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

while time serves to get the things of this life. And if it be so, that they must needs seek after heaven, or else be damned, they will stay till they have more leisure, or till they can better attend to it; or till they have other things handsome about them, or till they are older; when they have little else to do, or when they come to be sick, and to die. Then, Lord, have mercy upon them! though it be ten thousand to one but they perish for ever.

For commonly the Lord hath this way to deal with such sinners, who put him off when he is striving with them, either to laugh at their calamity, and mock when their fear cometh (Prov 1:26,28). Or else send them to the gods they have served, which are the devils (Judg 10:13,14). Go to the gods you have served, and ‘let them deliver you,’ saith he; compare this with John 8:44.

5. He hath said, ‘There is no man that forsaketh father, or mother, wife, or children, or lands, for his sake and the gospel’s, but shall have a hundred fold in this world, with persecution, and in the world to come life everlasting’ (Mark 10:29,30).

But men, for the most part, are so far off from believing the certainty of this, that they will scarce lose the earning of a penny to hear the Word of God, the gospel of salvation. Nay, they will neither go themselves, nor suffer others to go, if they can help it, without threatening to do them a mischief, if it lie in their way. Nay, further, many are so far from parting from any worldly gain for Christ’s sake, and the gospel’s, that they are still striving, by hook and by crook, as we say, by swearing, lying, cozening, stealing, covetousness, extortion, oppression, forgery, bribery, flattery, or any other way to get more, thou they get together with these, death, wrath, damnation, hell, the devil, and all the plagues that God can pour upon them. And if any do not run with them to the same excess of riot, but rather for all their threats will be so bold and careless, as they call it, as to follow the ways of God; if they can do no more, yet they will whet their tongues like a sword to wound them, and do them the greatest mischief they can, both in speaking against them to neighbours, to wives, to husbands, to landlords, and raising false reports of them. But let such take heed lest they be in such a state, and woeful condition as he was in, who said, in vexation and anguish of soul, One drop of cold water to cool my tongue.

Thus might I add many things out of the holy Writ, both threatenings and promises, besides those heavenly counsels, loving reproofs, free invitations to all sorts of sinners, both old and young, rich and poor, bond and free, wise and unwise. All which have been, now are, and is to be feared, as long as this world lasts, will be trampled under the feet of those swine, I call them not men, who will continue in the same. But take a review of some of them:—

1. Counsel.

What heavenly counsel is that where Christ saith, ‘buy of me gold tried by the fire, that thou mayest be rich, and white raiment that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear’ (Rev 3:18). Also that, ‘Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price’ (Isa 55:1). ‘Hear, and your soul shall live’ (v 3). ‘Take hold of my strength, that you may make peace with me, and you shall make peace with me’ (Isa 27:5).

2. Instruction.

What instruction is here?

‘Hear instruction and be wise, and refuse it not. Blessed is the man that heareth me,’ saith Christ, ‘watching daily at my gates, waiting at the posts of my doors. For whoso findeth me, findeth life, and shall obtain favour of the Lord’ (Prov 8:33-35). Take heed that no man deceive you by any means. ‘Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life’ (John 6:27). ‘Strive to enter in at the strait gate’ (Luke 13:24). ‘Believe on the Lord Jesus, and thou shalt be saved’ (Acts 16:31). ‘Believe not every spirit, but try the spirits.’ ‘Quench not the Spirit.’ ‘Lay hold on eternal life.’ ‘Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven’ (Matt 5:16). Take heed, and beware of hypocrisy; ‘watch and be sober,’ ‘learn of me,’ saith Christ, ‘come unto me.’

3. Forewarning.

What forewarning is here?

‘Because there is wrath, beware lest he take thee away with his stroke, then a great ransom cannot deliver thee’ (Job 36:18). ‘Be ye not mockers, lest your hands be made strong, for I have heard from the Lord God of hosts, a consumption even determined upon the whole earth’ (Isa 28:22). ‘Beware, therefore, lest that come upon you that is written, Behold, ye despisers, and wonder and perish. For I work a work in your days, which ye shall in no wise believe, though a man declare it unto you’ (Acts 13:40,41). ‘Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall’ (1 Cor 10:12).

‘Watch and pray, that you enter not into temptation’ (Matt 26:41).

‘Let us therefore fear lest a promise being’ made, and ‘left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it’ (Heb 4:1). ‘I will therefore put you in remembrance, though you once knew this, how that the Lord having saved the people out of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed not’ (Jude 5).

