tears for those who shed his blood; and now he makes intercession in heaven for weak Christians, standing between them and God’s anger. He is a meek king; he will admit mourners into his presence, a king of poor and afflicted persons. Just as he has beams of majesty, so he has a heart of mercy and compassion. He is the prince of peace

(Isaiah 9:6). Why was he tempted, except that he might “comfort those who are tempted” (Hebrews 2:18)? What mercy may we not expect from so gracious a Mediator (1 Timothy 2:5) who took our nature upon himself so that he might be gracious? He is a physician who is good at healing all diseases, especially at binding up a broken heart. He died so that he might heal our souls with a plaster of his own blood, and save us by that death which we caused ourselves, by our own sins. And does he not have the same heart in heaven? “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” cried the Head in heaven, when the foot on earth was trodden on (Acts 9:4). His advancement has not made him forget his own flesh. Though it has freed him from passion, yet it has not freed him from compassion towards us. The lion of the tribe of Judah will only tear in pieces those who “will not have him rule over them” (Luke 19:14). He will not show his strength against those who prostrate themselves before him.

## For Ourselves

1. What should we learn from this, but to “come boldly to the throne of grace” (Hebrews 4:16) in all our grievances? Shall our sins discourage us when he appears there only for sinners? Are you bruised? Be of good comfort, he calls you. Do not conceal your wounds, open everything before him and do not take Satan’s counsel. Go to Christ, although trembling, as the poor woman who said, “If I may only touch his garment” (Matthew 9:21). We shall be healed and have a gracious answer. Go boldly to God in our flesh; he is flesh of our flesh, and bone of our bone for this reason: so that we might go boldly to him. Never fear to go to God, since we have such a Mediator with him; he is not only our friend but our brother and husband. Well might the angel proclaim from heaven, “Behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy” (Luke 2:10). Well might the apostle stir us up to “rejoice in the Lord always: and again I say, Rejoice” (Philippians 4:4). Paul was well-advised upon what grounds he did it. Peace and joy are two main fruits of Christ’s kingdom. Let the world be as it will, if we cannot rejoice in the world, yet we may rejoice in the Lord. His presence makes any condition comfortable. “Do not be afraid,” he says to his disciples when they were afraid, as if they had seen a ghost, “It is I” (Matthew 14:27), as if there were no cause of fear wherever he was present.

2. Let this support us when we feel ourselves bruised. Christ’s way is first to wound, and then to heal. No sound, whole soul will ever enter into heaven. When in temptation, think “Christ was tempted for me; my graces and comforts will be according to my trials. If Christ is so merciful as not to break me, then I will not break myself by despair, nor will I yield myself to the roaring lion, Satan, to break me in pieces.”

3. See the contrary disposition of Christ on the one hand and Satan and his instruments on the other. Satan sets upon us when we are weakest, as Simeon and Levi set upon the Shechemites, “when they were sore” (Genesis 34:25); but Christ will repair in us all the breaches which sin and Satan have made. He “binds up the broken hearted” (Isaiah 61:1). As a mother is tenderest to the most diseased and weakest child, so does Christ most mercifully incline to the weakest. Likewise he puts an instinct into the weakest things to rely upon something stronger than themselves for support. The vine rests itself upon the elm, and the weakest creatures often have the strongest shelters. The consciousness of the church’s weakness makes her willing to lean on her beloved, and to hide herself under his wing.

## Who are the bruised reeds?

But how shall we know whether we are such as may expect mercy?

Answer: (1) Bruised here does not mean those who are brought low only by crosses, but those who, by crosses, are brought to see their sin, which bruises most of all. When conscience is under the guilt of sin, then every judgment brings a report of God’s anger to the soul, and all lesser troubles run into this great trouble of conscience because of sin. Just as all corrupt fluids run to the diseased and bruised part of the body, and just as every creditor falls upon the debtor

when he has been arrested, so when conscience is awakened, all former sins and present crosses join together to make the bruise more painful. Now, he that is thus bruised will be content with nothing but mercy from the one who has bruised him. He has wounded, and he must heal (Hosea 6:1). The Lord who has bruised me deservedly for my sins must bind up my heart again. (2) Again, a man truly bruised judges sin to be the greatest evil, and the favor of God the greatest good. (3) He would rather hear of mercy than of a kingdom. (4) He has poor opinions of himself, and thinks that he is not worth the earth he treads on. (5) He is not critical towards others, as if at home, but is full of sympathy and compassion to those who are under God’s hand. (6) He thinks that those who walk in the comforts of God’s Spirit are the happiest men in the world. (7) He trembles at the Word of God (Isaiah 66:2), and honors the very feet of those blessed instruments that bring peace to him (Romans 10:15). (8) He is more taken up with the inward exercises of a broken heart than with formality, and yet is careful to use all sanctified means to convey comfort.

But how shall we come to this state of mind?

Answer: First, we must conceive of bruising either as a state into which God brings us, or as a duty to be performed by us. Both are meant here. We must join with God in bruising ourselves. When he humbles us, let us humble ourselves, and not stand out against him, for then he will redouble his strokes. Let us justify Christ in all his chastisements, knowing that all his dealing towards us is to cause us to return into our own hearts. His work in bruising tends to our work in bruising ourselves. Let us lament our own perversity, and say: “Lord, what a heart I have that needs all this, so that none of this could be spared!” We must lay siege to the hardness of our own hearts, and aggravate sin all we can. We must look on Christ who was bruised for us, look on him whom we have pierced with our sins. But all directions will not prevail, unless God by his Spirit convinces us deeply, setting our sins before us, and driving us to a standstill. Then we will cry out for mercy. Conviction will breed contrition, and this leads to humiliation. Therefore desire that God would bring a clear and a strong light into all the corners of our souls, and accompany it with a spirit of power to lay our hearts low.

