The Jerusalem Sinner Saved; or Good News for the Vilest Men - John Bunyan (books you need to read txt) 📗

how these ringleaders in vice will then shine in virtue! They will be the very pillars in churches, they will be as an ensign in the land. “The Lord their God shall save them in that day as the flock of his people: for they shall be as the stones of a crown, lifted up as an ensign upon his land;” Zech. ix. 16. But who are these? Even idolatrous Ephraim, and backsliding Judah; ver. 13.

I know there is ground to fear, that the iniquity of this generation will be pursued with heavy judgments: but that will not hinder what we have supposed. God took him a glorious church out of bloody Jerusalem, yea, out of the chief of the sinners there, and left the rest to be taken and spoiled, and sold, thirty for a penny, in the nations where they were captives. The gospel working gloriously in a place, to the seizing upon many of the ringleading sinners thereof, promiseth no security to the rest, but rather threateneth them with the heaviest and smartest judgments; as in the instance now given, we have a full demonstration; but in defending, the Lord will defend his people; and in saving, he will save his inheritance.

Nor does this speak any great comfort to a decayed and backsliding sort of Christians; for the next time God rides post with his gospel, he will leave such Christians behind him. But I say, Christ is resolved to set up his light in the world; yea, he is delighted to see his graces shine; and therefore he commands that his gospel should to that end be offered, in the first place, to the biggest sinners; for by great sins it shineth most; therefore he saith, “Begin at Jerusalem.”

Eighthly, and lastly, Christ Jesus will have mercy to be offered in the first place to the biggest sinners; for that by that means the impenitent that are left behind will be at the judgment the more left without excuse.

God’s word has two edges; it can cut back-stroke and fore-stroke: if it doth thee no good, it will do thee hurt; it is the savour of life unto life to those that receive it, but of death unto death to them that refuse it; 2 Cor. ii. 15, 16. But this is not all; the tender of grace to the biggest sinners in the first place, will not only leave the rest, or those that refuse it, in a deplorable condition, but will also stop their mouths, and cut off all pretence to excuse at that day. “If I had not come and spoken unto them,” saith Christ, “they had not had sin; but now they have no cloak for their sin,” for their sin of persevering in impenitence; Job xv. 22.

But what did he speak to them? Why, even that which I have told you; to wit, That he has in special a delight in saving the biggest sinners. He spake this in the way of his doctrine; he spake this in the way of his practice, even to the pouring out of his last breath before them; Luke xxiii. 34.

Now, since this is so, what can the condemned at the judgment say for themselves, why sentence of death should not be passed upon them? I say, what excuse can they make for themselves, when they shall be asked why they did not in the day of salvation come to Christ to be saved? Will they have ground to say to the Lord, Thou wast only for saving of little sinners; and therefore because they were great ones, they durst not come unto him? or that thou hadst not compassion for the biggest sinners, therefore I died in despair? Will these be excuses for them, as the case now standeth with them? Is there not every where in God’s book a flat contradiction to this, in multitudes of promises, of invitations, of examples, and the like? Alas, alas! there will then be there millions of souls to confute this plea; ready, I say, to stand up, and say, O! deceived world, heaven swarms with such, as were, when they were in the world, to the full as bad as you.

Now, this will kill all plea or excuse, why they should perish in their sins; yea, the text says, they shall see them there. “There shall be weeping, when you shall see Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets in the kingdom of heaven, and you yourselves thrust out. And they shall come from the east, and from the west, and from the north, and from the south, and shall sit down in the kingdom of God;” Luke xiii. 28, 29. Out of which company it is easy to pick such as sometimes were as bad people as any that now breathe on the face of the earth. What think you of the first man, by whose sins there are millions now in hell? And so I may say, What think you of ten thousand more besides?

But if the world will not stifle and gag them up (I speak now for amplification’s sake), the view of those who are saved shall.

There comes an incestuous person to the bar, and pleads, That the bigness of his sins was a bar to his receiving the promise. But will not his mouth be stopped as to that, when Lot and the incestuous Corinthian shall be set before him; Gen. xix. 33-37; 1 Cor. v. 1, 2.

There comes a thief, and says, Lord, my sin of theft, I thought, was such as could not be pardoned by thee! But when he shall see the thief that was saved on the cross stand by, as clothed with beauteous glory, what further can he be able to object? Yea, the Lord will produce ten thousand of his saints at his coming, who shall after this manner execute judgment upon all, and so convince all that are ungodly among them, of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him. And these are hard speeches against him, to say that he was not able or willing to save men, because of the greatness of their sins, or to say that they were discouraged by his word from repentance, because of the heinousness of their offences.

