2. As a turiter, I consider that Manton holds a somewhat peculiar place among the Puritan divines. He has pre-eminently a style of his own, and a style very unlike that of most of his school. I will try to explain what I mean.
I do not regard him as a writer of striking power and brilliancy, com- pared to some of his cotemporaries. He never carries you by storm, and excites enthusiasm by passages of profound thought expressed in majestic language, such as you will find frequently in Charnock, and occasionally in Howe. He never rouses your inmost feelings, thrills your conscience, or stirs your heart of hearts, like Baxter. Such rhetoric as this was not Manton's gift, and the reader who expects to find it in his writings will be disappointed.
I do not regard him as a writer of such genial imagination, and such talent for illustration and similitude, as several divines of his day. In this respect he is not to be compared with Brooks, and Watson, and Swinnock, and Adams. The pages of those worthy men are often like picture-galleries, in which the pictures are so thickly hung that you can hardly see the walls. Talent of this sort was certainly not in Mantun's line. He paints his pictures and ex- hibits them, and they are always well sketched ; but their number is comparatively small.
Learning again does not stand out as conspicuously in Manton's
AN ESTIMATE OF MANTON. XV
writings as in the works of some of the Puritans. Judging by the list of quotations and references, j'ou would say, that he had not so many authors at his fingers' end as Owen, or Caryl, or Jenkyns, or Arrowsmith, or Thomas Hall. Yet it is only fair to remember, that nearly all we possess of his works consists of sermons, and that a popular sermon is not the proper vehicle for an exhibition of learning. The great preacher will assimilate and digest the thoughts of other men, and make them his own, without incessantly confusing his hearers by refer- ence to books. My own impression is that this was the case with Man- ton. I believe he was a great reader, and a very learned man, but that he had few opportunities of exhibiting his store of knowledge. In fact, reason and common sense point out that he could never have held the position he undoubtedly occupied as a London divine, and had such weight attached to his opinions, if he had not been a man of a well- furnished mind.
Manton's chief excellence as a writer, in my judgment, consists in the ease, perspicuousness, and clearness of his style. He sees his subject clearly, expresses himself clearly, and seldom fails in making you see clearly what he means. He has a happy faculty of simplify- ing the point he handles. He never worries you with acres of long, ponderous, involved sentences, like Goodwin or Owen. His books, if not striking, are generally easy and pleasant reading, and destitute of anything harsh, cramped, obscure, and requiring a second glance to be understood. For my own part, I find it easier to read fifty pages of Manton's than ten of some of his brethren's; and after reading, I feel that I carry more away.
Let no one, moreover, suppose that because Manton's style is easy, his writings show any lack of matter and thought. Nothing of the kind. The fertility of his mind seems to have been truly astonishing. Every page in his books contains many ideas, and gives you plenty to think about. No one, perhaps, but himself could have written such an immense book as he wrote on the 119th Psalm, and yet repeated himself so little, and preserved a freshness of tone to the end. The w'ords of Dr Bates, no mean judge, are worth quoting on this point : — " I cannot but admire the fecundity and variety of his thoughts; that though the same things so often occur in the verses of this psalm, yet, by a judicious observing the different arguments and motives whereby the Psalmist expresses the same request, or some other circumstance, every sermon contains new conceptions proper to the text." This witness is true. If Manton never soars so high as some writers, he is, at any rate, never trifling, never shallow, never wearisome, and never dull. It was a striking remark of one of his cotemporaries, that " he
XVI AN ESTIMATE OF MANTON.
had heard the greatest men of their day sometimes preach a mean sermon, but he had never heard Dr Manton do so on any occasion."
I close this part of my essay by reminding the reader that Manton's writings, with few exceptions, were originally published under very great disadvantages. Most of them never saw the light till after his death, and were printed without receiving the author's last touches and corrections. This is a fact which ought not to be forgotten. None but an author knows what a vast difference there is between a work in manuscript and a work in type, and how many emendations and corrections are made in the best of literary productions, when the writer sees them in the shape of proofs. For my own part, when I take up a book of Manton's, and remind myself that it never received the author's final corrections, I am amazed that his writings contain 60 few blunders, and admire him more and more every time that I read him.