The Works of John Bunyan, vol 1, John Bunyan [reading like a writer TXT] 📗

especially when it shows itself in its glory; for then it is the ministration of death, and killeth all the world. When Israel saw this, they fled from the face of God; they could not endure that which was commanded (Exo 20:18,19); yea, so terrible was the sight, that Moses said, ‘I exceedingly fear and quake’ (Heb 12:20,21).

Yea, almost forty years after, Moses stood amazed to find himself and Israel yet alive, ‘Did ever people,’ said he, ‘hear the voice of God speaking out of the midst of the fire, as thou hast heard, and live?’ (Deut 4:32,33). Alas! he who boasteth himself in the works of the law, he doth not hear the law; when that speaks, it shakes Mount Sinai, and writeth death upon all faces, and makes the church itself cry out, A mediator! else we die (Exo 20:19; Deut 5:25-27, 18:15,19).

(2.) It doth not only thus discourage, but abundantly increaseth every sin. Sin takes the advantage of being by the law; the motions of sin are by the law. Where no law is, there is no transgression (Rom 4:15, 7:5). Sin takes an occasion to live by the law: ‘When the commandment came, sin revived; for without the law, sin was dead’ (Rom 7:8,9). Sin takes an occasion to multiply by the law: ‘The law entered, that the offence might abound’ (Rom 5:20). ‘And the strength of sin is the law’ (1 Cor 15:56). ‘That sin by the commandment might become’ outrageous, ‘exceeding sinful’ (Rom 7:13). ‘What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet. But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence. For without the law, sin was dead’ (Rom 7:7,8)

These things, then, are not infused or operated by the law from its own nature or doctrine, but are occasioned by the meeting of, and having to do with, a thing directly opposite. ‘The law is spiritual, I am carnal’; therefore every imposition is rejected and rebelled against. Strike a steel against a flint, and the fire flies about you; strike the law against a carnal heart, and sin appears, sin multiplies, sin rageth, sin is strengthened! And hence ariseth all these doubts, murmurings, and sinful complainings that are found in the hearts of the people of God; they have too much to do with the law; the law of works is now in the conscience, imposing duty upon the carnal part. This is the reason of the noise that you hear, and of the sin that you see, and of the horror that you feel in your own souls when tempted. But to pass this digression.

The law, then, having to do with carnal men, by this they become worse sinners than before; for their heart now recoileth desperately, opposeth blasphemously; it giveth way to despair; and then to conclude there is no hope for hereafter; and so goeth on in a sordid, ungodly course of life, till his time is come to die and be damned, unless a miracle of grace prevent. From all this I conclude, that ‘a man cannot stand just from the curse, in the sight of God but while sinful in himself.’ But,

3. As the law giveth neither strength nor life to keep it, so it neither giveth nor worketh repentance unto life if thou break it.

Do this and live, break it and die; this is the voice of the law.

All the repentance that such men have, it is but that of themselves, the sorrow of the world, that endeth in death, as Cain’s and Judas’

did, even such a repentance as must be repented of either here or in hellfire (2 Cor 7:10).

4. As it giveth none, so it accepteth none of them that are under the law (Gal 5:4). Sin and die, is for ever its language; there is no middle way in the law; they must bear their judgment, whosoever they be, that stand and fall to the law. Therefore Cain was a vagabond still, and Judas hangeth himself; their repentance could not save them, they fell headlong under the law. The law stays no man from the due reward of his deeds; it hath no ears to hear nor heart to pity its penitent ones (Gen 4:9-11; Matt 27:3).

5. By the law, God will show no mercy; for, ‘I will be merciful to their unrighteousness,’ is the tenor of another covenant (Heb 8:9,10,12). But by the law I regard them not, saith the Lord. For, 6. All the promises annexed to the law are, by the first sin, null and void. Though, then, a man should live a thousand years twice told, and all that while fulfil the law, yet having sinned first, he is not at all the better. Our legalists, then, begin to talk too soon of having life by the law; let them first begin without sin, and so throughout continue to death, and then if God will save them, not by Christ, but works, contrary to the covenant of grace, they may hope to go to heaven.

7. But, lastly, to come close to the point. Thou hast sinned; the law now calls for passive as well as active obedience; yea, great contentedness in all thou sufferest for thy transgressing against the law. So, then, wilt thou live by the law? Fulfil it, then, perfectly till death, and afterwards go to hell and be damned, and abide there till the law and curse for thy sin be satisfied for; and then, but not till then, thou shalt have life by the law. Tell me, now, you that desire to be under the law, can you fulfil all the commands of the law, and after answer all its demands? Can you grapple with the judgment of God? Can you wrestle with the Almighty?

