J. Stephen Yuille has written a wonderful book which examines Thomas Manton’s sermons on Psalm 119. The book is titled Great Spoil: Thomas Manton’s Spirituality of the Word, and it is published by Reformation Heritage Books.
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Great Spoil: Thomas Manton’s Spirituality of the Word
The book begins with an introduction and discussion on What is Puritanism?. In just a few pages, Yuille provides quite a bit of church history and helps the reader to understand the times of Thomas Manton (and that which led up to it).
Related Book Review: The Puritans Day by Day
The first chapter then provides a concise sketch of Manton’s life and the influences on him that led him to cherish God’s Word and the experiential preaching of it.
Chapters 3-9 are a discussion on blessedness and the way that it formed Manton and his piety. In the beginning of chapter 9 on the Sufficiency of Scripture, Yuille says this in regards to chapters 3-9: “The previous six chapters have demonstrated how Manton believes we come to the enjoyment of God—our ‘chiefest good’ and ‘utmost end.’ In sum, God impresses His excellencies on us through His Word, thereby stirring our affections so that we make returns to Him—faith, love, humility, and repentance. God’s Word, therefore, stands at the center of Manton’s spirituality. It alone is the means through which God speaks to us and we respond to him.”
Chapters 10-14 go on to extrapolate on God’s Word as the means through which God speaks to us and we respond to Him. Finally, chapters 15-21 is devoted to the practice of spiritual duties so that the lover of God may experience the blessing of those means more and more.
This is an excellent book on Thomas Manton specifically and Puritanism generally. There is absolutely no way that somebody who is born again will not grow in their love for the Word of God and the Lord Himself as a result of reading this book! Yuille does a fantastic job of helping the reader to get to know Manton and his passion for the Word of God! It is contagious to say the least. One cannot help but be challenged to be encouraged to pursue the Lord and sweet communion with Him through our blessed union with Him in Christ.
This book is very timely for today (and every other time throughout church history!). Considering the amount of people that believe that God speaks to us through means other than the Word of God, we need this message today! If Christians truly believed Manton’s thesis, they would stop searching for communion with God through subjective mysticism and turn to the objective Word of Truth to experience true blessedness. Even though there is a specific chapter in this book titled “The Sufficiency of Scripture,” this entire book is truly making the case for the sufficiency of Scripture.
This book is sure to stir up the reader’s affections for the Lord! Yuille does the church a great service by taking Manton’s 190 sermons on Psalm 119 and placing many of their themes in a book that is just over 150 pages. I appreciate Yuille’s style of writing as well. It is evident that he has spent much time in the writings of the Puritan giants that have gone before us, as he sounds very much like them himself.
I believe this book will serve the church very well, and I truly can’t recommend it highly enough. Tolle, lege! Take up and read!
Disclaimer: My thanks to Reformation Heritage Books for providing me with a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for an unbiased review. The opinions expressed are my own.
Matt became a joyful follower of Jesus at the age of 21. He is very grateful to be a husband to Lindsey, and a father to four boys. He is an ordained minister (teaching elder) in the PCA. He previously served as a pastor of biblical counseling and is currently a corporate chaplain in southern Delaware. Matt received his Master of Divinity degree in Biblical Counseling from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary and holds an advanced certification in biblical counseling from the Association of Biblical Counselors. In his free time, he loves playing with his boys, traveling with his wife, and reading (and buying!) books.
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