John 20:17—John 16:27; Matthew 7:11
Go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God…For the Father himself loveth you, because ye have loved me, and have believed that I came out from God.
If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?
JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): Christ declares that we have this in common with Himself, that He who is His God and His Father is also our God and our Father. “I ascend,” says He, “to my Father, who is also your Father.”
OCTAVIUS WINSLOW (1808-1878): We are so prone to fix our admiring and adoring gaze on the incarnate Son, so prone to attach our exclusive affections to Him, Who for us “loved not his life unto the death,” and thus come short of the stupendous and animating truth that all the love, grace, and wisdom that are prominent and striking in salvation have their fountain head in the heart of God the Father! May we not trace the holding of this bias to the hard and injurious thoughts of the Father’s character and those crude and gloomy interpretations of His government which so many of us bear towards Him?
JOHN TRAPP (1601-1699): He knows what little understanding we have of Him.
THOMAS SCOTT (1747-1821): Our heavenly Father “knoweth our frame; He remembereth that we are dust,” Psalm 103:14; and He pities us under all our sorrows and trials.
JOHN TRAPP: So great is the goodness of God to His people, that He dealeth with us as with His little children. “I taught Ephraim also to go,” Hosea 11:3. A child he was, and like a child I dealt with him, teaching him how to set his feet—pedare, to foot it, as nurses do their little ones: “He will keep the feet of His saints,” 1 Samuel 2:9; He “guideth their feet in the way of peace,” Luke 1:79. And He takes us up in His own arms, when we come to a foul or rough place, helping us over the quagmires of crosses, and the difficulties of duties.
THOMAS SCOTT: But He will also rebuke and correct us for our sins.
C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): Our heavenly Father is no Eli: He will not suffer His children to sin without rebuke, His love is too intense for that…When God sees men doing wrong, He often permits the wicked to go unpunished in this life; but as for His own people, it is written, “You only have I known of all the families of the earth: therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities,” Amos 3:2. Our heavenly Father’s hand still holds the rod, and uses it when necessary; but it is in love that He corrects us. Your father loves you quite as much when he treats you roughly as when he treats you kindly. There is often more love in an angry father’s heart than there is in the heart of a father who is too kind. Give me a father that is angry with my sins and that seeks to bring me back, even though it be by chastisement. Thank God you have got a Father that can be angry, but that loves you as much when He is angry as when He smiles upon you.
THOMAS SCOTT: He will indeed thwart our wayward inclinations, and will not indulge us to our hurt.
MATTHEW POOLE (1624-1679): Our children, through their want of knowledge and judgment to discern between things that are good or evil for their bodies, may ask of us, and cry unto us, for things that are hurtful, yet we, who know that they would not ask for them if they had the use of their reason, and well knew their noxious quality, considering their circumstances, will not give them to them. So our heavenly Father, though He heareth us crying for such things as He knoweth, considering our circumstances, would be mischievous and hurtful to us, yet He will not give us any thing of that nature.
THOMAS GOODWIN (1600-1679): Earthly fathers know but what are earthly good things, and of them they give to their children such things as they judge best; but God judges as a heavenly Father, and so of what is best as in relation to heaven, and thy coming thither, and His thoughts are herein as far above earthly fathers as heaven is above earth. He hath also declared, that all things shall work together for thy good; but what particular dispensation shall work for good to thee, and how, this He says not, nor dost thou know. It may be the contrary to what thou desirest shall work for good.
WILLIAM GOUGE (1575-1653): If God speaks to them as to children, they have good ground to fly to God as to a Father and in all time of need to ask and seek of Him all needful blessings; yea, and in faith to depend on Him for the same, Matthew 6:31,32. What useful things shall they want? What hurtful thing need such to fear? If God deal with us as with children, He will provide for them every good thing; He will protect them from every hurtful thing, He will hear their prayers, He will accept their services, He will bear with their infirmities, He will support them under all their burdens, and assist them against all their assaults.
