Margaret Penrose - "The Motor Girls on Waters Blue"

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George Barr McCutcheon - "Viola Gwyn"

The Riches of Bunyan

J >> Jeremiah Rev. Chaplin >> The Riches of Bunyan




There are providences again, that take away from us whatever is
desirable to the flesh; such are sickness, losses, crosses,
persecution, and affliction; and usually in these, though they shock
us whenever they come upon us, blessing coucheth and is ready to
help us. For God, as the name of Ephraim signifies, makes us
fruitful in the land of affliction. He therefore, in blessing his
people, lays his hands across, guiding them wittingly and laying the
chiefest blessing on the head of Ephraim, or in that providence that
sanctifies affliction. Abel-what to the reason of Eve was he, in
comparison with Cain? Rachel called Benjamin the son of her sorrow;
but Jacob knew how to give him a better name. Jabez, also, though
his mother so called him because, as it seems, she brought him forth
with more than ordinary sorrow, was yet more honorable, more godly,
than his brethren.

He that has skill to judge of providences aright, has a great
ability in him "to comprehend with other saints what is the breadth
and length and depth and height;" but he that has no skill as to
discerning them, is but a child in his judgment in those high and
mysterious things. And hence it is that some shall suck honey out of
that at which others tremble, for fear it should poison them. I have
often been made to say, "Sorrow is better than laughter, and the
house of mourning better than the house of mirth." And I have more
often seen that the afflicted are always the best sort of
Christians. There is a man never well, never prospering, never but
under afflictions, disappointments, and sorrows; why, this man, if
he be a Christian, is one of the best of men: "They that go down to
the sea, that do business in great waters, they see the works of the
Lord and his wonders in the deep."

I do not question but that there are some that are alive who have
been able to say the days of affliction have been the best unto
them, and who could, if it were lawful, pray that they might always
be in affliction, if God would but do to them as he did when his
hand was last upon them; for by them he caused his light to shine.

Oh how should we, and how would we were but our eyes awake, stand
and wonder at the preservations, the deliverances, the salvations,
and benefits with which we are surrounded daily, while so many
mighty evils seek daily to swallow us up as the grave!

How many deaths have some been delivered from and saved out of
before conversion. Some have fallen into rivers, some into wells,
some into the sea, some into the hands of men; yea, they have been
justly arraigned and condemned, as the thief upon the cross, but
must not die before they were converted. They were preserved in
Christ, and called.






II. THE TRINITY





IF in the Godhead there be but one, not three, then the Father, the
Son, or the Spirit must needs be that one, if any one only; so then
the other two are nothing. Again, if the reality of a being be
neither in the Father, Son, nor Spirit, as such, but in the eternal
Deity, without consideration of Father Son and Spirit as three, then
neither of the three are any thing but notions in us, or
manifestations of the Godhead, or nominal distinctions, so related
by the word; but if so, then when the Father sent the Son, and the
Father and Son the Spirit, one notion sent another one manifestation
sent another. This being granted, it unavoidably follows there was
no Father to beget a Son, no Son to be sent to save us, no Holy
Ghost to be sent to comfort us and to guide us into all the truth of
the Father and Son. At most it amounts to hut this: a notion sent a
notion, a distinction sent a distinction, or one manifestation sent
another. Of this error these are the consequences: we are only to
believe in notions and distinctions, when we believe in the Father
and the Son; and so shall have no other heaven and glory than
notions and nominal distinctions can furnish us withal.

If thou feel thy thoughts begin to wrestle about this truth, and to
struggle concerning this, one against another, take heed of
admitting such a question, "How can this be?" for here is no room
for reason to make it out; here is only room to believe it is a
truth. You find not one of the prophets propounding an argument to
prove it, but asserting it; they let it lie for faith to take it up
and embrace it.

"The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the
communion of the Holy Ghost, be with you all. Amen."

In a word, if you would see it altogether, God's love was the cause
why Christ was sent to bleed for sinners. Jesus Christ's bleeding
stops the cries of divine justice. God looks upon them as complete
in him, and gives them to him as by right of purchase. Jesus ever
lives to pray for them that are thus given unto him. God sends his
Holy Spirit into them to reveal this to them, sends his angels to
minister for them, and all this by virtue of an everlasting covenant
between the Father and the Son. "Happy the people that are in such a
case." He hath made them brethren with Jesus Christ, members of his
flesh and of his bones, the spouse of this Lord Jesus; and all to
show how dearly, really, and constantly he loveth us who by the
faith of his operation have laid hold upon him.

