The Riches of Bunyan: Selected from His Works

by John Bunyan

CHRISTIAN. "The man that overtook you was Moses. He spareth none, neither knoweth he how to show mercy to those that transgress his law."

FAITHFUL. "I know it very well; it was not the first time that he has met with me. It was he that came to me when I dwelt securely at home, and that told me he would burn my house over my head if I staid there."

This ungodly fear of God, is that which will put men upon adding to the revealed will of God their own inventions and their own performances of them, as a means to pacify the anger of God. For the truth is, where this ungodly fear reigneth, there is no end of law and duty. When those that you read of in the hook of Kings, 2 Kings, 17: 26, were destroyed by the lions because they had set up idolatry in the land of Israel, they sent for a priest from Babylon that might teach them the manner of the God of the land; but behold, when they knew it, being taught it by the priest, yet their fear would not suffer them to be content with that worship only. "They feared the Lord," saith the text, "and served their own gods." And again, "So these nations feared the Lord, and served their graven images." It was this fear also that put the Pharisees upon inventing so many traditions; as the washing of cups, and beds, and tables, and basins, with abundance of such other gear. Mark 7: 4. None knows the many dangers that an ungodly fear of God will drive a man into.

How has it racked and tortured the papists for hundreds of years together! for what else is the cause but this ungodly fear, at least in the most simple and harmless of them, of their penances—as creeping to the cross, going barefoot on pilgrimage, whipping themselves, wearing of sackcloth, saying so many pater-nosters, so many Ave-Marias, making so many confessions to the priest, giving so much money for pardons, and abundance of other the like—-but this ungodly fear of God? For could they be brought to believe this doctrine, that Christ was delivered for our offences and raised again for our justification, and to apply it by faith with godly boldness to their own souls, this fear Would vanish, and so consequently all those things with which they so needlessly and unprofitably afflict themselves, offend God, and grieve his people.

THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL.

Thou must have salvation either at the door of the law or at the door of grace. "But," sayest thou, "I am for having it at the hands of both. I will trust solely to neither. I love to have two strings to my bow. If one of them, as you think, can help me by itself, my reason tells me that both can help me better; therefore will I be righteous and good, and will seek by my goodness to be commended to the mercy of God; for surely he that hath something of his own to ingratiate himself into the favor of his prince withal, shall sooner obtain his mercy and favor than one that comes to him stripped of all good."

I answer, "But there are not two ways to heaven: there is but one 'new and living way which Christ hath consecrated for us through the veil, that is to say, his flesh;' and besides that one, there is no more. Heb. 10: 19-24. Why then dost thou talk of two strings to thy bow?"

Mercy then is to be found alone in Jesus Christ. Again, the righteousness of the law is to be obtained only by faith of Jesus Christ; that is, in the Son of God is the righteousness of the law to be found; for he, by his obedience to his Father, is become the end of the law for righteousness. And for the sake of his legal righteousness—-which is also called the righteousness of God, because it was God in the flesh of the Lord Jesus that did accomplish it—-are mercy and grace from God extended to whomsoever dependeth by faith upon God, by this righteousness of Jesus, for them.

He that is dark as touching the scope, intents, and nature of the law, is also dark as to the scope, nature, and glory of the gospel.

I must confess it is a wonderful mysterious thing, and he had need have a wiser spirit than his own that can rightly set these two covenants in their right places, that when he speaks of the one he doth not jostle the other out of its place. O, to be so well enlightened as to speak of the one, that is the law, for to magnify the gospel—-and also to speak of the gospel so as to establish and yet not to idolize the law, nor any particulars thereof—-it is rare; and to be heard and found but in very few men's breasts.