Category Archives: Thomas Manton

Thomas Manton on helps to obedience

15 Thursday Jun 2017

Posted by in Biblical Counseling, Obedience, Psalms, Sanctification, Sanctifictation, Theology of Biblical Counseling, Thomas Manton

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Thou has commanded us to keep thy precepts diligently. Ps. 119:4

In this fifth sermon on the 119th Psalm, Manton begins by providing a help to obedience. There would be no need to speak of obedience, if it were “natural” to use. What then keeps us from obedience? Manton begins here:

Doctrine 1: To gain the heart to full obedience, it is good to consider the authority of God in his word.

Manson makes three points: the first two concern our benefit in obedience; the third, the necessity of obedience.

Our profit:  Obedience to God’s commands is both reasonable and profitable: our good lies in in obedience:

First, it is reasonable to obey God. “If we were left at our liberty, we should take up the ways of God rather than any other: Rom. vii. 12, “The commandment is holy, just, and good.”

Second, it is to our benefit to obey God, both in this life — and more even more so at the judgment. Obedience, “will bring in a full reward for the future.”

God commands:

The next motive is that of the text, to urge the command of God. It is a course enjoined and imposed upon us by our sovereign lawgiver. It is not in our choice, as if it were an indifferent thing whether we will walk in the laws of God or not, but of absolute necessity, unless we renounce the authority of God.

Thomas Manton, The Complete Works of Thomas Manton, vol. 6 (London: James Nisbet & Co., 1872), 39.

He then supports this point with three considerations:

First, God is not our equal: He is our creator, therefore he has the right to command. He is our judge and therefore has the power to enforce his commands by punishment or reward.

Second, God has not suggested but commanded:

Unless you mean to renounce the sovereign majesty of God, and put him besides the throne, and break out into open rebellion against him, you must do what he hath commanded: 1 Tim. 1:9, ‘Charge them that be rich in the world,’ &c., not only advise but charge them. And Titus 2:15, ‘These things exhort, and rebuke with all authority.’ God will have the creatures know that he expects this duty and homage from them.

Thomas Manton, The Complete Works of Thomas Manton, vol. 6 (London: James Nisbet & Co., 1872), 40.

Third, God has given us precise directions that must be followed, “precepts”.

Christians, if we had the awe of God’s authority upon our hearts, what kind of persons would we be at all times, in all places, and in all company? what a check would this be to a proud thought, a light word, or a passionate speech?—what exactness would we study in our conversations, had we but serious thoughts of the sovereign majesty of God, and of his authority forbidding these things in the word!

Thomas Manton, The Complete Works of Thomas Manton, vol. 6 (London: James Nisbet & Co., 1872), 41.

At this point, Manton stops and considers the various hesitations, doubts, questions or weaknesses which could beset his hearers. He asks, Why should I consider the authority of God? This is a key point of the best preaching: it does not merely drop information before the hearer, but it helps the hearer process in the information. The preacher anticipates questions, uncovers motives, et cetera.

The very best preaching and the very best counseling are the same: helping another to understand, to digest, to live in accordance with God’s will.

1  We take God without the seriousness deserved: it shows in how we live:

Because then the heart would not be so loose, off and on in point of duty; when a thing is counted arbitrary (as generally we count so of strictness), the heart hangs off more from God. When we press men to pray in secret, to be full of good works, to meditate of God, to examine conscience, to redeem time, to be watchful, they think these be counsels of perfection, not rules of duty, enforced by the positive command of God; therefore are men so slight and careless in them. But now, when a man hath learned to urge a naughty heart with the authority of God, and charge them in the name of God, he lies more under the awe of duty. Hath God said I must search and try my ways, and shall I live in a constant neglect of it?

Thomas Manton, The Complete Works of Thomas Manton, vol. 6 (London: James Nisbet & Co., 1872), 41.

2  Obedience requires appropriate fear: disobedience comes from taking the commands of God too lightly:

The heart is never right until we be brought to fear a commandment more than any inconveniencies whatsoever. To a wicked man there seems to be nothing so light as a command, and therefore he breaks through against checks of conscience. But a man that hath the awe of God upon him, when mindful of God’s authority, he fears a command

Thomas Manton, The Complete Works of Thomas Manton, vol. 6 (London: James Nisbet & Co., 1872), 41.

