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

Our salvation might have been laid upon a more difficult bottom than this. It might have been laid on our works. God might have laid it there, and have been just, or he might have left us to have laid it where we would; and then, to be sure, we had laid it there, and so had made but a muddy bottom to have gone upon to life. But now, this river of water of life, it has a better bottom; the water of life is as clear as crystal, look down to the bottom and see, we are ‘justified freely by his grace’ (Rom 3:24). ‘By grace ye are saved,’ there is the bottom (Eph 2:5,8).

Now, grace, as I have showed you, is a firm bottom to stand on; it is of grace that life might be sure (Rom 4:16). Surely David was not here, or surely this was not the river that he spake of when he said, ‘I sink in deep mire, where there is no standing: I am come into deep waters, where the floods overflow me. Deliver me out of the mire, and let me not sink’ (Psa 69:2,14). I say, to be sure this could not be the river. No, David was now straggled out of the way, was tumbled into some pit, or into some muddy and dirty hole; for as for this river it has a good bottom, a bottom of salvation by grace, and a man needs not cry out when he is here that he sinks, or that he is in danger of being drowned in mud or mire.

3. The bottom of all is, as I said, that we might be saved, saved by grace, and I will add, ‘through the redemption that is in Christ.’

This is still better and better. We read that, when Israel came over Jordan, the feet of the priests that did bear the ark stood on firm ground in the bottom, and that they set up great stones for a memorial thereof (Josh 3:17, 4:1-3). But had Jordan so good a bottom as has this most blessed river of water of life, or were the stones that Israel took out thence like this ‘tried stone,’

this ‘sure foundation?’ (Isa 28:16). O the throne! this river comes out of the throne, and we are saved by grace through the redemption that is in him. We read that there is a city that has foundations; grace is one, Christ another, and the truth of all the prophets and apostles, as to their true doctrine, another, &c. (Heb 11:10). And again, all these are the very bottom of this goodly river of the water of life (Eph 2:19,20).

4. There is another thing to be seen at the bottom of this holy river, and that is, the glory of God; we are saved, saved by grace, saved by grace through the redemption that is in Christ to the praise and glory of God. And what a good bottom is here. Grace will not fail, Christ has been sufficiently tried, and God will not lose his glory. Therefore they that drink of this river shall doubtless be saved; to wit, they that drink of it of a spiritual appetite to it. And thus much for the explication of the text.

[THE APPLICATION OF THE WHOLE.]

I now come to make some use of the whole.

You know our discourse has been at this time of the water of life, of its quantity, head-spring, and quality; and I have showed you that its nature is excellent, its quantity abundant, its head-spring glorious, and its quality singularly good.

FIRST. Let this, then, in the first place, be a provocation to us to be more free in making use of this water. There are many, now-a-days, that are for inventing of waters, to drink for the health of the body; and to allure those that are ill to buy, they will praise their waters beyond their worth. Yea, and if they be helpful to one person in a hundred, they make as if they could cure every one. Well, here you have the great Physician himself, with his water, and he calls it the water of life, water of life for the soul: this water is probatum est.[17] It has been proved times without number; it never fails but where it is not taken (Acts 26:18; Isa 5:4,5). No disease comes amiss to it; it cures blindness, deadness, deafness, dumbness. It makes ‘the lips of those that are asleep to speak’ (Cant 7:9). This is the right HOLY

WATER,[18] all other is counterfeit: it will drive away devils and spirits; it will cure enchantments and witchcrafts; it will heal the mad and lunatic (Gal 3:1-3; Mark 16:17,18). It will cure the most desperate melancholy; it will dissolve doubts and mistrusts, though they are grown as hard as stone in the heart (Eze 36:26).

It will make you speak well (Col 4:6). It will make you have a white soul, and that is better than to have a white skin (Eze 36:25,26). It will make you taste well; it will make you disrelish all hurtful meats (Isa 30:22). It will beget in you a good appetite to that which is good; it will remove obstructions in the stomach and liver. It will cause that what you receive of God’s bread shall turn to good nourishment, and make good blood. In a word, it preserveth life (John 4:14). They that take this water shall live longer than did old Methuselah, and yet he lived a great while (Gen 5:27).

Wherefore, let me continue my exhortation to you. Be more free in making use of this water; it is the wholesomest water in the world; you may take it at the third, sixth, ninth, or eleventh hour, but to take it in the morning of your age is best (Matt 20:3-6).

