The Works of John Bunyan, vol 3 - John Bunyan (the giving tree read aloud .TXT) 📗

[69] Clark’s authority for this account is Beard’s Theatre of God’s Judgments.—Ed.

[70] See the account of an Atheist in his pride in Pilgrim’s Progress and notes.

[71] To let, prevent, or hinder. See Isaiah 43:13.—Ed.

[72] Terms of endearment: thus Shakespeare, in Henry IV, represents the hostess calling her maid, Doll Tear-sheet, sweet-heart. It is now more restricted to lovers while courting.—Ed.

[73] Uncertain was the liberty occasionally enjoyed by our pilgrim forefathers, who were always expecting ‘troublesome times.’ We ought to be more thankful for the mercies we enjoy; and to pray that the state may soon equally recognize and cherish every good subject, without reference to sect, or authorizing persecution.—Ed.

[74] The noble was a gold coin of Henry VIII; value six shillings and eightpence.—Ed.

[75] Bunyan’s allegorical spirit appears in nearly all his writings. Diseases lay their heads together to bring Badman to the grave, making Consumption their captain or leader of these men of death.—Ed.

[76] ‘Haunt,’ an Anglo-Norman word. Custom, practice; more commonly used as a verb, to haunt, or frequently visit.—Ed.

[77] An old tippling custom, more honoured in the breach than in the observance.—Ed.

[78] The dialogues between Hopeful and Christian in Doubting Castle admirably prove the wickedness of suicide. The unlettered tinker triumphs over all the subtleties of the Dean of St. Paul’s. See Pilgrim’s Progress.—Ed.

[79] This is the most awful of all delusions. It is exemplified in the character of Ignorance, in the Pilgrim’s Progress, who was ferried over death by Vain Confidence, but found ‘that there was a way to hell, even from the gates of heaven.’—Ed.

[80] Chrisom is a consecrated unguent, or oil, used in the baptism of infants in the Romish Church. It is prepared with great ceremony on Holy Thursday. A linen cloth anointed with this oil, called a chrisom cloth, is laid upon the baby’s face. If it dies within a month after these ceremonies, it was called a chrisom child. These incantations and charms are supposed to have power to save its soul, and ease the pains of death. Bishop Jeremy Taylor mentions the phantasms that make a chrisom child to smile at death. Holy Dying, chap. i., sect. 2.—Ed.

[81] These two words are ‘cease’ and ‘ceased’ in the first edition; they were corrected to ‘seize’ and ‘seized’ in Bunyan’s second edition.—Ed.

A Few Sighs From Hell;

or,

The Groans of the Damned Soul:

or, An Exposition of those Words in the Sixteenth of Luke, Concerning the Rich Man and the Beggar

WHEREIN IS DISCOVERED THE LAMENTABLE STATE OF THE DAMNED; THEIR

CRIES, THEIR DESIRES IN THEIR DISTRESSES, WITH THE DETERMINATION

OF GOD UPON THEM. A GOOD WARNING WORD TO SINNERS, BOTH OLD AND

YOUNG, TO TAKE INTO CONSIDERATION BETIMES, AND TO SEEK, BY FAITH

IN JESUS CHRIST, TO AVOID, LEST THEY COME INTO THE SAME PLACE OF

TORMENT.

Also, a Brief Discourse touching the profitableness of the Scriptures for our instruction in the way of righteousness, according to the tendency of the said parable.

BY THAT POOR AND CONTEMPTIBLE SERVANT OF JESUS CHRIST, JOHN BUNYAN.

‘The wicked shall be tuned into hell, and all the nations that forget God.’—Psalm 9:17

‘And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.’—Revelation 20:15

London: Printed by Ralph Wood, for M. Wright, at the King’s Head in the Old Bailey, 1658.[1]

ADVERTISEMENT BY THE EDITOR

How awful is that cry of anguish which has reached us from beyond the tomb, even from the infernal realms, and on which Bunyan, with his singular and rare ability, fixes our attention. It is the voice of one who had received his good things in this fleeting life; who had fared sumptuously every day, without providing for eternity, and now cries for a drop of water to cool his parched tongue. Plunged into unutterable, inconceivable, and eternal torments, he pleads that the poor afflicted beggar, who had lain at his gate, might be sent from the dead to warn his relatives, that they might escape, and not aggravate his misery, by upbraiding him as a cause of their destruction, by having neglected to set them a pious example. He knows that there is no hope for his own wretched soul, and expresses no wish that his family should pay for masses to ease his pangs. No, such tomfooleries are limited to this insane world. His poor request is one drop of water, and a warning messenger to his relatives. The answer is most decisive—there is a great, an eternal gulf fixed—none can pass between heaven and hell; and as to your father’s house, ‘They have Moses and the prophets’; and now it may be added, They have Jesus and his apostles; if they hear not them, ‘neither will they be persuaded though one rose from the dead.’ No; if Isaiah, with his mighty eloquence, again appeared among mortals, again would his cry be heard, ‘Who hath believed our report?’ ‘What! seek the living among the dead? To the law, and to the testimony, saith God.’

Reader, these are solemn realities. He who came from the unseen world—from the bosom of the Father—reveals them unto us. O!

that we may not mistake that voice for thunder, which called upon a trembling world to ‘HEAR HIM.’

