The Riches of Bunyan Part 5

Thou gayest, He that convinces of sins against the law, leads up to the fulfilling of the law.. Friend, thy conscience convinces of sins against the law: follow thy conscience, and it may lead thee under the curse of the law, through its weakness; but it can never deliver thee from the curse of the law by its power. For if righteousness come by obedience to the law, or by thy conscience either, then Christ is dead in vain. Gal. 2: 21.

A GOOD CONSCIENCE.

This must needs be a blessed help in distress, for a man to have a good conscience when affliction hath taken hold on him; for a man then, in his looking behind and before, to return with peace to his own soul, that man must needs find honey in this lion.

This is the way to maintain always the answer, the echoing answer of a good conscience in thy own soul. G.o.dliness is of great use this way; for the man that hath a good conscience to G.o.d-ward, hath a continual feast in his own soul: while others say there is casting down, he shall say there is lifting up; for G.o.d shall save the humble person. Some indeed, in the midst of their profession, are reproached, smitten, and condemned of their own heart, their conscience still biting and stinging them because of the uncleanness of their hands; and they cannot lift up their face unto G.o.d, they have not the answer of a good conscience towards him, but must walk as persons false to their G.o.d and as traitors to their own eternal welfare. But the G.o.dly upright man shall have the light shine upon his ways, and he shall take his steps in b.u.t.ter and honey. The work of righteousness shall be peace, and the effect of righteousness, quietness, and a.s.surance for ever. "If our heart condemn us, G.o.d is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things. Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence towards G.o.d."

A TENDER CONSCIENCE.

A tender conscience is to some people like Solomon's brawling woman, a burthen to those that have it; but let it be to thee like those that invited David to go up to the house of the Lord.

A GUILTY CONSCIENCE.

"And Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord G.o.d." These latter words are spoken, not to persuade us that men can hide themselves from G.o.d, but that Adam and those that are his by nature will seek to do it, because they do not know him aright.

These words therefore further show us what a bitter thing sin is to the soul; it is only for hiding-work, sometimes under its fig-leaves, sometimes among the trees of the garden. O what a shaking, starting, timorous evil conscience is a sinful, guilty conscience: especially when it is but a little awakened, it could run its head into every hole, first by one fancy, then by another; for the power and goodness of a man's own righteousness cannot withstand or answer the demands of the justice of G.o.d and his holy law.

There is yet another witness for the condemning transgressors of these laws, and that is conscience: "Their consciences also bearing witness," says the apostle. Conscience is a thousand witnesses.

Conscience! it will cry amen to every word that the great G.o.d doth speak against thee. Conscience is a terrible accuser; it will hold pace with the witness of G.o.d, as to the truth of evidence, to a hair's breadth. The witness of conscience, it is of great authority; it commands guilt and fastens it on every soul which it accuses.

Conscience will thunder and lighten at the day of judgment; even the consciences of the most pagan sinners in the world will have sufficient wherewith to accuse, to condemn, and to make paleness appear in their faces and breaking in their loins, by reason of the force of its conviction. O the mire and dirt that a guilty conscience, when it is forced to speak, will cast up and throw out before the judgment-seat. It must out; none can speak peace nor health to that man upon whom G.o.d has let loose his own conscience.

Cain will now cry, "My punishment is greater than I can bear;" Judas will hang himself; and both Belshazzar and Felix will feel the joints of their loins to be loosened, and their knees to smite one against another, when conscience stirreth.

When conscience is once thoroughly awakened, as it shall be before the judgment-seat, G.o.d will need say no more to the sinner than Solomon said to filthy Shimei, "Thou knowest all the wickedness that thy heart is privy to." As who should say, "Thy conscience knows, and can well inform thee of all the evil and sin that thou art guilty of." To all which it answers even as face answers a face in a gla.s.s; or as an echo answers the man that speaks: as fast, I say, as G.o.d chargeth, conscience will cry out, "Guilty, guilty, Lord; guilty of all, of every whit; I remember clearly all the crimes thou layest before me." Thus will conscience be a witness against the soul in the day of G.o.d.

V. THE LAW.

ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS.

THE law is the chief and most pure resemblance of the justice and holiness of the heavenly Majesty, and doth hold forth to all men the sharpness and keenness of his wrath.

This is the rule and line and plummet whereby every act of every man shall be measured; and he whose righteousness is not found every way answerable to this law, which all will fall short of but they that have the righteousness of G.o.d by faith in Jesus Christ, he must perish.

The law is spiritual, I am carnal. Therefore every requirement is rejected and rebelled against. Strike a steel against a flint, and the fire flies about you. Strike the law against a carnal heart, and sin appears, sin multiplies, sin rageth, sin is strengthened.

Sin seen in the gla.s.s of the law is a terrible thing; no man can behold it and live. "When the commandment came, sin revived and I died;" when it came from G.o.d to my conscience, as managed by an almighty arm, then it slew me. And now is the time to confess sin, because now a soul knows what it is, and sees what it is, both in the nature and consequence of it.

He that is under the law is under the edge of the axe.

The proper work of the law is to slay the soul, and leave it dead, in a helpless state.

The law has laid all men for dead as they come into the world; but all men do not see themselves dead, until they see the law that struck them dead striking in their souls and having struck them that fatal blow. As a man that is fast asleep in a house, and that on fire about his ears, and he not knowing it because he is asleep; even so because poor souls are asleep in sin, though the wrath of G.o.d, the curse of his law, and the flames of h.e.l.l have beset them round about, yet they do not believe it because they are asleep in sin. Now, as he that is awakened and sees this, sees that through this he is a dead man, even so they that see their state by nature, being such a sad condition, do also see themselves by that law to be dead men naturally.