‘Hold that fast which thou hast, that no man take thy crown’ (Rev 3:11).

4. Comfort.

What comfort is here?

‘Him that cometh to me, I will in no wise cast out’ (John 6:37).

‘Come unto me, all ye that labour, and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest’ (Matt 11:28). ‘Be of good cheer, thy sins be forgiven thee’ (Matt 9:2). ‘I will never leave, nor forsake thee,’

for ‘I have loved thee with an everlasting love’ (Jer 31:3). ‘I lay down my life for the sheep.’ I lay down my life that they may have life. ‘I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.’ ‘I have heard thee in a time accepted, and in the day of salvation have I succoured thee’ (2 Cor 6:2).

‘Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow, though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.’ ‘For I have blotted out as a thick cloud thy transgression, and as a cloud thy sins; return unto me, for I have redeemed thee’ (Isa 44:22).

5. Grief to those that fall short.

O sad grief!

‘How have I hated instruction, and my heart despised reproof, and have not obeyed the voice of my teachers, nor inclined mine ear to them that instructed me’ (Prov 5:11-13). They shall ‘curse their king and their God, and look upward. And they shall look unto the earth, and behold trouble and darkness, dimness of anguish, and they shall be driven to darkness’ (Isa 8:21,22). ‘He hath dispersed’

abroad, ‘he hath given to the poor, his righteousness endureth for ever.—The wicked shall see it, and be grieved, he shall gnash his teeth, and melt away; the desire of the wicked shall perish’

(Psa 112:9,10). ‘There shall be weeping,—when ye shall see Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, and you yourselves thrust out’ (Luke 13:28). All which things are slighted by the world.

Thus much, in short, touching this, That ungodly men undervalue the Scriptures, and give no credit to them, when the truth that is contained in them is held forth in simplicity unto them, but rather cry out, Nay, but if one should rise from the dead then they think something might be done; when alas, though signs and wonders were wrought by the hands of those that preach the gospel, these poor creatures would never the sooner convert, though they suppose they should, as is evident by the carriages of their forerunners, who albeit the Lord Jesus Christ himself did confirm his doctrine by miracles, as opening blind eyes, casting out of devils, and raising the dead, they were so far from receiving either him or his doctrine, that they put him to death for his pains! Though he had done so many miracles among them, yet they believed not in him (John 12:37).

But to pass this, I shall lay down some of the grounds of their rejecting and undervaluing the Scriptures, and so pass on.

1. [Ground.] Because they do not believe that they are the Word of God, but rather suppose them to be the inventions of men, written by some politicians, on purpose to make poor ignorant people to submit to some religion and government.[44] Though they do not say this, yet their practices testify the same; as he that when he hears the words of the curse, yet blesseth himself in his heart, and saith he shall have peace, though God saith he shall have none (Deut 29:18-20). And this must needs be, for did but men believe this, that it is the Word of God, then they must believe that he that speak it is true, therefore shall every word and tittle be fulfilled. And if they come once to this, unless they be stark mad, they will have a care how they do throw themselves under the lash of eternal vengeance. For the reason why the Thessalonians received the Word, was, because they believed it was the Word of God, and not the word of man, which did effectually work in them by their thus believing. ‘When ye received the Word of God which ye heard of us,’ saith he, ‘ye received it not as the word of man, but, as it is in truth, the Word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe’ (1 Thess 2:13). So that did a man but receive it in hearing, or reading, or meditating, as it is the Word of God, they would be converted. ‘But the Word preached did not profit,—not being mixed with faith in them that heard it’

(Heb 4:2).

2. [Ground.] Because they do not indeed see themselves by nature heirs of that exceeding wrath and vengeance that the Scriptures testify of. For did they but consider what God intends to do with those that live and die in a natural state, it would either sink them into despair, or make them fly for refuge to the hope that is set before them. But if there be never such sins committed, and never so great wrath denounced, and the time of execution be never so near, yet if the party that is guilty be senseless, and altogether ignorant thereof, he will be careless, and regards it nothing at all. And that man, by nature, is in this condition, it is evident. For, take the same man that is senseless, and ignorant of that misery he is in by nature, I say, take him at another time when he is a little awakened, and then you shall hear him roar, and cry out so long as trouble is upon him, and a sense of the wrath of God hanging over his head, Good sirs, what must I do to be saved?

Though the same man at another time, when his conscience is fallen asleep, and grown hard, will lie like the smith’s dog at the foot of the anvil, though the fire-sparks fly in