The doctrine of the Trinity! that is the substance, that is the
ground and fundamental of all, for by this doctrine and this only
the man is made a Christian; and he that has not this doctrine, his
profession is not worth a button.

You must know that sometimes the church in the wilderness has but
little light, hut the diminution of her light is not then so much in
or as to substantials, as it is as to circumstantial things; she has
then the substantials with her in her darkest day.

The doctrine of the Trinity! you may ask me what that is? I answer,
it is that doctrine that showeth us the love of God the Father in
giving his Son, the love of God the Son in giving himself, and the
love of the Lord the Spirit in his work of regenerating us, that we
may be made able to lay hold of the love of the Father by his Son,
and so enjoy eternal life by grace.

The Father's grace saveth no man without the grace of the Son,
neither do the Father and the Son save any without the grace of the
Spirit; for as the Father loves, the Son must die, and the Spirit
must sanctify, or no soul must be saved.

Some think that the love of the Father, without the blood of the
Son, will save them; but they are deceived, "for without shedding of
blood is no remission."

Some think that the love of the Father and blood of the Son will do,
without the holiness of the Spirit of God; but they are deceived
also, for "if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of
his."

There is a third sort, that think the holiness of the Spirit is
sufficient of itself; but they are deceived also, for it must be the
grace of the Father, the grace of the Son, and the grace of the
Spirit, jointly, that must save them.

But yet, as these three do put forth grace jointly and truly in the
salvation of a sinner, so they put it forth after a diverse manner.
The Father designs us for heaven, the Son redeems from sin and
death, and the Spirit makes us meet for heaven: not by electing,
that is the work of the Father; not by dying, that is the work of
the Son; but by his revealing Christ, and applying Christ to our
souls, by shedding the love of God abroad in our hearts, by
sanctifying our souls, and taking possession of us as an earnest of
our possession in heaven.






III. THE SCRIPTURES.





THE Scriptures carry such a blessed beauty in them to that soul that
has faith in the things contained in them, that they do take the
heart and captivate the soul of him that believeth them into the
love and liking of them, believing all things that are written in
the law and the prophets, and having hope towards God that there
shall be a resurrection of the dead both of the just and unjust.

To him that believes the Scriptures aright, the promises or
threatenings are of more power to comfort or cast down, than all the
promises or threatenings of all the men in the world; and this was
the cause why the martyrs of Jesus did so slight both the promises
of their adversaries when they would have overcome them with
proffering the great things of this world unto them, and also their
threatenings when they told them they would rack them, hang them,
burn them. None of these things could prevail upon them or against
them.

I never had in all my life so great an inlet into the word of God as
now, [in prison.] Those scriptures that I saw nothing in before,
were made in this place and state to shine upon me. Jesus Christ
also was never more real and apparent than now. Here I have seen and
felt him indeed: O that word, "We have not preached unto you
cunningly devised fables," and that, "God raised Christ from the
dead and gave him glory, that our faith and hope might he in God,"
were blessed words unto me in this condition.

These three or four scriptures also have been great refreshments
in this condition to me, John 14:1-4; 16:33; Heb. 12:22-24; so that
sometimes, when I have been in the savor of them, I have been able
to laugh at destruction, and to fear neither the horse nor his
rider. I have had sweet sights of the forgiveness of my sins in this
place, and of my being with Jesus in another world. Oh the mount
Zion, the heavenly Jerusalem, the innumerable company of angels, and
God the judge of all, and the spirits of just men made perfect; and
Jesus has been sweet to me in this place: I have seen THAT here,
which I am persuaded I shall never while in this world be able to
express. I have seen a truth in this scripture, "Whom having not
seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye
rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory."

