The Riches of Bunyan: Selected from His Works

by John Bunyan

CONFLICT BETWEEN THE CHURCH AND ANTICHRIST.

They that are the church do in God's light see light but they that are not, do in their own way see. And let a man and a beast look out at the same window, the same door, the same casement, yet the one will see like a man, and the other but like a beast.

No marvel then if there is here a disagreement; the beast can but see as a beast, but the church is resolved not to be guided by the eye of a beast, though he pretends to have his light by that very window by which the church has hers. The beast is moon-eyed, and puts darkness for light, yea, and hates the light that is so indeed; but the saints will not hear him, for they know the voice of their Lord.

On both sides they are resolved to stand by their way: the church is confident, the man of sin is confident; they both have the same windows—that is, "the word"—to see by, and so they manage their matters; yet not so simply by the windows as by the diverse judgment they make of that which shineth in at them. Each one therefore that hath the true or false profession will be confident of his own way: he that was right, knew he was right; and he that was wrong, thought he was right; and so the battle began: "There is a way that seemeth right to a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death."

Nor is it in man to help it: there has been reasoning, there has been disputing, there has blood also been spilt on both sides, through the confidence that each had of the goodness of his own way: but no reconciliation is made; the enmity is set here of God; iron and clay cannot mix; God will have things go on thus in the world till his word shall be fulfilled; the deceived and the deceiver are his. Things therefore must have their course in the church in the wilderness till the mystery of God shall be fulfilled. God will get to himself great glory by permitting the hoar, the man of sin and the dragon, to revel in the church of God; for they by setting up and contending for their darkness, and calling it the light, and by setting it against that light which is light in very deed, do not only prove the power of truth where it is, but illustrate it so much the more; for as black sets off white, and darkness light, so error sets off truth. He that calls a man a horse, doth but fix the belief of his humanity so much the more in the apprehension of all rational creatures.

It is not therefore to be wondered at that we hear both parties plead so much for their authority, crying out against each other as those that destroy religion. So doth the church, so doth the man of sin. The living child is mine, saith one. Nay, but the dead child is thine, and the living child is mine, says the other. And thus they spake before the king.

The church will not give place, for she knows she has the truth; the dragon and his angels, they will not give place, but as beaten back by the power of truth. Therefore there will, there must, there cannot but be a spiritual warfare here, and that until one of the two is destroyed, and its body given to the burning flame.

FALL OF ANTICHRIST.

Antichrist had a time to come into the world, and so must he have a time to go out again. For although he saith that he is a god, yet he must he subject to the will of God, and must go as well as come according to that will. Nor can all the fallen angels, with all the members and limbs of antichrist, cause this, that their brat should abide so much as one day longer than our God's prefixed time. The Lord Jesus shall consume him, and cause him to melt away; not all at once, but now this part and then that, now his soul and after that his body, even until soul and body are both destroyed.

And that you may be convinced of the truth of this thing, do but look back and compare antichrist four or five hundred years ago, with antichrist as he is now, and you shall see what work the Lord Jesus has begun to make with him, even with the spirit and soul and life of antichrist, both in confounding and blasting it by the Spirit of his mouth, as also by forcing it to dishonorable retreats, and by making it give up to him as the conqueror, not only some of his superstitious and diabolical rites and ceremonies to be destroyed, but many a goodly truth which this vile one had taken from his church, to be renewed to them. Nay, further, he has also already begun to take from him both kingdoms and countries, though as to some not so absolutely as he shall do by and by.