Works of John Bunyan — Complete

by John Bunyan

Sinner, wouldst thou have mercy? wouldst thou be saved? Go thou then to the blood of the cross, as set forth in the word of the truth of the gospel, and there thou shalt find that mercy that thou hast need of first; for there is a mercy that may be called a FIRST mercy, and that is the mercy that gives admittance into, and an interest in all the rest. Now the mercy that doth this, is that which reconcileth us to God; but that other things cannot do, if we stand off from the blood of the cross. Wherefore we are said to be reconciled to God, by the death of his Son. 'For if when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son; much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life' (Rom 5:10). According to that other saying, 'He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?' (8:32). In both these places the Son of God, and our Redeemer, is set forth to us in the first place, as the only one that reconcileth to God the sinner by the blood of his cross; wherefore to this Christ, as crucified, the sinner must come first; because nothing else can reconcile to God; and if thou be not reconciled to God, what art thou but an enemy to him, partake of what mercy thou canst? (Col 1:20). Go to him, did I say? receive him into the arms of thy faith; hold him fast, for he is a Saviour; yea, carry him as set forth by the gospel, dying for thee, and pray God for his sake to bestow upon thee all those mercies that will compass thee about as with a shield, and follow thee all thy days, till thou enterest in at the doors of eternity; and this is the way to speed! For he that hath the Son hath life, in the beginning of it; and he that holds fast the Son, shall have life in the consummation of it. I do the oftener touch upon this matter, because this Christ is the door, in at which whosoever entereth shall be saved; but he that climbs up any other way, shall be judged as a thief and a robber (John 10:1).[29] But,

Second. Is Christ, as crucified, the way and door to all spiritual and eternal mercy? And doth God come to the sinner, and the sinner again go to God in a saving way by him, and by him only? And is there no other way to the Father but by his blood, and through the veil, that is to say, his flesh? (Heb 10:19,20). Then this shows the danger, upon what pretence soever, of casting off the daily sacrifice, and setting up in its place the abomination that maketh desolate. I mean, of casting away a crucified Christ, and the setting up the vanity of moral obedience as the more substantial and most acceptable thing with God. I call not a crucified Christ the daily sacrifice, as if I thought he often suffered for sin, since the foundation of the world; but because the virtue of that one offering is that, and only that, by the which we daily draw nigh unto God; and because the virtuousness of that one sacrifice will for ever abide beneficial to them that come to God, to the world's end by him.

But I say, into what a miserable plight have such people put themselves, that have cast off coming to God by Christ, as he is the propitiation for their sins, and that seek to come another way? Such are lapsed again to Gentilism, to Paganism, to Heathenism; nor will it help at all to say they rely on the mercy and goodness of God, for there is no such thing as spiritual and eternal mercy can come from God to him, that comes not to him by Christ. The Turks, if I be not mistaken, have this for the beginning of every chapter of their Alcoran, 'The Lord, God, gracious and merciful,'[30] yet are counted unbelievers, and are verily so, for they have not received the faith of Christ. The Lord God, gracious and merciful, will not save them, no not by grace and mercy, unless repenting of their presuming upon mercy, without a bloody sacrifice, they come to him by his Son (Acts 4:12). Men therefore that have laid aside the necessity of reconciliation to God by the precious blood of Christ, are in a damned state; nor will it help at all to say they do indeed believe in him. I am not so void of reason as to think that they that have cast away Christ, as he is a propitiatory sacrifice with God for sin, should also cast away his name out of their mouth; no, his name is too honorable, and the profession of it too glorious for them to do such a thing. But retaining his name, and the notion of him as a Saviour, they yet cast him off, and that in those very things wherein the essential part of his sacrifice, the merit of it, and his everlasting priesthood, consists; and in this lies the mystery of their iniquity.