The glass was one of a thousand. It would present a man one way with
his own features exactly, and turn it but another way and it would
show one the very face and similitude of the Prince of the pilgrims
himself. Yes, I have talked with them that can tell, and they have
said that they have seen the very crown of thorns upon his head by
looking in that glass; they have therein also seen the holes in his
hands, in his feet, and in his side. Yea, such an excellency is
there in that glass, that it will show him to one where they have a
mind to see him, whether living or dead, whether in earth or in
heaven, whether in a state of humiliation or in his exaltation,
whether coming to suffer or coming to reign. James I: 23-25; I Cor.
13:12; 2 Cor. 3:13.

Then said Greatheart to Mr. Valiant-for-Truth, "Thou hast worthily
behaved thyself; let me see thy sword." So he showed it him. "When
he had taken it into his hand, and looked thereon awhile, he said,
Ha, it is a right Jerusalem blade."

VALIANT. "It is so. Let a man have one of these blades, with a hand
to wield it and skill to use it, and he may venture upon an angel
with it. He need not fear its holding, if he can but tell how to lay
on. Its edge will never blunt. It will cut flesh and bones, and soul
and spirit, and all."

I saw then in my dream, that they went on in this their solitary
ground, till they came to a place at which a man is apt to lose his
way. Now, though when it was light their guide could well enough
tell how to miss those ways that led wrong, yet in the dark he was
put to a stand; but he had in his pocket a map of all ways leading
to or from the celestial city; wherefore he struck a light--for he
never goes without his tinder-box also--and takes a view of his book
or map, which bids him be careful in that place to turn to the right
hand.. And had he not been careful to look in his map, they had in
all probability been smothered in the mud; for just a little before
them, and that at the end of the cleanest way too, was a pit, none
knows how deep, full of nothing but mud, there made on purpose to
destroy the pilgrims in. Then thought I with myself, Who that goeth
on pilgrimage but would have one of these maps about him, that he
may look when he is at a stand which is the way he must take?

If we consider that our next state must be eternal, either eternal
glory or eternal fire, and that this eternal glory or this eternal
fire must be our portion according as the word of God revealed in
the holy Scriptures shall determine, who will not but conclude that
therefore the words of God are they at which we should tremble, and
they by which we should have our fear of God guided and directed?
for by them we are taught how to please him in every thing.

"Noah drank of the wine and was drunken." The Holy Ghost, when it
hath to do with sin, loves to give it its own name; drunkenness must
be drunkenness, murder must he murder, and adultery must bear its
own name. Nay, it is neither the goodness of the man, nor his being
in favor with God, that will cause him to lessen or mince his sin.
Noah was drunken; Lot lay with his daughters; David killed Uriah;
Peter cursed and swore in the garden, and also dissembled at
Antioch. But this is not recorded to the intent that the name of
these godly should rot, but to show that the best men are nothing
without grace, and that "he that standeth should not be high-minded,
but fear." Yea, they are also recorded for the support of the
tempted, who, when they are fallen, are oft raised up by considering
the infirmities of others. "Whatsoever things were written aforetime
were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort
of the scriptures might have hope."

God's word has two edges; it can cut back-stroke and fore-stroke: if
it do thee no good, it will do thee hurt; it is the savor of life
unto life to those that receive it, but of death unto death to them
that refuse it.

I do find in most such a spirit of idolatry concerning the learning
of this world and wisdom of the flesh, and God's glory so much
stained and diminished thereby, that had I all their aid and
assistance at command, I durst not make use of aught thereof, and
that for fear lest that grace and those gifts that the Lord hath
given me, should be attributed to their wits, rather than to the
light of the word and Spirit of God. Wherefore I will not take of
them from a thread to a shoe-latchet, lest they should say, We have
made Abraham rich.

What you find suiting with the scriptures, take, though it should
not suit with authors; but that which you find against the
scriptures, slight, though it should be confirmed by multitudes of
them. Yea, further, where you find the scriptures and your authors
agree, yet believe it for the sake of scripture's authority. I honor
the godly as Christians, but I prefer the Bible before them; and
having that still with me, I count myself far better furnished than
if I had, without it, all the libraries of the two universities.
Besides, I am for drinking water out of my own cistern: what God
makes mine by the evidence of his word and Spirit, that I dare make
bold with. Wherefore, seeing, though I am without their learned
lines, yet well furnished with the words of God, I mean the Bible, I
have contented myself with what I have there found; and having set
it before your eyes,

I pray read and take, sir, what you like best; And that which you
like not, leave for the rest.

