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

upon his hearse the badges of a dishonourable and wicked life; since ‘his bones are full of the sin of his youth, which shall lie down,’ as Job says, ‘with him in the dust.’ Nor is it fit that any should be his attendants, now at his death, but such as with him conspired against their own souls in their life; persons whose transgressions have made them infamous to all that have or shall know what they have done.

Some notice therefore I have also here in this little discourse given the reader, of them who were his confederates in his life, and attendants at his death; with a hint, either of some high villainy committed by them, as also of those judgments that have overtaken and fallen upon them from the just and revenging hand of God. All which are things either fully known by me, as being eye and ear-witness thereto, or that I have received from such hands, whose relation, as to this, I am bound to believe. And that the reader may know them from other things and passages herein contained, I have pointed at them in the margin.

Third. The funerals of persons of quality have been solemnized with some suitable sermon at the time and place of their burial; but that I am not come to as yet, having got no further than to Mr. Badman’s death; but forasmuch as he must be buried, after he hath stunk out his time before his beholders, I doubt not but some such that we read are appointed to be at the burial of Gog, will do this work in my stead; such as shall leave him neither skin nor bone above ground, but shall set a sign by it till the buriers have buried it in the valley of Hamon-gog (Eze 39).

Fourth. At funerals there does use to be mourning and lamentation, but here also Mr. Badman differs from others; his familiars cannot lament his departure, for they have not sense of his damnable state; they rather ring him, and sing him to hell in the sleep of death, in which he goes thither. Good men count him no loss to the world, his place can well be without him, his loss is only his own, and it is too late for him to recover that damage or loss by a sea of bloody tears, could he shed them. Yea, God has said he will laugh at his destruction; who then shall lament for him, saying, Ah! my brother. He was but a stinking weed in his life; nor was he better at all in his death; such may well be thrown over the wall without sorrow, when once God has plucked them up by the roots in his wrath.

Reader, if thou art of the race, lineage, stock, or fraternity of Mr. Badman, I tell thee, before thou readest this book, thou wilt neither brook the author nor it, because he hath writ of Mr.

Badman as he has. For he that condemneth the wicked that die so, passeth also the sentence upon the wicked that live. I therefore expect neither credit of, nor countenance from thee, for this narration of thy kinsman’s life. For thy old love to thy friend, his ways, doings, &c., will stir up in thee enmity rather in thy very heart against me. I shall therefore incline to think of thee, that thou wilt rend, burn, or throw it away in contempt; yea, and wish also, that for writing so notorious a truth, some mischief may befal me. I look also to be loaded by thee with disdain, scorn, and contempt; yea, that thou shouldest railingly and vilifyingly say I lie, and am a bespatterer of honest men’s lives and deaths.

For. Mr. Badman, when himself was alive, could not abide to be counted a knave, though his actions told all that went by, that indeed he was such an one. How then should his brethren that survive him, and that tread in his very steps, approve of the sentence that by this book is pronounced against him? Will they not rather imitate Korah, Dathan, and Abiram’s friends, even rail at me for condemning him, as they did at Moses for doing execution?

I know it is ill puddling in the cockatrice’s den, and that they run hazards that hunt the wild boar. The man also that writeth Mr. Badman’s life had need be fenced with a coat of mail, and with the staff of a spear, for that his surviving friends will know what he doth; but I have adventured to do it, and to play, at this time, at the hole of these asps; if they bite, they bite; if they sting, they sting. Christ sends his lambs in the midst of wolves, not to do like them, but to suffer by them for bearing plain testimony against their bad deeds. But had one not need to walk with a guard, and to have a sentinel stand at one’s door for this?

Verily, the flesh would be glad of such help; yea, a spiritual man, could he tell how to get it (Acts 23). But I am stript naked of these, and yet am commanded to be faithful in my service for Christ. Well then, I have spoken what I have spoken, and now ‘come on me what will’ (Job 13:13). True, the text say, Rebuke a scorner and he will hate thee; and that he that reproveth a wicked man getteth himself a blot and shame. But what then? Open rebuke is better than secret love, and he that receives it shall find it so afterwards.

So then, whether Mr. Badman’s friends shall rage or laugh at what I have writ, I know that the better end of the staff6 is mine.