Take heed of fleshly wisdom. Reasoning suiteth much with the law: "I thought verily that I ought to do many things against the name of Jesus," and so to have sought for life by the law. For thus reason will say, Here is a righteous law, the rule of life and death; besides, what can be better than to love G.o.d, and my neighbor as myself? Again, G.o.d has thus commanded, and his commands are just and good; therefore, doubtless, life must come by the law. Further, to love G.o.d and keep the law, are better than to sin and break it; and seeing men lost heaven by sin, how should they get it again but by working righteousness? Besides, G.o.d is righteous, and will therefore bless the righteous. O the holiness of the law! It mightily swayeth with reason when a man addicts himself to religion. The light of nature teaches that sin is not the way to heaven; and seeing no word doth more condemn sin, than the words of the ten commandments, it must needs be therefore the most perfect rule for holiness.

Wherefore, says reason, the safest way to life and glory is to keep myself close to the law. But though the law indeed be holy, yet the mistake as to the matter in hand is as wide as the east from the west; for therefore the law can do thee no good, because it is holy and just; for what can he that has sinned expect from a law that is holy and just? Naught but condemnation. "There is one that accuseth you, even. Moses in whom ye trust."

Here is the poison; to set this law in the. room of a Mediator, as those do who seek to stand just before G.o.d thereby. And then nothing is so dishonorable to Christ, nor of so soul-destroying a nature as the law; for that, thus placed, has not only power when souls are deluded, but power to delude by its real holiness, the understanding, conscience, and reason of a man; and by giving the soul a semblance of heaven, to cause it to throw away Christ, grace, and faith.

Alas, he who boasteth himself in the works of the law, he doth not hear the law. When that speaks, it shakes mount Sinai, and writeth death upon all faces, and makes the church itself cry out, A Mediator! else we die.

The law out of Christ is terrible as a lion; the law in him is meek as a lamb.

FAITHFUL. "So I went on my way up the hill. Now when I had got about half-way up, I looked behind me and saw one coming after me swift as the wind; so he overtook me just about the place where the settle stands.

"So soon as the man overtook me, he was but a word and a blow; for down he knocked me, and laid me for dead. But when I was a little come to myself again, I asked him wherefore he served me so. He said, 'Because of thy secret inclination to Adam the first;' and with that he struck me another deadly blow on the breast, and beat me down backwards; so I lay at his foot as dead as before. When I came to myself again, I cried to him for mercy; but he said, 'I know not how to show mercy;' and with that knocked me down again. He had doubtless made an end of me, but that one came by and bid him forbear."

CHRISTIAN. "Who was it that bid him forbear?"

FAITHFUL. "I did not know him at first, but as he went by I perceived the holes in his hands and his side; then I concluded that he was our Lord. So I went up the hill."

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 unG.o.dly fear of G.o.d, is that which will put men upon adding to the revealed will of G.o.d their own inventions and their own performances of them, as a means to pacify the anger of G.o.d. For the truth is, where this unG.o.dly 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.ds." 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 unG.o.dly fear of G.o.d 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 unG.o.dly 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 unG.o.dly fear of G.o.d? 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 G.o.dly 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 G.o.d, 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 G.o.d; 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d, because it was G.o.d in the flesh of the Lord Jesus that did accomplish it---are mercy and grace from G.o.d extended to whomsoever dependeth by faith upon G.o.d, 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 b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

A man may appeal from the law to the throne, from Moses to Christ---from him that spoke on earth to him that speaks from heaven; but from heaven to earth, from Christ to Moses, none can appeal. Acts 3: 22, 23.

Tell me, you that desire to mingle the law and the gospel together, and to make of both one and the same gospel of Christ, did you ever see yourselves undone and lost, unless the righteousness, blood, death, resurrection, and intercession of that man Christ Jesus in his own person, were imputed to you; and until you could by faith own it as done for you, and counted yours by imputation? Yea, or no?

Nay, rather, have you not set up your consciences and the law, and counted your obedience to them better and of more value than the obedience of the Son of Mary without you to be imputed to you? And if so, it is because you have not been savingly convinced by the Spirit of Christ of the sin of unbelief.

I would riot be mistaken; I do not say that the Spirit of Christ gives the least liberty to sin; G.o.d forbid; but its convictions are of a more saving and refreshing nature than the convictions of the law, and do more constrain the soul to holiness than that: the law saying, Work for life; the Spirit saying, Now to him that worketh not (for life,) but believeth on him that justifieth the unG.o.dly, his faith is counted for righteousness. As thus: if I should owe to two creditors ten thousand talents, the one should say unto me, "Thou owest me five thousand talents, pay that thou owest;" the other should say, "Thou owest me five thousand talents, and I frankly and freely forgive thee all."

Now, these expressions are contrary one to another; even so is the end of the convictions of the law not according to the end of the convictions of the Spirit of Christ: the one saying, "Pay me that thou owest;" the other saying, "Thou art frankly and freely forgiven all."

Then the Interpreter took Christian by the hand, and led him into a very large parlor that was full of dust, because never swept; the which, after he had reviewed it a little while, the Interpreter called for a man to sweep. Now, when he began to sweep, the dust began so abundantly to fly about, that Christian had almost therewith been choked. Then said the Interpreter to a damsel that stood by, "Bring hither water and sprinkle the room;" the which, when she had done, it was swept and cleansed with pleasure.