Read, and read again, and do not despair of help to understand
something of the will and mind of God, though you think they are
fast locked up from you. Neither trouble your heads though you have
not commentaries and expositions; pray and read, and read and pray;
for a little from God is better than a great deal from men: also
what is from men is uncertain, and is often lost and tumbled over
and over by men; but what is from God is fixed as a nail in a sure
place. There is nothing that so abides with us, as what we receive
from God; and the reason why Christians at this day are at such a
loss as to some things, is because they are content with what comes
from men's mouths, without searching and kneeling before God to know
of him the truth of things. Things that we receive at God's hand
come to us as things from the minting-house, though old in
themselves, yet new to us. Old truths are always new to us, if they
come to us with the smell of heaven upon them.






IV. MAN.

THE IMAGE OF GOD.





MAN is God's image, and to curse wickedly the image of God, is to
curse God himself. Suppose that a man should say with his mouth, I
wish that the king's picture were burned; would not this man's so
saying render him as an enemy to the person of the king? Even so it
is with them that by cursing wish evil to their neighbors or
themselves; they contemn the image of God himself.

This world, as it dropped from the fingers of God, was far more
glorious than it is now.

VALUE OF THE SOUL.

The soul is a thing, though of most worth, least minded by most. The
souls of most lie waste, while all other things are inclosed.

Soul-concerns are concerns of the highest nature, and concerns that
arise from thoughts most deep and ponderous. He never yet knew what
belonged to great and deep thoughts, that is a stranger to
soul-concerns.

The soul is capable of having to do with invisibles, with angels,
good or bad, yea, with the highest and supreme Being, even the holy
God of heaven. I told you before that God sought the soul of man to
have it for his companion; and now I tell you that the soul is
capable of communion with him, when the darkness that sin hath
spread over its face is removed. The soul is an intelligent power,
and it can be made to know and understand depths and heights and
lengths and breadths, in those high, sublime, and spiritual
mysteries that only God can reveal and teach; yea, it is capable of
diving unutterably into them. And herein is God, the God of glory,
much delighted--that he hath made for himself a creature that is
capable of hearing, of knowing and of understanding his mind, when
opened and revealed to it.

The greatness of the soul is manifest by the greatness of the price
that Christ paid for it to make it an heir of glory, and that was
his precious blood. We do use to esteem things according to the
price that is given for them, especially when we are convinced that
the purchase has not been made by the estimation of a fool. Now the
soul is purchased by a price, that the Son, the wisdom of God,
thought fit to pay for the redemption thereof; what a thing then is
the soul!

Suppose a prince, or some great man, should on a sudden descend from
his throne or chair of state, to take up, that he might put in his
bosom, something that he had espied lying trampled under the feet of
those that stand by; would you think that he would do this for an
old horseshoe, or for so trivial a thing as a pin or a point? Nay,
would you not even of yourselves conclude that that thing for which
the prince, so great a man, should make such a stoop, must needs be
a thing of very great worth? Why, this is the case of Christ and the
soul. Christ is the prince, his throne is in heaven, and as he sat
there he espied the souls of sinners trampled under the foot of the
law and death for sin. Now what doth he, but comes down from his
throne, stoops down to the earth, and there, since he could not have
the trodden-down souls without price, he lays down his life and
blood for them.

ADAM'S TRANSGRESSION.

In a word, Adam led mankind out of their paradise; that is one woe:
and put out their eyes, that is another; and left them to the
leading of the devil. O sad! Canst thou hear this, and not have thy
ears to tingle and burn on thy head? Canst thou read this and not
feel it, and not feel thy conscience begin to throb? If so, surely
it is because thou art either possessed with the devil, or beside
thyself.

O, this was the treasure that Adam left to his posterity, it was a
broken covenant, insomuch that death reigned over all his children,
and doth still to this day, as they come from him---both natural and
eternal death. Rom. 5.

DEPRAVITY OF NATURE.

Let a man be as devout as is possible for the law and the holiness
of the law. Yet if the principles from which he acts be but the
habit of soul, the purity, as he feigns, of his own
nature--principles of natural reason, or the dictates of human
nature; all this is nothing else but the old gentleman in his
holiday clothes: the old heart, the old spirit, the spirit of the
man, not the spirit of Christ, is here.

