The Life of Faith
By Thomas Manton
Christian Focus. 254 pages.
ISBN 1857922484
'Why should a volume of sermons as old as this be re-published today?' asks Maurice Roberts in the foreword of The Life of Faith. He answers with the word 'profundity' (p.13).
And in comparison with much Christian literature produced today, his appreciation of this systematic and thorough treatment of what it means to live by faith is not misplaced.
In basically sermon outlines, Thomas Manton ex-plains the role of faith in our salvation, in the ups and downs of the Christian life and our prayers and Bible reading. The style of the book will be striking to those of us unfamiliar with Puritan writings: the structure of each 'discourse' is extremely orderly, with many divisions and sub-divisions; biblical truth is plainly stated and illustrated mainly with allusions to Bible stories; and application is general rather than spelt out.
Those of us who prefer soundbites and Christian food of the McDonalds' variety will probably find the book inaccessible. But with a little perseverance and some advice on reading the Puritans, there is much of value in Manton's work. The foreword of this edition gives several hints on reading Puritan literature and, throughout the book, there are modern equivalents to the difficult and archaic words. I also found J.I. Packer's chapter on Puritan preaching in Among God's Giants (p.365-382) useful in appreciating and understanding Puritan writing.
If read slowly, thoughtfully and prayerfully, there is much to be learnt, for example, about living with our eyes fixed on heaven, about God's goodness to us in both the trials and comforts of this life and about how faith enables us to resist temptations.
Three course meals are much more nourishing than a McDonalds - but they do take longer to eat.