THOMAS SCOTT: And He cannot want power to relieve His afflicted children.
WILLIAM GOUGE: Though, through their own weakness, or the violence of some temptation, should they be drawn from Him, yet will He be ready to meet them in the midway of their turning to Him—instance the mind of the father of the prodigal towards his son, Luke 15:20.
JOHN TRAPP: Whereas we fall seven times a day, and in many things fail all; He taketh us up after that we have caught a knock, and cherisheth us in His bosom.
JOHANN TARNOW (1586-1629): We are supported, admonished, taught, led, guided, protected, assembled, forgiven, carried, and comforted.
THOMAS GOODWIN: If, therefore, we at any time think we may have any degree of confidence upon the mercies and pities that are in creatures, even in the nearest and dearest relation to us, as fathers—of whom Christ says, “Though evil, they yet know how to give good things to their children,” and so likewise to pity them, then how much more may we be encouraged to rely on God, who is an heavenly Father to us, the only true and loving Father, as He only is the true and living God, and is withal styled “the Father of mercies,” 2 Corinthians 1:3.
C. H. SPURGEON: Essentially, He is goodness itself—He is good beyond all others; indeed, He alone is good in the highest sense; He is the source of good, the good of all good, the sustainer of good, the perfecter of good, and the rewarder of good. For this He deserves the constant gratitude of His people. “For He is good, for His mercy endureth for ever.” When God calls Himself our Father, He means it. There are some fathers in this world, who do not act at all as fathers should—shame upon them! But that will never be said of our Heavenly Father. He is a true Father and He has a heart of compassion towards His children.
JOHN CALVIN: It is, unquestionably, an invaluable blessing, that believers can safely and firmly believe, that He who is the God of Christ is their God, and that He who is the Father of Christ is their Father. And certainly we ought to imitate the goodness of our heavenly Father.
Matthew Henry’s Commentary
Ephesians 4:8,11,12; 1 Peter 4:10,11
When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men…And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ.
As every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same one to another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God; if any man minister, let him do it as of the ability which God giveth: that God in all things may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom be praise and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.
MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): Being fully persuaded of these things, I conclude that whatever help is offered to good Christians in searching the scriptures is real service done to the glory of God, and to the interests of His kingdom; it is this that hath drawn me into this undertaking, which I have gone about in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling, lest I should be found exercising myself in things too high for me, and so laudable an undertaking should suffer damage by an unskillful management.
WILLIAM LINDSAY ALEXANDER (1808-1884): Matthew Henry was the Prince of Commentators.
ALEXANDER WHYTE (1836-1921): Matthew Henry’s Commentary should be in every household in the land.
C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): It is the poor man’s commentary, the old Christian’s companion, suitable to everybody, instructive to all.
JOHN WESLEY (1703-1791): He is allowed by all competent judges, to have been a person of strong understanding, of various learning, of solid piety, and much experience in the ways of God. And his exposition is generally clear and intelligible, the thoughts being expressed in plain words: It is also found agreeable to the tenor of Scripture, and to the analogy of faith. It is frequently full, giving a sufficient explication of the passages which require explaining. It is in many parts deep, penetrating farther into the inspired writings than most other comments do. It does not entertain us with vain speculations, but is practical throughout: and usually spiritual too, teaching us how to worship God, not in form only, but in spirit and in truth.
C. H. SPURGEON: He is most pious and pithy, sound and sensible, suggestive and sober, terse and trustworthy. You will find him to be glittering with metaphors, rich in analogies, overflowing with illustrations, superabundant in reflections. He delights in apposition and alliteration; he is usually plain, quaint, and full of pith; he sees right through a text directly…He is deeply spiritual, heavenly, and profitable; finding good matter in every text, and from all, deducing most practical and judicious lessons.
MATTHEW HENRY: I desire that I may be read with a candid, and not a critical eye. I pretend not to gratify the curious; the summit of my ambition is to assist those who are truly serious, in searching the Scriptures daily. I am sure the work is designed, and hope it is calculated, to promote piety towards God and charity towards our brethren, and that there is not only something in it which may edify, but nothing which may justly offend any good Christian.