3 If God has commanded the duty, then God will make obedience possible. We need not doubt our ability, because God stands behind the obedience. If someone thinks they will fail, they almost certainly will:

Many times we are doubtful of success, and so our hands are weakened thereby. We forbear duty, because we do not know what will come of it. Now, a sense of God’s authority and command doth fortify the heart against these discouragements

Thomas Manton, The Complete Works of Thomas Manton, vol. 6 (London: James Nisbet & Co., 1872), 41.

4  The purpose or profit behind some commands are not immediately obvious. Why should God command that I not eat from this tree? Why should God command such and such a morality, a behavior? Why should God command faith? We do not need to quibble at God’s reasons when we know that it is God who commands.

5  God does not need our bare behavior. When God commands us he is seeking the  voluntary submission of our will to his:

Obedience is never right but when it is done out of a conscience of God’s authority, intuitu voluntatis. The bare sight of God’s will should be reason enough to a gracious heart. It is the will of God; it is his command, So it is often urged: 1 Thes. 4:3, the apostle bids them follow holiness, ‘for this is the will of God, your sanctification.’ And servants should be faithful in their burdensome and hard labours; 1 Peter 2:15, ‘For so is the will of God, that with well-doing ye may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men.’ And 1 Thes. 5:18, ‘In everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.’ That is argument enough to a godly Christian, that God hath signified his will and good pleasure, though the duty were never so cross to his own desires and interests. They obey simply for the commandment sake, without any other reason and inducement.

Thomas Manton, The Complete Works of Thomas Manton, vol. 6 (London: James Nisbet & Co., 1872), 42.

Thomas Manton: How does the sin of a believer differ?

09 Friday Jun 2017

Posted by in Sanctification, Sanctifictation, Thomas Manton, Uncategorized

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Having explained that a “blessed man” is not perfectly holy, Manton next takes up the related question: If a believer is not perfect, then how does a believer differ? Or as he puts, “”Wherein doth grace now discover itself, where is the difference?”

He lists six ways in which true grace in a believer’s life causes the believer to differ:

First,

In that they cannot fall into those iniquities wherein there is an absolute contrariety to grace, as hatred of God, total apostasy, so they cannot sin the sin unto death, 1 John 5:16.

The believer may become entangled in this world, but he will not reject his Savior.

Second, “They do not sin with a whole heart.” He demonstrates this from Psalm 119:176,

176  I have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek your servant,

for I do not forget your commandments.

There is this contradiction in the psalmist: he does stray but does not forgo and forget the commandments of God. It is not a complete plunging into rebellion.

This is observed in the next two elements: frequency and duration:

Third, “It is not their course; not constant, easy, and frequent.”

Fourth, “When they fall they do not rest in sin.”

This is not perfection. But, the believer is bothered by sin: it is not comfortable: it is not a place to rest. The believer in sin cannot have the rest of others, because he is not at home in sin. “They may fall into the dirt, but they do not lie and wallow there like swine in the mire.”

Fifth, “Their falls are sanctified. When they have smarted under sin, they grow more watchful and more circumspect. A child of God may have the worse in prælio, in the battle, but not in bello, in the war.” It is an interesting thing that believers who have fallen into sin are oddly safest from sin, because sin when recognized brings humility and humility is the enemy of sin.

Sixth, the manner and course of life:

Grace discovers itself by the constant endeavours which they make against sin. What is the constant course a Christian takes? They groan under the relics of sin; it is their burden that they have such an evil nature, Rom. 7:24.

 

In all of these things we see the same principle: Grace produces a disgust with sin and a desire for God. This desire may waiver in the moment, but it will return in the main. If you shake a compass, the needle will flutter, but it will return to true north (as Manton says).

It thus paradoxically the one who is most troubled by sin, who sees the most sin in his life that most likely the child of God.

How Far May Sin Be In A Blessed Man, A Child of God? (Thomas Manton)

08 Thursday Jun 2017

Posted by in Biblical Counseling, Sin, Theology of Biblical Counseling, Thomas Manton, Uncategorized

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In sermon IV from his sermons on the 119th Psalm, Manton, “How far may sin be in a blessed man, a child of God?” The verse under consideration reads, “They do no iniquity: they walk in his ways.” Having discussed the blessing which comes from avoiding sin (for instance, “In them true happiness has begun.” — for all our sorrow comes from sin, thus avoidance of sin is the beginning of true happiness), he comes to this question.