They will have him to be a Saviour, but it must not be by fulfilling of the law for us; but it must not be by the putting of his glorious righteousness, that which he performed by subjecting himself to the law, on our behalf, upon us; but it must not be by washing of us from our sins in his own blood; but it must be by his kingly and prophetical offices. When, as for his kingly and prophetical offices, he puts those people under the government of them that he has afore made to stand justified before God, from the curse of the law by his priesthood. Nor dare they altogether deny that Christ doth save his people as a priest, but then their art is to confound these offices, by pleading that they are in effect but one and the self-same thing; and then with a noise of morality and government, they jostle the merit of his blood, and the perfection of his justifying righteousness, out of doors; and so retaining the name of Christ in their mouths, they cast those things of Christ, that they like not, under feet; which things, they who have not the faith of, must not, cannot see the kingdom of God.

The term of mercy is but a general sound, and is as an arrow shot at rovers, unless the blood and death of the Son of God be set before us, as the mark or mean by which our spirits are to be directed to it. What profit shall a man have, and what shelter or succour shall he find, in hearing of the most exact relation of the strength of the most impregnable castle in the world, unless he knows the door, and entereth in by that, into that place of strength, in the time when the enemy shall pursue him? Why, this is the case: We hear a noise of mercy, and of being at peace with God; what a good God, God is, and what a blessed thing it is to be a child of God; how many privileges the children of God have, and what will be their exaltation and glory in the next world! And all the while they that tell us these things conceal from us the way thereto, which is Christ, not in the naming of him, but in the right administration of his gospel to us.

Christ, and faith in him as a Saviour, not in the name only, but in the true sense thereof, is the mark, as I have said, from which if any swerve, they err from the saving way, and so come nothing near that mercy that can save them. Hence Christ is called a standard, an ensign (Isa 5:26). 'And in that day there shall be a root of Jesse, which shall stand for an ensign of the people; to it shall the Gentiles seek, and his rest shall be glorious' (Isa 11:10). And again, 'Thus saith the Lord God, Behold, I will lift up mine hand to the Gentiles; and set up my standard to the people' (49:22). 'Go through, go through the gates, prepare ye the way of the people,—gather out the stones, lift up a standard for the people. Behold the Lord hath proclaimed to the end of the world; say ye to the daughter of Zion, behold thy salvation cometh. Behold his reward is with him, and his work before him' (62:10,11). Hence again he is called the captain, the chieftain, of our salvation, and him without whom there neither is nor can be any.

But now the men of this confederacy, rather than they will submit themselves to the righteousness of God, will lay odiums and scandals upon them that preach they should (Rom 10:2,4). Not forsooth, if you will believe them, but that they are highly for the righteousness of God, let it be that which they count so; but then to be sure it shall never be the personal performances of Christ, by which they that believe in him are justified from all things; but that which they call 'first principles,' 'dictates of human nature,' 'obedience to a moral precept,' followed and done as they have Christ for an example; not understanding that Christ, in his own doings, is the end of all these things to every one that believeth. But if it be urged that Gentiles and Pagans are possessed with those very principles, only they have not got the art, as our men have, to cover them with the name of Christ and principles of Christianity, then they fall to commending the heathens and their philosophers, and the natural motives and principles by which they were actuated; preferring of them much before what by others are called the graces of the Spirit, and principles upon what the doctrine of the free grace and mercy of God by Christ are grounded. But, as I said, all the good that such preachers can do as to the next world, is, to draw the people away from their ensign and their standard, and so lead them among the Gentiles and infidels, to seek by their rules the way to this unspeakable mercy of God. Wherefore their state being thus deplorable, and their spirits thus incorrigible, they must be pitied, and left, and fled from, if we would live.

