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

church in another place, ‘Behold, I have grave thee upon the palms of my hands, thy walls are continually before me. Thy children shall make haste; thy destroyers and they that made thee waste shall go forth of thee.

Lift up thine eyes round about, and behold: all these gather themselves together, and come to thee. As I live, saith the Lord, thou shalt surely clothe thee with them all, as with an ornament, and bind them on thee, as a bride doeth. For thy waste and thy desolate places, and the land of thy destruction, shall even now be too narrow by reason of the inhabitants, and they that swallowed thee up shall be far away. The children which thou shalt have, after thou hast lost the other, shall say again in thine ears, The place is too strait for me; give place to me, that I may dwell.

Then shalt thou say in thine heart, Who hath begotten me these, seeing I have lost my children, and am desolate, a captive and removing to and fro? and who hath brought up these? Behold, I was left alone, these, where had they been?’ (Isa 49:16-21). Thus the multitudes of the nations shall at this day be converted to the Lord, and be made the inhabitants of this Jerusalem; as he saith again, ‘The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ’ (Rev 11:15). And again, ‘The kingdom and dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven, shall be given to the people of the saints of the Most High, whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey him’ (Dan 7:27).

And observe it, these promises are to be fulfilled in the last days, at the time of the pouring forth of the last vial, which is the time of the sounding of the last of the seven trumpets; for then this city shall be built, and Lucifer fallen from heaven; then the prisoners shall be set at liberty, and the people be gathered together, ‘and the kingdoms to serve the Lord’ (Isa 2:1,2; 14:4-6; Psa 102:20-22; Rev 11:15-17). ‘Rejoice, O ye nations, with his people, for he will avenge the blood of his servants, and will render vengeance to his adversaries, and will be merciful unto his land, and to his people’ (Deu 32:43). Alas! it is now towards the end of the world, and therefore now all is going, if the Lord steps not in with the riches of his grace. Wherefore now at last, before all be turned into fire and ashes, behold the Lord casts the net among the multitude of fish, and the abundance of the sea shall, without fail, be converted to Jerusalem (Isa 60:5). Though Satan and Antichrist have had their day in the world, and by their outrage have made fearful havoc of the souls of sinners from time to time, yet now at length God will strike in for a share with them, and his Son ‘shall divide the spoil with the strong’ (Isa 53:12).

Wherefore he now sets up this city, puts the glory of heaven upon her, provides a new heaven and a new earth for her situation (Isa 66:22); drives profaneness into the holes and dens of the earth; giveth righteousness authority to reign in the world (2 Peter 3:13); and takes off the veil from all faces, that none may hereafter be for ever beguiled by blindness and ignorance (Isa 25:7). Now shall they make merry with the things of God; now shall all eat the fat and drink the sweet (1 Kings 4:20; Neh 8:10,12). For ‘in this mountain shall the Lord of hosts make unto all people a feast of fat things, a feast of wines on the lees, of fat things full of marrow, of wines on the lees well refined’ (Isa 25:6).

‘And the nations of them which are saved shall walk in the light of it.’ They ‘shall walk in the light of it.’ That is, in the light that is in it while it is in its purity in this world, and in the glory of it when it is in its perfection and immortality in another. Whence note by the way, that in the midst of all this glory, or while the glorious light of the gospel shall thus shine in the world, yet even then there will be some also that will not see and rejoice in the glory hereof. But as for those, whoever they are, they are excluded from a share in the blessed and goodly privileges of this city. ‘The nations of them which are SAVED

shall walk in the light of it.’

‘And the kings of the earth do bring their glory and honour into it.’ By these words are great things held forth. He told us before that the nations of them that are saved shall walk in the light of it; and here he tells us that even their kings also, the kings of the earth, do bring their honour and glory to it. The people of the nations they are but like to single pence and halfpence, but their kings like gold angels and twenty-shilling pieces.[20]

Wherefore, when he saith that the kings of the earth do bring their glory and honour unto it, it argueth that the gospel and the grace of God, when it is displayed in its own nature, and seen in its own complexion, even then they that have most of the honour and glory of the world will yet stoop their top-gallant21 unto it. ‘Because of thy temple which is at Jerusalem, shall kings bring presents unto thee’ (Psa 68:29; Isa 49:22,23). ‘The kings of Tarshish, and of the isles, shall bring presents’ to thee: ‘the kings of Sheba and Seba shall offer gifts. Yea, all kings shall fall down before him; all nations shall serve him’ (Psa 72:10,11).

The kings shall see and arise, and ‘princes also shall worship because of the Lord,’ &c. (Isa 49:7). The kings shall come to thy light, and princes to the brightness of thy rising (Isa 60:1-5).

