It is a help to joy, it represents the excellency, truth and reality of spiritual things. That which we rejoice in, must be good, true, present. All joy ariseth from the presence of some good, either in actual posession, or in firm expectation. It is the nature of faith to make things absent present, it giveth being to hope, it sets up a stage in the heart of a believer, where God is represented acting whatever he hath promised. [Thomas Manton]
The sum of the gospel is this, that all who, by true repentance and faith, do foresake the flesh, the world and the devil, and give themselves up to God the Father, the Son, and Holy Spirit, as their Creator, Redeemer and Sanctifier, shall find God as a father, taking them for his reconciled children, and for Christ’s sake pardoning their sin, and by his Spirit give them grace; and, if they perservere in this course, will finally glorify them, and bestow upon them everlasting happiness; but will condemn the unbelievers, impenitent, and ungodly to everlasting punishment. that this is the sum of the Gospel appeareth by Mark 15:15-16: “Go preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth not shall be damned”;– where you have all the Christian religion laid before you in one short view and propsect. [Thomas Manton]
Consider the mercy of the covenant, how it overflows; it is not only stinted to their persons, but runs over to their children; they are beloved for our sake! Oh, fear the Lord not only for your own sakes, but for your children’s sake! This will be the best way to provide for your children; not to heap up wealth and honour for them, but to leave them the honour and wealth and privileges of the covenant. It is true, the election shall obtain; sanctification and regeneration doth not descend from the parents to their children; yet in outward mercies they have their share, if they have nothing else. Though you have nothing to leave them, yet leave them God’s love, and that will be enough.[Thomas Manton]
Our spiritual estate standeth upon a sure bottom, the beginning is from God the Father, the dispensation from the Son, and the application from the Holy Ghost…It is free in the Father, sure in the Son, ours in the Spirit; the Father purposeth, the Son ratifieth, the Spirit gives the enjoyment of all…Election is ascribed to God the Father, sanctification to the Spirit, and reconciltion to Jesus Christ…This is the chain of salvation and never a link of this chain must be broken. The Son cannot die for them whom the Father never elected, and the Spirit will never sanctify them whom the Father hath not elected nor the Son redeemed. [Thomas Manton]
With respect unto duties, which are more directly to be performed unto God, such as the Word, prayer, praise, thanksgiving, sacraments, surely these must be attended upon, because they are acts of love to God and trust in God; and these holy duties are the ways of God, wherein he hath promised to meet with his people, and hath appointed us to expect his grace, and therefore they must not be neglected by us. Serve him in these things: ‘With what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you’ (Mark 4:24) It is a rule of commerce [fellowship] between us and God. [Thomas Manton--Temptation of Christ]
Confession is an act of mortification, it is as it were the vomit of the soul; it breeds a dislike of the sweetest morsels when they are cast up in loathsome ejections; sin is sweet in commission, but bitter in the remembrance. God’s children find that their hatred is never more keen and exasperated against sin than in confessing. [Thomas Manton]
A man that is charitable and not pure, is better to others than to himself. [Thomas Manton]
If a man would lead a happy life, let him but seek a sure object for his trust, and he shall be safe: "He shall not be afraid of evil tidings:his heart is fixed, trusting in the the Lord." He hath laid up his confidence in God, therefore his heart is kept in an equal poise. [Thomas Manton]
In removal of it, it is best to deal with God about it; for God is the great witness of our sincerity, as knowing all things; and so to be appealed to in the case. Again, God is the most powerful asserter of our innocency; He has the hearts and tongues of men in His own hands, and can either prevent the slanderer from uttering reproach, or the hearer from the entertainment of reproach. He that hath such power over the consciences of men can clear up our innocency; therefore it is best to deal with God about it; and prayer many times proves a better vindication than an apology. [Thomas Manton]
If the scriptures do thoroughly direct men to know God in Christ, and save their own souls, why should we look any further? Now, they do not only furnish every private Christian with this knowledge; but the man of God, who is to instruct others, he needeth look no further, but is furnished out of the scripture with all things necessary to discharge his office. Therefore here we fix and rest, we have a sufficient rule, and a full record of all necessary Christian doctrine. THOMAS MANTON