Are you stronger than he that made the heavens, and that holdeth angels in everlasting chains? ‘Can thine heart endure, or can thy hands be strong in the day that I shall deal with thee? I the Lord have spoken it, and will do it’ (Eze 22:14). O, it cannot be! ‘These must go away into everlasting punishment’ (Matt 25:46). So, then, men must stand just from the curse, in the sight of God, while sinners in themselves, or not at all.

Objection [to the second reason]. But the apostle saith, ‘That the doers of the law shall be justified’ (Rom 2). Plainly intimating that, notwithstanding all you say, some by doing the law may stand just before God thereby; and if so, then Christ fulfilled it for us but as our example.

Answer. The consequences are not true; for by these words, ‘The doers of the law shall be justified,’ there is no more proof of a possibility of saving thyself by the law than there is by these: ‘For by the works of the law shall no man living be justified in his sight’ (Gal 2:16). The intent, then, of the text objected, is not to prove a possibility of man’s salvation by the law, but to insinuate rather an impossibility, by asserting what perfections the law requireth. And were I to argue against the pretended sufficiency of man’s own righteousness, I would choose to frame mine argument upon such a place as this—‘The hearers of the law are not just before God’; therefore the breakers of the law are not just before God; not just, I say, by the law; but all have sinned and broken the law; therefore none by the law are just before God. For if all stand guilty of sin by the law, then that law that judgeth them sinners cannot justify them before God. And what if the apostle had said, ‘Blessed are they that continue in all things,’

instead of pronouncing a curse for the contrary, the conclusion had been the same; for where the blessing is pronounced, he is not the better that breaks the condition; and where the curse is pronounced, he is not the worse that keeps it. But neither doth the blessing nor curse in the law intend a supposition that men may be just by the law, but rather to show the perfection of the law, and that though a blessing be annexed thereto, no man by it can obtain that blessing; for not the hearers of the law are justified before God, but the doers, when they do it, shall be justified. None but doers can by it be just before God: but none do the law, no, not one, therefore none by it can stand just before God (Rom 3:10,11).

And whereas it is said Christ kept the law as our example, that we by keeping it might get to heaven, as he; it is false, as before was showed—‘He is the end of the law,’ or, hath perfectly finished it, ‘for righteousness to every one that believeth’ (Rom 10:4). But a little to travel with this objection; no man can keep the moral law as Christ, unless he be first without sin, as Christ; unless he be God and man, as Christ. And again; Christ cannot be our pattern in keeping the law for life, because of the disproportion that is between him and us; for if we do it as he, when yet we are weaker than he; what is this but to out-vie, outdo, and go beyond Christ?

Wherefore we, not he, have our lives exemplary: exemplary, I say, to him; for who doth the greatest work, they that take it in hand in full strength, as Christ; or he that takes it in hand in weakness, as we? Doubtless the last, if he fulfils it as Christ. So, then, by this doctrine, while we call ourselves his scholars, we make ourselves indeed the masters. But I challenge all the angels in heaven, let them but first sin as we have done, to fulfil the law, as Christ, if they can!

But again; if Christ be our pattern in keeping the law for life from the curse before God, then Christ fulfilled the law for himself; if so, he was imperfect before he fulfilled it. And how far short this is of blasphemy let sober Christians judge; for the righteousness he fulfilled was to justify from sin; but if it was not to justify us from ours, you know what remaineth (Dan 9:26; Isa 53:8-10).

But when must we conclude we have kept the law? Not when we begin, because we have sinned first; nor when we are in the middle, for we may afterwards miscarry. But what if a man in this his progress hath one sinful thought? I query, is it possible to come up to the pattern for justification with God? If yea, then Christ had such; if no, then who can fulfil the law as he? But should I grant that which is indeed impossible—namely, that thou art justified by the law; what then? Art thou now in the favour of God? No, thou art fallen by this thy perfection, from the love and mercy of God: ‘Whosoever of you are justified by the law are fallen from grace’

(Gal 5:4). He speaks not this to them that are doing, but to such as think they have done it, and shows that the blessing that these have got thereby is to fall from the favour of God. Being fallen from grace, Christ profits them nothing, and so they still stand debtors to do the whole law. So, then, they must not be saved by God’s mercy, nor Christ’s merits, but alone by the works of the law! But what should such men do in that kingdom that comes by gift, where grace and mercy reigns? Yea, what should they do among that company that are