Works of John Bunyan Volume I Part 56

15 Nothing more properly excited horror throughout Christendom, than the conduct of the Algerines in making slaves of their captives; because their victims had white skins, and were called Christians.

Hundreds of thousands of pounds sterling were paid to redeem the Christian captives, and thus the pirates were strengthened to continue their ferocious deeds. Many contributed to those funds the very money which they derived from the negro slave trade; who, while they professed to execrate white man slavery, perpetrated the same barbarities upon their brethren of a different colour and caste. How strangely does sin pervert the understandings of men, who arrogate to themselves the highest grade of humanity and civilization!--Ed.

16 These awful denunciations are so many proofs of the immutablilty of the justice and of the Word of G.o.d.--Ed.

17 'Saith Christ;' Peter in Acts i. 20, applies this Psalm to Christ, when the Jews cried, 'His blood be upon us and upon our children;'

then did they put on the envenomed garment which has tormented them ever since. It is girded about their loins; the curse has penetrated like water, and entered the very bones like oil. How awful will be the state of those who crucify Him afresh, and again put Him to open shame!--Horsley.

18 How awfully inconceivable is that eternal death that never dieth; that final end that never endeth--an immortal death--a soul-murdering life--ever dying, but never dead; were the mountains and rocks to fall upon and and crush them, still eternity would intervene between them and death. Oh that grace may be given to ransom our souls from the doom we have deserved!--Ed.

19 'Weal;' wealth, happiness, prosperity; 'wherefore taking comfort and boldness, partly of your grace and benevolent inclination toward the universal weal of your subjects, partly inflamed with zeal, I have now enterprized to describe, in our vulgar tongue, the form of a just public weal.' Sir T. Elyot, Dedication of the Governor to Henry VIII.--Ed.

20 'From the belly,': from its birth.

21 Bunyan having been engaged in the civil war, accounts for his using this military idea.--Ed.

22 G.o.d hates not the sinner, but the sin; the glorious provision made for salvation, proves His good will to sinful souls. This will be 'the worm that dieth not,' to sinners to reflect, that, in rejecting the inviting promises of G.o.d, they have sealed their own condemnation.--Mason.

23 'Hideth his sins,' is quoted from the Genevan, or Puritan version.--Ed.

24 'Pother;' to be, or cause to be, as one involved in dust, in a cloud; to perplex, to puzzle, to confound.--Ed.

25 This is an allusion to a custom, nearly obsolete, originating in the feast of tabernacles, of sacrificing to Vacina at the harvest home. The Papists subst.i.tuted St. Bartholomew for the heathen G.o.ddess. Upon his day, the harvest being completed, an image of straw was carried about, called the corn, or Bartholomew, baby; and masters, mistresses, men, and maidens danced and rioted together; thus, under the guise of harmless joy, much evil was perpetrated.--Ed.

26 'A blandation,' an obsolete word, which means wheedling, flattering speech, soft words.--Ed.

27 Knowing the certainty that this wrath to the uttermost will be poured out, our blessed Lord exhorts all to 'fear G.o.d, who is able to destroy both body and soul in h.e.l.l.' In that doleful pit, the soul, re-united with the body, will suffer under the outpourings of Divine wrath.--Mason.

28 Bunyan probably here refers to his own experience when he was in prison, and was threatened by the judge to be hung for not going to parish church. 'I thought with myself, if I should make a scrabbling shift to clamber up the ladder, yet I should, either with quaking or other symptoms of faintings, give occasion to the enemy to reproach the way of G.o.d. I was ashamed to die with a pale face and tottering knees in such a cause as this.'--Grace Abounding, No.

334.--Ed.

29 This wish has been felt while in a desponding state, under the terrors of the law, and a fearful looking for of fiery indignation.

Thus Bunyan says, 'I blessed the condition of the dog and toad, and counted the estate of everything that G.o.d had made far better than this dreadful state of mine.' Grace Abounding, No. 104.--Ed.

30 Alluding to the old proverb of bringing a n.o.ble to ninepence, and ninepence to nothing.--Ed.

31 At the popular game of nine pins--Ed.

32 In our comparatively happy days, we have little if any conception of the manner in which our forefathers desecrated the Sabbath.