This shows Manton to be a careful pastor and to have an accurate understanding of the human beings in his congregation. A poor pastor would lash his hearers. Manson has seriously exhorted them to holiness and has noted that sin has to rightful place in the heart of a believer. But he now he comes to this question, what of remaining sin.

First, all believers continue with a “corrupt nature, they have sin in the as well as others.” He then compares the remains of sin ivy on a wall. You cut down the branch and new vines grow up in its place: “Such an indwelling sin is in us, though we pray, strive, and cut off the excrescences, the buddings out of it here and there, yet till it be plucked asunder by death, it continueth with us.”

Second, we have “infirmities”; our service is not perfect — it cannot reach the measure which God requires. “There are unavoidable infirmities which are pardoned of course.”

Third,

They may be guilty of some sins which by watchfulness might be prevented, as vain thoughts, idle, passionate speeches, and many carnal actions. It is possible that these may be prevented by the ordinary assistances of grace, and if we will keep a strict guard over our own hearts. But in this case God’s children may be overtaken and overborne; overtaken by the suddenness, or overborne by the violence of temptation.

Fourth, “they may fall foul.”  — But this is no license to make a trade of sin.

Fifth: a peculiar sin. I will quote this at length, because it is very easy to be smug in this issue and to think that another’s peculiar weakness is especially evil — because it is not sin to me! We need gentleness in judging such things:

A child of God may have some particular evils, which may be called predominant sins (not with respect to grace, that is impossible, that a man should be renewed and have such sins that sin should carry the mastery over grace); but they may be said to have a predominancy in comparison of other sins; he may have some particular inclination to some evil above others. David had his iniquity, Ps. 18:23. Look, as the saints have particular graces; Abraham was eminent for faith, Timothy for sobriety, Moses for meekness, &c.; so they have their particular corruptions which are more suitable to their temper and course of life. Peter seems to be inclined to tergiversation, and to shrinking in a time of trouble. We find him often tripping in that kind; in the denial of his master; again, Gal. 2:12, it is said he dissembled and complied with the Jews, therefore Paul ‘withstood him to his face, for he was to be blamed.’ It is evident by experience there are particular corruptions to which the children of God are more inclinable: this appears by the great power and sway they bear in commanding other evils to be committed, by their falling into them out of inward propensity when outward temptations are few or weak, or none at all; and when resistance is made, yet they are more pestered and haunted with them than with other temptations, which is a constant matter of exercise and humiliation to them

Thomas Manton, The Complete Works of Thomas Manton, vol. 6 (London: James Nisbet & Co., 1872), 33.

 

 

 

 

Nature is out of joint

07 Wednesday Jun 2017

Posted by in Biblical Counseling, Psalms, Theology of Biblical Counseling, Thomas Manton, Uncategorized

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HAMLET

Rest, rest, perturbèd spirit!—So, gentlemen,
With all my love I do commend me to you,
And what so poor a man as Hamlet is
May do, to express his love and friending to you,
God willing, shall not lack. Let us go in together,
And still your fingers on your lips, I pray.
The time is out of joint. O cursèd spite,
That ever I was born to set it right!
Nay, come, let’s go together.
Act 1, Scene 5
Human beings suffer greatly because we are out of place in the world we have expounded, as Rilke write in the Dunio Elegies, Elegy 1  “and the resourceful creatures see clearly/ that we are not really at home/in the interpreted world.” Ecclesiastes elegantly tell us the world is vain and unsatisfying. The difficulty lies in our place, we cannot be content unless we put the purpose for which we exist:

Use 1. To press you to seek God. The motives are:—
1. It was the end of our creation. We do not live merely to live; but for this end were we sent into the world, to seek God. Nature is sensible of it in part by the dissatisfaction it finds in other things; and therefore the apostle describes the Gentiles to he groping and feeling about for God, Acts 17:27. God is the cause of all things, and nature cannot be satisfied without him. We were made for God, and can never enjoy satisfaction until we come to enjoy him; therefore the Psalmist saith, Ps. 14:2, We are ‘all gone aside, and altogether become filthy.’ Nature is out of joint; we are quite out of our way to true happiness. We are seeking that for which we were created, when we seek and inquire after God.

