The Works of John Bunyan, vol 1 - John Bunyan (best self help books to read TXT) 📗

namely, ‘When the heart is made afraid of, and trembleth at the Word’ (Acts 9:4-6, 16:29,30). Trembling at the Word is caused by a belief of what is deserved, threatened, and of what will come, if not prevented by repentance; and therefore the heart melts, and breaks before the Lord.

[IV. THE NECESSITY THERE IS THAT THE HEART MUST BE BROKEN.]

I come, in the next place, to speak to this question.

But what necessity is there that the heart must be broken? Cannot a man be saved unless his heart be broken? I answer, Avoiding secret things, which only belong to God, there is a necessity of breaking the heart, in order to salvation; because a man will not sincerely comply with the means conducing thereunto until his heart is broken.

For,

First. Man, take him as he comes into the world, as to spirituals, as to evangelical things, in which mainly lies man’s eternal felicity, and there he is as one dead, and so stupefied, and wholly in himself, as unconcerned with it. Nor can any call or admonition, that has not a heart-breaking power attending of it, bring him to a due consideration of his present state, and so unto an effectual desire to be saved.

Many ways God has manifested this. He has threatened men with temporal judgments; yea, sent such judgments upon them, once and again, over and over, but they will not do. What! says he, ‘I have given you cleanness of teeth in all your cities; I have withholden the rain from you; I have smitten you with blasting and mildew; I have sent among you the pestilence; I have overthrown some of you, as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. Yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the Lord’ (Amos 4:6-11). See here! Here is judgment upon judgment, stroke after stroke, punishment after punishment, but all will not do, unless the heart is broken. Yea, another prophet seems to say that such things, instead of converting the soul, sets it further off. If heart-breaking work attend such strokes, ‘Why should ye be stricken any more?’ says he, ‘ye will revolt more and more’ (Isa 1:5).

Man’s heart is fenced, it is grown gross; there is a skin that, like a coat of mail, has wrapped it up, and inclosed it in on every side. This skin, this coat of mail, unless it be cut off and taken away, the heart remains untouched, whole; and so as unconcerned, whatever judgments or afflictions light upon the body (Matt 13:15; Acts 28:27). This which I call the coat of mail, the fence of the heart, has two great names in Scripture. It is called, ‘the foreskin of the heart,’ and the armour in which the devil trusteth (Deut 10:16; Luke 11:22).

Because these shield and fence the heart from all gospel doctrine, and from all legal punishments, nothing can come at it till these are removed. Therefore, in order unto conversion, the heart is said to be circumcised; that is, this foreskin is taken away, and this coat of mail is spoiled. ‘I will circumcise thy heart,’ saith he, ‘to love the Lord thy God with all thine heart’—and then the devil’s goods are spoiled—‘that thou mayst live’ (Deut 30:6; Luke 11:22).

And now the heart lies open, now the Word will prick, cut, and pierce it; and it being cut, pricked, and pierced, it bleeds, it faints, it falls, and dies at the foot of God, unless it is supported by the grace and love of God in Jesus Christ. Conversion, you know, begins at the heart; but if the heart be so secured by sin and Satan, as I have said, all judgments are, while that is so, in vain. Hence Moses, after he had made a long relation of mercy and judgment unto the children of Israel, suggests that yet the great thing was wanting to them, and that thing was, an heart to perceive, and eyes to see, and ears to hear unto that day (Deut 29:2,3). Their hearts were as yet not touched to the quick, were not awakened, and wounded by the holy Word of God, and made tremble at its truth and terror.

But I say, before the heart be touched, pricked, made smart, &c., how can it be thought, be the danger never so great, that it should repent, cry, bow, and break at the foot of God, and supplicate there for mercy! and yet thus it must do; for thus God has ordained, and thus God has appointed it; nor can men be saved without it. But, I say, can a man spiritually dead, a stupid man, whose heart is past feeling, do this; before he has his dead and stupid heart awakened, to see and feel its state and misery without it? But, Second. Man, take him as he comes into the world—and how wise soever he is in worldly and temporal things—he is yet a fool as to that which is spiritual and heavenly. Hence Paul says, ‘the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness unto him,’ because he is indeed a fool to them; ‘neither,’

says the text, ‘can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned’ (1 Cor 2:14). But how now must this fool be made wise?

Why, wisdom must be put into his heart (Job 38:36). Now, none can put it there but God; and how doth he put it there, but by making room there for it, by taking away the thing which hinders, which is that folly and madness which naturally dwelleth there? But how doth he take that away but by a severe chastising of his soul for it, until he has made him weary of it? The whip and stripes are provided for the natural fool, and so it is for him that is spiritually so (Prov 19:29).

