The world know not the way of the Lord, nor the judgment of our G.o.d. Do you think that saints that dwell in the world, and that have more of the mind of G.o.d than the world, would, could so rejoice in G.o.d, in the cross, in tribulations and distresses, were they not a.s.sured that through many tribulations is the very roadway to heaven (Acts 14:22).
Let this then encourage the saints to hope, and to rejoice in hope of the glory of G.o.d, notwithstanding present tribulations. This is our seed-time, our winter; afflictions are to try us of what mettle we are made; yea, and to shake off worm-eaten fruit, and such as are rotten at core. Troubles for Christ"s sake are but like the p.r.i.c.k of an awl in the tip of the ear, in order to hang a jewel there.
Let this also put the saints upon patience: when we know that a trial will have an end, we are by that knowledge encouraged to exercise patience. I have a bad master, but I have but a year to serve under him, and that makes me serve him with patience; I have but a mile to go in this dirty way, and then I shall have my path pleasant and green, and this makes me tread the dirty way with patience. I am now in my rags, but by that a quarter of a year is come and gone, two hundred a year comes into my hand, wherefore I will wait, and exercise patience. Thus might I multiply comparisons.
Be patient then, my brethren; but how long? to the coming of the Lord. But when will that be? the coming of the Lord draws nigh.
"Be patient," my brethren, be long patient, even "unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain. Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh" (James 5:7,8).
FOOTNOTES:
1. The second month in the Hebrew calendar began April 7.--Ed.
2. A common expression for difference.--"What"s the odds between us?"--Ed.
3. The churches of Christ have suffered under bitter persecution, and been in a wilderness state, from the primitive times, through Popish days, and under the relentless cruelties suffered by the Covenanters and Nonconformists from the Church of England. As the gospel spreads, it humanizes and softens the hearts even of the rebellious. The dread fire no longer consumes the cedars of Lebanon.
Still there remains the contemptuous sneer, the scorn, the malice of the soul, against Christ and his spiritual seed. Not many years since the two daughters of an evangelical clergyman, a D.D., came out, from strong and irresistible conviction, and united with one of the straitest sects of Dissenters--the Plymouth Brethren. The unhappy parent could not brook the insult to his order, and died insane.--Ed.
4. Bunyan not only experienced the richest enjoyments in jail, but it is very probable that his life was saved for a few years by his having lain in prison during the violent heat and storm of persecution which raged in the early part of the reign of Charles II. Thus G.o.d mysteriously restrains the wrath of man, and makes it to praise him. The damp unwholesome dungeon, intended for his destruction, crowned him with peculiar honour, because, as in his Patmos, he there wrote his immortal book.--Ed.
5. Pill, to rob; poll, to exact, to extort. "The church is pilled and polled by its own flocks."--South, Ser. 11. v. 5.--Ed.
6. Maundrel measured a cedar which was thirty-six feet six inches in girth, and one hundred and eleven feet in the spread of its boughs; the foliage is ever green, and it mounts up to an enormous height.--Ed.
7. It is one of the strongest proofs that the human mind is disordered by sin, that man is by nature senseless to the sublime truths of Christianity--the beam, the truth which saves the world from utter moral desolation. What wonders open before the eyes of the young convert, stretching far away into that heavenly and eternal felicity which had been shut out from his vision by the gloom of death! Life and immortality is brought to light. His life, and all other things, become but dross, that he may win Christ, and maintain his cause in the world.--Ed.
8. All men have the same Bible, but all have not sought for spiritual discernment. The Beast, whether of Rome, Greece, or England, that looks through the Word to find some plausible means of tyrannising over the soul, by preventing man from using his own eyes in seeking salvation, whether it be by church canons or acts of Parliament interfering with the exercise of private judgment, is an enemy to, and hater of, the true light.--Ed.
9. Humanity, in its usual acceptation, means the inferiority of man to the divine or angelic nature, but superiority to the mere animal or brute creation. "The nature of man, wherein he is lesse than G.o.d Almighty, and excellynge not withstandyng al other creatures in erth, is called humanitie."--Sir T. Eliot. Bunyan"s ill.u.s.tration of the word is curious.--Ed.
10. A common mode of picturing the virgin Mary for the devotee of Popery to worship, is a whole length beautiful woman, with rays as of the sun shooting out all round her, standing upon the moon, and upon her head a splendid crown ornamented with twelve stars.
Under such a disguise, who would expect to find "the well-favoured harlot establishing a throne for Satan?"--Ed.
