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

the town in which I did preach last, lest I be the cause of their damnation. Send him to my friends from whence I came, lest I be made to answer for their souls and mine own too (Eze 33:1-6).

O send him therefore, and let him tell them, and testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of torment. Consider this, ye that live thus in the world, while ye are in the land of the living, lest you fall into this condition. Set the case thou shouldest by thy carriage destroy but a soul, but one poor soul, by one of thy carriages or actions, by thy sinful works; consider it now, I say, lest thou be forced to cry, ‘I pray thee therefore, that thou wouldst send him to my father’s house, for I have five brethren, that he may testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of torment.’

If so, then I shall not only say to the blind guides, Look you to yourselves, and shut not27 out others; no, but this doth reach unto all those that do not only keep souls from heaven by preaching and the like, but speaks forth the doom of those that shall any ways be instrumental to hinder others from closing in with Jesus Christ. O what red lines will those be against all those rich ungodly landlords, that so keep under their poor tenants that they dare not go out to hear the word, for fear their rent should be raised, or they turned out of their houses! What sayest thou, landlord, will it not cut thy soul, when thou shalt see that thou couldest not be content to miss of heaven thyself, but thou must labour to hinder others also? Will it not give thee an eternal wound in thy heart, both at death and judgment, to be accused of the ruin of thy neighbour’s soul, thy servant’s soul, thy wife’s soul, together with the ruin of thy own? Think on this, you drunken, proud, rich, and scornful landlords; think on this, you mad-brained blasphemous husbands, that are against the godly and chaste conversation of your wives; also you that hold your servants so hard to it that you will not spare them time to hear the word, unless it be where and when your lusts will let you. If you love your own souls, your tenants’ souls, your wives’ souls, your servants’ souls, your children’s souls; if you would not cry, if you would not howl, if you would not bear the burden of the ruin of others for ever, then I beseech you to consider this doleful story, and labour to avoid the soul-killing torment that this poor wretch groaneth under, when he saith, ‘I pray thee therefore, that thou wouldst send him to my father’s house,[28]

For I have five brethren, THAT HE MAY TESTIFY,’ mark, ‘that he may testify UNTO THEM, lest they also come into this place of torment.’

These words have still something more in them than I have yet observed from them; there are one or two things more that I shall briefly touch upon, and therefore, mark, he saith, ‘That he may testify unto them,’ &c. Mark, I pray you, and take notice of the word TESTIFY. He doth not say, And let him go unto them, or speak with, or tell them such and such things. No, but let him testify, or affirm it constantly, in case any should oppose it. ‘Let him testify unto them.’ It is the same word the Scripture uses to set forth the vehemency of Christ, his telling of his disciples of him that should betray him. And he testified, saying, One of you shall betray me. And he testified, that is, he spake it so as to dash or overcome any that should have said it shall not be.

It is a word that signifies, that in case any should oppose the thing spoken of, yet that the party speaking should still continue constant in his saying. And he commanded them to preach, ‘and to testify, that it is he which was ordained of God to be the judge of quick and dead.’ To testify, mark, that is, to be constant, irresistible, undaunted, in case it should be opposed and objected against. So here, let him testify to them, lest they come into this place of torment.

From whence observe, that it is not an easy matter to persuade them who are in their sins alive in this world, that they must and shall be damned if they turn not, and be converted to God. ‘Let him testify to them,’ let him speak confidently, though they frown upon him, or dislike his way of speaking. And how is this truth verified and cleared by the carriages of almost all men now in the world toward them that do preach the gospel; and show their own miserable state plainly to them, if they close not with it?

If a man do but indeed labour to convince sinners of their sins and lost condition by nature, though they must be damned if they live and die in that condition, O how angry are they at it! Look how he judges, say they, hark how he condemns us; he tells us we must be damned if we live and die in this state. We are offended at him, we cannot abide to hear him, or any such as he; we will believe none of them all, but go on in the way we are agoing.

‘Forbear, why shouldest thou be smitten,’ said the ungodly king to the prophet, when he told him of his sins (2 Chron 25:16).

