Thomas Manton · 25 of 67

Verse 5. · Part 1

Ver. 5. I will therefore put you in remembrance, though ye once knew this, how that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterwards destroyed them that believed not.

We have done with the preface. I come now to the examples by which the apostle proveth the danger of defection from the faith. The first is taken from the murmuring Israelites; the second from the apostate angels; the third from the beastly Sodomites. That you may see how apposite and apt for the apostle’s purpose these instances are, I shall first insist upon some general observations.

Obs. 1. First observe that God’s ancient judgments were ordained to be our warnings and examples. The Bible is nothing but a book of precedents, wherein the Lord would give the world a document or copy of his providence: ‘All these things are happened to them for examples,’ 1 Cor. x. 11. When we blow off the dust from these old experiences, we may read much of the counsel of God in them; their destruction should be our caution. His justice is the same that ever it was, and his power is the same, his vigour is not abated with years: ‘God is but one,’ Gal. iii. 20; that is, always the same, without change and variation, as ready to take vengeance of the transgressors of the law as of old; for that is the point there discussed. So 2 Tim. ii. 13, ‘He abideth faithful; he cannot deny himself.’ In all the changes of the world, God is not changed, but is where he was at first. Surely we should tremble more when we consider the examples of those that have felt his justice; for God keepeth a proportion in all his dispensations. If he were strict, and holy, and just, then he is strict, and holy, and just now. He that struck Ananias and Sapphira dead in the place for a lie, that made Zacharias dumb for unbelief, that kept Moses out of the land of promise for a few unadvised words, that turned Lot’s wife into a pillar of salt for looking back, is the same God still, not a jot altered: his judgments may be more spiritual, but then more terrible.

Again, answerable practices make us partakers of their guilt, and therefore involve us in their punishment. Imitation is an evidence of approbation. A man may have more sins charged upon him than those committed in his own person; you are partakers of their evil deeds that lived before you, if you do as they did. It may be the memory of those that formerly fell under the weight of God’s displeasure is execrable to you, yet your walking in the same course is a sign that you like their practices, and therefore you must expect their judgments with advantage and usury: Mat. xxiii. 35, ‘That upon you may come all the righteous blood that was shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, the son of Barachiah, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar.’ Why upon them? and how did they slay him? No doubt the memory of Cain was accursed among the Jews, but they ‘walked in the way of Cain,’ and so were to receive Cain’s judgment with advantage. No doubt the memory of the murderers of Zechariah the prophet was hateful to them, but they continued prophet-killing and prophet-hating, and therefore did implicitly approve his murder, and so are said to slay him. Jude 11, it is said, ‘These perished in the gainsaying of Korah.’ How can that be, when they were not as yet born? These seducers lived long after, but following them in their sin, in their ruin they had a sure pledge of their own destruction. When we see others fall into a deep pit, and yet will adventure the same way, as we sin the worse, so our judgment will be the greater.

Uses. Well, then, let us make every instance of the word a warning, and apply it for our use; it is excellent when we read the scriptures with a spirit of application. In the miscarriage of others we have experience at a cheap rate; and in their misery we have as sure a proof of the evil of sin, though not as costly, as if we had felt it ourselves.

Again, when wicked men flourish, be not dismayed. How hath God judged sinners of like kind? What say your scripture precedents? ‘I went into the sanctuary; there I understood their end,’ Ps. lxxiii. 17.

Again, it showeth how vain their conceit is, that God will not deal so severely with us if we continue in our sins as he hath done with others in former times when the scriptures were written. God’s judgments, I confess, are more spiritual, but every way as severe to them that continue in their sins; heretofore they were smitten with death, now with deadness. Nadab and Abihu were quickly dispatched for their unhallowed approaches to God in worship, Lev. x. 3, &c.; many come now that do not sanctify God in their hearts: their judgment is more spiritual, the ordinances which should quicken, harden them. Bears devoured the children that mocked the prophet, 2 Kings ii. 23-25: many sit taunting by the walls that are not torn in pieces by bears, but they are posting to hell apace; tarry but a little while, and God will ‘tear them in pieces, and there shall be none to deliver,’ Ps. 1. Korah, Dathan, and Abiram were swallowed up quick, Num. xvi.; the earth cleaves to receive them that made a cleft in the congregation: many act as tumultuously as they, and no doubt their day is coming. Lot’s wife, whose heart hankered after her possessions, was turned into a pillar of salt for looking back, Gen. xix. They that revert, and, after they are embarked with Christ, run ashore again as soon as they see a storm a-coming, shall have their reward in due time.

