Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners by John Bunyan (read aloud txt) 📕

244. And now to show you something of the advantages that I also have gained by this temptation: and first, by this I was made continually to possess in my soul a very wonderful sense both of the blessing and glory of God, and of His beloved Son; in the temptation that went before, my soul was perplexed with unbelief, blasphemy, hardness of heart, questions about the being of God, Christ, the truth of the word, and certainty of the world to come: I say, then I was greatly assaulted and tormented with atheism, but now the case was otherwise; now was God and Christ continually before my face, though not in a way of comfort, but in a way of exceeding dread and terror. The glory of the holiness of God, did at this time break me to pieces; and the bowels and compassion of Christ did break me as on the wheel; for I could not consider Him but as a lost and rejected Christ, the remembrance of which, was as the continual breaking of my bones.

245. The scriptures also were wonderful things unto me; I saw that the truth and verity of them were the keys of the kingdom of heaven; those that the scriptures favour, they must inherit bliss; but those that they oppose and condemn, must perish for evermore: Oh! this word, For the scriptures cannot be broken, would rend the caul of my heart: and so would that other, Whose sins ye remit, they are remitted; but whose sins ye retain, they are retained.

Now I saw the apostles to be the elders of the city of refuge.

Joshua xx. 4. Those that they were to receive in, were received to life; but those that they shut out, were to be slain by the avenger of blood.

246. Oh! one sentence of the scripture did more afflict and terrify my mind, I mean those sentences that stood against me (as sometimes I thought they every one did) more, I say, than an army of forty thousand men that might have come against me. Woe be to him against whom the scriptures bend themselves!

247. By this temptation I was made to see more into the nature of the promises than ever I was before; for I lying now trembling under the mighty hand of God, continually torn and rent by the thundering of His justice: this made me with careful heart, and watchful eye, with great fearfulness to turn over every leaf, and with much diligence, mixed with trembling, to consider every sentence, together with its natural force and latitude.

248. By this temptation also I was greatly holden off from my former foolish practice of putting by the word of promise when saw it came into my mind; for now, though I could not suck that comfort and sweetness from the promise, as I had done at other times; yet, like to a man sinking, I would catch at all I saw: formerly I thought I might not meddle with the promise, unless I felt its comfort, but now ‘twas no time thus to do; the avenger of blood too hardly did pursue me.

249. Now therefore I was glad to catch at that word which yet I feared I had no ground or right to own; and even to leap into the bosom of that promise that yet I feared did shut its heart against me. Now also I should labour to take the word as God hath laid it down, without restraining the natural force of one syllable thereof: O! what did I now see in that blessed sixth of John: And him that cometh to me, I will in no wise cast out. John vi. 37.

Now I began to consider with myself, that God hath a bigger mouth to speak with, than I had a heart to conceive with; I thought also with myself, that He spake not His words in haste, or in an unadvised heat, but with infinite wisdom and judgment, and in very truth and faithfulness. 2 Sam. iii. 28.

250. I should in these days, often in my greatest agonies, even flounce towards the promise (as the horses do towards sound ground, that yet stick in the mire); concluding (though as one almost bereft of his wits through fear) on this I will rest and stay, and leave the fulfilling of it to the God of heaven that made it. Oh!

many a pull hath my heart had with Satan, for that blessed sixth of John: I did not now, as at other times, look principally for comfort (though, O how welcome would it have been unto me!). But now a word, a word to lean a weary soul upon, that it might not sink for ever! ‘twas that I hunted for.

251. Yea, often when I have been making to the promise, I have seen as if the Lord would refuse my soul for ever; I was often as if I had run upon the pikes, and as if the Lord had thrust at me, to keep me from Him, as with a flaming sword. Then I should think of Esther, who went to petition the king contrary to the law.

Esther iv. 16. I thought also of Benhadad’s servants, who went with ropes upon their heads to their enemies for mercy. 1 Kings xx. 31, etc. The woman of Canaan also, that would not be daunted, though called dog by Christ, Matt. xv., 22, etc., and the man that went to borrow bread at midnight, Luke xi. 5-8, etc., were great encouragements unto me.

