Thomas Manton 1/4 (12 of 18, Introduction and Overview of the Puritans) Who Were the Puritans? What Did They Teach? The Relevance of Puritanism For Christians Today by Dr. Matthew McMahon (Free MP3s)

Thomas Manton 2/4 (13 of 18, Introduction and Overview of the Puritans) Who Were the Puritans? What Did They Teach? The Relevance of Puritanism For Christians Today by Dr. Matthew McMahon (Free MP3s)

Thomas Manton 3/4 (14 of 18, Introduction and Overview of the Puritans) Who Were the Puritans? What Did They Teach? The Relevance of Puritanism For Christians Today by Dr. Matthew McMahon (Free MP3s)

Thomas Manton 4/4 (15 of 18, Introduction and Overview of the Puritans) Who Were the Puritans? What Did They Teach? The Relevance of Puritanism For Christians Today by Dr. Matthew McMahon (Free MP3s)

"Works before conversion cannot engage God, and works after conversion can not satisfy God." - Thomas Manton (on the Puritan Hard Drive)

"A child of God hates sin, as it is contrary to his drift and purpose. If we do not love good for good's sake, it is not good we love, but some other thing that cleaves to it, the temporal benefit that we think will come thereby; so if we do not hate evil as evil, but because of the loss and detriment that attends the practice of it, it is not sin that we hate, but inconveniences." - Thomas Manton (on the Puritan Hard Drive)

Ministers who do not know Manton need not wonder if they are themselves unknown. - Charles Spurgeon (on the Puritan Hard Drive)

"Usually men divide themselves between God and the world; they would give their consciences to Christ, and their hearts to mammon (money - ed.) Having given up ourselves to God's service, you must walk as his servants earnestly desire the knowledge of his will, and readily comply with it. When God and our lusts or our interests command contrary things, then you are put to the trial whether you are God's servants." - Thomas Manton (on the Puritan Hard Drive)

"Christ does not call us because we are holy, but that we may become holy. We must "make our calling and election sure," (II Pet. 1:10),  to evidence our election by our calling... Election is nothing but God's love and intention to bestow saving grace (Rom. 8:30). Calling is the first and immediate fruit of election (II Thess. 2:13, 14)... Calling is the key of the gospel, the plank that is cast out to save a sinking sinner." - Thomas Manton (on the Puritan Hard Drive)

"Apostasy is any defection from him to whom we owe and have performed subjection, or a failing from that lord to whom we owe fealty.

I am sure, in religious matters, it importeth a defection from our right and proper Lord. Thus the devil is an apostate, because he abode not in his first estate: Jude 6, 'And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains,' &c.; 'abode not in the truth;' John viii. 44, 'Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth;' that is, forsook his obedience to God, and so became the ringleader of all rebellious creatures.

So it is true of our first parents. They were apostates, they did revolt from God and their obedience to him. Therefore it is said, Rom. v. 19, 'By one man's disobedience many were made sinners.'

So of their posterity; their apostasy is described by 'turning back from following the Lord,' Zeph. i. 6, and 'departing from God,' that is, his worship and service; Isa. lix. 13, 'In transgressing and lying against the Lord, and departing away from our God.'

Let us then be agreed of this notion of apostasy, which is evident, that it is a falling off from the obedience which we owe to our rightful Lord."

- Thomas Manton, On the Growth and Fall of Antichrist: Sermons on 2 Thessalonians 2 (on the Puritan Hard Drive)

But because he is called the man of sin, here it cometh fitly to be inquired whether Antichrist be an individual person? for 'that man of sin' would seem to be some single person. No; he is put for a society and succession of men, that make up the head of the apostate state. As one lion figured the whole kingdom of the Babylonians, and one bear the kingdom of the Medes and Persians, and one leopard the kingdom of the Grecians, Dan. vii., - and there the fourth beast is the fourth kingdom, - so one person that succession of men that head the revolters from Christ. So Dan. viii., a goat figured a succession of kings; so the Assyrian, Isa. x. 5, several kings in that empire; so Isa. xiv. 9, the king of Babylon, meaning not one but many. So this man of sin doth not note a single man, but a succession of men, a body politic or corporate, under one opposite head to the kingdom of Christ: so the 'man of God' is put for all faithful ministers, 2 Tim. iii. 17; so 'honour the king,' I Peter ii. 17, series regum. So o arciereus, Heb. ix. 25, 'The high priest every year entereth into the holy place;' meaning not one, but the succession of the order; and in reason it must needs be so here. Because Antichrist, from his beginning to his end, from his rise and revelation, till his ruin and destruction, will take up such a long track of time, as cannot fall within the age of any one man, even from the time of the apostles till the end of the world. Antichrist is the head of the apostasy; for here the apostasy and the revelation of the man of sin are conjunct; now the mysterious apostasy could not be perfected in a short time.

 - Thomas Manton, 18 Sermons of Thomas Manton on II Thessalonians 2, on the Description, Rise, Growth, and Fall of Antichrist (on the Puritan Hard Drive)

"Be sure you get grace together with an estate, for otherwise singly it will be a snare to you: Prov. xiv. 24,' The crown of the wise is their riches, but the foolishness of fools is folly.' Riches are as they are used; if they fall to the share of a man that is godly and wise, they are a crown and ornament, otherwise a snare; for the one employeth them to the honour of God, and the good of the church and state, and is more publicly useful, but the other groweth more haughty and fierce, and scornful of holy things, and sensual and vain, and eateth and drinketh, and swaggereth away the good gifts of God, which might have a more noble use. So Eccles. vii. 11, 'Wisdom is good with an inheritance;' it is good without it, but more conspicuously good with it. It is not said an inheritance is good without wisdom or grace. No; it is reserved to the owners for their hurt. So Prov. xvii. 16,' Wherefore is there a price in the hand of a fool to get wisdom, seeing he hath no heart to it.' Many a man hath a price, but he hath not a heart; an estate is but as a sword in the hand of a madman."

- Thomas Manton (on the Puritan Hard Drive)