MADAM, - It is a lovely conjunction when goodness and greatness meet together. Persons of estate and respect in the world have more temptations and hindrances than others, but greater obligations to own God. The great landlord of the world expecteth a rent from every country cottage, but a large revenue from great houses. Now usually it falleth out so that they that hold the greatest farms pay the least rent. Never is the Lord more neglected and dishonoured than in great men's houses, in the very face of all his bounty. If religion chance to get in there, it is soon worn out again. Though vices live long in a family, and run in a blood from father to son, yet it is a rare case to see strictness of religion carried on for three or four descents. It was the honour of Abraham's house that from father to son for a long while they were 'heirs of the same promise,' Heb. xi. 9; but where is there such a succession to be found in the houses of our gentry? The father, perchance, professeth godliness (for ou polloi, saith the apostle, 1 Cor. i. 26, 'not many noble,' &c., there are a few - he doth not say there are none), and a carnal son cometh and turneth all out of doors, as if he were ashamed of his father's God. The causes of this mischief may be supposed to be these: - (1.) Plenty ill governed disposeth to vice and sin, as a rank soil is apt to breed weeds. (2.) Brave spirits (as the world counteth them) think strictness inglorious, and the power of religion a base thing, that taketh off from their grandeur and esteem. A loose owning of Christianity is honourable, since the kings of the earth have counted it one of the fairest flowers of their crowns to be styled the 'Catholic King,' the 'most Christian King.' The 'Defender of the Faith,' &c. But a true submission to the power of it is made a scorn, as being contrary to that liberty of fashions, vanity of compliment, and some Gentile customs, which, in a fond compliance with the humour of the age, they are loath to part with. It were a rude zeal to deny them honest civilities, but certain customs and modes there are inconsistent with the severity of religion, which, rather than men will part with, they will even break with God himself. (3.) The marriage of children into carnal families, wherein they consult rather with the greatness of their house than the continuing of Christ's interest in their line and posterity. How careful are they that they should match in their own rank for blood and estate! Should they not be as careful for religion also? But even good people give a suspicion sometimes that they do not believe what they do profess. That this is the ready way to undo all that hath been set on foot for God, is evident by scripture and experience. See Gen. vi. 1-3; Ps. cvi. 38; Neh. xiii. 25, 26. In scripture, we read of Jehoram, who is said to 'walk in the way of the kings of Israel, for the daughter of Ahab was his wife,' 2 Kings viii. 18; and in ecclesiastical history, of Valens the emperor, who, by marrying with an Arian lady, was himself ensnared in that wicked opinion.
All this is spoken, madam, to quicken you to the greater care in your relations, that you may settle a standing interest for Jesus Christ so hopefully already begun in your house and family. It will not be pleasing to you that I should publish upon the house-top what God hath done for you, or enabled you to do for him. Go on still, and be faithful. There are few that I know in the world who have more cause to honour God than you have.
That I have inscribed this Commentary to your name will not seem strange to those that know my great obligations to yourself and your worthy husband, and your interest in that beloved place and people among whom I have had so many sweet opportunities of enjoying, and, I hope, of glorifying God, and from whom I should never have removed but upon those weighty causes and considerations which did even rend me from them. And though I am now transplanted, and owe very much service and respect elsewhere, yet that noble lord that gave me the call will allow me full time and leave to pay my old debts, that afterward I may be the more in a capacity publicly to express my gratitude to himself.
If any should be so foolish as to object the unsuitableness of dedicating a comment on the scripture to one of your sex (as it seemeth some did to Jerome), I shall not plead that two of the books of scripture are named from women, Ruth and Esther, that an epistle which maketh up a part of the canon is inscribed to an 'elect lady,' that if this be a fault, others have faulted in like kind before me; but only that this is a practical commentary, and surely in matters of practice (which is every Christian's common interest) your sex hath a full share. Though your course of life be more private and confined, yet you have your service. The scriptures speak of the woman's gaining upon the husband, 1 Peter iii. 1; seasoning the children, Prov. xxxi. 1, 2 Tim. i. 5; encouraging the. servants in a way of godliness, especially of their own sex; it is said, Esther iv. 16, 'I also and my maidens will fast likewise.' These maidens were either Jews, and then it showeth what servants should be taken into a nearer attendance, such as savour of religion (see Ps. ci. 6), or else, which is more probable, such as she had instructed in the true religion, for these maidens were appointed her by the eunuch, and were before instructed in court fashions, Esther ii. 9; but that did not satisfy. She taketh time to instruct them in the knowledge of the true God, and it seemeth in her apartment had many opportunities of religious commerce with them in the worship of God. Madam, how far you practise these duties it is not necessary that I should tell the world. Persevere with cheerfulness, and in due time you shall reap if you faint not. The good Lord shed abroad the comforts and graces of his Spirit more abundantly into your heart, which is the unfeigned desire of him who is, madam, your most obliged and respectively (Note: = ' respectfully.' Ed.) observant,
THO. MANTON.
TO THE READER.
