The Riches of Bunyan: Selected from His Works

by John Bunyan

"Sinner, turn!" says God. "Lord, I cannot attend to it," says the sinner. "Turn or burn," says God. "I will venture that," says the sinner. "Turn and be saved," says God. "I cannot leave my pleasures," says the sinner; "sweet sins, sweet pleasures, sweet delights," says the sinner. But what grace is it in God thus to parley with the sinner! O the patience of God to a poor sinner! What if God should now say, "Then get thee to thy sins, get thee to thy delights, get thee to thy pleasures, take them for thy portion; they shall be all thy heaven, all thy happiness, all thy portion?"

3. But God comes again, and shows the sinner the necessity of turning now or not at all; yea, and giveth the sinner this conviction so strongly that he cannot put it if. But behold, the sinner has one spark of enmity still: if he must needs turn now, he will either turn from one sin to another, from great ones to little ones, from many to few, or from all to one, and there stop. But perhaps convictions will not thus leave him. Why, then he will turn from profaneness to the law of Moses, and will dwell as long as God will let him, upon his own seeming goodness. And now observe him, he is a great stickler for legal performance; now he will be a good neighbor, he will pay every man his own, will leave off his swearing, the ale-house, his sports, and carnal delights; he will read, pray, talk of scripture, and be a very busy one in religion, such as it is; now he will please God, and make him amends for all the wrong he has done him, and will feed him with chapters, and prayers, and promises, and vows, and a great many more such dainty dishes as these; persuading himself that now he must be fair for heaven, and thinks besides that he serveth God as well as any man: but all this while he is as ignorant of Christ as the stool he sits on, and no nearer heaven than was the blind Pharisee, only he has got in a cleaner way to hell than the rest of his neighbors are.

Might not God now cast off this sinner, and cast him out of his sight? might he not leave him to his own choice, to be deluded by and to fall in his own righteousness, because he trusts to it and commits iniquity?

But grace, preventing grace preserves him. It is true, this turn of the sinner is a turning short of Christ. But,

4. God in this way of the sinner will mercifully follow him, and show him the shortness of his performances, the emptiness of his duties, and the uncleanness of his righteousness. This I speak of the sinner, the salvation of whose soul is graciously intended and contrived of God; for he shall by gospel light be wearied out of all; he shall be made to see the vanity of all, and that the personal righteousness of Jesus Christ, and that only, is it which of God is ordained to save the sinner from the due reward of his sins. But behold, the sinner now, at the sight and sense of his own nothingness, falleth into a kind of despair; for although he hath it in him to presume of salvation through the delusiveness of his own good opinion of himself, yet he hath it not in himself to have a good opinion of the grace of God in the righteousness of Christ. Wherefore he concludeth that if salvation be alone of the grace of God through the righteousness of Christ, and all of a man's own is utterly rejected as to the justification of his person with God, then he is cast away.

Now, the reason of this sinking of heart is the sight that God has given him—a sight of the uncleanness of his best performance. The former sight of his immoralities did somewhat distress him, and make him betake himself to his own good deeds to ease his conscience; wherefore this was his prop, his stay. But behold, now God has taken this from under him, and now he falls. Wherefore his best doth also now forsake him, and fly away like the morning dew.

Besides, this revelation of the emptiness of his own righteousness brings also with it a further discovery of the naughtiness of his heart, in its hypocrisies, pride, unbelief, hardness of heart, deadness, and backwardness to all gospel obedience; which sight of himself lies like millstones upon his shoulders, and sinks him yet further into doubts and fears of damnation. For bid him now receive Christ; he answers, he cannot, he dares not. Ask him why he cannot; he will answer, he has no faith nor hope in his heart. Tell him that grace is offered him freely; he says, "But I have no heart to receive it." Besides, he finds not, as he thinks, any gracious disposition in his soul, and therefore concludes he does not belong to God's mercy, nor has an interest in the blood of Christ, and therefore dares not presume to believe. Wherefore he sinks in his heart, he dies in his thoughts, he doubts, he despairs, and concludes he shall never be saved.

5. But behold, the God of all grace leaves him not in this distress, but comes up now to him closer than ever; he sends the Spirit of adoption, the blessed Comforter, to him to tell him God is love, and therefore not willing to reject the broken in heart; bids him cry and pray for an evidence of mercy to his soul, and says, "Peradventure you may be hid in the day of the Lord's anger."

At this the sinner takes some encouragement; yet he can get no more than that which will hang upon a mere probability, which, by the next doubt that ariseth in the heart, is blown quite away, and the soul left again in its first plight, or worse; where he lamentably bewails his miserable state, and is tormented with a thousand fears of perishing; for he hears not a word from heaven, perhaps for several weeks together. Wherefore unbelief begins to get the mastery of him, and takes off the very edge and spirit, of prayer, and inclination to hear the word any longer; yea, the devil also claps in with these thoughts, saying, "All your prayers, and hearing, and reading, and godly company, which you frequent, will rise up in judgment against you at last; therefore better it is, if you must be damned, to choose as easy a place in hell as you can."

The soul at this being quite discouraged, thinks to do as it has been taught, and with dying thoughts it begins to faint when it goes to prayer or to hear the word. But behold, when all hope seems to be quite gone, and the soul concludes, "I die, I perish," in comes on a sudden the Spirit of God again, with some good word of God which the soul never thought of before; which word of God commands a calm in the soul, makes unbelief give place, encourages to hope and wait upon God again: perhaps it gives some little sight of Christ to the soul, and of his blessed undertaking for sinners.