The Works of John Bunyan, vol 3, John Bunyan [ebook reader color screen TXT] 📗

few external acts of morality, if so good.[11] But this is because men do not know painted by-paths from the plain way to the kingdom of heaven. They have not yet learned the true Christ, and what his righteousness is, neither have they a sense of their own insufficiency; but are bold, proud, presumptuous, self-conceited. And therefore.

The Fifth Direction. Do not thou be too much in looking too high in thy journey heavenwards. You know men that run in a race do not use to stare and gaze this way and that, neither do they use to cast up their eyes too high, lest happily,[12] through their too too much gazing with their eyes after other things, they in the meantime stumble and catch a fall. The very same case is this; if thou gaze and stare after every opinion and way that comes into the world; also if thou be prying overmuch into God’s secret decrees, or let thy heart too much entertain questions about some nice foolish curiosities, thou mayst stumble and fall, as many hundreds in England have done, both in Ranting and Quakery, to their own eternal overthrow; without the marvellous operation of God’s grace be suddenly stretched forth to bring them back again.

Take heed therefore, follow not that proud and lofty spirit, that, devil-like, cannot be content with his own station. David was of an excellent spirit where he saith, ‘Lord, my heart is not haughty, nor mine eyes lofty, neither do I exercise myself in great matters, or in things too high for me. Surely I have behaved and quieted myself as a child that is weaned of his mother: my soul is even as a weaned child’ (Psa 131:1,2). Do thou SO RUN.

The Sixth Direction. Take heed that you have not an ear open to every one that calleth after you as you are in your journey. Men that run, you know, if any do call after them, saying, I would speak with you, or go not too fast, and you shall have my company with you, if they run for some great matter, they use to say, Alas, I cannot stay, I am in haste, pray talk not to me now; neither can I stay for you, I am running for a wager: if I win I am made, if I lose I am undone, and therefore hinder me not. Thus wise are men when they run for corruptible things, and thus should thou do, and thou hast more cause to do so than they, forasmuch as they run but for things that last not, but thou for an incorruptible glory. I give thee notice of this betimes, knowing that thou shalt have enough call after thee, even the devil, sin, this world, vain company, pleasures, profits, esteem among men, ease, pomp, pride, together with an innumerable company of such companions; one crying, Stay for me; the other saying, Do not leave me behind; a third saying, And take me along with you. What, will you go, saith the devil, without your sins, pleasures, and profits? Are you so hasty? Can you not stay and take these along with you? Will you leave your friends and companions behind you? Can you not do as your neighbours do, carry the world, sin, lust, pleasure, profit, esteem among men, along with you? Have a care thou do not let thine ear now be open to the tempting, enticing, alluring, and soul-entangling flatteries of such sink-souls13 as these are.

‘My son,’ saith Solomon, ‘if sinners entice thee, consent thou not’ (Prov 1:10).

You know what it cost the young man which Solomon speaks of in the 7th of the Proverbs, that was enticed by a harlot, ‘With her much fair speech she’ won him, and ‘caused him to yield, with the flattering of her lips she forced him,’ till he went after her ‘as an ox to the slaughter, or as a fool to the correction of the stocks’; even so far, ‘till the dart struck through his liver, and knew not that it was for his life. Hearken unto me now therefore,’

saith he, ‘O ye children, and attend to the words of my mouth, let not thine heart decline to her ways, go not astray in her paths, for she hath cast down many wounded, yea, many strong men have been slain by her,’ that is, kept out of heaven by her, ‘her house is the way to hell, going down to the chambers of death.’ Soul, take this counsel and say, Satan, sin, lust, pleasure, profit, pride, friends, companions, and everything else, let me alone, stand off, come not nigh me, for I am running for heaven, for my soul, for God, for Christ, from hell and everlasting damnation: if I win, I win all, and if I lose, I lose all; let me alone, for I will not hear. SO RUN.

The Seventh Direction. In the next place, be not daunted though thou meetest with never so many discouragements in thy journey thither. That man that is resolved for heaven, if Satan cannot win him by flatteries, he will endeavour to weaken him by discouragements; saying, thou art a sinner, thou hast broke God’s law, thou art not elected, thou comest too late, the day of grace is past, God doth not care for thee, thy heart is naught, thou art lazy, with a hundred other discouraging suggestions. And thus it was with David, where he said, ‘I had fainted, unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living’ (Psa 27:13,14).

