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

understand my meaning by my words,

How sense of mercy unto faith affords

Both grace to sanctify, and holy make

That soul that of forgiveness doth partake.

Thus having briefly showed you what is

The way of life, or sanctity, of bliss,

I would not in conclusion have you think, By what I say, that Christian men should drink In these my words with lightness, or that they Are now exempted from what every day

Their duty is. No, God doth still expect, Yea, doth command, that they do not neglect To pray, to read, to hear, and not dissent From being sober, grave, and diligent

In watching, self-denial, and with fear

To serve him all the time thou livest here.

Indeed I have endeavoured to lay

Before your eyes the right and only way

Pardon to get, and also holiness,

Without which never think that God will bless Thee with the kingdom he will give to those That Christ embrace, and holy lives do choose To live, while here all others go astray, And shall in time to come be cast away.

FROM MOUNT EBAL.

Thus having heard from Gerizzim, I shall Next come to Ebal, and you thither call, Not there to curse you, but to let you hear How God doth curse that soul that shall appear An unbelieving man, a graceless wretch;

Because he doth continue in the breach

Of Moses’ law, and also doth neglect

To close with Jesus; him will God reject And cast behind him; for of right his due Is that from whence all miseries ensue.

Cursed, saith he, are thy that do transgress The least of my commandments, more or less.

Nothing that written is must broken be,

But always must be kept unto by thee,

And must fulfilled be; for here no man

Can look God in the face, or ever stand

Before the judgment-seat; for if they be Convict, condemned too assuredly.

Now keep this law no mortal creature can, For they already do, as guilty, stand

Before the God that gave it; so that they Obnoxious to the curse lie every day,

Which also they must feel for certainty, If unto Jesus Christ they do not fly.

Hence, then, as they for ever shall be blest, That do by faith upon the promise rest,

So peace unto the wicked there is none;

‘Tis wrath and death that they must feed upon.

That what I say may some impression make On carnal hearts, that they in time may take That course that best will prove when time is done, These lines I add to what I have begun. First, thou must know that God, as he is love So he is justice, therefore cannot move, Or in the least be brought to favour those His holiness and justice doth oppose. For though thou mayst imagine in thy heart That God is this or that, yet if thou art At all besides the truth of what he is,

And so dost build thy hope for life amiss, Still he the same abideth, and will be

The same, the same for ever unto thee.

As God is true unto his promise, so

Unto his threat’ning he is faithful too.

Cease to be God he must, if he should break One tittle that his blessed mouth did speak.

Now, then, none can be saved but the men With whom the Godhead is contented when

It them beholds with the severest eye

Of justice, holiness, and yet can spy

No fault nor blemish in them; these be they That must be saved, as the Scriptures say.

If this be true, as ‘tis assuredly,

Woe be to them that wicked live and die; Those that as far from holiness have been All their life long as if no eye had seen Their doings here, or as if God did not

At all regard, or in the least mind what, Wherein, or how they did his law transgress, Either by this or other wickedness;

But how deceived these poor creatures are, They then shall know when they their burthen bear.

Alas, our God is a consuming fire;

So is his law, by which he doth require

That thou submit to him, and if thou be

Not in that justice found that can save thee From all and every sentence which he spake Upon mount Sinai, then as one that brake It, thou the flames thereof shall quickly find As scourges thee to lash, while sins do bind Thee hand and foot, for ever to endure

The strokes of vengeance for thy life impure.

What I have said will yet evinced be, And manifest abundantly to thee,

If what I have already spoken to

Be joined with these lines that do ensue.

Justice discovers its antipathy

Against profaneness and malignity.

Not only by the law it gave to men,

And threatenings thereunto annexed then.

But inasmuch as long before that day,

He did prepare for such as go astray,

That dreadful, that so much amazing place—

Hell, with its torments—for those men that grace And holiness of life slight and disdain, There to bemoan themselves with hellish pain.

This place, also, the pains so dismal be, Both as to name and nature, that in me

It is not to express the damning wights, The hellish torture, and the fearful plights Thereof; for as intolerable they

Must needs be found, by those that disobey The Lord, so can no word or thought express Unto the full the height of that distress; Such miserable caitiffs, that shall there Rebukes of vengeance, for transgressions bear.

Indeed the holy Scriptures do make use Of many metaphors, that do conduce

Much to the symbolizing of the place,

Unto our apprehension; but the case—

The sad, the woful case—of those that lie As racked there in endless misery,

By all similitudes no mortals may

Set forth in its own nature; for I say

Similitudes are but a shade, and show

Of those or that they signify to you.