The rich man personates all the thoughtless and uncoverted who die in their sins, his wealth can neither bribe death nor hell; he is stricken, and descends to misery with the bitter, but unavailing regret of having neglected the great salvation. He had taken no personal, prayerful pains to search the sacred Scriptures for himself; he had disobeyed the gospel, lived in revelry, and carelessness of his soul; he had ploughed iniquity and sown wickedness, and reaps the same. ‘By the blast of God he perishes, and is consumed by the breath of his nostrils.’ ‘They have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind.’

The opinion universally prevails, although the voice of infinite wisdom has declared it false, that miracles, or a messenger from the invisible world could awake the dead in sin. The world’s eyes are shut, and its ears are stopped from seeing and hearing that most illustrious celestial messenger of mercy—‘God manifest in the flesh’—who still speaks to us in his words. He revealed, and he alone could have revealed, these solemn, these heart-stirring facts—He performed the most astonishing miracles—His doctrines were truth—He required holiness of life to fit the soul for heaven; therefore He was despised, tortured, murdered. In the face of all this, the poor wretch cries, ‘send Lazarus.’ What refined cruelty!

He had borne the cross and received the crown. Uncrown him, and send him back to lie at my brother’s gate, and if he dares to tell him the truth, that my soul was in hell, even while the splendid funeral was carrying my body to the tomb, he will hurry him to death. Poor fool! are not thy kindred as hardened as thou wast?

Send Lazarus from the dead! That, as Bunyan justly says, would be to make a new Bible, to improve the finished salvation. No, if they will not hear Moses and the prophets, our Lord and his apostles, they must all likewise perish. This is a very meagre outline of this solemn treatise; it is full of striking illustrations, eminently calculated to arouse the thoughtless, and to convey solid instruction to the thoughtful.

This was the third volume that Bunyan published, and, with modest timidity, he shelters himself under a strong recommendatory preface by his pastor, who, in the Grace Abounding, he calls ‘holy Mr.

Gifford.’ So popular was it, as to pass through nine editions in the author’s lifetime.[2] The preface, by John Gifford, was printed only with the first edition. As it gives a very interesting account of Bunyan, and his early labours in the ministry, which has never been noticed by any of his biographers, and is extremely rare, it is here reprinted from a fine copy in the British Museum, and must prove interesting to every admirer of John Bunyan. I close with two short extracts—may they leave an abiding impression upon our minds. ‘God will have a time to meet with them that now do not seek after him.’ ‘O! regard, regard, for the judgment day is at hand, the graves are ready to fly open, the trumpet is near the sounding, the sentence will ere long be passed, and then,’ it will be seen whether we belong to the class of Dives, who preferred the world, or to that of Lazarus, who preferred Christ; and then, O then! time cannot be recalled.

GEO. OFFOR.

PREFACE, BY THE REV. JOHN GIFFORD,

PASTOR OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST AT BEDFORD, OF WHICH JOHN BUNYAN

WAS A MEMBER.

TO THE READER.

It is sad to see how the most of men neglect their precious souls, turning their backs upon the glorious gospel, and little minding a crucified Jesus, when, in the meanwhile, their bodies are well provided for, their estates much regarded, and the things of this present life are highly prized, as if the darling was of less value than a clod of earth; an immortal soul, than a perishing body; a precious Saviour, than unsatisfying creatures. Yea, though they have been often wooed with gracious entreaties, glorious promises, and fresh bleeding wounds, to make choice of the better part, that shall never be taken from them; yet, alas! such influence hath this world, and the pleasures of it, and such is the blindness of their understandings, that they continue still to hunt after those things which cannot profit, nor be a help to them in the worst hour. Yea, that will prove no better than poison to their souls, and refuse that would be (if embraced) their happiness here, and their glory hereafter. Such a strange stupidity hath seized upon the hearts of men, that they will venture the loss of their immortal souls for a few dying comforts, and will expose themselves to endless misery for a moment’s mirth, and short-lived pleasures.

But, certainly, a barn well fraught, a bag well filled, a back well clothed, and a body well fed, will prove but poor comforts when men come to die, when death shall not only separate their souls from their bodies, but both from their comforts. What will it then avail them that they have gained much? Or what will they give in exchange for their souls? Be wise, then (O reader, to whose sight this may come), before it be too late, and thou repent, when repentance shall be hid from thine eyes; also it will be as a dagger to thine heart one day, to remember what a Christ, what a soul, what a heaven thou hast lost for a few pleasures, a little mirth, a short enjoyment of this present world; yea, and that after many warnings against many reproofs, and, notwithstanding the many tenders of a full Christ, instead of those empty vanities which thy soul closed with, hunted after, and would by no means be persuaded to part withal. No, but thou wouldst take thy time, and swim in this world’s delights, though thy soul thereby was drowned in perdition and destruction (1 Tim 6:9). True, few there are that will be persuaded that this course they take, though their daily conversations do bear witness to it; for how much time is spent, and how much care is the hearts of men filled withal, after attaining, keeping, and increasing these things? And how seldom do they trouble their heads, to have their minds taken up with thoughts of the better? Cumbering themselves with many things, but wholly neglecting the one thing necessary; yea, whereby do they measure their own or other men’s happiness, but by the large incomes of this world’s good, accounting this the greatest, if not the only blessedness, to have