Pilgrim's ProgressThomas Manton

Proper Fear Sets the Saints A-Work

“Every good fear endeth in duty; it ariseth from faith, and ends in duty; it stirs up the soul to use all the means to prevent the danger. If Noah had not believed, he had never feared; if he had not feared, he had never prepared an ark. The fear of the wicked ends in irresolution, perplexity, and despair; their terrors differ only in degree and duration from the pains of hell—mere involuntary impressions, whose end is not duty, but despair and torment; but the fear of the godly sets them a-work.” Thomas Manton, The Complete Works of Thomas Manton, vol. 14 (London: James Nisbet & Co., 1973), 196–197.

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Pilgrim's ProgressThomas Manton

Can You Reason as Noah Did?

“[Noah’s preparation for the coming judgment] was a work of great labour and trouble; and so is the work of mortification, strictness, and the spiritual life; it is a work of labour and trouble to weaken carnal desires, to subdue your affections to the just temper of religion; yet, though it be harsh to nature, can you say, Heaven will make amends for all? can you say, It is better to take pains than suffer pains? can you say, If I digest the severities of religion, ‘if I mortify the deeds of the flesh, I shall live?’ Rom. 8:13. Can you reason as Noah did?” Thomas Manton (Works, vol. 14, p. 194)

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Christian WorshipThomas Manton

Judgments of Deadness

“[T]hough judgments be not so rife and visible now upon our unhallowed approaches to God, yet he smiteth us with deadness where he doth not smite us with death: for a man is punished otherwise than a boy; and judgments are now spiritual, which, in the infancy of the church, were temporal and bodily.” – Thomas Manton, Puritan Sermons, vol. 1 (Wheaton, IL: Richard Owen Roberts, Publishers, 1981), 402.

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Confessing the Christian Faith