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

he that formed them will show them no favour’ (Isa 27:11; Prov 7:22).

Though, I must confess, the more knowing the wicked is, or the more light and goodness such a one sins against, the greater will his judgment be; these shall have greater damnation: it shall be more tolerable at the judgment for Sodom than for them (Luke 10:12, 20:47). There is a wicked man that goes blinded, and a wicked man that goes with his eyes open to hell; there is a wicked man that cannot see, and a wicked man that will not see the danger he is in; but hellfire will open both their eyes (Luke 16:23). There are that are wicked, and cover all with a cloak of religion, and there are that proclaim their profaneness; but they will meet both in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone; ‘The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God’ (Psa 9:17).

There are also several sorts, if I may so express myself, of those that are truly righteous, as children, young men, fathers, or saints that fear God, both small and great (Rev 11:18; 1 John 2).

Some have more grace than some, and some do better improve the grace they have than others of their brethren do; some also are more valiant for the truth upon the earth than others of their brethren are; yea, some are so swallowed up with God, and love to his word and ways, that they are fit to be a pattern or example in holiness to all that are about them; and some again have their light shining so dim, that they render themselves suspicious to their brethren, whether they are of the number of those that have grace or no.[1]

But being gracious they shall not be lost, although such will at the day of reward suffer loss; for this is the will of the Father that sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world, ‘That of all which he had given him he should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day’ (John 6:37-39; 1 Cor 3:15).

[Second.] In the next place, we are here presented with some of the qualities of the wicked and the righteous; the wicked has his fears, the righteous has his desires. The wicked has his fears. ‘The fear of the wicked, it shall come upon him; but the desire of the righteous shall be granted.’ Indeed, it seems to the godly that the wicked feareth not, nor doth he after a godly sort; for he that feareth God aright must not be reputed a wicked man. The wicked, through the pride of his countenance, declareth that he feareth not God aright, because he doth not graciously call upon him; but yet for all that, the wicked at times are haunted, sorely haunted, and that with the worst of fears. ‘Terrors,’ says Bildad, ‘shall make him afraid on every side.’ And again, ‘His confidence shall be rooted out of his tabernacle, and it shall bring him to the king of terrors’ (Job 18:11-14).

A wicked man, though he may hector it at times with his proud heart, as though he feared neither God nor hell, yet again, at times, his soul is even drowned with terrors. ‘The morning is to them even as the shadow of death; if one knew them, they are in the terrors of the shadow of death’ (Job 24:14-17). At times, I say, it is thus with them, especially when they are under warm convictions that the day of judgment is at hand, or when they feel in themselves as if death was coming as a tempest, to steal them away from their enjoyments, and lusts, and delights; then the bed shakes on which they lie, then the proud tongue doth falter in their mouth, and their knees knock one against another; then their conscience stares, and roars, and tears, and arraigns them before God’s judgment-seat, or threatens to follow them down to hell, and there to wreck its fury on them, for all the abuses and affronts this wicked wretch offered to it in the day in which it controlled his unlawful deeds. O! none can imagine what fearful plights a wicked man is in sometimes; though God in his just judgment towards them suffers them again and again to stifle and choke such awakenings, from a purpose to reserve them unto the day of judgment to be punished (2

Peter 2:7-9).

[Third.] In the third place, as the wicked has his fears, so the righteous has his desires. ‘The desire of the righteous shall be granted’; but this must not be taken exclusively, as if the wicked had nothing but fears, and the righteous nothing but desires. For, both by Scripture and experience also, we find that the wicked has his desires, and the righteous man his fears.

1. For the wicked, they are not without their desires. ‘Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his,’ was the desire of wicked Balaam (Num 23:10), and another place saith, ‘the wicked boasteth of his heart’s desire’; that he is for heaven as well as the best of you all, but yet, even then, ‘he blesseth the covetous, whom the Lord abhorreth’ (Psa 10:3). Wicked men have their desires and their hopes too, but the hope and desire of unjust men perisheth (Prov 11:7, 14:32). Yea, and though they look and long, too, all the day long, with desires of life and glory, yet their fears, and them only, shall come upon them; for they are the desires of the righteous that shall be granted (Psa 112:10).

The desires of the wicked want a good bottom; they flow not from a sanctified mind, nor of love to the God, or the heaven now desired; but only from such a sense as devils have of torments, and so, as they, they cry out, ‘I beseech thee torment me not’ (Luke 8:28, 16:24). But their fears have a substantial foundation, for they are grounded upon the view of an ill-spent life, the due reward of which is hellfire; ‘the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God,’ their place is without; ‘for without are dogs and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie’ (1 Cor 6:9,10; Rev 22:15).