Third. Is Christ Jesus the redemption; and, as such, the very door and inlet into all God's mercies? Christian man, look well to thyself, that thou goest no whither, and dost nothing, I mean in any part of religious worship, &c., but as thou art in him (2 Cor 12:18,19).[31] Walk in him, speak in him, grow in him, for he is THE ALL (Col 2:6,7). And though others regard not to 'hold the head, from which all the body by joints and bands have nourishment ministered,' yet have thou a care! (Eph 4:15; Col 2:19). This is he that is thy life, and the length of thy days, and without whom no true happiness can be had. Many there be that count this but a low thing; they desire to soar aloft, to fly into new notions, and to be broaching of new opinions, not counting themselves happy, except they can throw some new-found fangle, to be applauded for, among their novel-hearers. But fly thou to Christ for life; and that thou mayest so do, remember well thy sins, and the judgment and wrath of God; and know also that he is merciful, but at mercy none can come, but through the cursed death Christ underwent. And although some of the wanton professors of our age may blame thee for poring so much upon thy sins, and the pollution of thy nature, yet know that there is an advantage in it. There be some alive in the world, who, though they count the nature and commission of sin the very evil of evils, yet can say that the remembrance of how vile they are, and of what evils they have committed, has been to them a soul-humbling, a Christ-advancing, and a creature-emptying consideration. Though sin made death bitter to Christ, yet sin makes Christ sweet to his. And though none should sin, that grace might abound, yet where sin has abounded, grace doth much more abound, not only as an act of God, but also in the eye of faith.

A sight of the filth, and a sense of the guilt of sin, makes a pardon to such a soul more than empty notion; and makes the mean through which the pardon comes more to be desired than is either life or limb. This is it that makes the sensible soul prize the Lord Jesus, while the self-justiciary[32] laugheth him to scorn. This is it which makes the awakened sinner cast away his own righteousness, while the self-conceited one makes it his advocate with the Father.

Some, indeed, count their own doings the only darling of their soul, while others cast it to the dogs. And why should a man cumber himself with what is his, when the good of all that is in Christ is laid, and to be laid out for him? Not that a believer casts off to do good, for he knows that what good thing is done in faith and love, is acceptable to God, and profitable to his neighbour. But this is it, he setteth not his good deed against the judgment of God; he cometh not in his own good. When he comes to God for forgiveness of sins, then he sees nothing, knows nothing, mentions nothing as righteousness, but that which Christ wrought out in the days of his flesh, and that only. But how then is what he doth accepted of God? Verily as the duty of a son, and as the work of one that is justified. We must therefore conclude that there is acceptation, and acceptation: acceptation of the person, and acceptation of his performance. Acceptation of the person may be considered with respect to justification from the curse, and so acceptation there can be none, but through the one offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. Also the acceptation of a duty done by such a person is, by virtue of the self-same offering, the person being considered as standing just through Christ before God. And the reason why a justified person must have his duties accepted the same way, as is his person, is because justifying righteousness sets not the person free from sin, save only in the sight of God and conscience; he remaineth still infirm in himself, and standeth still in need of the fresh and continual application of the merits of the Lord Jesus, which also the soul receiveth by virtue of Christ's intercession. I speak now of acceptation with reference to the justice of the law, and the judgment of God upon person or work, according to the self-same law. For so they both must be accepted through the self-same Mediator, or they cannot be accepted at all. Nor is it a thing to be wondered at, that a man should stand just in the sight of God, when polluted and defiled in his own sight. He stands just before God in the justice of his Son, upon whom God looks, and for whose sake he accepts him. May not a scabbed, mangy man, a man all over-run with blains and blotches, be yet made beautiful to the view of a beholder, through the silken, silver, golden garment that may be put upon him, and may cover all his flesh? Why, the righteousness of Christ is not only unto but upon all them that believe (Rom 3:22). And whoso considers the parable of the wretched infant, shall find, that before it was washed with water it was wrapped up or covered, as it was found, in its blood, in and with the skirt of his garment that found it in its filth. And then he washed it with water, and then he sanctified it by the anointing oil of the Spirit of God (Eze 16:8,9). I speak thus to thee, Christian reader, partly because in the faith of these things is thy life; and because I would yet enforce the exhortation upon thee with the reason and the amplification thereof, to wit, to put thee upon trusting in the Lord through the encouragement that thou hast in redeeming mercy so to do.