We know God but as men born blind know the fire: they know that there is such a thing as fire, for they feel it warm them, but what it is they know not. So, that there is a God we know, but what He is we know little, and indeed we can never search Him out to perfection; a finite creature can never full comprehend that which is infinite. [Thomas Manton]
There are many promises made of this benefit. Now it is faith that recieves the promises: "I will forgive their iniquities and remember their sins no more", (Jer 31:34). Now, wherever there is a promise, there must be faith; for as the law with all its threatenings to the fallen creature is the strength of sin (1 Cor 15:56), ‘The strength of sin is the law’), so, the gospel, with its promises, is the strength of faith; and therefore our comfort thence ariseth, If we would live and act comfortably on the promises, we must live by faith. [Thomas Manton]
I had, upon entreaty, resolved to recommend to thee with the greatest earnestness the work of catechising, and, as a meet help, the usefulness of this book, as thus printed with the Scriptures at large: but meeting with a private letter of a very learned and godly divine, wherein that work is excellently done to my hand, I shall make bold to transcribe a part of it, and offer it to publick view.
The author having bewailed the great distractions, corruptions, and divisions that are in the Church, he thus represents the cause and cure: Among others, a principal cause of these mischiefs is the great and common neglect of the governors of families, in the discharge of that duty which they owe to God for the souls that are under their charge, especially in teaching them the doctrine of Christianity. Families are societies that must be sanctified to God as well as Churches; and the governors of them have as truly a charge of the souls that are therein, as pastors have of the Churches. But, alas, how little is this considered or regarded! But while negligent ministers are (deservedly) cast out of their places, the negligent masters of families take themselves to be almost blameless. They offer their children to God in baptism, and there they promise to teach them the doctrine of the gospel, and bring them up in the nurture of the Lord; but they easily promise, and easily break it; and educate their children for the world and the flesh, although they have renounced these, and dedicated them to God. This covenant-breaking with God, and betraying the souls of their children to the devil, must lie heavy on them here or hereafter. They beget children, and keep families, merely for the world and the flesh: but little consider what a charge is committed to them, and what it is to bring up a child for God, and govern a family as a sanctified society.
O how sweetly and successfully would the work of God go on, if we would but all join together in our several places to promote it! Men need not then run without sending to be preachers; but they might find that part of the work that belongeth to them to be enough for them, and to be the best that they can be employed in. Especially women should be careful of this duty; because as they are most about their children, and have early and frequent opportunities to instruct them, so this is the principal service they can do to God in this world, being restrained from more publick work. And doubtless many an excellent magistrate hath been sent into the Commonwealth, and many an excellent pastor into the Church, and many a precious saint to heaven, through the happy preparations of a holy education, perhaps by a woman that thought herself useless and unserviceable to the Church. Would parents but begin betimes, and labour to affect the hearts of their children with the great matters of everlasting life, and to acquaint them with the substance of the doctrine of Christ, and, when they find in them the knowledge and love of Christ, would bring them then to the pastors of the Church to be tried, confirmed, and admitted to the further privileges of the Church, what happy, well-ordered Churches might we have! Then one pastor need not be put to do the work of two or three hundred or thousand governors of families, even to teach their children those principles which they should have taught them long before; nor should we be put to preach to so many miserable ignorant souls, that be not prepared by education to understand us; nor should we have need to shut out so many from holy communion upon the account of ignorance, that yet have not the grace to feel it and lament it, nor the wit and patience to wait in a learning state, till they are ready to be fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God. But now they come to us with aged self-conceitedness, being past children, and yet worse than children still; having the ignorance of children, but being overgrown the teachableness of children; and think themselves wise, yea, wise enough to quarrel with the wisest of their teachers, because they have lived long enough to have been wise, and the evidence of their knowledge is their aged ignorance; and they are readier to flee in our