James 4:6
God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble.
THOMAS WATSON (1620-1686): Humility is the sweet spice that grows from poverty of spirit.
THOMAS BROOKS (1608-1680): The most holy men are always the most humble men.
WILLIAM HARRIS (1675-1740): There is a remarkable passage to this purpose in Thomas Manton’s Exposition of James, in which he expresses the humble acknowledgment of his fault. He delivered it with tears in his eyes. It is on James 1:19, “Be slow to speak.” “I remember,” says he, “my faults this day; I cannot excuse myself from much of crime and sin in it. I have been in the ministry these ten years, and yet not fully completed the thirtieth year of my age—the Lord forgive my rash intrusion.”
WILLIAM BATES (1625-1699): Thomas Manton was deeply affected with the sense of his frailty and unworthiness. He considered the infinite purity of God, and the perfection of His law, the rule of duty; and by that humbling light discovered his manifold defects.
WILLIAM HARRIS: He was born in the year 1620, at Lawrence-Lydiat, in the county of Somerset. His father and both his grandfathers were ministers. He was qualified to enter academic learning at the age of fourteen, which was very unusual in those days. But his parents, either judging him too young, or loath to part with him so soon, kept him a year longer before he was sent to Oxford. He was placed in Wadham College in the year 1635, and took his degree of Bachelor of Arts in 1639. By a course of unwearied diligence, joined with great intellectual endowments, he was early qualified for the work of the ministry, and took orders much sooner than was usual, and than he himself approved upon maturer thoughts, after he had more experience.
STEPHEN CHARNOCK (1628-1680): Manton was the best collector of sense of the Puritan age.
WILLIAM BATES: I heard the greatest men of those times sometimes preach a mean sermon, but I never heard Thomas Manton do so on any occasion.
C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): Manton once preached in St. Paul’s Cathedral; a great crowd went to listen to him.
WILLIAM HARRIS: While he was minister at Covent Garden, he was invited to preach before the Lord Mayor and Court of Aldermen, and the Companies of the city at St. Paul’s. He chose some difficult subject, in which he had opportunity of displaying his judgment and learning, and appearing to the best advantage. He was heard with the admiration and applause of the more intelligent part of the audience; and was invited to dine with the Lord Mayor, and received public thanks for his performance. But upon his return in the evening to Covent Garden, a poor man gently plucked him by the sleeve, and asked if he had preached that day before the Lord Mayor. He replied, he was. “Sir,” says the man, “I came with earnest desires after the Word of God, in hopes of getting some good to my soul, but I was greatly disappointed; for I could not understand a great deal of what you said; you were quite above me.” Manton replied, with tears in his eyes, “Friend, if I did not give you a sermon, you have given me one; and, by the grace of God, I will never play the fool to preach in such a manner again.”
A. W. TOZER (1897-1963): An humble man will never be a heretic: show him his error, and he will soon retract it.
JAMES USSHER (1581-1656): Manton was one of the best preachers in England―a voluminous preacher.
WILLIAM HARRIS: Not that he was ever long, or tedious; but he had the art of reducing the substance of whole volumes into a narrow compass, and representing it to great advantage…This will appear the less surprising, if we consider the great care he took about them. He generally wrote the heads and principle branches first, and often wrote them over twice afterwards. When his sermon did not please him, nor the matter open kindly, he would lay it aside for that time, though it were Saturday night; and sit up all night to prepare a sermon upon an easier subject, and more to his satisfaction. If a good thought came into his mind in the night, he would light his candle, and put on his gown, and write sometimes for an hour together at a table by his bedside.
C. H. SPURGEON: That which cost thought is likely to excite thought.
JOHN NEWTON (1725-1807): Humility is very necessary to a profitable perusal of the Scriptures…A proud Christian, that is, one who has a high conceit of his own abilities and attainments, is no less a contradiction, than a sober drunkard, or a generous miser. All other seeming excellencies are of no real value, unless accompanied with this; and though a person should appear to have little more than a consciousness of his own insufficiency, and a teachable dependent spirit, and is waiting upon the Lord in His appointed way for instruction and a blessing, he will infallibly thrive as a tree planted by the waterside; for God, who resisteth the proud, has promised to give grace to the humble.
MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): God delights to advance the humble.
J. C. RYLE (1816-1900): Manton occupied for several years a very prominent position. Did Oliver Cromwell require a minister to offer up prayer at the public ceremony of his undertaking the Protectorship? Manton was the minister. Did the Long Parliament want a special sermon preached before its members? Manton was frequently ordered to be the preacher. Did the famous Westminster Assembly want a commendatory preface written to their Confession and Catechisms of world-wide reputation? They committed the execution of it to the pen of Thomas Manton. Was a committee of Triers appointed to examine persons who were to be admitted into the ministry? Manton was a leading member of this committee. Was a movement made by the Presbyterians, after Cromwell’s death, to restore the monarchy and bring back Charles II? Manton was a leader in the movement. Was an effort made after the Restoration to bring about a reconciliation between the Episcopal Church and the Nonconformists? Manton was one of the commissioners to act in the matter in the unhappy Savoy Conference.
WILLIAM HARRIS: Though he was a man of great gravity, and of a regular unaffected piety, yet he was extremely cheerful and pleasant among his friends, and upon every proper occasion…He greatly disliked the forbidding rigours of some good people, and the rapturous pretensions of others; and used to say that he had found, by long observation, that they who would be over-godly at one time, would be under-godly at another.
GEORGE WHITEFIELD (1714-1770): A good woman, charmed with Manton, said, “Oh, sir, you have made an excellent sermon today; I wish I had your heart.” “Do you?” said he, “good woman, you had better not wish for it; for if you had it, you would wish for your own again.”
J. C. RYLE: Humility is to make a right estimate of oneself.
