Category Archives: Christianity

Tuesday: Manton on the goal of worship

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God will be sought in his own ordinances. Christ walks in the midst of the golden candlesticks. If you would find a man, mind where is his walk and usual resort. …

To serve God is one thing; to seek him another. To serve God is to make him the object of worship, to seek God is to make him the end of worship. …

It is not enough to make use of ordinances, but we must see if we can find God there. There are many that hover about the palace, that yet do not speak with the prince; so possibly we may hover about ordinances, and not meet with God there. To go away with the husk and shell of an ordinance, and neglect the kernel, is to please ourselves because we have been in the courts of God, though we have not met with the living God, that is very sad.

…So a formal person goes from ordinance to ordinance, and is satisfied with the work; a godly man looks to … go away from God with God.

— on Psalm 119:2

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Go, labor on: spend, and be spent

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Do not grow weary in well-doing was one application from Sunday’s sermon (from the end of Isaiah 28). I concluded by reading the lyrics of this great hymn by Horatius Bonar…

Go, labor on: spend, and be spent H. BONAR, 1843

Go, labor on: spend, and be spent,

Thy joy to do the Father’s will:

It is the way the Master went;

Should not the servant tread it still?

Go, labor on! ’tis not for naught

Thine earthly loss is heavenly gain;

Men heed thee, love thee, praise thee not;

The Master praises: what are men?

Go, labor on! enough, while here,

If He shall praise thee, if He deign

The willing heart to mark and cheer:

No toil for Him shall be in vain.

Go, labor on! Your hands are weak,

Your knees are faint, your soul cast down;

Yet falter not; the prize you seek

Is near—a kingdom and a crown.

Go, labor on while it is day:

The world’s dark night is hastening on;

Speed, speed thy work, cast sloth away;

It is not thus that souls are won.

Men die in darkness at thy side,

Without a hope to cheer the tomb;

Take up the torch and wave it wide,

The torch that lights time’s thickest gloom.

Toil on, faint not, keep watch and pray,

Be wise the erring soul to win;

Go forth into the world’s highway,

Compel the wanderer to come in.

Toil on, and in thy toil rejoice!

For toil comes rest, for exile home;

Soon shalt thou hear the Bridegroom’s voice,

The midnight peal, “Behold, I come!”

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