Obs. 2. The next thing which I observe in these instances is, the impartiality of divine justice; for in all the examples brought, there are some circumstances upon which others would expect an exemption from wrath; as the interest of the Israelites, they were God’s own people; the dignity of the angels, they were as it were fellows of God and courtiers of heaven; the beauty and excellency of the country of Sodom: and in all the instances ye may observe the judgments fell on multitudes and societies, or collective bodies. All the murmuring Israelites, all the apostate angels, all the inhabitants of the four cities. Observe then—(1.) That no outward privilege can avail us in the day of wrath, and so God’s justice knoweth no relations. He ‘spared not Christ.’ Rom. viii. 32; he ‘spared not the angels,’ 2 Peter ii. 4; he spared not his people of Israel, &c. (2.) None have a privilege to sin, and therefore none are exempted from punishment; the law includeth all, the son, the servant, them that sit on the throne, and those that grind at the mill, none have a license from heaven and a privilege to sin above others. (3.) Wicked men do not spare God, and therefore God doth not spare them. They abuse his justice, his mercy; they spare not his glory, his laws; and as they are impartial in sinning, no restraints withhold them, so God is impartial in punishing.

Uses. Lean not then upon these reeds. When wrath maketh inquisition for sinners, outward privileges are of no use; it is happy for them alone that are ‘found in Christ,’ Phil. iii. The avenger of blood had nothing to do with the manslayer in the city of refuge; when God is about to strike, none but Christ can hold the blow. See the vanity of other things. (1.) Outward profession is nothing, your ‘circumcision becometh uncircumcision.’ God disclaimeth interest in a sinful people: ‘Thy people which thou hast brought out of the land of Egypt,’ saith God to Moses, when they had corrupted themselves, in scorn and disdain, Exod. xxxii. 7. Thy people; he will not own them for his sheep, Deut. xxxii. 5. (2.) No dignity can exempt us; the angels were cast down to places of darkness. Dignity doth not lessen but aggravate sin; where much is given, much is owed, and much will be required: ‘Tophet is prepared for kings, for princes is it prepared.’ (3.) Not outward excellency, as the pleasant land of Sodom. The disciples thought ‘the goodly buildings of the temple ‘would move Christ to pity, Luke xxi. 5, 6, but Christ telleth them, ‘not one stone should be left upon another.’ Saul was checked for sparing the best. Justice is not dazzled with outward splendour. The Lord threateneth to ‘punish the dainty daughters of Zion with a scab,’ Isa. iii. 17, &c. (4.) Not any society or multitudes of men. He ‘spared not the old world,’ 2 Peter ii. 5. No leagues and combinations can maintain your cause against God: ‘Though the wicked go hand in hand, they shall not escape unpunished,’ Prov. xi. 21. Briars and thorns may be intricated, and enfolded one within another, but when a devouring flame cometh amongst them, they do not hinder but increase the burning. Universal evils are above man’s punishment, but not God’s. There is no safety in ‘following a multitude to do evil.’ So that nothing will serve as a fit screen to interpose between wrath and you, but only Christ.

Obs. 3. I observe that, in all these instances there was some preceding mercy more or less. The angels had the dignity of their nature; the Israelites had the testimony of God’s presence, and were delivered out of Egypt; the Sodomites had eternal blessings, and the preaching of Lot, Gen. xix. 9. It is God’s usual course to give a people a taste of his mercy ere he discover the power of his anger. Judgment is his last work: there is some mercy abused before it cometh, which doth abundantly clear God in the judgments that come upon the sons of men. Their ruin may be sad, but never undeserved. ‘God hath not left himself without a witness,’ but we are left ‘without excuse.’