My endeavour is to stop a hellish course of life, and to ‘save a soul from death’ (James 5:20). And if for so doing I meet with envy from them, from whom in reason I should have thanks, I must remember the man in the dream,[7] that cut his way through his armed enemies, and so got into the beauteous palace; I must, I say, remember him, and do myself likewise.

Yet four things I will propound to the consideration of Mr. Badman’s friends before I turn my back upon them.

1. Suppose that there be a hell in very deed; not that I do question it any more than I do whether there be a sun to shine, but I suppose it for argument sake with Mr. Badman’s friends. I say, suppose there be a hell, and that too such an one as the Scripture speaks of, one at the remotest distance from God and life eternal, one where the worm of a guilty conscience never dies, and where the fire of the wrath of God is not quenched. Suppose, I say, that there is such a hell, prepared of God—as there is indeed—for the body and soul of the ungodly world after this life to be tormented in; I say, do but with thyself suppose it, and then tell me is it not prepared for thee, thou being a wicked man? Let thy conscience speak, I say, is it not prepared for thee, thou being an ungodly man? And dost thou think, wast thou there now, that thou art able to wrestle with the judgment of God? why then do the fallen angels tremble there? Thy hands cannot be strong, nor can thy heart endure, in that day when God shall deal with thee (Eze 22:14).

2. Suppose that some one that is now a soul in hell for sin, was permitted to come hither again to dwell, and that they had a grant also, that, upon amendment of life, next time they die, to change that place for heaven and glory. What sayst thou, O wicked man?

Would such an one, thinkest thou, run again into the same course of life as before, and venture the damnation that for sin he had already been in? Would he choose again to lead that cursed life that afresh would kindle the flames of hell upon him, and that would bind him up under the heavy wrath of God? O! he would not, he would not; Luke 16 insinuates it; yea, reason itself awake would abhor it, and tremble at such a thought.

3. Suppose again, that thou that livest and rollest in thy sin, and that as yet hast known nothing but the pleasure thereof, shouldest be by an angel conveyed to some place, where, with convenience, from thence thou mightest have a view of heaven and hell, of the joys of the one and the torments of the other; I say, suppose that from thence thou mightest have such a view thereof as would convince thy reason that both heaven and hell are such realities as by the Word they are declared to be; wouldest thou, thinkest thou, when brought to thy home again, choose to thyself thy former life, to wit, to return to thy folly again? No; if belief of what thou sawest remained with thee thou wouldest eat fire and brimstone first.

4. I will propound again. Suppose that there was amongst us such a law, and such a magistrate to inflict the penalty, that for every open wickedness committed by thee, so much of thy flesh should with burning pincers be plucked from thy bones, wouldest thou then go on in thy open way of lying, swearing, drinking, and whoring, as thou with delight doest now? Surely, surely, no. The fear of the punishment would make thee forbear; yea, would make thee tremble, even then when thy lusts were powerful, to think what a punishment thou wast sure to sustain so soon as the pleasure was over. But O! the folly, the madness, the desperate madness that is in the hearts of Mr. Badman’s friends, who, in despite of the threatenings of a holy and sin-revenging God, and of the outcries and warnings of all good men, yea, that will, in despite of the groans and torments of those that are now in hell for sin, go on in a sinful course of life, yea, though every sin is also a step of descent down to that infernal cave (Luke 16:24,28). O how true is that saying of Solomon, ‘The heart of the sons of men is full of evil, and madness is in their heart while they live, and after that they go to the dead’ (Eccl 9:3). To the dead! that is, to the dead in hell, to the damned dead, the place to which those that have died bad men are gone, and that those that live bad men are like to go to, when a little more sin, like stolen waters, hath been imbibed by their sinful souls.

That which has made me publish this book is, 1. For that wickedness, like a flood, is like to drown our English world. It begins already to be above the tops of the mountains; it has almost swallowed up all; our youth, middle age, old age, and all, are almost carried away of this flood. O debauchery, debauchery, what hast thou done in England! Thou hast corrupted our young men, and hast made our old men beasts; thou hast deflowered our virgins, and hast made matrons bawds. Thou hast made our earth ‘to reel to and fro like a drunkard’; it is in danger to ‘be removed like a cottage,’ yea, it is, because transgression is so heavy upon it, like to fall and rise no more (Isa 24:20). O! that I could mourn for England, and for the sins that are committed therein, even while I see that, without repentance, the men of God’s wrath are about to deal with us, each having his ‘slaughtering weapon in his hand’ (Eze 9:1,2). Well, I