16 Among all the wondrous sights that angels witness, one gives them peculiar joy--it is the poor penitent prodigal returning to G.o.d, Luke 15:10.--Ed.
17 This was printed in the first edition, "the biggest sin."--Ed.
18 How strongly does this dialogue bring to our recollection that between Christian and Apollyon in the "The Pilgrim"s Progress?"--Ed.
19 "I stunck," in the original edition, probably meant, "I stuck"; but all the later editions have, "I stunk."--Ed.
20 "Clouts"; patches, Joshua 9:5
21 I cannot discover in what book Bunyan read this legend; it is not in the "Golden Legend," or any of my monkish authors. It was a generally received opinion, among the ancients, that Mary Magdalene was sister to Lazarus; but the means of her conversion is not known.
The story here related is possible, and even probable; but it has no foundation in the inspired writings, nor in ancient authors.--Ed.
22 Thus Zaccheus said: "Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor; and if I have taken anything from any man, by false accusation, I restore fourfold." The law of G.o.d requires us, dim-sighted as we are, to see our sins in their real magnitude, but the perversity of man turns the telescope to diminish them.--Ed.
23 "The friends thereof in their reason" were the words used in the first three editions by Bunyan. After his decease, they were altered, in 1697, in a second third edition, and this correction has been continued in every subsequent impression.--Ed.
24 Bunyan has some striking observations upon this word Go, in his work on the day of judgment. Those who refused the invitation to "come" and receive life, when in the world, now irresistibly obey the awful mandate, "Go," and rush into eternal woe.--Ed.
25 How pointed and faithful are these words? How natural it is for a poor sinner to compare himself with his fellow-worm, and say, "Lord, I thank thee that I am not as this publican," or as that murderer--instead of viewing himself in the gospel gla.s.s, in the presence of infinite holiness, and feeling that in his flesh there is no good thing, but putrefying sores, that he is vile and h.e.l.l-deserving, and must fall into the arms of Divine mercy, crying, Lord, save, or I perish.--Ed.
26 "Swoop"; to seize as a hawk does his prey.--Ed.
27 The convinced sinner is not content with the cry, "Deliver me from the wrath to come," but, feeling sin to be his greatest enemy, he earnestly cries for deliverance from its dominion in this world (Psa 143).--Ed.
28 "At the catch." See the dialogue between Faithful and Talkative in "The Pilgrim"s Progress."--Ed.
29 Printed, "far," in the first and second editions; altered to "fast," in third and subsequent editions.--Ed.
30 The blind men, who implored the mercy of Jesus, would not be checked even by the mult.i.tude, but cried so much the more. When a true sense of misery urges, neither men nor devils can stop the cry for mercy, till Jesus has compa.s.sion and heals their spiritual maladies.--Mason.
31 Quoted from the Puritan or Genevan version of the Bible; our translation has, "He that covereth."--Ed.
32 "Long of Jesus Christ"; a provincial expression, meaning "all this belongs to us by Jesus Christ."--Ed.
33 How admirable an ill.u.s.tration is this of the Slough of Despond, into which Christian and Pliable fell in "The Pilgrim"s Progress."--Ed.
34 This ill.u.s.trates Bunyan"s meaning of the Giant of Sophistry, named Maul, whose head was cut off by Great-heart, in the Second Part of "The Pilgrim"s Progress."--Ed.
35 The treasures of this bank are inexhaustible and unsearchable.
Oh for faith, that we may draw largely upon its infinite riches!--Ed.
36 "Incidence"; the direction with which one body strikes another; now obsolete.--Ed.
37 A sour, crabbed Christian, is a contradiction in terms. The precept is, "Be ye kind one to another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as G.o.d, for Christ"s sake, hath forgiven you"
(Eph 4:31).--Mason
38 The true branches in Christ, the heavenly vine, are made fruitful in love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and temperance. By these it will appear that Christ is formed within us. Mere "lick of the tongue" love, without these, is an unsubstantial shadow.--Ed.
39 "Be so taunted"; in editions previous to 1697.--Ed.
40 "At least wise"; to say the least.--Ed.
41 This is the proper test for a perplexed soul, when troubled about his election. If I love Christ, and am desirous to obey him, it is because he first loved me; and this is the surest proof of election. Hear the voice of G.o.d, "Whosoever believeth in me shall not perish, but have eternal life"; and so Paul, "As many as were ordained to eternal life believed" (Acts 13:48).--Ed.
42 How very forcible is this appeal to those who profess to believe the inspiration of the Bible, but yet reject the atonement of Christ. It is to make the typical sacrifice of the clean beasts, under the law, of greater value than that of the great ant.i.type--the Son of G.o.d.--Ed.
43 The reason why those who are guilty of the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost are never forgiven, is not for want of any sufficiency in the blood of Christ, or in the pardoning mercy of G.o.d, but because they never repent of that sin, and never seek to G.o.d for mercy through Christ, but continue obstinate till death.--Mason.