GOOD READER, - The people of God have ever been exercised with two sorts of enemies - persecutors and sectaries: it is hard to say which is worst. When the Christian church began first to look forth in the world, there were adverse powers without ready to crush it, and Libertines who, like worms bred within the body, sought to devour the entrails and eat out the very bowels of it. The first ringleader was Simon Magus, and there followed Menander, Saturninus, Basilides, Carpocrates, Cerinthus, Ebion, Cerdo, Marcion, Tatianus, Valentinus, and many others, who, being once turned aside from the truth and the fellowship of the faithful, lost all awe of God, and were given up to a sottish judgment to believe all kinds of fables and fancies. The monsters of Africa came from the unnatural commixtures of the beasts running wild in the deserts; so when men had once broken through the hedge, mingling their own fancies with the word of God, by an unnatural production they brought forth such monstrous and absurd opinions.
In succeeding ages the devil hath often played over the old game, sometimes oppressing the church by the tyranny of pseudo-Christians, as many martyrs being made by antichristian as pagan persecutions, Rev. xiv. 13; at other times corrupting the truth by error, or rendering it suspicious by the divisions about it. Heresies revolve as fashions, and in the course of a few years antiquated errors revive again, and that by their means who did not so much as know them by name.
When God first called his people out of Babylon by Luther's reformation, and the Christian religion began to be restored to its pristine purity, there was not only a Roman party to persecute, but a fanatical party to perplex the estate of reformation and retard the course of the gospel, as histories do abundantly declare, especially Sleidan in his Commentaries.
What hath been our late experience we all know, and have cause to bewail: as soon as we were freed from our hard taskmasters, and a door of hope began to be opened to us, a swarm of Libertines have arisen among us, and do every day increase in number, power, and malice, and under various forms oppugn the unquestionable interests of Jesus Christ, to the great scandal of reformation, and the saddening of the hearts of the godly. We seem to be ripe for a judgment, but from what corner the storm shall blow we cannot tell; some fear a return of popery, and that a second deluge of antichristianism shall overwhelm the western churches. The Papists, I confess, are dangerous, but the great and next fear I think to be from Libertines and a yokeless generation of men, who are most reproachful to religion and most troublesome.
The spirit and drift of this epistle is carried out mainly against this fanatical and libertine party, and therefore I suppose it to be a mistake in Dr Willet, Mr Perkins, and others, when they would turn the edge of it against the Papists. I confess they had a temptation that way, these being the only heretical party with whom the church of God was then in suit, and symbolising in many things with those of the other extreme, as usually darkness and darkness doth better agree than light and darkness; but certainly the party described here are not a domineering faction, that carry things by power and greatness and height of natural abilities, as the Papists do, but a creeping party, such as by sordid and clancular ways seek to undermine the truth, a kind of mean and loose sort of people, that vented monstrous and gross conceits, chiefly out of envy, against those that excelled in gifts and place; and if our modern Ranters, Familists, Quakers, be not here described in their lively colours (as if the apostle had lived to hear their blasphemous expressions and that contempt which they cast upon the officers of the church), I confess then I understand nothing of the whole epistle. If the judicious reader let alone the larger discussion of the observations, and go but over the explications of each verse, he will soon find my observation true.
What I have done, through grace, to the clearer understanding of the apostle's scope, and the larger explanation of the common-places here offered, I shall not mention, but leave to the reader's judgment. Some will blame me for being too large, and others in many places for being too short. I shall only let the first sort know that in the larger explications of points of doctrine I have rather satisfied the desires of others than followed my own judgment, who, when these things were first delivered (which was long since) in the way of short notes, were willing to hear the points more largely debated, and so I went over them again in a sermon-fashion. If any blame me for being too short, let them know that therein I have more satisfied myself, as keeping to the laws of an expository exercise. I confess I am so conscious to the many imperfections of this work, that the reader had never been troubled with it had it not been extorted from me by such importunity as I could not withstand: especially did I judge the publication needless, the elaborate commentary of my reverend brother, Mr William Jenkyns, being already printed; but when I saw that we went different ways in prosecuting the same truth, that objection ceased. Seasonable things must be often urged, and the variety of method maketh the repetition grateful. I observe God's providence in it, when divers men fall upon the same work, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every truth might be established. Beza, I remember, persuadeth Olevian to print his meditations on the Galatians, though many excellent writers had but lately and diligently explained that epistle. Dr King, Dr Abbot, and Dr Benefield all wrote upon Jonah, and with approbation, near about the same time. As much as my occasions would permit me, I consulted with my reverend brother's book, and when I found any point at large discussed by him, I either omitted it or mentioned it very briefly, so that his labours will be necessary to supply the weaknesses of mine.
This work hath been long in the press, and no wonder, the author lying under such an oppression of business, it being carried on by snatches and spare hours. Many faults have been occasioned, whether by the obscurity of the copy or the negligence of the printer I will not now determine. Surely I have had to do with those that learned how to make a pitcher in a tub, or else they would never have so pitifully mangled the Greek and Latin sentences that in some places they are scarce intelligible. I have added the errata in the end, which must be consulted with, or else the reader will hardly find sense, (Note: Unfortunately the errata are worse printed than the text, and themselves contain many errata. It is hoped that nearly all errors are corrected in the present edition. - Ed.) and in some places not true doctrine. The tables I have collected with some diligence, the one of scriptures, which are either vindicated or largely illustrated in this commentary, the other of the principal matters, especially the common-places here discussed. If by all thou findest any help in the way of thy heavenly calling, bless God, and forget not to put up one prayer for the meanest of the Lord's servants,
THO. MANTON.
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