Spurgeon on Thomas Manton (1620-1677)

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bookslover

Puritan Board Doctor
While commenting upon the One Hundred and Nineteenth Psalm, I was brought into most intimate communion with Thomas Manton, who has discoursed upon that marvellous portion of Scripture with great fulness and power. I have come to know him so well that I could choose him out from among a thousand divines if he were again to put on his portly form, and display among modern men that countenance wherein was a "great mixture of majesty and meekness." His works occupy twenty-two volumes in the modern reprint: a mighty mountain of sound theology. They mostly consist of sermons; but what sermons! They are not so sparkling as those of Henry Smith, nor so profound as those of Owen, nor so rhetorical as those of Howe, nor so pithy as those of Watson, nor so fascinating as those of Brooks; and yet they are second to none of these. For solid, sensible instruction forcibly delivered, they cannot be surpassed. Manton is not brilliant, but he is always clear; he is not oratorical, but he is powerful; he is not striking, but he is deep. There is not a poor discourse in the whole collection: he is evenly good, constantly excellent. Ministers who do not know Manton need not wonder if they are themselves unknown.

From: the preface to C. H. Spurgeon, Illustrations and Meditations, or, Flowers From a Puritan's Garden, Distilled and Dispensed (London: Passmore and Alabaster, 1883)

Note: Manton's three volumes on Psalm 119, and three volumes of some of his other works, are all available from the Banner of Truth Trust.
 
Also, Banner has published his commentaries/sermons on James, on Jude, and on Hebrews 11, making a "Banner Library" of Manton equal to some 9 volumes (not always correlating with the original #ed volumes' contents).
 
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