faces for Church privileges, than to learn of us, and obey our instructions, till they are prepared for them, that they may do them good; like snappish curs, that will snap us by the fingers for their meat, and snatch it out of our hands; and not like children, that stay till we give it them. Parents have so used them to be unruly, that ministers have to deal but with too few but the unruly. And it is for want of this laying the foundation well at first, that professors themselves are so ignorant as most are, and that so many, especially of the younger sort, do swallow down almost any error that is offered them, and follow any sect of dividers that will entice them, so it be but done with earnestness and plausibility. For, alas! though by the grace of God their hearts may be changed in an hour, (whenever they understand but the essentials of the faith,) yet their understandings must have time and diligence to furnish them with such knowledge as must stablish them, and fortify them against deceits. Upon these, and many the like considerations, we should entreat all Christian families to take more pains in this necessary work, and to get better acquainted with the substance of Christianity. And, to that end, (taking along some moving treatises to awake the heart,) I know not what work should be fitter for their use, than that compiled by the Assembly at Westminster; a Synod of as godly, judicious divines, (notwithstanding all the bitter words which they have received from discontented and self-conceited men,) I verily think, as ever England saw. Though they had the unhappiness to be employed in calamitous times, when the noise of wars did stop men’s ears, and the licentiousness of wars did set every wanton tongue and pen at liberty to reproach them, and the prosecution and event of those wars did exasperate partial discontented men to dishonour themselves by seeking to dishonour them; I dare say, if in the days of old, when councils were in power and account, they had had but such a council of bishops, as this of presbyters was, the fame of it for learning and holiness, and all ministerial abilities, would, with very great honour, have been transmitted to posterity.
I do therefore desire, that all masters of families would first study well this work themselves, and then teach it their children and servants, according to their several capacities. And, if they once understand these grounds of religion, they will be able to read other books more understandingly, and hear sermons more profitably, and confer more judiciously, and hold fast the doctrine of Christ more firmly, than ever you are like to do by any other course. First, let them read and learn the Shorter Catechism, and next the Larger, and lastly, read the Confession of Faith.
Thus far he, whose name I shall conceal, (though the excellency of the matter, and present style, will easily discover him,) because I have published it without his privity and consent, though, I hope, not against his liking and approbation. I shall add no more, but that I am, Thy servant, in the Lord’s work,
Thy servant,
in the Lord’s work,
THOMAS MANTON
Wait on the Lord, and keep his way, Ps. xxxvii. 34. Do not go one step out of God’s way for all the good in the world. The greatest extremities are to be borne rather than the least sin yielded to: Dan. iii. 17, 18, Our God, whom we serve, is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace; and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O king. But if not, be it known unto thee, O king that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up. Please God, and God will be always with you, when you seem to be left destitute: John viii. 29, And he that sent me is with me: the Father hath not left me alone; for I do always those things that please him. Thomas Manton
Nothing much to tell. I’m walking a single solitary pilgrims walk, in England, that is not an easy one. I am a Calvinistic Covenanter Christian, My Autonomic Nervous system is failing slowly, which has led to severe disability, with an ultra rare disease than medics don’t even understand, often misdiagnose.and will no doubt kill me at some point. But, I trust the Lord to get me where I’m going. All glory to HIM.
The symptomology listed on the link, most porphyrics will only have most of those symptoms if in an acute attack. A few of us, with the ongoing, smouldering symptoms, that never go away, have most if not all of the symptom list, even when not in an acute attack, and are persistent and constant. Anyone who has ever been in the psychiactric system, diagnosed as this or that, even if physically well, should consider this illness could be responsible. King George III, the most famous porphyric, his sole symptom was “insanity.” Its so rare in part, because it’s massively under-diagnosed. But in making this illness known, when it struck me physically a few years ago, God vindicated me from every mis-diagnoses and bersmirchment upon me medically that has ever been made, and has made them all null and void.
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