Thomas Manton, “Sermon III”, The Complete Works of Thomas Manton, vol. 6 (London: James Nisbet & Co., 1872), 23–24.

Is Eternal Life Temporary?

26 Sunday Jun 2016

Posted by in John, Stephen Charnock, Thomas Manton, Uncategorized

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(Got a question from one who heard that “eternal” means a very long time. Therefore, the “eternal life” offered by Jesus may only be a very long life which could end at some point in the future. This is the brief response I wrote)

God does not offer “eternal life” as a shadow or a trick or some temporary thing. God holds eternal life up as one thing so valuable that it is worth losing our life to gain this eternal life. It is better to be hated, abused and murdered and gain this eternal life, than it is to have every good thing which could be had in this world.

The fact that God offers it to us, should give us comfort. If God offered a life which might run out, then it would disturb our peace:

It is an endless and everlasting life. Such as are once possessed of it shall never be dispossessed again. If man be designed to enjoy a chief good, and this chief good must content all our desires, it must also be so firm and absolutely immutable as to secure us against all our fears; for a fear of losing would disquiet our minds, and so hinder our blessedness.

Thomas Manton, The Complete Works of Thomas Manton, vol. 11 (London: James Nisbet & Co., 1873), 366. God has not offered a very long life as our supreme good. God has offered us a life which is both never-ending, but also which belongs to a differ age, the age to come. Both of those things should give us comfort.

First, when we speak of “eternity” and God, we must out of our heads the idea that “eternity” is a very, very long time. This is hard for us to do, because we only have only experienced time in this way.  In Romans 8:20, Paul explains that the creation – the entire universe that we could know – “was subjected to futility”, it is vain, it is running down (Eccl. 1:2, Gen. 3:19).

This matches what we know about the universe from observing it. Physicists talk about “Time’s Arrow”: the universe is running in one direction, and it is running down (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow_of_time).  So when we talk about “time”, we think of a succession of moments and an increase in entropy.

Stephen Charnock in The Existence and Attributes of God writes

We must conceive of eternity contrary to the notion of time; as the nature of time consists in succession of parts, so the nature of eternity in an infinite immutable duration. Eternity and time differ as the sea and the rivers; the sea never changes place, and is always one water; but the rivers glide along, and are swallowed up in the sea; so it is time by eternity.

There is a great deal of discussion and speculation when it comes to what eternity actually means. Eternity – and infinity —  are very strange and very hard concepts. God is called the “everlasting” or “eternal” God (Rom. 16:26), he is the eternal king (1 Tim. 1:17). That is why in Revelation we read that God was, is and is to come (Rev. 1:8, 11:17).

When we start to think of concepts like “eternal life” (John 3:16), we have to realize that when it comes to divine things, we are not speaking about very long things.

It is true that sometimes the words translated “eternal” or “everlasting” sometimes have the idea of very long, or indefinite, or “age”, or “aeon”. That, however, should not trouble us. When we speak to one-another we often talk about something “taking forever”, when we mean 20 minutes.  We will say that it was “an eternity”.

But we can also use the word “forever” and understand it to mean something which cannot end. When we use the word “forever” or the word “eternity” we can tell what we mean – and we expect other people to be able to understand us easily. We do this, because can understand the context and the use. We understand that sometimes a word is being used ironically, or emphatically. So if I tell my wife, I will love you forever, I mean to underscore the intensity of my commitment: even though we both know that neither of us will literally live forever.

The same thing applies to uses in the Scripture – the Bible is written in ordinary language. So in Genesis 9:16, God makes “an everlasting covenant” to never flood the earth again. But we also know that God will one day re-create the entire universe (2 Pet. 3:7).  Therefore, we know that this covenant to never flood the earth will hold true throughout the duration of the earth’s existence, but the covenant does not mean that God will keep the earth in existence forever.

Or in Genesis 17:8, God promises Canaan as an “everlasting possession” – we quickly see the problem of simply using the word without consideration (even if we decided we would think about it forever).

