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

Mark, I pray you, here is also, (1.) A refusing to hearken to the words of the prophets. (2.) That they might so do, they stopped their ears. (3.) If anything was to be done, they pulled away their shoulder. (4.) To effect his, they labour to make their hearts hard as an adamant stone. (5.) And all this, lest they should hear and close in with Jesus, and live, and be delivered from the wrath to come. All which things do hold out an unwillingness to submit to, and embrace the words of God, and so Jesus Christ which is testified of by them. Many other scriptures I might bring in for confirmation of the thing, as that in Amos 7:12, 13; also 1

Samuel 2:24, 25; 2 Chronicles 25:15, 16; Jeremiah 7:23-28, 16:12.

Read also seriously that saying in 2 Chronicles 36:15, where he saith, ‘And the Lord God of their fathers sent to them by his messengers, rising up betimes, because he had compassion on his people, and on his dwelling-place.’ And did they make them welcome?

No, but they mocked the messengers of God, and despised his words.

And was that all? No, they ‘misused his prophets.’ How long?

‘Until the wrath of the Lord arose against them. Till there was no remedy.’ See also Jeremiah 29:19, 25:3-7; Luke 11:49.

And besides, the conversion of almost all men doth bear witness to the same, both religious and profane persons, in that they daily neglect, reject, and turn their backs upon the plain testimony of the Scriptures. As,

First. Take the THREATENINGS laid down in holy writ, and how are they disregarded? There are but a few places in the Bible but there are threatenings against one sinner or other; against drunkards, swearers, liars, proud persons, strumpets, whoremongers, covetous, railers, extortioners, thieves, lazy persons. In a word, all manner of sins are reproved, and without faith in the Lord Jesus, there is a sore punishment to be executed on the committers of them; and all this made mention of in the Scriptures.

But for all this, how thick, and by heaps, do these wretches walk up and down our streets?[41] Do but go into the alehouses, and you shall see almost every room besprinkled with them, so foaming out their own shame, that it is enough to make the heart of a saint to tremble, insomuch that they would not be bound to have society with them any long while for all the world. For as the ways of the godly are not liked of by the wicked, even so the ways of the wicked ‘are an abomination to the just’ (Prov 29:27; Psa 120:5,6).

1. The Scripture says, ‘Cursed is the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the LORD’

(Jer 17:5).

And yet how many poor souls are there in the world, that stand in so much awe and dread of men, and do so highly esteem their favour, that they will rather venture their souls in the hands of the devil with their favour, than they will fly to Jesus Christ for the salvation of their souls? Nay, though they be convinced in their souls, that the way is the way of God; yet how do they labour to stifle conviction, and turn their ears away from the truth, and all because they will not lose the favour of an opposite neighbour? O! I dare not for my master, my brother, my landlord, I shall lose his favour, his house of work, and so decay my calling.

O, saith another, I would willingly go in this way, but for my father, he chides and tells me he will not stand my friend when I come to want; I shall never enjoy a pennyworth of his goods; he will disinherit me. And I dare not, saith another, for my husband, for he will be a railing, and tells me he will turn me out of doors, he will beat me, and cut off my legs. But I tell you, if any of these, or any other things be so prevalent with thee now, as to keep thee from seeking after Christ in his ways, they will also be so prevalent with God against thee, as to make him cast off thy soul, because thou didst rather trust man than God; and delight in the embracing of man rather than in the favour of the Lord.[42]

2. Again, the Scripture saith, ‘He that being often reproved, hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy’ (Prov 29:1). Yet many are so far from turning, though they have been convinced of their wretched state a hundred times, that when convictions or trouble for sin comes on their consciences, they go on still in the same manner resisting and choking the same, though remediless destruction be hard at their heels.

3. Again thou hast heard say, ‘Except a man be born again,’ ‘he cannot enter into the kingdom of God’ (John 3:3-7). And yet thou goest on in a natural state, an unregenerate condition; nay, thou dost resolve never to turn nor be changed, though hell be appointed on purpose to swallow up such (Isa 14:9). ‘The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God’ (Psa 9:17).

4. Again, the Scripture saith plainly that he that loveth and maketh a lie shall have his part ‘in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone’ (Rev 21:8,27). And yet thou art so far from dreading it, that it is thy delight to jest and jeer, and lie for a penny, or twopence, or sixpence, again. And also if thou canst make the rest of thy companions merry, by telling things that are false, of them that are better than thyself, thou dost not care a straw. Or if thou hearest a lie from, or of another, thou wilt tell it, and swear to the truth of it, O miserable!