These things, I say, shall then be confuted: he comes with ten thousand of his saints to confute them, and to stop their mouths from making objections against their own eternal damnation.

Here is Adam, the destroyer of the world; here is Lot, that lay with both his daughters; here is Abraham, that was sometime an idolater, and Jacob, that was a supplanter, and Reuben, that lay with his father’s concubine, and Judah that lay with his daughter-in-law, and Levi and Simeon that wickedly slew thee Shechemites, and Aaron that great backslider, and Manassah that man of blood and that made an idol to be worshipped, and that proclaimed a religious feast unto it. Here is also Rachab the harlot, and Bathsheba that bare a bastard to David. Here is Solomon a witch. Time would fail me to tell you of the woman of Canaan’s daughter, Magdalen, of Matthew the publican, and of Gideon and Sampson, and many thousands more.

Alas! alas! I say, what will these sinners do, that have, through their unbelief, eclipsed the glorious largeness of the mercy of God, and gave way to despair of salvation, because of the bigness of their sins?

For all these, though now glorious saints in light, were sometimes sinners of the biggest size, who had sins that were of a notorious hue; yet now, I say, they are in their shining and heavenly robes before the throne of God and of the Lamb, blessing for ever and ever that Son of God for their salvation, who died for them upon the tree; admiring that ever it should come into their hearts once to think of coming to God by Christ; but above all, blessing God for granting of them light to see those encouragements in his testament; without which, without doubt, they had been daunted and sunk down under guilt of sin and despair, as their fellow-sinners have done.

But now they also are witnesses for God, and for his grace against an unbelieving world; for, as I said, they shall come to convince the world of their speeches, their hard and unbelieving words, that they have spoken concerning the mercy of God, and the merits of the passion of his blessed Son Jesus Christ.

But will it not, think you, strangely put to silence all such thoughts, and words, and reasonings of the ungodly before the bar of God? Doubtless it will; yea and will send them away from his presence also, with the greatest guilt that possibly can fasten upon the consciences of men.

For what will sting like this?—I have, through mine own foolish, narrow, unworthy, undervaluing thoughts, of the love and ability of Christ to save me, brought myself to everlasting ruin. It is true, I was a horrible sinner; not one in a hundred did live so vile a life as I: but this should not have kept me from closing with Jesus Christ: I see now that there are abundance in glory that once were as bad as I have been: but they were saved by faith, and I am damned by unbelief.

Wretch that I am! why did not I give glory to the redeeming blood of Jesus? Why did I not humbly cast my soul at his blessed footstool for mercy? Why did I judge of his ability to save me by the voice of my shallow reason, and the voice of a guilty conscience? Why betook not I myself to the holy word of God? Why did I not read and pray that I might understand, since now I perceive that God said then, he giveth liberally to them that pray, and upbraideth not; Jam. i. 5.

It is rational to think, that by such cogitations as these the unbelieving world will be torn in pieces before the judgment of Christ; especially those that have lived where they did or might have heard the gospel of the grace of God. Oh! that saying, “It shall be more tolerable for Sodom at the judgment than for them,” will be better understood. See Luke x. 8-12.

This reason, therefore, standeth fast; namely, that Christ, by offering mercy in the first place to the biggest sinner now, will stop all mouths of the impenitent at the day of judgment, and cut off all excuse that shall be attempted to be made (from the thoughts of the greatness of their sins) why they came not to him.

I have often thought of the day of judgment, and how God will deal with sinners at that day; and I believe it will be managed with that sweetness, with that equitableness, with that excellent righteousness, as to every sin, and circumstance, and aggravation thereof; that men that are damned, before the judgment is over shall receive such conviction of the righteous judgment of God upon them, and of their deserts of hell-fire, that they shall in themselves conclude that there is all the reason in the world that they should be shut out of heaven, and go to hell-fire: “These shall go away into everlasting punishment;” Matt. xxv. 46.

Only this will tear them, that they have missed of mercy and glory, and obtained everlasting damnation through their unbelief; but it will tear but themselves, but their own souls; they will gnash upon themselves; for in that mercy was offered to the chief of them in the first place, and yet they were damned for rejecting of it; they were damned for forsaking what they had a sort of propriety in; for forsaking their own mercy.

And thus much for the reasons. I