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

of heaven; consequently, desires have a fourfold root from whence they flow.

First. The natural man desires to be saved, and to go to heaven when he dies. Ask any natural man, and he will tell you so. Besides, we see it is so with them, especially at certain seasons. As when some guilt or conviction for sin takes hold upon them; or when some sudden fear terrifies them; when they are afraid that the plague or pestilence will come upon them, and break up house-keeping for them; or when death has taken them by the throat, and is hauling them down stairs to the grave. Them, O then, ‘Lord, save me, Lord, have mercy upon me; good people, pray for me! O! whither shall I go when I die, if sweet Christ has not pity for my soul?’ And now the bed shakes, and the poor soul is as loath to go out of the body, for fear the devil should catch it, as the poor bird is to go out of the bush, while it sees the hawk waits there to receive her.

But the fears of the wicked, they must come upon the wicked; they are the desires of the righteous that must be granted. Pray, take good notice of this. And to back this with the authority of God, consider that scripture, ‘The wicked man travaileth with pain all his days, and the number of years is hidden to the oppressor. A dreadful sound is in his ears; in prosperity the destroyer shall come upon him. Trouble and anguish shall make him afraid; they shall prevail against him as a king ready to the battle’ (Job 15:20-24).[17]

Can it be imagined that when the wicked are in this distress, but that they will desire to be saved? Therefore he saith again, ‘Terrors take hold on him as waters, a tempest stealeth him away in the night. The east wind,’ that blasting wind, ‘carrieth him away, and he departeth, and as a storm hurleth him out of’ the world, ‘his place. For God shall cast upon him, and not spare’; in flying ‘he would fain fly out of his hand’ (Job 27:20-23). Their terrors and their fears must come upon them: their desires and wishes for salvation must not be granted (Isa 65:13, 66:4). ‘They shall call upon me,’ says God, ‘but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me’ (Prov 1:28).

Second. There is the hypocrite’s desire. Now his desire seems to have life and spirit in it. Also he desires, in his youth, his health, and the like; yet it comes to naught. You shall see him drawn to the life in Mark 10:17. He comes running and kneeling, and asking, and that, as I said, in youth and health; and that is more than men merely natural do. But all to no purpose; he went as he came, without the thing desired. The conditions propounded were too hard for this hypocrite to comply withal (Mark 10:21,22).[18]

Some indeed make a great noise with their desires over some again do; but in conclusion all comes to one, they meet together there where they go, whose desires are not granted.

‘For what is the hope of the hypocrite, though he has gained’ to a higher strain of desires, ‘when God taketh away his soul?’ ‘Will God hear his cry when trouble cometh upon him?’ (Job 27:8,9). Did he not, even when he desired life, yet break with God in the day when conditions of life were propounded to him? Did he not, even when he asked what good things were to be done that he might have eternal life, refuse to hear or to comply with what was propounded to him? How then can his desires be granted, who himself refused to have them answered? No marvel then if he perishes like his own dung, if they that have seen him shall say they miss him among those that are to have their desires granted.

Third. There are the desires of the cold formal professor; the desires, I say, of him whose religion lies in a few of the shells of religion; even as the foolish virgins who were content with their lamps, but gave not heed to take oil in their vessels. These I take to be those whom the wise man calls the slothful: ‘The soul of the sluggard desireth, and hath nothing; but the soul of the diligent shall be made fat’ (Prov 13:4). The sluggard is one that comes to poverty through idleness—that contents himself with forms: ‘that will not plough’ in winter ‘by reason of the cold; therefore shall he beg in harvest,’ or at the day of judgment, ‘and have nothing’ (Prov 20:4).

Thus you see that there are many that desire; the natural man, the hypocrite, the formalist, they all desire. For heaven is a brave place, and nobody would go to hell. ‘Lord, Lord, open to us,’ is the cry of many in this world, and will be the cry of more in the day of judgment. Of this therefore thou shouldst be informed; and that for these reasons:—

Because ignorance of this may keep thee asleep in security, and cause thee to fall under such disappointments as are the worst, and the worst to be borne. For, for a man to think to go to heaven because he desires it, and when all is done to fall into hell, is a frustration of the most dismal complexion. And yet thus it will be when desires shall fail, ‘when man goes to his long home, and when the mourners go about the streets’ (Eccl 12:5). Because, as was said before, else thy desires, and that which should be for thy good, will kill thee. They kill thee at death, when thou shalt find them every one empty. And at judgment, when thou shalt be convinced that thou oughtest to go without what thou desirest, because thou wast not the man to whose desires the promise was made, nor the man that didst desire aright. To be informed of this is the way to put thee upon such sense and sight of thy case as will make thee in earnest betake thyself in that way to him that is acceptable, who grants the desires of the righteous. And then shalt thou be happy when thou shunnest to desire as the natural man desireth, as the hypocrite desireth, or as the formalist desireth. When thou desirest as the righteous do, thy desire shall be granted.