So, in some places the word aion/aionios means a long time ago: Luke 1:70, As He spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets from of old (aion).

In context we can tell it cannot mean “forever” – that would result in nonsense.

By contrast, in 2 Corinthian 9:9, we read that God’s righteousness endures forever. We can’t say that God’s righteous will last a long time and then wear out.  Or God’s throne is “forever”. (Heb. 1:8). If God’s throne is not going to last, God is not much of a God.

What I want you to see here is that you cannot fear that our promised eternal life will wear out in the distant future merely because the word “aion” could mean a very long time.  Our word “forever” can mean “a long time”. The way in which a word could be used does not tell me how it is being used.

Second, when it comes to eternity and God, our normal concepts of time simply do not apply.

 How then is the word “eternity” used when it comes to our “eternal life”?

It would make very little sense to say that you will live “forever” and it to be only a very long time. Life is something which one either has or does not. If life is everlasting, the word “everlasting” or “eternal” would not be ironic/hyperbole (“it took forever to get home”).

It could be emphatic: and there is a sense in which it is. It does not merely mean continual and without end: it means life which belongs to another age: thus the language life of the Age, or Aeon would point toward not merely a long life, but a life which belongs to the age to come, to “eternity”.

But perhaps the most important aspect is that the idea of “eternal” life is contrasted with death.  Consider John 6:51 & 58. In this passage, Jesus is contrasting the bread eaten in the wilderness (manna) which himself as the bread of life. Jesus notes that the fathers ate manna and died (“Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness and died” John 6:49).  Yet the one who eats Christ “will live forever” (John 6:50). He repeats the same idea in John 6:58: they ate and died, but “he who east his bread [Christ] will live forever”. If Jesus is merely offering an extremely long life, this argument fails.  Jesus’ offer is something that cannot end, or his argument is a lie.

This argument is stronger when you consider the other concepts and images which are used to complement the idea of “eternal life” in John 3:

That is the immediate result of the love of God for the world: the mission of the Son. His ultimate purpose is the salvation of those in the world who believe in him (eis auton, not en autō as in v. 15). Whoever believes in him experiences new birth (3:3, 5), has eternal life (3:15, 16), is saved (3:17); the alternative is to perish (cf. also 10:28), to lose one’s life (12:25), to be doomed to destruction (17:12, cognate with ‘to perish’). There is no third option.

A. Carson, The Gospel according to John, The Pillar New Testament Commentary (Leicester, England; Grand Rapids, MI: Inter-Varsity Press; W.B. Eerdmans, 1991), 206. Eternal life runs parallel to born again. We cannot be “unborn”, therefore, by analogy we do not un-live.

Second, the contrast is made to death and destruction. If we will die, then the offer of “eternal life” makes no sense if “eternal” only means very long time.

 

 

Thomas Watson, 24 Helps to Read Scripture.8

13 Friday May 2016

Posted by in Meditation, Reading, Thomas Manton, Thomas Watson, Uncategorized

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The previous post in this series may be found here

VIII. Meditate upon what you read. Psalm 119:15: “I will meditate in thy precepts.” The Hebrew word to meditate, signifies to be intense in the mind. In meditation there must be a fixing of the thoughts upon the object.

Meditation means serious consideration. Rather than emptying the mind, it means to fill it. Thomas Manton has a useful expansion on the concept of meditating upon what one reads: give it entertainment, treat it like a guest:

Receive the word, give it a kind entertainment. There is an act of consideration; meditate upon it seriously, that truth may not float in the understanding, but sink into the heart: Luke 9:44, ‘Let these sayings sink down into your hearts.’ Believe it: the truth is a sovereign remedy; but there wanteth one ingredient to make it work, and that is faith: Heb. 4:2, ‘The word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it.’ There is an act of the will and affections, which is called, ‘a receiving the truth in love,’ 2 Thes. 2:10. Make room for it, that carnal affections may not vomit and throw it up again. Christ complaineth that ‘his word had no place in them,’ John 8:37, οὐ χωρεῖ ἐν ὑμῖν, like a queasy stomach possessed with choler, that casts up all that is taken into it: 1 Cor. 2:14, ‘A natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God.’ Let it lodge, and quietly exercise a sovereign command over the soul.