Obs. 4. Once more I observe, that in all these instances God had still a care to put a distinction between the just and the unjust; the race of Israel was not destroyed, but only ‘them that believed not.’ The good angels were preserved, the bad only fell from their first estate. Sodom perished in the flames, but Lot escaped. When the multitude is so corrupt, that we know not how they shall be punished and the rest preserved, let us think of these instances, let us refer it to God: ‘He knoweth,’ &c., 2 Peter ii. 9.

I come now to the words; in which you have a preface, and the first instance of God’s judgment, which was on the unbelieving Israelites. In the preface you may take notice of his purpose, I will put you in remembrance; his insinuation, though ye once know this.

I begin with the first part, his purpose, I will put you in remembrance. From thence observe:—

Obs. 1, That it is a great part of a minister’s duty to be a remembrancer. We are remembrancers in a double sense:—(1.) From the people to God, to put God in mind of his people’s wants; so it is said, Isa. lxii. 6, ‘Ye that are the Lord’s remembrancers.’ Christ is the church’s advocate, but we are the church’s solicitors, to represent the sad condition of the church to God. (2.) From God to the people; and so we are to put them in mind of the being of God, the riches of his grace, the necessity of obedience, the preciousness of their souls, the many dangers that lie in their way to heaven, &c. These are standing dishes at Christ’s table. That this is a great part of our office appeareth by those places:—1 Tim. iv. 6, ‘If thou put the brethren in remembrance of these things, thou shalt be a good minister of Jesus Christ.’ And Paul, speaking of his apostleship, saith, Rom. xv. 15, ‘As one that putteth you in remembrance, through the grace given to me;’ see 2 Tim. ii. 14; Titus iii. 1; 2 Peter i. 12-14; iii. 1. So there are two psalms that bear that title, A Psalm of David to bring to remembrance, Ps. xxxviii. and lxx. The great use of sacraments is to put us in remembrance of Christ, 1 Cor. xi. 24. Yea, one great employment of the Spirit is to ‘bring things to our remembrance,’ John xiv. 26; all which intimateth (1st.) Our forgetfulness and incogitancy. Truths formerly understood are soon forgotten, or not duly considered and kept in the view of conscience. (2d.) The benefit of a good memory. A bad memory is the cause of all mischief, but a lively remembrance of truth keepeth the mind in a good frame. (3d.) That however it be with natural, yet spiritual knowledge is a reminiscence, or reviving the seeds infused in the new creation, 1 Cor. xv. 2; Heb. xii. 5. (4th.) That a minister dischargeth his duty when he teacheth his people things vulgar and already known, as well as those which are rare and less known: if he be but a remembrancer it is enough; we are to ‘bring forth things both new and old.’ We count him a wanton prodigal that only furnisheth his table with rarities, neglecting wholesome meats because they are usual. (5th.) The necessity of a standing ministry, if not to instruct, yet to keep things in remembrance. Because the most necessary truths are few and soon learned, men presently begin to think they know as much as can be taught them, and so neglect ordinances; whereas one great use of the ministry is to keep truths fresh and savoury in the thoughts and memory. The heathen soon lost the knowledge of God, because they were without a public monitor that might keep this knowledge still on foot. The sound of the trumpet infuseth a new courage, so doth every sermon beget new affections, though we knew the truths delivered before. Coals will die without continual blowing; so will graces languish without often warnings and admonitions.

The next thing in the preface is the insinuation, though ye once knew this. That word once needeth to be explained. His meaning is not that formerly they had known, but now forgotten it; neither is once to be referred to ὑπομνῆσαι, as if the sense were, I will once put you in remembrance; but by once is meant once for all; that is, ye have certainly and irrecoverably received this as a truth. This clause will yield us these notes.

