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

be preached to them freely, and for nothing; nay, they are now desired to hear and receive it: though now they will not own, regard, or embrace these Christian proffers of the glorious truth of Jesus, because they come out of some of the basest earthen vessels; yet the time is coming, when they will both sigh and cry, Send him to my father’s house (1 Cor 1:26). I say, remember this, ye that despise the day of small things; the time is coming, when you would be glad, if you might enjoy from God, from Christ, or his saints, one small drop of cold water, though now you are unwilling to receive the glorious distilling drops of the gospel of our Lord Jesus.

Again, see here the lamentable state they are in, that go to hell from their fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, &c. While they are in this world, men delight to set their children ill examples; and also children love to follow the wicked steps of their ungodly parents; but when they depart this life, and drop down into hell, and find themselves in irrecoverable misery, then they cry, send some body to my father’s house, to my brother’s house. Tell them my state is miserable, tell them I am undone for ever; and tell them also, that if they will be walking in these ungodly steps wherein I left them, they will assuredly fall into this place of torments.

‘I pray thee—SEND HIM TO MY FATHER’S HOUSE.’ Ah, friends and neighbours, it is like you little think of this, that some of your friends and relations are crying out in hell, Lord, send some body to my father’s house, to preach the gospel to them, lest they also come into these torments.

Here, men while they live, can willingly walk together in the way of sin, and when they are parted by death, they that are living, seldom or never consider of the sad condition that they that are dead are descended into. But ye ungodly fathers, how are your ungodly children roaring now in hell? And you ungodly children, how are your ungodly parents that lived and died ungodly, now in the pains of hell also? And one drunkard is singing on the ale bench, and another roaring under the wrath of God, saying, O that I was with him, how would I rebuke him, and persuade him by all means to leave off these evil courses. O! that they did but consider what I now suffer for pride, covetousness, drunkenness, lying, swearing, stealing, whoring, and the like. O! did they but feel the thousandth part thereof, it would make them look about them, and not buy sin at so dear a rate as I have done; even with the loss of my precious soul.

‘Send him to my father’s house.’ Not to my father, but to my ‘father’s house.’ It may be there is ungodly children, there is ungodly servants, wallowing in their ungodliness; send him therefore to my father’s house. It is like they are still the same that I left them; I left them wicked, and they are wicked still; I left them slighters of the gospel, saints, and ways of God, and they do it still; ‘send him to my father’s house,’ it is like there is but a little between them and the place where I am; send him to-day, before to-morrow, ‘lest they also come into the same place of torment. I pray thee that thou wouldst send him.’ I beg it on my bended knee, with crying and with tears, in the agony of my soul. It may be they will not consider, if thou do not send him.

I left them sottish enough, hardened as well as I; they have the same devil to tempt them, the same lusts and world to overcome them; ‘I pray thee therefore, that thou wouldst send him to my father’s house’; make no delay, lest they lose their souls, lest they come hither: if they do, they are like never to return again.

O! little do they think how easily they may lose their souls; they are apt to think their condition to be as good as the best, as I once through ignorance did; but send him, send him without delay, ‘lest they also come into this place of torment.’ O that thou wouldst give him commission, do thou send him thyself; the time was when I, together with them, slighted those that were sent of God; though we could not deny but that he spake the word of God, and was sent of him, as our consciences told us; yet we preferred the calls of men before the calls of God. For though they had the one, yet because they had not the other in that antichristian way which we thought meet, we could not, would not, either hear him ourselves, nor yet give consent that others should. But now a call from God is worth all. Do THOU ‘therefore send him to my father’s house.’

