[3.] There are excellent enforcements to encourage us to embrace this salvation. God is very impatient of being denied, now he speaks in the gospel, and useth all kinds of methods. As a man who cannot undo a door, and having a bunch of keys in his hand, tries one after another, till the lock doth fly open, so the Lord tries all kind of methods, beseecheth, threateneth, promiseth, that the heart of the sinner might fly open. He beseecheth; God falls a-begging to his own creature, and deals with us as importunately as if the benefit were his own; thus doth he pray us to be reconciled. And then God threatens eternal death, to stir us up to take hold of eternal life; he tells us of a pit without a bottom, and a worm that never dies. Sometimes he seeketh to work upon our hope, and sometimes upon our fear. He not only tells us of the loss of happiness, which is very grievous to an ingenuous spirit: Heb. 12:14, ‘Follow holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord;’ but he tells us of those eternal torments that are without end and ease, of a worm that never dies, and of a fire that shall never be quenched. Oh! whose heart doth not tremble at the mention of these things? Then, on the other side, we have promises as great as heart can wish for, and more: 2 Peter 1:4, ‘Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises.’ It hath not entered into the heart of man to conceive of these things. Who ever hired a man to be happy, or a thirsty man to drink, or a hungry man to eat? Salvation is so acceptable, and the heavenly and blessed hope so glorious, that we should purchase it at any rate; but God taketh all methods to awaken man. Thus the gospel may well be said to be a powerful instrument of our salvation, because it hath a powerful tendency that way.Thomas Manton, “Several Sermons upon Titus ii.11–14,” in The Complete Works of Thomas Manton, D.D., 22 vols. (London: James Nisbet & Co., 1874), 16:57.
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