THE SECOND USE IS OF EXAMINATION. If this be so, then what cause hast thou that art conscious to thyself that thou art a desiring man to examine thyself whether thou art one whose desires shall be granted? For to what purpose should a man desire, or what fruits will desire bring him whose desires shall not be granted? Such a man is but like to her that longs, but loses her longing; or like to him that looks for peace while evil overtakes him.

Thou hast heard it over and over that the grant of desires belong to the righteous: shouldst thou then not inquire into thy condition, and examine thyself whether thou art a righteous man or no? The apostle said to the Corinthians, ‘Examine yourselves whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves; know you not—how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?’ (2 Cor 13:5). You may be reprobates and not be aware of it, if you do not examine and prove your own selves. It is therefore FOR THY LIFE, wherefore do not deceive thyself. I have given you before a description of a righteous man, namely, that he is one made so of God by imputation—by an inward principle, and one that brings forth fruit to God. Now, this last thou mayst think thou hast; for it is easy and common for men to think when they bring forth fruit to themselves, that they bring it forth to God. Wherefore examine thyself.

First. Art thou righteous? If thou sayest, Yea; I ask, How comest thou righteous? If thou thinkest that obedience to the law of righteousness has made thee so, thou art utterly deceived; for he that thus seeks righteousness, yet is not righteous, because he cannot, by so doing, attain that thing he seeketh for (Rom 9:31,32).

Did not I tell thee before, that a man must be righteous before he doth one good work, or he can never be righteous? The tree must be good first, even before it brings forth one good apple.

Second. Art thou righteous? In whose judgment art thou righteous?

Is it in the judgment of God, or of man? If not of God, it is no matter though all the men on earth should justify thee; thou for that art no whit the more righteous.

Third. Art thou righteous in the judgment of God? Who told thee so?

or dost thou but dream thereof? Indeed, to be righteous in God’s sight is that, and only that, which can secure a man from wrath to come; for ‘if God justifies, who is he that condemns?’ (Rom 8:33,34). And this only is the man whose desires shall be granted.

Fourth. But still, I say, the question is, How comest thou to know that thou art righteous in the judgment of God? Dost thou know by what it is that God makes a man righteous? Dost thou know where that is by or with which God makes a man righteous? and also how God doth make a man righteous with it? These are questions, in the answer of which thou must have some heavenly skill, or else all that thou sayest about thy being righteous will seem without a bottom.

Fifth. Now, if thou answerest, That that which makes me righteous is the obedience of Christ to his Father’s will, that this righteousness is before the throne of God, and that it is made mine by an act of God’s free grace; I shall ask thee yet again, Sixth. How camest thou to see thy need of this righteousness? And by what is this righteousness by thee applied to thyself? For this righteousness is bestowed upon those that see their need thereof.

This righteousness is the refuge whereto the guilty fly for succour, that they may be sheltered from the wrath to come. Hast thou then fled, or dost thou indeed fly to it? (Heb 6:16-19).

Seventh. None flies to this righteousness for life, but those who feel the sentence of condemnation by God’s law upon their conscience; and that in that extremity have sought for righteousness first elsewhere, but cannot find it in all the world.

Eighth. For man, when he findeth himself at first a sinner, doth not straightway betake himself for righteousness to God by Christ; but, in the first place, seeks it in the law on earth, by labouring to yield obedience thereto, to the end he may, when he stands before God at death and judgment, have something to commend him to him, and for the sake of which he may at least help forward his acceptance with him.

Ninth. But being wearied out of this, and if God loves him he will weary him out of it, then he looks unto heaven and cries to God for righteousness; the which God shows him in his own good time he hath reckoned to him, for the sake of Jesus Christ.

Tenth. Now by this very discovery the heart is also principled with the spirit of the gospel; for the Spirit comes with the gospel down from heaven to such an one, and fills his soul with good; by which he is capacitated to bring forth fruit, true fruit, which are the fruits of righteousness imputed, and of righteousness infused, to the glory and praise of God.

Eleventh. Nor