The time was, when we did not like it, except it might be preached in the synagogue; we thought it a low thing to preach and pray together in houses. We were too high-spirited, too superstitious; the gospel would not down with us, unless we had it in such a place, by such a man; no, nor then neither effectually. But now, O that I was to live in the world again; and might have that privilege to have some acquaintance with blessed Lazarus, some familiarity with that holy man; what attendance would I give unto his wholesome words! How would I affect his doctrine, and close in with it! How would I square my life thereby! Now therefore, as it is better to hear the gospel under a hedge than to sit roaring in a tavern, it is better to welcome God’s begging Lazaruses than the wicked companions of this world. It is better to receive a saint in the name of a saint, a disciple in the name of a disciple, than to do as I have done (Luke 10:16). O! it is better to receive a child of God, that can by experience deliver the things of God, his free love, his tender grace, his rich forbearance, and also the misery of man, if without it, than to be ‘daubed with untempered mortar’ (Eze 13:10). O! I may curse the day that ever I gave way to the flatteries and fawning of a company of carnal clergymen,[24]

but this my repentance is too late; I should have looked about me sooner, if I would have been saved from this woeful place.

Therefore send him, not only to the town I lived in, and unto some of my acquaintance, but to my father’s house.

In my lifetime I did not care to hear that word that cut me most, and showed me mine estate aright. I was vexed to hear my sins mentioned, and laid to my charge; I loved him best that deceived me most—that said, Peace, peace, when there was no such thing (Jer 5:30,31). But now, O that I had been soundly told of it!

O that it had pierced both mine ears and heart, and had stuck so fast that nothing could have cured me, saving the blood of Christ!

It is better to be dealt plainly with, than that we should be deceived; they had better see their lost condition in the world, than stay while they be damned, as I have done. Therefore send Lazarus, send him to my father’s house. Let him go and say I saw your son, your brother, in hell, weeping and wailing, and gnashing his teeth. Let him bear them down in it, and tell them plainly it is so, and that they shall see their everlasting misery, if they have not a special care. ‘Send him to my father’s house.’

Verse 28.—‘For I have five brethren; that he may testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of torment.’

These words are, if I may so say, a reason given by those in hell why they are so restless and do cry so loud; it is that their companions might be delivered from those intolerable torments which they must and shall undergo if they fall short of everlasting life by Jesus Christ. ‘Send him to my father’s house; for I have five brethren.’ Though, while they lived among them in the world, they were not so sensible of their ruin, yet now they are passed out of the world, and do partake of that which before they were warned of; they can, I say, then cry out, Now I find that to be true indeed, which was once and again told and declared to me that it would certainly come to pass.

‘FOR I HAVE FIVE BRETHREN.’ Here you may see that there may be, and are, whole households in a damnable state and condition, as our Lord Jesus doth by this signify. ‘Send him to my father’s house,’

for they are all in one state, I left all my brethren in a pitiful case. People, while they live here, cannot endure to hear that they should be all in a miserable condition; but when they are under the wrath of God they see it, they know it, and are very sure of it; for they themselves, when they were in the world, lived as they do, but they fell short of heaven, and therefore, if they go on, so shall they. O, therefore, send him quickly to my father’s house, for all the house is in an undone condition, and must be damned if they continue so.

The thing observable is this, namely, that those that are in hell do not desire that their companions should come thither; nay rather, saith he, send him to my father’s house, and let him testify to them that are therein, lest they also come, &c.

Quest. But some may say, What should be the reason that the damned should desire not to have their companions come into the same condition that they are fallen into, but rather that they might be kept from it, and escape that dreadful state?

Answ. I do believe there is scarce so much love in any of the damned in hell as really to desire the salvation of any. But in that there is any desire in them that are damned, that their friends and relations should not come into that place of torment, it appears to me to be rather for their own ease than for their neighbour’s good; for, let me tell you, this I do believe, that it will aggravate the grief and horror of them to see their ungodly neighbours in the like destruction with them. For where the ungodly do live and die, and descend into the pit together, the one is rather a vexation to the other than any thing else. And it must needs be so, because there are no ungodly people that do live ungodly together but they do learn ill examples one of another, as thus: If there live one in the town that is very expert and cunning for the world, why now the rest that are of the same mind with him, they will labour to imitate and follow his steps: this is commonly seen.

Again, if there be one given to drunkenness, others of the town, through his means, run the more into that sin with him, and do accustom themselves the more unto it because of his enticing them, and also by setting such an ill example before them. And so if there be any addicted to pride, and must needs be in all the newest fashions, how do their example provoke others to love and follow the same vanity; spending that upon their lusts which should relieve their own and others’