For then diseases have not got so great a head as when they are of long continuance, consequently they will be removed with far more ease; besides, those that thus do will receive endless life, and the comfort of it betimes; and that, you know, is a double life to one (Eccl 11:1-4).

This water gently purges, and yet more effectually than any others.

True, where bad humours are more tough and churlish, it will show itself stronger of operation, for there is no disease can be too hard for it. It will, as we say, throw the house out of the windows; but it will rid us of the plague of those most deadly infections that otherwise will be sure to make us sleep in death, and bring us, with the multitude, down to hell. But it will do no hurt; it only breaks our sleep in security, and brings us to a more quick apprehension of the plague of our heart and flesh. It will, as I said before, provoke to appetite, but make us only long after that which is wholesome. If any ask why I thus allegorize, I answer, the text doth lead me to it.

SECOND. I advise, therefore, in the next place, that thou get thee a dwelling-place by these waters. ‘The beloved of the Lord shall dwell in safety by him, and the Lord shall cover him all the day long’ (Deut 33:12). If thou ask where that dwelling is, I answer, in the city of God, in and among the tabernacles of the Most High. This river comes from the throne to water the city of God; and to that end it is said to run ‘in the midst of the street of it’ (Rev 22:2). If ye will inquire, inquire, return, come. ‘The seed also of his servants shall inherit it, and they that love his name shall dwell therein’ (Psa 69:36). Get thee a dwelling in Jerusalem, in the midst of Jerusalem, and then thou wilt be seated by this river.

In old times, the ancients had their habitations by the rivers; yea, we read of Aroer that stood upon the brink of the river Arnon (Josh 13:9). Balaam also had his dwelling in his city Pethor, ‘by the river of the land of the children of his people’ (Num 22:5).

O! by a river side is the pleasantest dwelling in the world; and of all rivers, the river of the water of life is the best. They that dwell there ‘shall not hunger nor thirst; neither shall the heat nor sun smite them: for he that hath mercy on them shall lead them, even by the springs of water shall he guide them’ (Isa 49:10). Trees planted by the rivers, and that spread out their roots by the rivers, they are the flourishing trees, they bring forth their fruit in their season (Psa 1:3; Jer 17:8). And the promise is that men that take up their dwellings by this river of water of life, shall be fruitful as such trees.

If thou art a Christian, thou hast more than an ordinary call and occasion to abide by these waters; thy things will not grow but by these waters. Weeds and the excellencies of most men we may find in the barren wilderness, they grow under every hedge; but thine are garden, and so choice things, and will not thrive without much water, no, without the water of God’s river. Dwell, therefore, here; that thy soul may be as a watered garden (Jer 31:12; Isa 12:1-3). And when thou seest how those that are loath to die,[19]

make provision at Tunbridge, Epsom, the Bath, and other places, and what houses they get that they may have their dwellings by those waters, then do thou consider of thy spiritual disease, and how nothing can cure thee but this blessed water of life; be also much of desires to have a dwelling-place in Jerusalem, that thou mayest always be nigh to these waters. Be often also in watering thy plants with these waters. I mean the blessed graces of God in thy soul; then shalt thou grow, and retain thy greenness, and prove thyself to be a disciple indeed. And herein is God, and thy Father, glorified, that thou bear much fruit (John 15:8).

THIRD. My third word is, bless God for providing for man such waters. These only can make us live; all others come out of the Dead Sea, and do kill; there is no living water but this. I say, show thy acceptation of it with thanksgiving; if we are not to receive our bread and cheese but with thanksgiving, how should we bless God for this unspeakable gift! (2 Cor 9:15). This is soul life, life against sin, life from sin, life against the curse, life from the curse, life beyond hell, beyond desert, beyond thought, beyond desires. Life that is pleasing, life that is profitable, life everlasting.

O my brethren, bless God! who doth good and gives us such rain, filling our hearts with food and gladness.[20] When Moses would take the heart of Israel, and took in hand to raise up their spirits to thankfulness, he used to tell them that the land that they were to go to was a land that God cared for, and that was watered with the dew of heaven. Yea, ‘a land of brooks of water, of fountains and depths that spring out of valleys and hills; a land that flowed with milk and honey, which is the glory of all lands’ (Deut 8:7; Exo 3:8, 13:5; Lev 20:24; Num 14:8). But yet in his description he makes no mention of a river of water of life; a river the streams whereof make glad the city of God.

This river is the running out of God’s heart; the letting out of his very