252. I never saw those heights and depths in grace, and love, and mercy, as I saw after this temptation; great sins to draw out great grace; and where guilt is most terrible and fierce, there the mercy of God in Christ, when showed to the soul, appears most high and mighty. When Job had passed through his captivity, he had twice as much as he had before. Job xlii. 10. Blessed be God for Jesus Christ our Lord. Many other things I might here make observation of, but I would be brief, and therefore shall at this time omit them; and do pray God that my harms may make others fear to offend, lest they also be made to bear the iron yoke as I did.

I had two or three times, at or about my deliverance from this temptation, such strange apprehensions of the grace of God, that I could hardly bear up under it: it was so out of measure amazing, when I thought it could reach me, that I do think if that sense of it had abode long upon me, it would have made me incapable for business.

253. Now I shall go forward to give you a relation of other of the Lord’s dealings with me at sundry other seasons, and of the temptations I then did meet withal. I shall begin with what I met with when first I did join in fellowship with the people of God in Bedford. After I had propounded to the church, that my desire was to walk in the order and ordinances of Christ with them, and was also admitted by them: while I thought of that blessed ordinance of Christ, which was His last supper with His disciples before His death, that scripture, Do this in remembrance of Me, Luke xxii. 19, was made a very precious word unto me; for by it the Lord did come down upon my conscience with the discovery of His death for my sins; and as I then felt, did as if He plunged me in the virtue of the same. But behold, I had not been long a partaker at that ordinance, but such fierce and sad temptations did attend me at all times therein, both to blaspheme the ordinance, and to wish some deadly thing to those that then did eat thereof: that lest I should at any time be guilty of consenting to these wicked and fearful thoughts, I was forced to bend myself all the while, to pray to God to keep me from such blasphemies: and also to cry to God to bless the bread and cup to them, as it went from mouth to mouth. The reason of this temptation, I have thought since, was, because I did not with that reverence that became me at first, approach to partake thereof.

254. Thus I continued for three quarters of a year, and could never have rest nor ease: but at the last the Lord came in upon my soul with that same scripture, by which my soul was visited before: and after that, I have been usually very well and comfortable in the partaking of that blessed ordinance; and have, I trust, therein discerned the Lord’s body, as broken for my sins, and that His precious blood hath been shed for my transgressions.

255. Upon a time I was something inclining to a consumption, wherewith about the spring I was suddenly and violently seized, with much weakness in my outward man; insomuch that I thought I could not live. Now began I afresh to give myself up to a serious examination after my state and condition for the future, and of my evidences for that blessed world to come: for it hath, I bless the name of God, been my usual course, as always, so especially in the day of affliction, to endeavour to keep my interest in the life to come, clear before mine eyes.

256. But I had no sooner began to recall to mind my former experience of the goodness of God to my soul, but there came flocking into my mind an innumerable company of my sins and transgressions; amongst which these were at this time most to my affliction; namely, my deadness, dulness, and coldness in holy duties; my wanderings of heart, of my wearisomeness in all good things, my want of love to God, His ways and people, with this at the end of all, Are these the fruits of Christianity? Are these tokens of a blessed man?

257. At the apprehensions of these things my sickness was doubled upon me; for now I was sick in my inward man, my soul was clogged with guilt; now also was my former experience of God’s goodness to me, quite taken out of my mind, and hid as if they had never been, or seen: now was my soul greatly pinched between these two considerations, Live I must not, die I dare not. Now I sunk and fell in my spirit, and was giving up all for lost; but as I was walking up and down in the house as a man in a most woeful state, that word of God took hold of my heart, Ye are justified freely by His grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. Rom.

iii. 24. But oh! what a turn it made upon me!

258. Now was I as one awaked out of some troublesome sleep and dream; and listening to this heavenly sentence, I was as if I had heard it thus expounded to me: Sinner, thou thinkest, that because thy sins and infirmities, I cannot save thy soul; but behold My Son is by me, and upon Him I look, and not on thee, and shall deal with thee according as I am pleased with Him. At this I was greatly lightened in my mind, and made to understand, that God could justify a sinner at any time; it was but His looking upon Christ, and imputing His benefits to us, and the work was forthwith done.

259. And as I was thus in a muse, that scripture also came with great power upon my spirit,