Josiah's Reformation: Cultivating and Maintaining a Tender Heart
In four sermons on 2 Chronicles 34:26-28, Richard Sibbes takes King Josiah's tender, humble, and mourning heart as a pattern for true reformation, arguing that genuine repentance must begin inwardly rather than in outward behavior alone. Sibbes warns against the hypocrisy of busy religious activity that masks an unchanged heart, and calls readers instead to the softening, humbling work of God's grace. It remains a searching, pastoral corrective for any age tempted to confuse reform of conduct with reform of the heart.
Based on Josiah's Reformation, four sermons on 2 Chronicles 34:26-28 (1629)
From the book
In Richard Sibbes's own words
“A tender heart is always a sensible heart. It hath life and therefore sense.”
“A melting and tender heart is sensible, yielding, and fit for any service both to God and man.”
“It is a supernatural disposition of a true child of God to have a tender, soft, and a melting heart.”
“A hammer will do no good to a stone. It may break it in pieces, but not draw it to any form.”
