Zach, I know you have spoken about mental health in other posts. I will add the Bruised Reed is a great book to read for mental health as well as sanctification. Also it's sister book '
The Soul's conflict' which nicely compliments 'The Bruised Reed'.
The publisher I linked to above says of 'the Soul's Conflict' "In taking Sibbes slowly the reader will find some of the most sweetly written paragraphs in puritan literature and theological preaching. It is a treatise on Psalm 42:5 and 11, “Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me? Hope thou in God; for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance…and my God.” Sibbes is an able master exegete who, many times, is thinking far faster than he is writing. His desire to see his thoughts explode upon the page occur frequently, but in a few spots, most angelically. This is not a work to read once. It is one to study, reread and then soak in."
I was first alerted to the spiritual benefits of reading Sibbes after I read a famous quote from Martyn Lloyd-Jones
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.
Emphasis added
www.zotero.org
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