I say, tell the drunkard he must be damned if he leaves not his drunkenness, the swearer, liar, cheater, thief, covetous, railers, or any ungodly persons, they must and shall lie in hell for it, if they die in this condition; they will not believe you, not credit you.

Again, tell others that there are many in hell that have lived and died in their conditions, and so are they like to be, if they convert not to Jesus Christ, and be found in him, or that there are others that are more civil and sober men, who, although we know that their civility will not save them, if we do but tell them plainly of the emptiness and unprofitableness of that, as to the saving of their souls, and that God will not accept them, nor love them, notwithstanding these things, and that if they intend to be saved, they must be better provided than with such a righteousness as this; they will either fling away, and come to hear no more, or else if they do come, they will bring such prejudice with them in their hearts, that the word preached shall not profit them, it being mixed not with faith, but with prejudice in them that hear it (Heb 4:1,2). Nay, they will some of them be so full of anger that they will break out and call, even those that speak the truth, heretics; yea, and kill them (Luke 4:25-29). And why so? Because they tell them, that if they live in their sins that will damn them; yet if they turn and live a righteous life, according to the holy, and just, and good law of God, that will not save them.

Yea, because we tell them plainly that unless they leave their sins and [self] righteousness too, and close in with a naked Jesus Christ, his blood and merits, and what he hath done, and is now doing for sinners, they cannot be saved; and unless they do eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, they have no life abiding in them, they gravel29 presently, and are offended at it, as the Jews were with Christ for speaking the same thing to them (John 6:53,60). And fling away themselves, their souls and all, by quarrelling against the doctrine of the Son of God, as indeed they do, though they will not believe they do; and therefore, he that is a preacher of the Word, had need not only tell them, but testify to them, again and again, that their sins, if they continue in them, will damn them, and damn them again.

And tell them again, their living honestly according to the law, their paying every one their own, their living quietly with their neighbours, their giving to the poor, their notion of the gospel, and saying they do believe in Christ, will do them no good at the general day of judgment. Ha, friends! How many of you are there at this very day, that have been told once and again of your lost undone condition, because you want the right, real, and saving work of God upon your souls! I say, hath not this been told you, yea, testified unto you from time to time, that your state is miserable, that yet you are never the better, but do still stand where you did; some in an open ungodly life, and some drowned in a self-conceited holiness of Christianity? Therefore, for God’s sake, if you love your souls, consider, and beg of God for Jesus Christ’s sake, that he would work such a work of grace in your hearts, and give you such a faith in his Son Jesus Christ, that you may not only have rest here, as you think, not only think your state safe while you live here, but that you may be safe indeed, not only here, but also when you are gone, lest you do cry in the anguish and perplexity of your souls, Send one to my companions that have been beguiled by Satan as I have been, and so, by going on, come into this place of torment as I have done.

Again, one thing more is to be observed from these words, Let him ‘testify to them, LEST THEY ALSO COME INTO THIS PLACE OF TORMENT.’

Mark, lest they come in. As if he had said, Or else they will come into this place of torment, as sure as I am here. From whence observe, that though some souls do for sin fall into the bottomless pit of hell before their fellows, because they depart this world before them, yet the other, abiding in the same course, are as sure to go to the same place as if they were there already. How so? Because that all are condemned together, they have all fallen under the same law, and have all offended the same justice, and must for certain, if they die in that condition, drink as deep, if not deeper, of the same destruction. Mark, I pray you, what the Scriptures say, ‘He that believeth not, is condemned already’

(John 3:18).

He is condemned as well as they, having broken the same law with them; if so, then what hinders but they will partake of the same destruction with them? Only the one hath not the law yet so executed upon them, because they are here; the other have had the law executed upon them, they are gone to drink that which they have been brewing, and thou art brewing that in this life which thou must certainly drink.[30] The same law, I say, is in force against you both, only he is executed and thou art not. Just as if there were a company of prisoners at the bar, and all condemned to die; what, because they are not all executed in one day, therefore shall they not be executed at all? Yes, the same law that executed its severity upon the parties now deceased, will for certain be executed on them that are alive in its appointed time. Even so it is here, we are all condemned by nature; if we close not in