Sibbes, Richard – The Bruised Reed To describe the process by which God convinces and enlightens sinners to have a right conceit of themselves, Sibbes uses the metaphor of bruising. For if his readers are rightly to apprehend and appreciate Christ, they must first see themselves as God sees them and judge themselves as they, in effect, truly are before a holy and righteous God. This is the bruising. And the end result is that we are reduced from the mighty oaks of our pride’s imagination to the frailty of bruised reeds, which is our true standing before our Creator:
This bruised reed is a man that for the most part is in some misery … and … by misery is brought to see sin the cause of it; for whatsoever pretences sin maketh, yet bruising or breaking is the end of it; … sensible of sin and misery… [he sees] no help in himself -from puritansemons.com