Depravity (Chicago: Moody, 1969), 289.
Appendix 2
not lie in them, but get up again, and with bitter grief bewail them, and return again unto the Lord.24
Thomas Watson wrote in 1692:
We must have conformity to Him in grace, before we can have communion with Him in glory. Grace and glory are linked and chained together. Grace precedes glory, as the morning star ushers in the sun. God will have us qualifi ed and fi tted for a state of blessedness. Drunkards and swearers are not fi t to enjoy God in glory; the Lord will not lay such vipers in His bosom. Only the "pure in heart shall see God."25
Thomas Manton's commentary on James, first published in 1693, contains these words:
Works are an evidence of true faith. Graces are not dead, useless habits; they will have some eff ects and operations when they are weakest and in their infancy. . . . Th is is the evidence by which we must judge, and this is the evidence by which Christ will judge. . . . Works are not a ground of confi dence, but an evidence; not the foundations of faith, but the encouragements of assurance. Comfort may be increased by the sight of good works, but it is not built upon them; they are seeds of hope, not props of confi dence; sweet evidences of election, not causes; happy presages and beginnings of glory; in short, they can manifest an interest, but not merit it.26
"Manton held strongly to the perseverance of God's elect; but that did not hinder him from teaching that holiness is the grand distinguishing mark of God's people, and that he who talks of 'never perishing' while he continues in wilful sin, is a hypocrite and a self-deceiver."27
Another Puritan, Thomas Goodwin, wrote:
Where mourning for off ending God is wanting, there is no sign of any good will yet wrought in the heart to God, nor of love to him, without which God will never accept a man. . . .
Else there is no hope of amendment. God will not pardon till he sees hopes of amendment. Now, until a man confess his sin, and that with bitterness, it is a sign he loves it, Job xx. 12 – 14. Whilst he hides it,
24. Th omas Vincent, Th e Shorter Catechism of the Westminster Assembly Explained and Proved from Scripture (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1980), 226 – 31.
25. Th omas Watson, A Body of Divinity (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1979), 16. 26. Th omas Manton, A Commentary on James (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1963), 239. 27. J. C. Ryle, Estimate of Manton, cited in A. W. Pink, Gleanings from the Scriptures: Man's Total Depravity (Chicago: Moody, 1969), 289.