11. Inventions, fictions, fables.--Ed.
12. The Hebrew words translated in the authorized version of the Bible, "And a target" or gorget "of bra.s.s," are rendered, in all the earlier versions, "And a shield of bra.s.s." Perhaps a cuira.s.s; it was evidently defensive bra.s.s armour, worn between the shoulders.--Ed.
13. No formal service such as that of the temple. While the churches are in the wilderness, suffering under the fangs of Antichrist, religious services must be adapted to their circ.u.mstances. At times fervent silent prayer, unheard on earth, but recorded in heaven; at other times in an upper chamber or a forest, afraid to sin, lest it should bring the enemy upon them. How ought we to bless G.o.d for giving us the full enjoyment of public worship, even while in the wilderness.--Ed.
14. One of the popular delusions of our day is, that all sects have been intolerant and persecutors when they had the opportunity.
This is a gross falsehood. Who can charge the Waldenses, Albigenses, or Lollards with that spirit of Antichrist? Who dares charge the Quakers with a persecuting spirit? They had the full opportunity when governing Pennsylvania. Who can accuse the Baptists with injuring those who differed from them when Roger Williams and his Baptist brethren obtained the charter of Rhode Island, with full power to rule themselves by any form of government they preferred?
His magna charta concludes with these words, "And let the saints of the Most High walk in this colony without molestation, in the name of Jehovah their G.o.d, for ever and ever." And it has never been violated. Persecution has never sullied its annals. Freedom to worship G.o.d was the desire of its founder--for himself and of all; and he n.o.bly endured till it was accomplished.--Ed.
15. This word was used by Fox in translating the letter of Algerius; I cannot find it in any dictionary. It probably refers to this poor prisoner for Christ being confined in a "soler," or room, close under the roof of his prison, in which an Italian sun must have rendered the heat intense. The word "sooly" may be derived from the Anglo-Saxon "swool," sultry; the Dutch use swoel, zoel, and zoelheid, for heat and sultry heat.--Ed.
16. The obsolete verb, to kill.--Ed.
17. This is a curious mode of expressing the awful gradation of a sinner. 1. To go in the way of sinners. 2. To enter into their counsels. 3. To sit in the scorner"s seat, here called "the chair of pestilence." This is from the vulgate Latin, which renders it pestilentiae.--Ed.
18. Pomponius Algerius, born in Capua, a young man of great learning, was student in the University of Padua, where he, not being able to conceal the verity of Christ"s gospel which he learned by the heavenly teaching of G.o.d"s grace, ceased not, both by doctrine and example of life, to inform as many as he could in the same doctrine, and to bring them to Christ; for which he was accused of heresy, and brought to Rome, where he was burned alive. He wrote this letter while in prison at Venice.--See Fox"s Acts and Monuments, edit. 1631. vol. ii. p. 181.
Mr. Southey thought that this letter gave Bunyan some germ of his Pilgrim"s Progress!! He takes it from the words, "In this world there is no mansion firm for me, and therefore I will travel up to the New Jerusalem, which is in heaven."--Life of Bunyan, p. xc.--Ed.
19. Thus the blood of the martyrs was the seedtime of the church, and it produced an abundant harvest. That G.o.d suffered the choicest of his saints to pa.s.s through such dreadful sufferings in their way to glory, is a proof that G.o.d"s ways are not our ways, but they are infinite in wisdom and mercy.--Ed.
20. Consult Bunyan"s admirable treatise, Of Antichrist and his Ruin.
21. How easily is this riddle resolved by those who visit the afflicted. The Christian poor beat the rich out and out in charity.
The poor mother rises long before her usual time, and having fitted her own children for school, runs to her sick neighbour to do the same for her little ones, frequently sharing with them her own children"s food; and then, like an angel of mercy, watches over and comforts her sick neighbour. Such is the unostentatious Christian charity found among the Christian poor. O that it may more and more abound.--Ed.
22. These home-thrusts at conscience, so constantly met with in Bunyan"s works, should have the effect of exciting us to solemn self-examination. May we never be contented with the porch, but enter and enjoy the riches of Divine grace.--Ed.
23. The gradual spread of the gospel, like the leaven, must eventually leaven the whole. How astonishing has been its progress since Bunyan entered the celestial city. If his happy spirit hovers as a guardian angel about the saints at Bedford, how must he rejoice in the change. The iron hand of despotic oppression laid low; his old prison swept away; the meetings in dells, and woods, and barns, exchanged for large and commodious places of worship. How he must wonder at our want of grat.i.tude, and love, and zeal, in return for such mercies.--Ed.
