The Pilgrim’s Progress, John Bunyan [most popular novels .txt] 📗

the blood of His cross.’ (Colossians 1:20). I saw that day again and again, that God and my soul were friends by His blood; yea, that the justice of God and my soul could embrace and kiss each other. This was a good day to me; I hope I shall not forget it.” He was glad and lightsome, and had a merry heart; he was before inspired with hope, but now he is a happy believer. —⁠Editor ↩

Mark 2:15. ↩

Zechariah 3:4. ↩

Ephesians 1:13.

None but those who have felt such bliss, can imagine the joy with which this heavenly visitation fills the soul. The Father receives the poor penitent with, “Thy sins be forgiven thee.” The Son clothes him with a spotless righteousness. “The prodigal when he returned to his father was clothed with rags; but the best robe is brought out, also the gold ring and the shoes; yea, they are put upon him to his rejoicing” (Come and Welcome, vol. 1, p. 265). The Holy Spirit gives him a certificate; thus described by Bunyan in the House of God⁠—

“But bring with thee a certificate,
To show thou seest thyself most desolate;
Writ by the Master, with repentance seal’d;
To show also, that here thou would’st be healed
By those fair leaves of that most blessed tree
By which alone poor sinners healed be:
And that thou dost abhor thee for thy ways,
And would’st in holiness spend all thy days;
And here be entertained; or thou wilt find
To entertain thee here are none inclined!”

(Vol. 2, p. 680).

Such a certificate, written upon the heart by the Holy Spirit, may be lost for a season, as in the arbour on the hill, but cannot be stolen even by Faith-heart, Mistrust, and Guilt. For the mark in his forehead, see 2 Corinthians 3:2, 3; “not with ink, but with the spirit of the living God, known and read of all men’. —⁠Editor ↩

He that has come to Christ, has cast his burden upon Him. By faith he hath seen himself released thereof; but he that is but coming, hath it yet, as to sense and feeling, upon his own shoulders. —⁠Come and Welcome, vol. 1, p. 264 ↩

Proverbs 23:34. ↩

1 Peter 5:8. ↩

“Fat;” a vessel in which things are put to be soaked, or to ferment; a vat. —⁠Editor ↩

No sooner has Christian “received Christ” than he at once preaches to the sleeping sinners the great salvation. He stays not for human calls or ordination, but attempts to awaken them to a sense of their danger, and presently exhorts with authority the formalist and hypocrite. So it was in the personal experience of Bunyan; after which, when his brethren discovered his talent, they invited him to preach openly and constantly. Dare anyone find fault with that conduct, which proved so extensively useful? —⁠Editor ↩

John 10:1. ↩

The formalist has only the shell of religion; he is hot for forms because it is all that he has to contend for. The hypocrite is for God and Baal too; he can throw stones with both hands. He carries fire in one hand, and water in the other. —⁠Strait Gate, vol. 1, p. 389 These men range from sect to sect, like wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever. They are barren trees; and the axe, whetted by sin and the law, will make deep gashes. Death sends Guilt, his firstborn, to bring them to the King of terrors. —⁠Barren Fig-Tree ↩

“We trow;” we believe or imagine: from the Saxon. See Imperial Dictionary. —⁠Editor ↩

Galatians 1:16. ↩

These men occupied the seat of the scorner; they had always been well dressed. His coat might do for such a ragamuffin as he had been, but they needed no garment but their own righteousness⁠—the forms of their church. The mark, or certificate of the new birth, was an object of scorn to them. Probably they pitied him as a harmless mystic, weak in mind and illiterate. Alas! how soon was their laughter turned into mourning. Fear and calamity overwhelmed them. They trusted in themselves, and there was none to deliver. —⁠Editor ↩

The Christian can hold no communion with a mere formal professor. The Christian loves to be speaking of the Lord’s grace and goodness, of his conflicts and consolations, of the Lord’s dealings with his soul, and of the blessed confidence which he is enabled to place in Him. —⁠J. B. ↩

Isaiah 49:10. ↩

Such is the fate of those who keep their sins with their profession, and will not encounter difficulty in cutting them off. “Not all their pretences of seeking after and praying to God will keep them from falling and splitting themselves in sunder.” —⁠A Holy Life the Beauty of Christianity. There are heights that build themselves up in us, and exalt themselves to keep the knowledge of God from our hearts. They oppose and contradict our spiritual understanding of God and His Christ. These are the dark mountains at which we should certainly stumble and fall, but for one who can leap and skip over them to our aid. —⁠Saints’ Knowledge of Christ’s Love, vol. 2, p. 8 ↩

Pleased with the gifts of grace, rather than with the gracious giver, pride secretly creeps in; and we fall first into a sinful self-complacence, and then into indolence and security. This is intended by his falling fast asleep. —⁠Dr. Dodd ↩

Sinful sloth deprives the Christian of his comforts. What he intended only for a moment’s nap, like a man asleep during sermon-time in church, became a deep sleep, and his roll