‘The Gentiles shall see thy righteousness, and all kings thy glory’ (Isa 62:2). Yea, ‘that which had not been told them shall they see, and that which they have not heard shall they consider’

(Isa 52:15). ‘All the kings of the earth shall praise thee, O Lord, when they hear the words of thy mouth. Yea, they shall sing in the ways of the Lord: for great is the glory of the Lord’ (Psa 138:4,5).

Thus, we see, that though in the first day of the gospel, the poor, the halt, the lame, and the blind are chief in the embracing of the tenders of grace, yet in the latter day thereof God will take hold of kings.

‘And the kings of the earth do bring their glory and honour into it.’ INTO IT; that is, to Jerusalem. Wherefore this city must be built before they all of them will fall in love with her. Indeed, I do conceive that some of them will lay their hand to help forward the work of this city, as did Hiram with Solomon, and Darius, Cyrus, and Artaxerxes, with Ezra and Nehemiah, at the building and repairing the city, in the letter, in the days of old (2 Chron 2:11-15; Ezra 1:1-4; 6:1-3; 7:21). But yet, I say, the great conquest of the kings will be by the beauty and glory of this city, when she is built. ‘thou shalt arise,’ O Lord, ‘and have mercy upon Zion; for the time to favour her, yea, the set time is come. For thy servants take pleasure in her stones, and favour the dust thereof. So the heathen shall fear the name of the Lord, and all kings thy glory’ (Psa 102:13-15). And, indeed, before this city is set up, and established in her own place, most of the kings and great ones of the earth will be found employed and taken up in another work, than to fall in love with Mount Zion, and with the hill thereof. They will be found in love with mistress Babylon, the mother of harlots, the mistress of witchcrafts, and abominations of the earth (Rev 17:2,12-14; 18:3,9). They will, I say, be committing fornication with her, and will be as the horns upon the heads of the beast, to defend the riding lady from the gunshot that the saints continually will be making at her by the force of the Word and Spirit of God. They will be shaking the sharp end of their weapons against the Son of God, continually labouring to keep him out of his throne, and from having that rule in the church, and in the world, as becomes him who is the head of the body, and over all principality and power. ‘These shall make war with the Lamb’

(Rev 17:14). But, I say, it shall so come about at the last, by the illuminating grace of God, and by the faithful and patient enduring of the saints, together with the glory that everywhere shall now be abiding on the church and congregation of Jesus, that they shall begin to receive a man’s heart, and shall consider things that have not been told them; wherefore at last they shall withdraw themselves from the love of this mistress, and shall leave her to scrape for herself in the world, and shall come with repentance and rejoicing to Zion; nay, not only so, but to avenge the quarrel of God, and the vengeance of his temple; and to recompense her also for the delusions and enchantments wherewith she hath entangled them. ‘These shall hate her, and they shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and burn her with fire’ (Rev 17:16).

Now, madam, what sayest thou? The kings must come to Jerusalem, Jezebel. Thy chamber companions will shortly, notwithstanding thy painted face, cast thee down headlong out at the windows. Yea, they shall tread thee in pieces by the feet of their prancing horses, and with the wheels of their jumping chariots (2 Kings 9:30-33).

They shall shut up all bowels of compassion towards thee, and shall roar upon thee like the sea, and upon thy fat ones like the waves thereof (Jer 50:41,42). Yea, when they begin, they will also make an end, and will leave thee so harbourless and comfortless, that now there will be found for thee no gladness at all, no, not so much as one piper to play thee one jig. The delicates that thy soul lusted after, thou shalt find them no more at all (Rev 18:12-22).

‘Babylon the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldees’ excellency, shall be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. It shall never be inhabited, neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation; neither shall the Arabian pitch tent there, neither shall the shepherds make their fold there. But wild beasts of the desert shall lie there, and their houses shall be full of doleful creatures. And owls shall dwell there, and satyrs [that is, the hobgoblins, or devils] shall dance there. And the wild beasts of the islands shall cry in their desolate houses, and dragons in their pleasant palaces; and her time is near to come, and her days shall not be prolonged’ (Isa 13:19-23). Thus wilt thou come down wonderfully. For ‘in thee have they set light by father and mother; in the midst of thee have they dealt by oppression with the stranger: in thee have they vexed the fatherless and the widow.

In thee are men that carry tales to shed blood: and in thee they eat upon the mountains, in the midst of thee they commit lewdness’

(Eze 22:6-10). God hath smitten his hands at thy dishonest gain, and all the blood which hath been in