When Popery clouded the country, ma.s.s was attended on the Lord's day morning early; it was a recital of certain unknown words, after which parties of pleasure, so called, spent the day in places attractive for the frivolity or wantonness of their entertainments--in dancing, and carousing; the evening being devoted to the theatres or ball rooms. This was afterwards encouraged by our English 'heads of the church,' in a book of lawful sports to be used on Sundays.

Even in our time a flood of iniquity continues to flow on those sacred days, which human laws cannot prevent. As the influence of the gospel spreads, the day will become sanctified and this will ever prove a correct standard of its progress.--Ed.

33 How solemn, nay, awful is the thought that heaven's gates must be shut against all impurity. None who live and die in the love of sin can enter heaven, lest they should defile it--'And there shall in no wise enter into it anything that defileth, neither worketh abomination, or a lie' (Rev 21: 27).--Ed.

34 In 'The Pilgrim's Progress,' in the house called Beautiful, all the inmates, except the porter, are females.--Ed.

35 The edict of Nantes was issued April 1598; but in violation of it, Roch.e.l.le was taken from the Protestants in 1628. From that time horrid barbarities were practised upon them. In 1676, the elector of Brandenburg appealed to the French king on behalf of his Protestant subjects, of whom mult.i.tudes fled for refuge to England and Germany. In 1685, the edict of Nantes was revoked, and a frightful persecution ensued.--Ed.

36 Great allowance must be made for the times in which Bunyan lived.

Baxter, and all the great divines, Sir M. Hale, and the judges, believed in witches, ghosts, and other chimeras; in fact, any one professing unbelief in these wild fancies, would have been counted among infidels and atheists.--Ed.

37 Sin 'in the general of it,' or sin wherever it may be found.

38 The law is a transcript of the mind of G.o.d, it is holy, just, and good--so that he that offendeth in one point is guilty of all.

The law convicts and shows the sinner that G.o.d is all eye to see, and all fire to consume, every unclean thing. Thus the law gives sin its strength, and death its warrant, to arrest and execute the sinner.--Mason.

THE WORK OF JESUS CHRIST AS AN ADVOCATE,

CLEARLY EXPLAINED, AND LARGELY IMPROVED,

FOR THE BENEFIT OF ALL BELIEVERS.

1 John 2:1--"And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous."

By JOHN BUNYAN, Author of "The Pilgrim's Progress."

London: Printed for Dorman Newman, at the King's Arms, in the Poultry, 1689.

ADVERTIs.e.m.e.nT BY THE EDITOR.

This is one of the most interesting of Bunyan's treatises, to edit which required the Bible at my right hand, and a law dictionary on my left. It was very frequently republished; but in an edition by John Marshall, 1725, it became most seriously mutilated, many pa.s.sages were omitted, and numerous errors were made. In this state, it was copied into Mr. Whitefield's edition of his works, and it has been since republished with all those errors. It is now restored to its original state; and we hope that it will prove a most acceptable addition to our theological literature. Although Bunyan was shut up for more than twelve years a prisoner for the truth, and his time was so fully occupied in preaching, writing, and labouring to provide for the pressing wants of his family; still he managed to get acquainted, in a very remarkable manner, with all those law terms which are connected with the duties of a counsel, or advocate. He uses the words replevin, supersedeas, term, demur, nonsuit, reference, t.i.tle, in forma pauperis, king's bench, common pleas, as properly and familiarly as if he had been brought up to the bar. How extraordinary must have been his mental powers, and how retentive his memory! I examined this work with apprehension, lest he had misapplied those hard words; but my surprise was great, to find that he had used every one of them with as much propriety as a Lord Chief-Justice could have done.

