A89503:142
A Practical Commentary on the Epistle of Jude
A practical commentary, or An exposition with notes on the Epistle of Jude. Delivered (for the most part) in sundry weekly lectures at Stoke-Newington in Middlesex. By Thomas Manton, B.D. and minister of Covent-Garden.
London: printed by J.M. for Luke Fawn, 1658
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
'Tis Gods gift as well as the rest, we have graces from God as well as privileges, and therefore he beggeth love as well as mercy and peace; but it must be our act, though we have the grace from above: We would all have mercy and peace, but we are not so zealous to have love kindled in our hearts: Mercy, peace, all this runneth downward, and respects our interest, but love, that mounteth upward, and respects God himself. Certainly they have no interest in mercy, and were never acquainted with true peace, that do not find their hearts inflamed with love to God, and a zeal for his glory; that as he hath ordered all things for our profit, so we may order and refer all things to his glory and honour. Mercy runneth down from God, and begets peace of Conscience, for peace of Conscience is nothing else but a solid taste of Gods mercy; and peace of Conscience begets love, by which we clasp about God again; for love is nothing else but a reverberation or beating back of Gods beam upon himself, or a return of duty in the sense of mercy: *so that God is at the beginning and ending, and either way is the utmost boundary of the Soul; all things are from him and to him.
'Tis Gods gift as well as the rest, we have graces from God as well as priviledges, and therefore he beggeth love as well as mercy and peace; but it must be our act, though we have the grace from above: We would all have mercy and peace, but we are not so zealous to have love kindled in our hearts: Mercy, peace, all this runneth downward, and respects our interest, but love, that mounteth upward, and respects God himself. Certainly they have no interest in mercy, and were never acquainted with true peace, that do not find their hearts inflamed with love to God, and a zeal for his glory; that as he hath ordered all things for our profit, so we may order and refer all things to his glory and honour. Mercy runneth down from God, and begets peace of Conscience, for peace of Conscience is nothing else but a solid taste of Gods mercy; and peace of Conscience begets love, by which we clasp about God again; for love is nothing else but a reverberation or beating back of Gods beam upon himself, or a return of duty in the sense of mercy: *so that God is at the beginning and ending, and either way is the utmost boundary of the Soul; all things are from him and to him.