A89503:958
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.
5. When we charge our guilt upon the times, man is apt to transfer his faults upon others, and obliquely upon God himself, The woman which thou gavest me, &c. and so usually the times wherein we live are such, &c. why? God ordered them, and if you were as you should be, the times could not hurt you, a great deal of fire falleth upon a stone and it burneth not, but a dry chip soon taketh fire; men think if they be corrupt the fault is not theirs but the times; 'tis yours certainly, 'tis bad men make bad times, as I shall show anon.
5. When we charge our guilt upon the times, man is apt to transfer his faults upon others, and obliquely upon God himself, The woman which thou gavest me, &c. and so usually the times wherein we live are such, &c. why? God ordered them, and if you were as you should be, the times could not hurt you, a great deal of fire falleth upon a stone and it burneth not, but a dry chipp soon taketh fire; men think if they be corrupt the sault is not theirs but the times; 'tis yours certainly, 'tis bad men make bad times, as I shall shew anon.
Let me now give you a few Remedies.
1. When your hearts storm, look back, there were inconveniences in the wilderness, but a sore bondage in Egypt; a good memory is an help to thankfulness, for my own case, when I am brimful, I consider the times that are past *when there was no peace to him that w•nt out or came in, when private meetings were a conventicle, and in public we could only sigh, not speak; when May poles and carnal sports were preferred before the Sabbath, when afternoon Preaching was supperest to make way for those sports; when 'twas a crime to go from a doting service-Reader to hear the Preaching of the word; surely they that are so ready to return into Egypt, have forgotten their bondage; when their cry came up to God because of the anguish of their souls; our hard task-Masters, the domineering Prelates, and their oppressing filthy Courts are forgotten, our promiscuous communions, and the flat and cold repetitions of an imposed liturgy quite forgotten; so the confinement of Preaching, and the restraint of Doctrines; these things are out of feeling, and therefore out of remembrance: one great defect the people of God are troubled withal, is a bad memory,