Show and Tell: George Herbert, Richard Sibbes, and Communings with God.

RELIGIOUS writing; HERBERT, George, 1593-1633; SIBBES, Richard; POPULARITY; CHRISTIAN life; SPIRITUALITY

This article presents information on the popularity of two English writers George Herbert, Richard Sibbes. A likely reason for their popularity is that both wrote effectively about the spiritual life of Christian believers, and sought to provide spiritual counsel, at a time when Laudian church administrators were preoccupied with the externals of ritual. In this essay the author explore further the affinity recently discovered in some of the works of Herbert and Sibbes, but also to call attention to a key difference, when they are writing of the personal relationship between the believer and God, Sibbes describes that relationship whereas Herbert exemplifies it in terms of the speaker's own experience. Both writers similarly affirm that God always takes the initiative yet that human love is significant, even valued and savored by God, in spite of its actual inadequacy.