4. What We Are to Do Afterwards

Thomas Manton

Examine what exercise and increase of faith there has been. Have I acted faith in this duty? How shall I know? If you have, in the acting of faith, been waiting on God for the blessings of the ordinance, the effects will demonstrate it. These are the effects:

1. It will stir up joy and thankfulness; you will find it will increase both. So it is said of the eunuch after his baptism: “He went on his way rejoicing” (Acts 8:39). Men are pleased when a good bargain is sealed to them that yields them great benefit; so the people of God are stirred up to praise the Lord when have renewed pledges of God’s love and a real sense of their interest, through Christ, in such inestimable benefits as the pardon of their sins, the gift of the Spirit and hopes of glory. They are ready to cry with David: “Bless the Lord, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless His holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits: who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases” (Ps 103:1-3). When something urges the soul to bless God, it is a sign that we have acted faith and have been encouraged to wait for such special benefits that we are to receive by Christ.

2. It will produce a longing to meet with God another time that we may be thus kindly refreshed, to have another good meal from God and be feasted in His house: “To see Thy power and Thy glory, so as I have seen it in the sanctuary” (Ps 63:2). As one circle begets another in the water, and a little water cast into the pump when the springs are low brings up more, so our experience kindles affection and makes us long for more: “If so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious” (1 Pet 2:3). When you find benefit from one duty, it will be an encouragement to come again. You have tasted that the Lord is gracious, and you therefore come for new quickening and refreshing.

3. There will be a resolution to serve the Lord more faithfully, and walk with Him in all the ways of holiness. You have been with God and you go aside and say, “What shall I render to the Lord for all His benefits toward me? I will take the cup of salvation and call upon the name of the Lord. I will pay my vows unto the Lord now in the presence of all His people” (Ps 116:12-14), and, “I will hear what God the Lord will speak, for He will speak peace unto His people, and to His saints; but let them not turn again

¹The final part of the application of a sermon on Hebrews 11:28: “Through faith he kept the passover, and the sprinkling of blood, lest he that destroyed the firstborn should touch them”. It comes, with editing, from By Faith, Manton’s sermons on Hebrews 11.

to folly” (Ps 85:8). When there is more care of holy walking with God, then there has certainly been some acting of faith and grace in this duty and we have met with Jesus in it.

1. For the present, the heart should be more warm and serious. Also all those things should be omitted, for a time at least, which rather savour of the flesh than of the spirit – which, though they do not directly belong to the flesh, yet they border on it. And those things should be omitted which do not agree well with the fervour of godliness, which should be stirred up in us in so important an action. To leap at once into a vain, worldly frame and to turn to worldly conversation shows that we have not been serious in it, that we have not had such a lively sense of sin, and that we have not been so deeply affected with the wonders of God’s redeeming grace as we should have been.

However it may be with us at other times, and whatever liberty we take, yet after the participation of the Lord’s Supper, we certainly ought to study much purity and heavenliness of mind, and raisedness of heart towards God. And I rather press it because, after a solemn duty, the devil loves to tempt the worshippers of the Lord Jesus Christ to some unbecoming behaviour. The devil entered into Judas after the sop: “And supper being ended, the devil having now put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, to betray him . . .” (Jn 13:2). Satan never gets greater advantage on wicked men than after a careless use of such precious ordinances. But a savour will abide on the hearts of the people of God for a good while afterward.