This is a beautifully clear and understandable version that every lover of the Old King James will appreciate! Well made, and perfectly sized, this, along with the Modern King James, will hopefully replace the compromised versions so popular today. Thank you, Sovereign Grace Publishing, our entire church loves it!! Peter F. Hyatt, pastor, Covenant Congregational Church, Copiague, New York

The difficult thing about understanding the Bible is knowing where the ballance between the literal and the abstract lies. Being that it can only be found in the same place that any great book can be found, it can only be in the mind of the beholder. The NIV has completely bleached out the mind's ability to appreciate the truth within a mental framework and one would have you think that the Bible is purely a book of literal facts which it alone is able to itemize. Being that, it is more like a commitee interpretation of the King James Bible, and truely falls very short. The Bible is a perfect balance between the abstract and the literal. What is abstract to man is literal with God, What is literal to man is abstract with God. Being omnipotent, with God, the vice-versa is also both literal and abstract at the same time, as well as neither, all at the same time. The King James brings this out better, but since it is also an interpretation of: what somebody is saying that it says, it too falls short, and blocks the mind from doing what it does best. Figure things out for itself. This is what the literal translation does: it opens up the mind and lets the story in where the reader can see for himself, that nothing compares with the way the ancients had it written down. J.P. Green does it the best. John S. Leiren

The "Sweet Dropper," as the heavenly Doctor Sibbes has been called, will live up to his name in this finely written and meticulously researched book. Mark Dever himself may well deserve such a moniker, being one of the few scholars (this is his PhD. dissertation from Cambridge) who can speak as eloquently as he writes. Anyone who has had to crawl through the desert of arid scholastic tomes, or swim the oceans of pedantic language, will find Dever's work a delightful exception.

The book is divided into two parts.

Part one is biographical material. While the writing itself is lively enough, sadly, the subject matter is not. Alas Sibbes was no Bunyan. But Dever does the historical reader a favor by revealing a couple of overlooked facts, correcting repeated mistakes of former historians. Sibbes was neither the disenfranchised preacher of lore, who lived out the remainder of his life in obscurity, nor was he a rebel-rousing nonconformist, but rather a moderate Puritan, more the reformer rather than a revolutionary.

Part two explores the theology of Sibbes, appropriately distinguishing him as one of the last of the great English reformers. The author highlights several salient features of Sibbes as a Reformed theologian. Of special interest, Dever adroitly dispels the misconception that Sibbes was an irrational or even an a-rational mystic. The "Sweet Dropper" was nothing of the kind but rather an affectionate theologian, scrupulously concerned with the centrality of the heart and the proper role of the conscience, specifically an educated one.

This reader came away with three specific encouragements:
1.Sibbes believed that godly preaching was the salvation of the Church of England. So should it is for any church in any generation.
2.Sibbes was a reforming conformist. He was a hesitator and a questioner but not a dissenter. Rather than separate from the established church, he elected to remain, attempting to bring reform from within. For those pastors and church leaders who labor in non-Reformed churches or denominations, his example will be of encouragement. Although history may show that his endeavor was actually an idle venture, such warm-hearted commitment will loom as a grand and noble gesture in the light of today's rabid transience and hyper-individualism.
3.Many voices today are clamoring for a new Reformation. As great as the need may be, much is cool, calculating, and highly polemical. Sibbes was a doctor of the heart. His tender, warm-heartedness needs to be rediscovered. Sibbes was the England of his day, what Jonathan Edwards was to America, both sharing a mutual concern for true religious affections.

A fresh look at the life of Richard Sibbes may well rekindle a warm-hearted passion for the gospel, based upon the great doctrines of the Protestant Reformation. This truth on fire was the hallmark of English Puritanism. Mark Dever has done a great service in reminding his readers of this fact.

This is an awesome book! Sibbes examines suffering, sin, and the victory of Christ over it all! In his own words, "our comfort is that Christ lives and reigns, and stands on Mount Zion in defence of those who stand for him." This is the basic thesis of his book.