THE GREATNESS OF THE SOUL,
AND
UNSPEAKABLENESS 0F THE LOSS THEREOF;
WITH THE CAUSES OF THE LOSING IT.
FIRST PREACHED AT PINNER"S HALL and now ENLARGED AND PUBLISHED FOR GOOD.
By JOHN BUNYAN,
London: Printed for Benjamin Alsop, at the Angel and Bible in the Poultry, 1682
Faithfully reprinted from the Author"s First Edition.
ADVERTIs.e.m.e.nT BY THE EDITOR.
Our curiosity is naturally excited to discover what a poor, unlettered mechanic, whose book-learning had been limited to the contents of one volume, could by possibility know upon a subject so abstruse, so profound, and so highly metaphysical, as that of the Soul--its greatness--and the inconceivableness of its loss. Heathen philosophers, at the head of whose formidable array stand Plato and Aristotle, had exhausted their wit, and had not made the world a whit the wiser by all their lucubrations. The fathers plunged into the subject, and increased the confusion; we are confounded with their subtle distinctions, definitions, and inquiries; such as that attributed to St. Aquinas, How many disembodied spirits could dance upon the point of a fine needle without jostling each other? Learned divines had puzzled themselves and their hearers with suppositions and abstract principles. What, then, could a travelling brasier, or tinker, have discovered to excite the attention of the Christian world, and to become a teacher to philosophers, fathers, and learned divines? Bunyan found no access to the polluted streams of a vain philosophy; he went at once to the fountain-head; and, in the pure light of Revelation, displays the human soul--infinitely great in value, although in a fallen state. He portrays it as drawn by the unerring hand of its Maker. He sets forth, by the gla.s.s of G.o.d"s Word, the inconceivableness of its value, while progressing through time; and, aided by the same wondrous gla.s.s, he penetrates the eternal world, unveils the joys of heaven and the torments of h.e.l.l--so far as they are revealed by the Holy Ghost, and are conceivable to human powers. While he thus leads us to some kind of estimate of its worth, he, from the same source--the only source from whence such knowledge can be derived, makes known the causes of the loss of the soul, and leads his trembling readers to the only name under heaven given among men, whereby they can be saved. In attempting to conceive the greatness and value of the soul, the importance of the body is too often overlooked. The body, it is true, is of the earth; the soul is the breath of G.o.d. The body is the habitation; the soul is the inhabitant. The body returns to the dust; while the soul enters into the intermediate state, waiting to be re-united to the body after its new creation, when death shall be swallowed up of life. In these views, the soul appears to be vastly superior to the body. But let it never be forgotten, that, as in this life, so it will be in the everlasting state; the body and soul are so intimately connected as to become one being, capable of exquisite happiness, or existing in the pangs of everlasting death. He who felt and wrote as Bunyan does in this solemn treatise, and whose tongue was as the pen of a ready writer, must have been wise and successful in winning souls to Christ. He felt their infinite value, he knew their strong and their weak points, their riches and poverty. He was intimate with every street and lane in the town of Man-soul, and how and where the subtle Diabolians shifted about to hide themselves in the walls, and holes, and corners. He sounds the alarm, and plants his engines against "the eye as the window, and the ear as the door, for the soul to look out at, and to receive in by." He detects the wicked in speaking with his feet, and teaching with his fingers. His ill.u.s.tration of the punishment of a sinner, as set forth by the sufferings of the Saviour, is peculiarly striking. The attempt to describe the torments of those who suffer under the awful curse, "Go ye wicked," is awfully and intensely vivid.
Bunyan most earnestly exhorts the distressed sinner to go direct to the great Shepherd and Bishop of souls, and not to place confidence in those who pretend to be his ministers; but "who are false shepherds, in so many ugly guises, and under so many false and scandalous dresses;" "take heed of that shepherd that careth not for his own soul, that walketh in ways, and doth such things, as have a direct tendency to d.a.m.n his own soul; come not near him.
He that feeds his own soul with ashes, will scarce feed thee with the bread of life." Choose Christ to be thy chief Shepherd, sit at his feet, and learn of him and he will direct thee to such as shall feed thy soul with knowledge and understanding.
Reader, let me no longer keep thee upon the threshold but enter upon this important treatise with earnest prayer; and may the blessed Spirit enable us to live under a sense of the greatness of the soul, the unspeakableness of the loss thereof, the causes of losing it, and the only way in which its salvation can he found.
GEORGE OFFOR. Hackney, April 1850
THE GREATNESS OF THE SOUL,
AND UNSPEAKABLENESS OF THE LOSS THEREOF
"OR WHAT SHALL A MAN GIVE IN EXCHANGE FOR HIS SOUL?"--MARK 8:37.
I HAVE chosen at this time to handle these words among you, and that for several reasons:--
l. Because the soul, and the salvation of it, are such great, such wonderful great things; nothing is a matter of that concern as is, and should be, the soul of each one of you. House and land, trades and honours, places and preferments, what are they to salvation?
to the salvation of the soul?