Thomas Manton, The Complete Works of Thomas Manton, vol. 10, Sermons on the 17th Chapter of John, Sermon XI, (London: James Nisbet & Co., 1872), 237. We must to know the words if they are to have any effect upon us. Francis Bacon in his essay, On Studies, speaks of “digesting” a book:

Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested; that is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously; and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention. Some books also may be read by deputy, and extracts made of them by others; but that would be only in the less important arguments, and the meaner sort of books, else distilled books are like common distilled waters, flashy things. Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man. And therefore, if a man write little, he had need have a great memory; if he confer little, he had need have a present wit: and if he read little, he had need have much cunning, to seem to know, that he doth not.

Watson concludes:

Luke 2:19: “Mary pondered those things.” Meditation is the concoction of Scripture; reading brings a truth into our head, meditation brings it into our heart; reading and meditation, like Castor and Pollux, must appear together. Meditation without reading is erroneous; reading without meditation is barren. The bee sucks the flower, and then works it into the hive, and so turns it into honey; by reading we suck the flower of the word, by meditation we work it into the hive of our mind, and so it turns to profit. Meditation is the bellows of the affection. Psalm 39:3: “While I was musing the fire burned.” The reason we come away so cold from reading the word, is because we do not warm ourselves at the fire of meditation.

Thomas Watson, “How We May Read the Scriptures with Most Spiritual Profit,” in The Bible and the Closet: Or How We May Read the Scriptures with the Most Spiritual Profit; and Secret Prayer Successfully Managed, ed. John Overton Choules (Boston: Gould, Kendall and Lincoln, 1842), 24–25.

 

 

Satan Baits His Hook

19 Tuesday Jan 2016

Posted by in Anne Bradstreet, Thomas Boston, Thomas Brooks, Thomas Manton, Uncategorized

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The Puritans seemed fond of this image:

 

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The skillful fisher hath his several baits for several fish,

but there is a hook under all;

Satan, that great angler,

hath his sundry baits for sundry tempers of men

which they all catch greedily at

But few perceive the hook till it be too late.

Anne Bradstreet, Meditation 23.

Thomas Brooks wrote, of Satan’s Devices:

Device (1). To present the bait and hide the hook; to present the golden cup, and hide the poison; to present the sweet, the pleasure, and the profit that may flow in upon the soul by yielding to sin, and by hiding from the soul the wrath and misery that will certainly follow the committing of sin. By this device he took our first parents: Gen. 3:4, 5, ‘And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: for God doth know, that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened; and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.’ Your eyes shall be opened, and you shall be as gods! Here is the bait, the sweet, the pleasure, the profit. Oh, but he hides the hook,—the shame, the wrath, and the loss that would certainly follow!2

Thomas Brooks, The Complete Works of Thomas Brooks, ed. Alexander Balloch Grosart, vol. 1 (Edinburgh; London; Dublin: James Nichol; James Nisbet and Co.; G. Herbert, 1866), 12.

Thomas Manton, Sermon 1, The Temptation of Christ:

He persuadeth us to evil by profit, pleasure, necessity; we cannot live without it in the world. He hideth the hook, and showeth the bait only; he concealeth the hell, the horror, the eternal pains that follow sin, and only telleth you how beneficial, profitable, and delightful the sin will be to you: Prov. 9:17, 18, ‘Stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant. But he knoweth not that the dead are there, and that her guests are in the depths of hell.’

Thomas Manton, The Complete Works of Thomas Manton, vol. 1 (London: James Nisbet & Co., 1870), 266.

Thomas Boston, Sermons on the Lord’s Prayer, 6th Petition:

The bait wherewith the hook of temptation is busked. This is always some seeming good, if it were but the satisfying of a lust or a humour. In drawing or alluring temptations, the bait it some seeming good to be got. Thus was the present world to Demas, and the thirty pieces of silver to Judas. In driving temptations, the bait is some seeming good to be kept, by preventing evil, as those spoke of, Matth. 13:21 who, ‘when tribulation or persecution ariseth because of the word, by and by are offended.’ And it is no small advantage in temptation, to see through the bait, that it is but a bait to deceive. For so one will perceive, that it will not quit the cost, that by the bargain they will never better their condition, Matth. 16:26. ‘For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?’