A fixed measure of bruising of ourselves cannot be prescribed, but it must be enough (1) that we may prize Christ above all, and see that a Savior must be had; and (2) that we reform what is amiss, even though to the extent of cutting off our right hand, or pulling out our right eye. There is a dangerous disparaging of the work of humiliation; some do it as a pretence for their casual dealing with their own hearts, so that Christ will not break the bruised reed; but such men must know that every sudden terror and short grief is not what makes us bruised reeds. It is not a little “bowing down our heads like a bulrush” (Isaiah 58:5), but working our hearts to such a grief as will make sin more odious to us than punishment, until we offer a “holy violence” against it. Otherwise, favoring ourselves, we will make work for God to bruise us, and for sharp repentance afterwards. It is dangerous, I confess, in some cases, with some sensitive souls, to press this bruising too much and too long, because they may die under the wound and burden before they are raised up again. Therefore it is good in mixed assemblies to mingle comfort that every soul may have its due portion. But if we have this for a foundation truth, that there is more mercy in Christ than sin in us, there can be no danger in dealing with it thoroughly. It is better to go bruised to heaven than sound to hell. Therefore let us not release ourselves too soon, nor pull off the plaster before the cure is worked, but keep ourselves under this work till sin is the sourest, and Christ is the sweetest, of all things. And when God’s hand is upon us in any way, it is good to divert our sorrow for other things to the root of it all, which is sin. Let our grief run most in that channel, so that just as sin bred our grief, so grief may consume our sin.

But are we not bruised unless we grieve more for sin than we do for punishment?

Answer: Sometimes our grief from outward grievances may lie heavier upon the soul than grief from God’s displeasure because, in such cases, the grief works upon the whole man, both

outward and inward; it has nothing to support it, but a little spark of faith. This faith, by reason of the violent impression of the grievance, is suspended in its exercises. This is most felt in sudden distresses which come upon the soul as a torrent or land flood, and especially in bodily sicknesses which, by reason of the sympathy between the soul and the body, work upon the soul in such a way as to hinder not only the spiritual, but often the natural acts. Therefore, James wishes us to pray ourselves in our affliction, but in case of sickness to “send for the elders” (James 5:14). These elders may, as those in the Gospels did, offer up to God in their prayers the sick person who is unable to present his own case. God will respond to such a plea to be freed from the sharpness and bitterness of the grievance, as he did with David (Psa. 6). The Lord knows our frame; he remembers that we are but dust (Psalms 103:14), and that our strength is not the strength of steel.

This is a branch of his faithfulness to us as his creatures, for which he is called “a faithful Creator” (1Pet. 4:19). “God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above what you are able” (1 Corinthians 10:13). There were certain commandments which the Jews called the hedges of the law. So as to fence men off from cruelty, God commanded that they should not take the mother with the young, nor “boil a kid in his mother’s milk” (Exodus 23:19), nor “muzzle the mouth of the ox” (1 Corinthians 9:9). Does God take care of beasts, and not of his more noble creature? And therefore we ought to judge charitably of the complaints of God’s people which are wrung from them in such cases. Job was esteemed by God to be a patient man, notwithstanding those passionate complaints. Faith overborne for the present will gain ground again; and grief for sin, although it comes short of grief for misery in terms of violence, yet it goes beyond it in constancy, just as a running stream fed by a spring holds out, when a sudden swelling brook fails.

For the conclusion of this point, and our encouragement to a thorough work of bruising, and patience under God’s bruising of us, let all know that none are fitter for comfort than those that think themselves furthest off. Men, for the most part, are not lost enough in their own feeling for a Savior. A holy despair in ourselves is the ground of true hope. In God the fatherless find mercy (Hosea 14:3). If men were more fatherless, they would feel more God’s fatherly affection from heaven, for the God who dwells in the highest heavens dwells likewise in the lowest soul (Isaiah 57:15). Christ’s sheep are weak sheep, and lacking in something or other; he therefore applies himself to the needs of every sheep. He seeks what was lost, and brings again what was driven a way, and binds up what was broken, and strengthens the weak (Ezekiel 34:16). His tenderest care is over the weakest. The lambs he carries in his bosom (Isaiah 40:11). He says to Peter, “Feed my lambs” (John 21:15). He was most familiar and open to troubled souls. How careful he was that Peter and the rest of the apostles should not be too dejected after his resurrection! “Go your way, tell his disciples and Peter” (Mark 16:7). Christ knew that the guilt of their unkindness in leaving of him had dejected their spirits. How gently he endured the unbelief of Thomas, and stooped so far to his weakness, as to allow him to thrust his hand into his side.

## 3. The Smoking Flax

Grace is little at first — Grace is mingled with corruption

In pursuing his calling, Christ will not quench the smoking flax, or wick, but will blow on it till it flames. In smoking flax there is only a little light, and it is weak and unable to flame, and it is mixed a little with smoke. The observations from this are that, in God’s children, especially in their first conversion, there is only a little measure of grace, and that little bit is mixed with a lot of corruption, which like smoke, is offensive; but Christ will not quench this smoking flax.