We are indebted for this treatise to Bunyan's having heard a sermon which excited his attention to a common, a dangerous, and a fatal heresy, more frequently preached to crowned heads, mitred prelates, members of parliament, and convocations, than it is to the poor, to whom the gospel is preached. In this sermon, the preacher said to his hearers, "see that your cause be good, else Christ will not undertake it." p. 159. Bunyan heard, as all Christians ought to hear, with careful jealousy, and at once detected the error. He exposes the fallacy, and uses his scriptural knowledge to confute it, by showing that Christ pleads for the wicked, the lost; for those who feel themselves so involved in a bad cause, that no advocate but Christ can bring them through. He manifests great anxiety that every inquirer should clearly ascertain definite truths and not be contented with general notions. See p. 189-199, and 201. This is very important advice, and by following which, we shall be saved from many painful doubts and fears. Our need of an advocate is proved by the fact, that Christ has undertaken the office. Some rely on their tears and sighs, as advocates for them with G.o.d; others on imperfect good works-from all these the soul must be shaken, until it finds that there is no prevailing Advocate but the Saviour; and that he alone, with his mystical body, the church, is ent.i.tled to the inheritance. Then sincere repentance, sighs, and tears, evidence our faith in him, and our G.o.dly sorrow for having occasioned him such inconceivable sufferings; tears of joy that we have such a Saviour and an Advocate, equally omnipotent to plead for, as to save us. The inheritance being Christ's, the members of his body cannot be cheated of it, or alienate it. p. 187. Bunyan, with his fertile imagination, and profound scriptural knowledge, spiritualizes the day of jubilee as a type of the safety of the inheritance of the saints. By our folly and sin we may lose sight for a time of our t.i.tle deeds; but the inheritance is safe.

The whole work is a rich treat to those who love experimental divinity, and are safe in Christ as Noah was in the ark; but, Oh! how woeful must those be, who are without an interest in the Saviour; and that have none to plead their cause. "They are left to be ground to powder between the justice of G.o.d and the sins which they have committed. It is sad to consider their plight. This is the man that is pursued by the law, and by sin, and by death, and has none to plead his cause. Terrors take hold on him as waters; a stone hurleth him out of his place" (Job 27). p. 200. Reader, this is a soul-searching subject-may it lead us to a solemn trial of our state, and to the happy conclusion, that the Saviour is our Advocate, and that our eternal inheritance is safe in heaven.

HACKNEY. MAY 1850.

GEORGE OFFOR.

THE EPISTLE TO THE READER.

COURTEOUS READER,

Of all the excellent offices which G.o.d the Father has conferred upon Jesus Christ our Lord, this of his being an Advocate with him for us is not the least, though, to the shame of saints it may be spoken, the blessed benefits thereof have not with that diligence and fervent desire been inquired after as they ought.

Christ, as sacrifice, priest, and king, with the glories in, and that flow from, him as such, has, G.o.d be thanked, in this our day, been much discovered by our seers, and as much rejoiced in by those who have believed their words; but as he is an Advocate with the Father, an Advocate for us, I fear the excellency of that doth still too much lie hid; though I am verily of opinion that the people of G.o.d in this age have as much need of the knowledge thereof, if not more need, than had their brethren that are gone before them.

These words, "if not more need," perhaps may seem to some to be somewhat out of joint; but let the G.o.dly wise consider the decays that are among us as to the power of G.o.dliness, and what abundance of foul miscarriages the generality of professors now stand guilty of, as also how diligent their great enemy is to accuse them at the bar of G.o.d for them, and I think they will conclude, that, in so saying, I indeed have said some truth. Wherefore, when I thought on this, and had somewhat considered also the transcendent excellency of the advocateship of this our Lord; and again, that but little of the glory thereof has by writing been, in our day, communicated to the church, I adventured to write what I have seen thereof, and do, by what doth follow, present it unto her for good.

I count not myself sufficient for this, or for any other truth as it is in Jesus; but yet, I say, I have told you somewhat of it, according to the proportion of faith. And I believe that some will thank G.o.d for what I here have said about it; but it will be chiefly those, whose right and t.i.tle to the kingdom of heaven and glory, doth seem to themselves to be called in question by their enemy, at the bar of the Judge of all.

These, I say, will read, and be glad to hear, that they have an Advocate at court that will stand up to plead for them, and that will yet secure to them a right to the heavenly kingdom. Wherefore, it is more particularly for those that at present, or that hereafter, may be in this dreadful plight, that this my book is now made public; because it is, as I have showed, for such that Jesus Christ is Advocate with the Father.

Of the many and singular advantages, therefore, that such have by this their Advocate in his advocating for them, this book gives some account; as, where he pleads, how he pleads, what he pleads, when he pleads, with whom he pleads, for whom he pleads, and how the enemy is put to shame and silence before their G.o.d and all the holy angels.

Here is also showed to those herein concerned, how they indeed may know that Jesus is their Advocate; yea, and how their matters go before their G.o.d, the Judge; and particularly that they shall well come off at last, yea, though their cause, as it is theirs, is such, in justification of which, themselves do not dare to show their heads.