RICHARD CECIL (1748-1810): The man who labours to please his neighbour for his good to edification, has the mind that was in Christ. It is a sinner trying to help a sinner. How different would things be if this spirit prevailed!
MATTHEW HENRY: If any desire to know how so mean and obscure a person as I am, who in learning, judgment, felicity of expression, and in all advantages for such service, am less than the least of all my Master’s servants, came to venture upon so great a work, I can give no other account of it than this: It has long been my practice, in what little time I had to spare in my study from constant preparations for the pulpit, to spend it in drawing up expositions upon some parts of the New Testament, not so much for my own use as purely for my entertainment; because I knew not how to employ my thoughts and time more to my satisfactions. “Every man that studies hath some beloved study, which is his delight above any other;” and this is mine. It is that learning which it was my happiness from a child to be trained up in by my ever honoured father, whose memory must always be very dear and precious to me. He often reminded me, that a good textuary [one well informed in the Bible] is a good divine; and that I should read other books with this in my eye, that I might be better able to understand and apply the Scripture.
C. H. SPURGEON: Every minister ought to read Matthew Henry entirely and carefully through once at least—you will acquire a vast store of sermons if you read with your notebook close at hand; and as for thoughts, they will swarm around you like twittering swallows around an old gable towards the close of autumn. If you publicly expound the chapter you have just been reading, your people will wonder at the novelty of your remarks and the depth of your thoughts, and then you may tell them what a treasure Henry is. William Jay’s sermons bear indubitable evidence of his having studied Matthew Henry almost daily. Many of the quaint things in Jay’s sermons are either directly traceable to Matthew Henry or to his familiarity with that writer. I have thought that the style of Jay was founded upon Matthew Henry: Matthew Henry is Jay writing, Jay is Matthew Henry preaching.
GEORGE WHITEFIELD (1714-1770): How sweetly did my hours in private glide away in reading and praying over Matthew Henry’s Commentary upon the Scriptures! Whilst I am musing on and writing about it, the fire I then felt again kindles in my soul.*
MATTHEW HENRY: If any receive spiritual benefit by my poor endeavours, it will be a comfort to me, but let God have all the glory, and that free grace of His which has employed one utterly unworthy of such an honour, and enabled one thus far to go on in it who is utterly insufficient for such a service. Having obtained help of God, I continue hitherto in it, and humbly depend upon the same good hand of my God to carry me on in that which remains—one volume more, I hope, will include what is yet to done; and I will go on with it, as God shall enable me, with all convenient speed.
ARCHIBALD ALEXANDER (1772-1851): Matthew Henry did not live to put a finishing hand to the exposition. He had made ample preparations for the completion of the work, but the providence of God, though mysterious, is always wise.**
C. H. SPURGEON: The latter part of his Commentary was completed by other hands. The writers were Evans, Brown, Mayo, Bays, Rosewell, Harriss, Atkinson, Smith, Tong, Wright, Merrell, Hill, Reynolds, and Billingsley, all ministers. They have executed their work exceedingly well, have worked in much of the matter which Henry had collected, and have done their best to follow his methods, but their combined production is far inferior to Matthew Henry himself, and any reader will soon detect the difference.
WILLIAM JAY (1769-1853): Good Matthew Henry said, as he was expiring, to his friends in the room, “You have heard and read the words of many dying men―and these are mine; I have found a life of communion with God, the happiest life in the world.”
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*Editor’s Note: During his lifetime, George Whitefield read through Matthew Henry’s Commentary four times, often on his knees, as he prayed over what he was reading.
**Editor’s Note: Matthew Henry began writing his Bible Commentary in 1704, and began publishing it in 1710. By Henry’s death in 1714, he had completed Genesis to Acts. Working from Henry’s own notes, his minister friends completed Romans to Revelation.
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