Obs. 2. That it is the duty of every Christian to be acquainted with the scriptures; the apostle presumeth it of these Christians to whom he wrote. Now this is necessary in regard of ourselves, that we may know the solid grounds of our own comfort; every man would look over his charter: ‘Search the scriptures, for in them ye think to have eternal life,’ John v. 39. Particular and distinct scriptures are a great advantage in temptations. Sic scriptum est is Christ’s own argument against Satan, Mat. iv. No Christians so unsettled in point of comfort or opinion as those that are ‘unskilful in the word,’ Heb. v. 13. In regard of others, it is necessary that we may discharge our duty to them; ‘Let the word dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another,’ &c., Col. iii. 16. None but full vessels will run over, Job xxxii. 18. Ignorant Christians are barren and sapless in discourse; private Christians must be ‘full of knowledge;’ not only to have knowledge enough to bring themselves to heaven, but to ‘admonish others,’ see Rom. xv. 14. Well, then, do not put off this care to others, as if it were proper only to scholars and men of a public calling; this is every man’s work that hath a soul to be saved. It is Popish ignorance to be contented with an implicit belief; you may best trust your own eyes. When the sun shineth, every man openeth his windows to let it in. We busy ourselves in other books, why not in the word? Austin was pleased with Tully’s Hortensius, but he cast it away because he could not find the name of Christ there. It is the description of a godly man, ‘His delight is in the law of God, and in his law doth he exercise himself day and night,’ Ps. i. 2. These are the chaste delights of a child of God, not in playbooks and idle son nets; how many sacrilegious hours do most spend in these trifles! Good books should not keep us from the scriptures; water is sweetest in the fountain. Luther professeth that he could wish all his books forgotten and utterly laid aside, rather than that they should keep men from reading the scriptures themselves. Christians, study the word more, that you may have promises, doctrines, examples ready and more familiar with you; to be ignorant in a knowing age is an argument of much negligence, Heb. v. 14. Now religion is made every one’s discourse, will you alone be a stranger in Israel? As the many helps call upon us to study the word more, so the many errors which are abroad: all error cometh from unskilfulness in the scriptures: Mat. xxii. 29, ‘Ye err, not knowing the scriptures;’ in the dark a man may soon lose his way.

To cure this mischief, let me press you:—

1. To read the scriptures in your families; set up this ordinance among other parts of worship there—it is a family exercise—that your children may be trained up in them, 2 Tim. iii. 15. It is a good closet exercise for your own private instruction, none of you are in too high a form; the prophets ‘searched them diligently,’ 1 Peter i. 11, 12.

2. Read them with profit, so as you may understand them, and apply the doctrines and examples you meet with there. Ask thy soul, ‘Understandest thou what thou readest?’ Acts viii. 30, or as Paul, Rom. viii. 31, ‘What shall we say to these things?’ The scriptures are not to be read for delight, but for spiritual profit and use.

3. In cases of difficulty use all holy means; pray to God, the Spirit is the best interpreter; pray before, pray after, as you do for food. If God answer not at first, ‘Cry for knowledge, lift up thy voice for understanding.’ Call in the helps which God hath given, many private helps of commentaries; but above all, ‘despise not prophesying.’ Consult with the officers and guides of the church, Eph. iv. 14, Mal. ii. 7.

