der to help us get ready for worship, here is the great Puritan pastor Richard Sibbes, from his "The Bruised Reed" book. . . .
"The sighs of a bruised heart carry in them a report, both of our affec-
tion to Christ, and of His care to us. The eyes of our souls cannot be towards Him unless He has cast a gracious look upon us first. The least love we have to Him is but a reflection of His love first shining upon us. As Christ did, in His example to us, whatever He charges us to do, so He suffered in His own Person whatever He calls us to suffer, so that He might the better learn to relieve and pity us in our suffer-
ings. In His desertion in the garden and on the cross He was content to be without that unspeakable solace which the presence of His Father gave, both to bear the wrath of the Lord for a time for us, and like-
wise to know the better how to comfort us in our greatest extremi-
ties.
"God sees fit that we should taste of that cup of which His Son drank so deep, that we might feel a little what sin is, and what His Son's love was. But our comfort is that Christ drank the dregs of the cup for us, and will comfort us, so that our spirits may not utterly fail under that little taste of His displeasure which we may feel. He became not only a an but a curse, a Man of Sorrows, for us. He was broken that we should not be broken; He was troubled, that we should not be des-
perately troubled; He became a curse, that we should not be accurs-
ed. Whatever may be wished for in an all sufficient Comforter is all to be found in Christ."