Solomon intimates, that it is a hard thing to make a fool become wise. ‘Though thou shouldest bray a fool in a mortar among wheat with a pestle, yet will not his foolishness depart from him’ (Prov 27:22). By this it appears that it is a hard thing to make a fool a wise man. To bray one in a mortar is a dreadful thing, to bray one there with a pestle; and yet it seems a whip, a mortar, and a pestle is the way. And if this is the way to make one wise in this world, and if all this will hardly do, how must the fool that is so in spirituals be whipped and beaten, and stripped before he is made wise therein? Yea, his heart must be put into God’s mortar, and must be beaten; yea, brayed there with the pestle of the law, before it loves to hearken unto heavenly things. It is a great word in Jeremiah, ‘Through deceit,’ that is, folly, ‘they refuse to know me, saith the Lord.’ And what follows? Why, ‘Therefore, thus saith the Lord of hosts, behold I will melt them, and try them,’ that is, with fire, ‘for how shall I do for the daughter of my people’

(Jer 9:6,7). I will melt them: I will put them into my furnace, and there I will try them; and there will I make them know me, saith the Lord. When David was under spiritual chastisement for his sin, and had his heart under the breaking hand of God, then he said, God should make him know wisdom (Psa 51:6). Now he was in the mortar, now he was in the furnace, now he was bruised and melted; yea, now his bones, his heart, was breaking, and now his folly was departing.

Now, says he, thou shalt make me to know wisdom. If I know anything of the way of God with us fools, there is nothing else will make us wise men; yea, a thousand breakings will not make us so wise as we should be.

We say, Wisdom is not good till it is bought; and he that buys it, according to the intention of that proverb, usually smarts for it.

The fool is wise in his own conceit; wherefore there is a double difficulty attends him before he can be wise indeed. Not only his folly, but his wisdom, must be removed from him; and how shall that be, but by ripping up of his heart by some sore conviction, that may show him plainly that his wisdom is his folly, and that which will undo him. A fool loves his folly; that is, as treasure, so much is he in love with it. Now then, it must be a great thing that must make a fool forsake his folly. The foolish will not weigh, nor consider, nor compare wisdom with their folly. ‘Folly is joy to him that is destitute of wisdom.’ ‘As a dog returneth to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly’ (Prov 15:21, 26:11). So loth are they when driven from it to let it go, to let it depart from them. Wherefore there must go a great deal to the making of a man a Christian; for as to that, every man is a fool, yea, the greatest fool, the most unconcerned fool, the most self-willed fool of all fools; yea, one that will not be turned from his folly but by the breaking of his heart. David was one of these fools; Manasseh was one of these fools; Saul, otherwise called Paul, was one of these fools; and so was I—and that the biggest of all.[11]

Third. Man, take him as he comes into the world, and he is not only a dead man, and a fool, but a proud man also. Pride is one of those sins that first showeth itself to children, yea, and it grows up with them, and mixeth itself with all they do: but it lies most hid, most deep in man as to his soul-concerns. For the nature of sin, as sin, is not only to be vile, but to hide its vileness from the soul. Hence many think they do well when they sin. Jonah thought he did well to be angry with God (Jonah 4:9). The Pharisees thought they did well when they said, Christ had a devil (John 8:48).

And Paul thought verily, that he ought to do many things against, or contrary to, the name of Jesus; which he also did with great madness (Acts 26:9,10). And thus sin puffs up men with pride, and a conceit of themselves, that they are a thousand times better than they are. Hence they think they are the children of God, when they are the children of the devil; and that they are something as to Christianity, when they neither are such, nor know what it is that they must have to make them such (John 8:41-44; Gal 6:3).

Now, whence flows this but from pride, and a self-conceit of themselves, and that their state is good for another world, when they are yet in their sins, and under the curse of God? Yea, and this pride is so strong and high, and yet so hid in them, that all the ministers in the world cannot persuade them that this is pride, not grace, in which they are so confident. Hence they slight all reproofs, rebukes, threatenings, or admonitions that are pressed upon them, to prevail with them to take heed, that they be not herein deceived. ‘Hear ye,’ saith the prophet, ‘and give ear: be not proud, for the Lord hath spoken.’ ‘But if ye will not hear it, my soul shall weep in secret places for your pride’ (Jer 13:15-17).

And what was the conclusion? Why, all the proud men stood out still, and maintained their resistance of God and his holy prophet (Jer 43:2).

Nor is there any thing that will prevail with these to the saving of