Their fears, therefore, have a strong foundation; they have also matter to work upon, which is guilt and justice, the which they shall never be able to escape, without a miracle of grace and mercy (Heb 2:3). Therefore it saith, and that with emphasis, ‘The fear of the wicked it shall come upon him’; wherefore his desires must die with him: for the promise of a grant of that which is desired is only entailed to righteousness. ‘The desire of the righteous shall be granted,’ but ‘grant not, O Lord, the desires of the wicked,’

saith David (Psa 140:8).

2. Nor are the righteous without their fears, and that even all their life long. Through fear of death, they, some of them, are all their life time subject to bondage (Heb 2:15). But as the desires of the wicked shall be frustrate, so shall also the fears of the godly; hence you have them admonished, yea commanded, not to be afraid neither of devils, death, nor hell; for the fear of the righteous shall not come upon them to eternal damnation (Isa 35:4, 41:10-14, 43:1, 44:28; Luke 8:50, 12:32; Rev 1:17).

‘The desire of the righteous shall be granted.’ No, they are not to fear what sin can do unto them, nor what all their sins can do unto them; I do not say they should not be afraid of sinning, nor of those temporal judgments that sin shall bring upon them, for of such things they ought to be afraid, as saith the Psalmist, ‘My flesh trembleth for fear of thee, and I am afraid of thy judgments’

(Psa 119:120). But of eternal ruin, of that, they ought not to be afraid of with slavish fear. ‘Wherefore should I fear,’ said the prophet, ‘in the days of evil, when the iniquity of my heels shall compass me about?’ (Psa 49:5). And again, ‘Ye have done all this wickedness, yet turn not aside from following the Lord;—for the Lord will not forsake his people, for his great name’s sake’ (1

Sam 12:20-22).

The reason is, because the righteous are secured by their faith in Christ Jesus; also their fears stand upon a mistake of the nature of the covenant, in which they are wrapped up, which is ordered for them in all things, and sure (2 Sam 23:5; Isa 55:3). Besides, God has purposed to magnify the riches of his grace in their salvation; therefore goodness and mercy shall, to that end, follow them all the days of their life, that they may ‘dwell in the house of the Lord for ever’ (Psa 23:6; Eph 1:3-7). They have also their intercessor and advocate ready with God, to take up matters for them in such a way as may maintain true peace betwixt their God and them; and as may encourage them to be sober, and hope to the end, for the grace that is to be brought unto them at the revelation of Jesus Christ (1 Peter 1:13; 1 John 2:1,2). Wherefore, though the godly have their fears, yea, sometimes dreadful fears, and that of perishing for ever and ever; yet the day is coming, when their fears and tears shall be done away, and when their desires only shall be granted. ‘The fear of the wicked, it shall come upon them; but the desire of the righteous shall be granted.’

The words, then, are a prediction or prophecy, and that both concerning the wicked and the righteous, with reference to time and things to come, and shall certainly be fulfilled in their season.

Hence it is said concerning the wicked, that their triumphing is short, and that the joy of the hypocrite is but for a moment (Job 20:5). O, their end will be bitter as wormwood, and will cut like a two-edged sword! Of this Solomon admonishes youth, when he saith.

‘Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth; and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thine heart, and in the sight of thine eyes; but know thou, that for all these things God will bring thee into judgment’ (Eccl 11:9).

This, therefore, showeth the desperate spirit that possesses the children of men, who, though they hear and read all this, yet cannot be reclaimed from courses that are wicked, and that lead to such a condition (Prov 5:7-14). I say they will not be reclaimed from such courses as lead to ways that go down to hell, where their soul must mourn, even then when their flesh and their body are consumed.

O! how dear bought are their pleasures, and how will their laughter be turned into tears and anguish unutterable! and that presently, for it is coming! Their ‘judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not’ (2 Peter 2:3). But what good will their covenant of death then do them? And will their agreement of hell yield them comfort? Is not God as well mighty to punish as to save? (Isa 28:18). Or can these sinners believe God out of the world, or cause that he should not pay them home for their sins, and recompense them for all the evil they have loved, and continued in the commission of? (Job 21:29-31). ‘Can thy heart endure, or can thy hands be strong in the days that God shall deal with thee?’

(Eze 22:14). Thou art bold now, I mean bold in a wicked way; thou sayest now thou wilt keep thy sweet morsels of sin under