The fire that doth within thine oven burn, The prison where poor people sit and mourn, Chains, racks, and darkness, and such others, be As painting on the wall, to let thee see By word and figures the extremity

Of such as shall within these burnings lie.

But certainly, if wickedness and sin Had only foolish toys and trifles been,

And if God had not greatly hated it,

Yea, could he any ways thereof admit,

And let it pass, he would not thus have done.

He doth not use to punish any one

With any place or punishment that is

Above or sharper than the sin of his

Hath merited, and justice seeth due;

Read sin, then, by the death that doth ensue.

Most men do judge of sin, not by the fruits It bears and bringeth forth, but as it suits Their carnal and deluded hearts, that be With sensual pleasures eaten up; but he

That now so judgeth, shortly shall perceive That God will judge thereof himself, and leave Such men no longer to their carnal lusts, To judge of wickedness, and of the just

And righteous punishment that doth of right Belong thereto; and will, too, in despite Of all their carnal reason, justify

Himself, in their eternal misery.

Then hell will be no fancy, neither will Men’s sins be pleasant to them; but so ill And bitter, yea, so bitter, that none can Fully express the same, or ever stand

Under the burden it will on them lay,

When they from life and bliss are sent away.

When I have thought how often God doth speak Of their destruction, who HIS law do break; And when the nature of the punishment

I find so dreadful, and that God’s intent, Yea, resolution is, it to inflict

On every sinner that shall stand convict, I have amazed been, yet to behold,

To see poor sinners yet with sin so bold, That like the horse that to the battle runs, Without all fear, and that no danger shuns, Till down he falls. O resolute attempts!

O sad, amazing, damnable events!

The end of such proceedings needs must be, From which, O Lord, save and deliver me.

But if thou think that God thy noble race Will more respect, than into such a place To put thee; hold, though thou his offspring be, And so art lovely, yet sin hath made thee Another kind of creature than when thou

Didst from his fingers drop, and therefore now Thy first creation stands thee in no stead; Thou hast transgressed, and in very deed Set God against thee, who is infinite,

And that for certain never will forget

Thy sins, nor favour thee if thou shalt die A graceless man; this is thy misery.

When angels sinned, though of higher race Than thou, and also put in higher place, Yet them he spared not, but cast them down From heaven to hell; where also they lie bound In everlasting chains, and no release

Shall ever have, but wrath, that shall increase Upon them, to their everlasting woe.

As for the state they were exalted to,

That will by no means mitigate their fear, But aggravate their hellish torment here; For he that highest stands, if he shall fall, His danger needs must be the great’st of all.

Now if God noble angels did not spare

Because they did transgress, will he forbear Poor dust and ashes? Will he suffer them To break his law, and sin, and not condemn Them for so doing? Let not man deceive

Himself or others; they that do bereave

Themselves by sin of happiness, shall be Cut off by justice, and have misery.

Witness his great severity upon

The world that first was planted, wherein none But only eight the deluge did escape,

All others of that vengeance did partake; The reason was, that world ungodly stood Before him, therefore he did send the flood, Which swept them all away. A just reward For their most wicked ways against the Lord, Who could no longer bear them and their ways, Therefore into their bosom vengeance pays.

We read of Sodom, and Gomorrah too,

What judgments they for sin did undergo; How God from heaven did fire upon them rain, Because they would not wicked ways refrain; Condemning of them with an overthrow,

And turned them to ashes. Who can know

The miseries that these poor people felt While they did underneath those burnings melt?

Now these, and many more that I could name, That have been made partakers of the flame And sword of justice, God did then cut off, And make examples unto all that scoff

At holiness, or do the gospel slight;

And long it will not be before the night And judgment, painted out by what he did To Sodom and Gomorrah, fulfilled

Upon such sinners be, that they may now

That God doth hate the sin, and persons too.

Of such as still rebellious shall abide, Although they now at judgment may deride.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] On the reverse of the title-page is the following singular advertisement:—‘This author having published many books, which have gone off very well, there are certain ballad-sellers about Newgate, and on London Bridge, who have put the two first letters of this author’s name, and his effigies, to their rhymes and ridiculous books, suggesting to the world as if they were his.

Now know, that this author publisheth his name at large to all his books; and what you shall see otherwise, he disowns.’—Ed.

[2] ‘Convert,’ for ‘be ye converted,’ was a common mode of speech in Bunyan’s time. It is so used in Holy Writ, Isaiah 6:10.—Ed.

[3] Armorial bearings