5. Thou hast heard and read, that ‘He that believeth not shall be damned’ (Mark 16:16). And that ‘all men have not faith’ (2 Thess 3:2). And yet thou dost so much disregard these things, that it is like thou didst scarce ever so much as examine seriously whether thou wast in the faith or no; but dost content thyself with the hypocrite’s hope, which at the last God will cut off, and count it not better than the spider’s web (Job 8:13,14), or the house that is builded on the sands (Luke 6:49). Nay, thou peradventure dost flatter thyself, and thinkest that thy faith is as good as the best of them all; when, alas, poor soul, thou mayest have no saving faith at all; which thou hast not, if thou be not born again, and made a new creature (2 Cor 2:17).

6. Thou hast heard, that he that neglects God’s great salvation shall never escape his great damnation (Heb 2:3, compared with Luke 14:24, and Rev 14:19,20). And yet when thou art invited, intreated, and beseeched to come in, thou wilt make any excuse to serve the turn (Luke 14:17,18; Rom 12:1; 2 Cor 5:19,20). Nay, thou wilt be so wicked as to put off Christ time after time, notwithstanding he is so freely proffered to thee; a little ground, a few oxen, a farm, a wife, a twopenny matter, a play; nay, the fear of a mock, a scoff or a jeer, is of greater weight to draw thee back, than the salvation of thy soul to draw thee forward.

7. And thou hast heard, that whosoever will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God (James 4:4). But thou regardest not these things, but contrariwise; rather than thou wilt be out of the friendship and favour of this world, thou wilt sin against thine own conscience, and get thyself into favour by fawning and flattering of the world. Yea, rather than thou wilt go without it, thou wilt dissemble, lie, backbite thy neighbour, and an hundred other tricks thou wilt have.

8. You have heard that the day of judgment is near, in which you and I, all of us, must appear before the tribunal of Jesus Christ, and there be made to give an account to him that is ready to judge the quick and the dead; even of all that ever we did, yea, of all our sins in thought, word, and deed, and shall certainly be damned for them too, if we close not in with our Lord Jesus Christ, and what he hath done and suffered for eternal life; and that not notionally or traditionally, but really and savingly, in the power, and by the operation of the Spirit, through faith (Eccl 11:9, 12:14; Acts 10:42, 17:30,31; 2 Cor 5:10; Heb 9:27; Rev 20:12). ‘And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life, and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books.’ There is the book of the creatures, the book of conscience, the book of the Lord’s remembrance, the book of the law, the book of the gospel (Rom 1:20, compare with Rom 2:12,15; Rev 6:17; John 12:48).[43] Then ‘he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep on the right hand, but the goats on his left’ (Matt 25:30-32). ‘And shall say to them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed’ (v 34). But to the other, go, or ‘Depart, ye cursed’ (v 41). Yet, notwithstanding the Scriptures do so plainly and plentifully speak of these things, alas! who is there that is weaned from the world, and from their sins and pleasures, to fly from the wrath to come? (Matt 3:7).

Notwithstanding the Scripture saith also that heaven and earth shall pass away, rather than one jot, or one tittle of the word shall fail, ‘till all be fulfilled,’ they are so certain (Luke 21:33; Matt 5:18).

[Second PROMISES.] But leaving the threatenings, let us come to THE PROMISES, and speak somewhat of them, and you may see how light men make of them, and how little they set by them, notwithstanding the mouth of the Lord hath spoken them. As 1. ‘Turn,’ ye fools, ye scorners, ye simple ones, ‘at my reproof’; and ‘behold I will pour out my Spirit unto you’ (Prov 1:23). And yet persons had rather be in their foolishness and scorning still, and had rather embrace some filthy lust, than the holy, undefiled, and blessed Spirit of Christ, through the promise, though by it, as many as receive it, ‘are sealed unto the day of redemption’

(Eph 4:30), and although he that lives and dies without it, is none of Christ’s (Rom 8:9).

2. God hath said, if thou do but come to him in Christ, ‘Though your sins be as’ red as ‘scarlet, they shall be as white as snow’; and he will by no means cast thee away. Compare Isaiah 1:18 with John 6:37. Yet poor souls will not come to Christ that they might have life (John 5:40), but rather after their hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up unto themselves wrath against the day of wrath, and revelation of the righteous judgment of God (Rom 2:5).

3. Christ Jesus hath said in the Word of truth that if any man will serve and follow him, where he is, ‘there shall also his servant be’ (John 12:26). But yet poor souls choose rather to follow sin, Satan, and the world, though their companions be the devils and damned souls for ever (Matt 25:41).

4. He hath also said, ‘Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and all’

other ‘things shall be added.’ But let whoso will seek after the kingdom of heaven first for them; for they will take the first time,