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

Reader, didst thou never shed a tear for thy base and disingenuous conduct towards thy Lord, in preferring the sticks and straws of this world to the unsearchable riches of Christ, and the salvation of thy immortal soul? O this is natural to us all! and though made wise unto salvation, yet this folly cleaves to our old nature still. Let the thought humble us, and make us weep before the Lord. —⁠Mason ↩

They knew the venom of sin which was in their fallen nature. This made them cover their faces with shame, and sink into deep humility of heart. Every true interpreter of God’s Word⁠—yea, the blessed Interpreter of God’s heart, Jesus⁠—will look pleasantly upon such who confess the truth; while He beholds the proud, self-righteous sinner afar off. —⁠Mason ↩

Proverbs 30:28. ↩

Faith apprehends, and then the soul dwells in the best room indeed, even in the very heart of God in Christ. The Lord increase our faith in this precious truth, that we may the more love and glorify the God of grace and truth! O let not our venom of sin deject us, while there is the blood of Christ to cleanse us! O for a stronger love to Christ, and greater hatred of sin! Both spring from believing. —⁠Mason The emblem of the spider is illustrated in Bunyan’s invaluable treatise on the Resurrection and Eternal Judgment⁠—“The spider will be a witness against man, for she layeth hold with her hands, and is in kings’ palaces. It is man only that will not lay hold on the kingdom of Heaven, as the spider doth bid him (Proverbs 30:28).” —⁠(Vol. 2, p. 111) —⁠Editor

Call me not ugly thing;
God’s wisdom hath unto the pismire given,
And spiders may teach men the way to Heaven.

↩

Matthew 23:37. ↩

It is very humbling to human pride to be compared to chickens, as dependants on the fostering care of the hen, or as children relying upon a parent. In Bunyan’s Last Sermon, are some striking allusions to the Christian’s dependence upon his heavenly Father⁠—“It is natural for a child, if he wants shoes, to tell his father; if he wants bread, they go and tell him. So should the children of God do for spiritual bread⁠—strength of grace⁠—to resist Satan. When the devil tempts you, run home and tell your heavenly Father⁠—pour out your complaints to God; this is natural to children. If any wrong them, they tell their father; so do those that are born of God, when they meet with temptations, they go and tell God of them.” —⁠(Vol. 2, p. 757) —⁠Editor ↩

Common call, the invitations; brooding voice, the promises; outcry, the warnings of the Gospel. —⁠Ivimey ↩

Observations and experience justify this excellent simile. God’s common call is to all His creatures who live within the sound of His Gospel. His special call is when He bestows the grace, peace, and pardon of the Gospel of Christ upon His people. The brooding note is when He gathers them under His wings, warms their hearts with the comforts of His love, nourishes their souls with close fellowship with Himself, and refreshes their spirits with the overflowings of joy in the Holy Ghost. “In the shadow of Thy wings will I rejoice,” says David (Psalms 63:7). “I sat down under His shadow with great delight, and His fruit was sweet to my taste” (Song of Solomon 2:3). O for more of these precious brooding notes, to be gathered under the wing of Immanuel! But be our frames and experiences what they may, still we are ever in danger; for our enemies surround us on every side, and our worst are within us. Therefore our Lord has an outcry; He gives the alarm, calls us, and warns us of danger. Why? That we should flee. O pilgrims, when dangers are near, run unto Him! For “the name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous runneth into it, and is safe” (Proverbs 18:10). —⁠Mason ↩

The church is a garden enclosed, Christ is the Gardener, His people are called God’s husbandry. The difference in the plants and flowers shows the different effects of grace upon the heart. —⁠J. B. When Christians stand everyone in his place, and do their own work, then they are like the flowers in the garden, that stand and grow where the Gardener hath planted them; and then they shall both honour the garden in which they are planted, and the Gardener that hath so disposed of them. From the hyssop in the wall, to the cedar in Lebanon, their fruit is their glory. Christians are like the several flowers in a garden, that have upon each of them the dew of Heaven; which, being shaken with the wind, they let fall their dew at each others’ roots, whereby they are jointly nourished, and become nourishers of one another. For Christians to commune savourly of God’s matters one with another, it is as if they opened to each others’ nostrils boxes of perfume. Saith Paul to the church at Rome, “I long to see you, that I may impart unto you some spiritual gift, to the end ye may be established; that is, that I may be comforted together with you, by the mutual faith both of you and me” (Romans 1:11, 12). —⁠Bunyan’s Christian Behaviour, vol. 2, pp. 550, 570 I have observed, that as there are herbs and flowers in our gardens, so there are their counterfeits in the field; only they are distinguished from the other by the name of wild ones. There is faith and wild faith; and wild faith is presumption. I call it wild faith, because God never placed it in His