The Bruised Reed and the Smoking Flax (1)

The bruised reed is a man who for the most part is in some misery, as those were who came to Christ for help, and by misery he is brought to see sin as the cause of it. He is sensible of sin and misery and seeing no help in himself, is carried with restless desire to get supply from another, with some hope, which raises him out of himself to Christ. This spark of hope being opposed by doubts and fears rising from corruption makes him as smoking flax; so that both these together, a bruised reed and smoking flax, make up the state of a poor distressed man.
This bruising is required before conversion so that the Spirit may make way for himself into the heart by levelling all proud, high thoughts, and that we may understand ourselves to be what indeed we are by nature. We love to wander from ourselves and to be strangers at home, until God bruises us by one cross or other, and then we 'begin to think' and come home to ourselves with the prodigal (Luke 15:17). It is a very hard thing to bring a dull and an evasive heart to cry with feeling for mercy. This bruising also makes us set a high price upon Christ. Then the gospel becomes the gospel; then the fig leaves of morality will do us no good. This dealing of God establishes us more in his ways, having had knocks and bruises in our own ways. Often the cause of relapses and apostasy is because men never smarted for sin at the first; they were not long enough under the lash of the law. This work of the Spirit in bringing down high thoughts (2 Cor. 10:5) is necessary before conversion. After conversion we need bruising so that reeds may know themselves to be reeds, and not oaks. Even reeds need bruising, by reason of the remainder of pride in our nature, and to let us see that we live by mercy.

Devotional Readings taken from Puritan Richard Sibbes 'Refreshment for the Soul.'
The Bruised Reed, pp. 3-5
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