As if he should say, the devil did so rage and my heart was so base, that had I judged according to my own sense and feeling, I had been absolutely distracted; but I trusted to Christ in the promise, and looked that God would be as good as his promise, in having mercy upon me, an unworthy sinner; and this is that which encouraged me, and kept me from fainting. And thus must thou do when Satan, or the law, or thy own conscience, do go about to dishearten thee, either by the greatness of thy sins, the wickedness of thy heart, the tediousness of the way, the loss of outward enjoyments, the hatred that thou wilt procure from the world, or the like; then thou must encourage thyself with the freeness of the promises, the tender-heartedness of Christ, the merits of his blood, the freeness of his invitations to come in, the greatness of the sin of others that have been pardoned, and that the same God, through the same Christ, holdeth forth the same grace free as ever. If these be not thy meditations, thou wilt draw very heavily in the way to heaven, if thou do not give up all for lost, and so knock off from following any farther; therefore, I say, take heart in thy journey, and say to them that seek thy destruction, ‘Rejoice not against me, O mine enemy, when I fall I shall arise, when I sit in darkness the Lord shall be a light unto me’ (Micah 7:8). SO RUN.

The Eighth Direction. Take heed of being offended at the cross that thou must go by, before thou come to heaven. You must understand, as I have already touched, that there is no man that goeth to heaven but he must go by the cross. The cross is the standing way-mark by which all they that go to glory must pass by. ‘We must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God’ (Acts 14:22).

‘Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution’ (2 Tim 3:12). If thou art in the way to the kingdom, my life for thine thou wilt come at the cross shortly—the Lord grant thou dost not shrink at it, so as to turn thee back again.

‘If any man will come after me,’ saith Christ, ‘let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me’ (Luke 9:23).

The cross it stands, and hath stood, from the beginning, as a way-mark to the kingdom of heaven.[14] You know if one ask you the way to such and such a place, you, for the better direction, do not only say, this is the way, but then also say, you must go by such a gate, by such a style, such a bush, tree, bridge, or such like. Why, so it is here; art thou inquiring the way to heaven?

Why, I tell thee, Christ is the way; into him thou must get, into his righteousness, to be justified; and if thou art in him, thou wilt presently see the cross, thou must go close by it, thou must touch it, nay, thou must take it up, or else thou wilt quickly go out of the way that leads to heaven, and turn up some of those crooked lanes that lead down to the chambers of death.

How thou mayest know the cross by these six things. 1. It is known in the doctrine of justification. 2. In the doctrine of mortification. 3. In the doctrine of perseverance. 4. In self-denial.

5. Patience. 6. Communion with poor saints.

1. In the doctrine of justification; there is a great deal of the cross in that: a man is forced to suffer the destruction of his own righteousness for the righteousness of another. This is no easy matter for a man to do; I assure to you it stretcheth every vein in his heart before he will be brought to yield to it. What, for a man to deny, reject, abhor, and throw away all his prayers, tears, alms, keeping of sabbaths, hearing, reading, with the rest, in the point of justification, and to count them accursed;[15]

and to be willing, in the very midst of the sense of his sins, to throw himself wholly upon the righteousness and obedience of another man, abhorring his own, counting it as deadly sin, as the open breach of the law; I say, to do this in deed and in truth, is the biggest piece of the cross; and therefore Paul calleth this very thing a suffering; where he saith, ‘And I have SUFFERED the loss of all things,’ which principally was his righteousness, ‘that I might win Christ, and be found in him, not having,’ but rejecting, ‘mine own righteousness’ (Phil 3:8,9). That is the first.

2. In the doctrine of mortification is also much of the cross. Is it nothing for a man to lay hands on his vile opinions, on his vile sins, of his bosom sins, of his beloved, pleasant, darling sins, that stick as close to him, as the flesh sticketh to the bones? What, to lose all these brave things that my eyes behold, for that which I never saw with my eyes? What, to lose my pride, my covetousness, my vain company, sports, and pleasures, and the rest? I tell you this is no easy matter; if it were, what need all those prayers, sighs, watchings? What need we be so backward to it? Nay, do you not see, that some men, before they will set about this work, they will even venture the loss of their souls, heaven, God, Christ, and all? What means else all those delays and put-offs, saying, Stay a little longer, I am loth to leave my sins while I am so young, and in health? Again, what is the reason else, that others do it so by the halves, coldly and seldom, notwithstanding they are convinced over and over; nay, and also promise to amend, and yet all’s in vain? I will assure you, to cut off right hands, and to pluck out right eyes, is no pleasure to the flesh.

3. The doctrine of perseverance is also cross to the flesh; which is not only to begin, but