Thomas Boston, The Whole Works of Thomas Boston: An Illustration of the Doctrines of the Christian Religion, Part 2, ed. Samuel M‘Millan, vol. 2 (Aberdeen: George and Robert King, 1848), 627–630.

Comfort in Slander

31 Monday Aug 2015

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It is a great comfort in calumnies and slanders, when our names are taken up in the lips of the taunters and cast forth as evil. Job here, when his friends suspected him as fallen from the grace of God, puts his cause into the hands of the great Mediator who was now with God in heaven, making intercession for him, and will one day stand on the earth judging the world. We need not fear any partial judge here below, nor be troubled at their prejudices and misconstructions. Christ is the true judge, ‘who will bring to light the hidden things of the heart; and then shall every man have praise of God,’ 1 Cor. 4:5, that is, every one that hath done well. Though we have failings, yet those that flee to a Redeemer for pardon and reconciliation with God, and grace to walk uprightly, shall then be acquitted.

 

Thomas Manton, The Complete Works of Thomas Manton, vol. 2 (London: James Nisbet & Co., 1871), 301.

Meditation and Good Works

28 Saturday Mar 2015

Posted by in Creation, Ephesians, Meditaiton, Psalms, Redemption, Thomas Manton

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More on meditation: Thomas Manton, in a sermon on Ephesians 2:10, explains that one means to help us abound in good works is to meditate on the fact that God has created us and redeemed us. As Paul writes, “you are not your own”. See here again: we meditate so that our affections are changed, which leads us to action.

“Keep your hearts under a sense of God’s authority, that you may feel something in your own bosoms that may tell you you are bound to obey him, and may plead God’s right with you. This is, done by a frequent meditation upon your creation and redemption: your creation giveth God a full right to you, and redemption maketh it comfortable; by both you see you are his: Acts 27:23, ‘There stood by me this night the angel of God, whose I am, and whom I serve.’”

Thomas Manton, The Complete Works of Thomas Manton, vol. 2 (London: James Nisbet & Co., 1871), 407.

How would you do such thing? Stop and think. Read through Psalm 139, carefully considering each word: The Psalmists knows that God knows him and made him. Look how the Psalmist’s meditation ends: search me, know me, lead me. Read through Ephesians 2:1-10. Consider the gracious rescue of God, “but God”; consider the utter grace of salvation; look how God created and redeemed you for good works. Do not leave off pondering these things until you begin to feel created and purchased. Pray before and after. Do not rush. Ask, What hinders you from knowing yourself to be created and bought? What provokes you to right thoughts? Consider songs you know which speak about being created or redeemed. Redeemed how I love to proclaim it. And can it be that I should gain, an interest in the savior’s blood. Sing, pray, think, read, and then act.

Btw, meditating upon our belonging to God does not only provoke us to good works, but as the Heidelberg Catechism reminds us, it is our “comfort”:

Question 1. What is thy only comfort in life and death?
Answer: That I with body and soul, both in life and death, am not my own, but belong unto my faithful Saviour Jesus Christ; who, with his precious blood, has fully satisfied for all my sins, and delivered me from all the power of the devil; and so preserves me that without the will of my heavenly Father, not a hair can fall from my head; yea, that all things must be subservient to my salvation, and therefore, by his Holy Spirit, He also assures me of eternal life, and makes me sincerely willing and ready, henceforth, to live unto him.

Whenever you go abroad

25 Wednesday Mar 2015

Posted by in Meditation, Psalms, Thomas Manton

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Orbital Sunrise with Venus and Mars

‘The heavens declare the glory of God.’ Morning and evening, or whenever you go abroad to see the beauty of the outward heavens, say, I have a Father there, a Christ there; this is the pavement of that palace which God hath provided for the saints. Christians, it is a sweet meditation when you can say, He that made all things is there. It will be a delightful, profitable thing sometimes, with an eye of sense, to take a view of our Father’s palace, as much as we can see of it here below.

Thomas Manton, The Complete Works of Thomas Manton, vol. 1 “A Practical Exposition of the Lord’s Prayer” (London: James Nisbet & Co., 1870), 64.