Obs. 3. Observe again, that those truths which we understand already, they had need be pressed again, and revived upon us; see 1 John ii. 21. Our knowledge is but weak, the eye of the mind is opened by degrees; our memories are weak, and commands must be repeated to a forgetful servant; our affections are slow, not easily wrought up to the love of good things. When the wedge will not enter with one blow, we follow it home with blow upon blow. Well, then, we say—(1.) Repetitions are lawful for you; it is a sure thing, Phil. iii. 1. Christ in the Gospels, and Paul in the Epistles, do often repeat the same passages. Till you be affected with them we must inculcate necessary principles again and again: ‘God speaketh once, yea, twice, when men regard it not,’ Job xxxiii. 14. Consider men are dull to conceive, ‘slow of heart to believe.’ The way to pierce the hard stone is by often dropping: apt to forget heavenly truths: leaky vessels must be filled again, Heb. ii. 1. We must repeat, to make shame more stirring: ‘Peter was troubled when Christ said the third time, Lovest thou me?’ John xxi. 17. Let this which hath been said prevent censure; look upon it as a providence when the same truth or sermon is presented again: Surely I have not meditated enough of this truth, I am not enough affected with it, therefore the Lord hath again brought it to my thoughts, or there is some new temptation that I shall meet with, that I may find the need of this old truth, &c. (2.) That it is a spiritual disease, a surfeit of manna, when men must still be fed with new things; no truths are too plain for our mouths, or too stale for your ears; the itch of novelty puts men upon ungrounded subtleties, and that maketh way for error or hardness of heart. Though you hear nothing but what you are acquainted with, be content; they were carnal people that complained they had nothing but the ‘old burden,’ Jer. xxiii. 33, 34. Take heed of the Athenian itch, many times it argueth guilt: we cannot endure to have an old sore rubbed again; as Peter was troubled when Christ spake to him the third time, as I noted before, that his apostasy should once more be revived. (3.) It may justify two duties of great use—meditation and repetition in our families. (1st.) Meditation, for it is good to remember truths that we do already know. ‘Once hath God spoken, and twice have I heard it,’ Ps. lxii. 11. We should go over and over it again in our thoughts. First we learn, and then we meditate; study findeth out a truth, and meditation improveth it; as first the meat is taken in, and then the digestion is afterwards. Conscience preacheth over the sermon again to the heart; while the thing is new it doth more exercise study than meditation; but when we have once learned it, then our thoughts should work upon it; for meditation is the improvement of a known truth. (2d.) Repetition in our families; let them hear it again and again, the third blow may make the nail go. If people were humble and sober, they would have new and fresh thoughts every time a truth is revived upon them. At first hearing many are lost through the wandering and distraction of our thoughts, things which upon the review may be brought to hand again; at least youth and children must have ‘line upon line,’ as when they learn to write, the same letters and the same copy are written over again and again, till the figure of them be formed in their fancies.

I have done with the preface; I come now to the first instance produced, how that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed not.—τὸν λαὸν. The term is of an honourable use in this place—the people—for the peculiar people of God; the holy and elect nation, that had the law and the covenants of promise. This people, after they were ‘delivered,’ and that by so great and solemn a deliverance as that ‘out of the land of Egypt,’ were afterwards ‘destroyed;’ so that it is ill standing upon privileges. Though many of them to whom the apostle wrote had renounced Gentilism, and were (as it were) come out of Egypt, and made God’s people by visible profession; yet, after all this, they might be destroyed in case of disproportionate practice or disobedience to God in that profession. Of Israel’s destruction, see Num. xiv. 37; 1 Cor. x. 10. Libertine Christians shall share as bad as obstinate Jews, that is the drift of his argument.

Obs. 1. From this clause observe, that after great mercies, there do usually follow great judgments, if great sins come between: as after their deliverance out of Egypt they were destroyed for unbelief. This may be proved from Christ’s advice to the man cured on the Sabbath-day: John v. 14, ‘Thou art made whole, sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee.’ There is the mercy, the duty thence inferred, and the judgment that doth avenge the quarrel of the abused mercy. Often it cometh to pass that many men’s preservation is but a reservation to a worse thing, to a greater judgment. So see Josh. xxiv. 20, ‘He will turn again, and do you hurt, after he hath done you good.’ So Isa. lxiii. 10, ‘He bore them (in the arms of his providence), but they rebelled and vexed his spirit, and he was turned to be their enemy.’ None usually have greater judgments than such as formerly have had sweet experience of mercy. Why? There is no hatred so great as that which ariseth out of the corruption of love. Disappointed love, abused love groweth outrageous. When Amnon hated Tamar, it is said, ‘The hatred wherewith he hated her was greater than the love wherewith he loved her.’ As it is thus with men, such a proportionable severity we may observe in the dispensations of God after a taste of his mercies: Josh, xxiii. 15, ‘It shall come to pass, as all good things are come upon you, which the Lord your God promised you, so the Lord shall bring all evil things upon you, until he hath destroyed you, when ye have transgressed the covenant of the Lord your God.’ No evils like those evils which come after mercy. No sins are so great as those sins which are committed against mercies; there is not only filthiness in them, but unkindness: Ps. cvi. 7, ‘They provoked him at the sea, even at the Red Sea.’ Mark, it is ingeminated for the more vehemency, that at the sea, even at the Red Sea, where they had seen the miracles of the Lord, and had experience of his glorious deliverance, that there they durst break out against God. See the contrary in Judges ii. 7. Certainly the more restraints, the greater the offence, when we sin not only against the laws of God, but the loves of God, &c.