LOVE OF SIN.

Sin has been delightfully admitted to an entertainment by all the
powers of the soul. The soul hath chosen it rather than God; and
also, at God's command, refuses to let it go.

If there be at any time, as indeed there is, a warrant issued out
from the mouth of God to apprehend, to condemn and mortify sin, why
then the souls of sinners do presently make these shifts for the
saving of sin from things that by the word men arc commanded to do
unto it:

1. They will, if possible, hide it, and not suffer it to be
discovered.

2. As the soul will hide it, so it will excuse it, and plead that
this and that piece of wickedness is no such evil thing, men need
not be so nice.

3. As the soul will do this, so to save sin it will cover it with
names of virtue, either moral or civil.

4. If convictions and discovery of sin be so strong and so plain
that the soul cannot deny but that it is sin, and that God is
offended therewith, then it will give flattering promises to God
that it will indeed put it away; but yet it will prefix a time that
shall he long first, saying, Yet a little sleep, yet a little
slumber, yet a little folding of sin in my arms, till I am older,
till I am richer, till I have had more of the sweetness and the
delights of sin.

5. If God yet pursues, and will see whether this promise of putting
sin out of doors shall he fulfilled by the soul, why then it will be
partial in God's law; it will put away some, and keep some; put away
the grossest, and keep the finest; put away those that can best be
spared, and keep the most profitable for a help at a pinch.

6. Yea, if all sin must be abandoned, or the soul shall have no
rest, why then the soul and sin will part--with such a parting as it
is--even as Phaltiel parted with David's wife, with an ill-will and
a sorrowful mind; or as Orpah left her mother, with a kiss. 2 Sam.
3:16; Ruth 1:14.

7. And if at any time they can or shall meet with each other again,
and nobody never the wiser, O what courting will be between sin and
the soul.

By all these, and many more things that might be instanced, it is
manifest that sin has a friendly entertainment by the soul, and that
therefore the soul is guilty of damnation; for what do all these
things argue, but that God, his word, his ways and graces, are out
of favor with the soul, and that sin and Satan are its only pleasant
companions?

SIN.

Sin so sets itself against the nature of God that, if possible, it
would annihilate and turn him into nothing, it being in its nature
point-blank against him.

What a thing is sin; what a devil and master of devils is it, that
it should, where it takes hold, so hang that nothing can unclutch
its hold, but the mercy of God and the heart-blood of his dear Son.

No sin is little in itself; because it is a contradiction of the
nature and majesty of God.

O, sin, what art thou! What hast thou done! and what still wilt thou
further do, if mercy and blood and grace do not prevent thee!

Sin is the living worm, the lasting fire;
Hell soon would loss its heat, could sin expire.
Better sinless in hell, than to be where
Heaven is, and to be found a sinner there.
One sinless with infernals might do well,
But sin would make of heaven a very hell.
Look to thyself then, keep it out of door,
Lest it get in and never leave thee more.

No match has sin but God in all the world;
Men, angels, has it from their station hurled,
Holds them in chains as captives, in despite
Of all that here below is called might.
Release, help, freedom from it none can give,
But even He by whom we breathe and live.
Watch therefore, keep this giant out of door,
Lest, if once in, thou get him out no more.

Fools make a mock at sin, will not believe
It carries such a dagger in its sleeve.
How can it be, say they, that such a thing,
So full of sweetness, e'er should wear a sting?
They know not that it is the very spell
Of sin, to make men laugh themselves to hell.
Look to thyself, then, deal with sin no more,
Lest He that saves, against thee shut the door.

There are sins against light, sins against knowledge, sins against
love, sins against learning, sins against threatenings, sins against
promises and vows and resolutions, sins against experience, sins
against examples of anger, and sins that have great and high and
strange aggravations attending them; the which we are ignorant of,
though not altogether, yet in too great a measure.

Sins go not alone, hut follow one another as do the links of a
chain.

A presumptuous sin is such a one as is committed in the face of the
command, in a desperate venturing to run the hazard, or in a
presuming upon the mercy of God through Christ, to be saved
notwithstanding: this is a leading sin to that which is
unpardonable, and will be found with such professors as do hanker
after iniquity.

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