Well, then—(1.) It informeth us that there may be danger after deliverance; there are strange changes in providence: ‘Man in his best estate is altogether vanity,’ Ps. xxxix. 5. When you are at your best, as the sun at the highest, there may be a declension.

(2.) It is a warning to those that enjoy mercies: ‘Sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto you.’ The next judgment will be more violent. There are some special sins which you should beware of, even those which testify our unthankfulness after the receipt of mercies. As (1st.) forgetting the vows of our misery. Jacob voweth, Gen. xxviii. 22, but he forgets his vow, and what followed? Horrible disorders and confusions in his family: Dinah deflowered, Reuben goeth into his father’s bed, a murder committed upon the Shechemites under a pretence of religion, and then Jacob remembereth his vow. We promise much when we want deliverance, and when we have it, God is neglected; but he will not put it up so; by sad and disastrous accidents he puts us in mind of our old promises. (2d.) When you ‘kiss your own hand, bless your drag,’ ascribe it to your merit and power, Hab. i. 16, Deut. ix. 4, for these things are our mercies blasted. (3d.) When we grow proud, self-confident: if you were never so high, God will bring you low enough; it is a great skill to ‘know how to abound.’ ‘She remembered not her last end, therefore she came down wonderfully,’ Lam. i. 9. When we forget the changes and mutations to which all outward things are obnoxious, God will give us an experience of them. (4th.) When you continue in your sins, the judgment is but gone cum ammo revertendi, to come again in a worse manner. See Ps. cvi. 43.

Obs. 2. The next observation is taken from the cause of their destruction, intimated in those words, that believed not. Many were the people’s sins in the wilderness, murmuring, fornication, rebellion, &c. But the apostle comprehendeth all under this, they believed not. Unbelief is charged upon them as the root of all their miscarriages elsewhere, as Num. xiv. 11, and Deut. i. 32. Whence observe, that unbelief bringeth destruction, or is the cause of all the evil which we do or suffer.

In handling this point, I shall open—(1.) The heinousness of unbelief; (2.) The nature of it; (3.) The cure of it.

1. The heinousness of the sin. That we will consider in general, or more particularly. The general considerations are these:—

[1.] No sin doth dishonour God so much as unbelief doth. It is an interpretative blasphemy, a calling into question of his mercy, power, justice, but especially of his truth: 1 John v. 10, ‘He that believeth not God, hath made him a liar.’ You judge him a person not fit to be credited. The giving of the lie is accounted the greatest injury and disgrace amongst men; for truth is the ground of commerce and human society. So that to say a man is a liar is as much as to say a man is unfit to keep company with men. But especially is this a great injury to God, because he standeth more upon his word than upon any other part of his name: Ps. cxxxviii. 2, ‘He hath magnified his word above all his name.’ We have more experience of God in making good his word than in any other thing. As faith honoureth God, so doth unbelief dishonour him. What God doth to the creature, that doth faith to God. God justifieth, sanctifieth, glorifieth the creature, and faith is said to ‘justify God,’ Luke vii. 29. To justify is to acquit from accusation. So doth faith acquit God’s truth in the word from all the jealousies which the carnal world and our carnal hearts do cast upon him. Faith is said to ‘sanctify God,’ Num. xx. 12. To sanctify is to set apart from common use; and God is sanctified when we set God aloof, above all ordinary and common causes, and can believe that he will make good his word, when the course of all things seems to contradict it. Faith is said to ‘glorify God.’ Rom. iv. 20. We glorify him declaratively when we give him all that excellency which the word giveth him. Now, because unbelief accuseth God, limiteth him to the course of second causes, and denieth him his glory, therefore is it so heinous and hateful to God.