THE WATER OF LIFE;
OR,
A DISCOURSE SHOWING THE RICHNESS AND GLORY
OF THE
GRACE AND SPIRIT OF THE GOSPEL,
AS SET FORTH IN SCRIPTURE BY THIS TERM, THE WATER OF LIFE.
BY JOHN BUNYAN.
"And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely."--Revelation 22:17
London: Printed for Nathanael Ponder, at the Peac.o.c.k in the Poultry, 1688.
ADVERTIs.e.m.e.nT BY THE EDITOR.
Often, and in every age, the children of G.o.d have dared to doubt the sufficiency of divine grace; whether it was vast enough to reach their condition--to cleanse them from the guilt of all their sins--and to fit their souls to dwell with infinite holiness in the mansions of the blessed. To solve these doubts--to answer these anxious inquiries, Bunyan wrote many of his works; for although he was a Boanerges, or son of thunder, to awaken the impenitent, he was eminently a Barnabas--a son of consolation--an evangelist to direct the trembling inquirer to Christ the way, the truth, and the life. He proclaims first, from his own experience, that there is "Grace abounding to the Chief of Sinners"; then he proclaims "Good News for the Vilest of Men, the Jerusalem Sinner is Saved"--"Christ is an Advocate"--"Christ is a complete Saviour."
Every one is invited with a "Come and welcome to Jesus Christ."
There is "Justification by his Righteousness"--"Salvation by his Grace." "He is a Throne of Grace" to which all are freely invited.
Even "The Broken Heart is an acceptable sacrifice." There is "The Holy City, New Jerusalem," to receive such at the end of their pilgrimage, and directions amply given to the pilgrim to guide him in his progress to the celestial city; and he now introduces us to a majestic overflowing river, "The Water of Life," sufficient for the refreshment and solace of the myriads of G.o.d"s saints who have lived from the creation, and will live until the final consummation of all things, when the prophet in holy vision saw "a great mult.i.tude which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, stand before the throne, and before the Lamb." This work was the result of the author"s mature experience, being published by him during the last year of his eventful life.
In it he refers to one of those ten excellent ma.n.u.scripts left by him at his decease, prepared for the press, and afterwards published by Mr. Doe. It is called, The Saint"s Privilege and Profit. The way in which he alludes to this, as if it had been printed, shows that he had fully determined to publish it shortly, and this, if it was needed, would confirm our confidence in those treatises. He thus refers to it: "Because I have spoken of this thing, more particularly upon that text, "Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace," I shall therefore here say no more."
Two things are rather extraordinary with regard to this valuable treatise on the Water of Life. One is, that although inserted in every list of our author"s works, both published by himself and by his friends after his decease, it escaped the researches of Doe, Wilson, Chandler, Whitfield, and others who collected and published Bunyan"s works, excepting only the edition with Mason"s notes, printed for A. Hogg about 1785. The other singular circ.u.mstance is, that although the separate treatises of Bunyan were all most wretchedly and inaccurately printed, the Water of Life has in this respect suffered more than any other of his works. A modern edition of this book, published at Derby by Thomas Richardson, is, without exception, the most erroneously printed of all books that have come under my notice. The Scriptures are misquoted--words are altered so as to pervert the sense--whole sentences and paragraphs, and even whole pages in three or four places, and, in one instance, four consecutive pages, are left out!!! I should be grieved if more penal enactments were added to our statutes, but surely there should be some punishment for such a crime as this.
The other editions are more reputable, but very incorrect. One of them bears the imprint of "London, for James Bunyan, 1760."
Another has "London, sold by Baxter, Doolittle, & Burkit," evidently fict.i.tious names, adopted from those three great authors. The Pilgrim"s Progress was twice published by D. Bunyan, in Fleet Street, 1763 and 1768; and the Heavenly Footman, "London, sold by J. Bunyan, above the Monument." All these are wretchedly printed, and with cuts that would disgrace an old Christmas carol. Thus the public have been imposed upon, and thus the revered name of Bunyan has been sacrificed to the cupidity of unprincipled men.
Had his works been respectably printed they would have all been very popular and useful, and his memory have been still more venerated.
To attract his readers to come personally, and partake the blessings imparted by the water of life, Bunyan shows that, as a medicine, it alone is the specific to cure the sin-sick soul--all other applications must fail most fatally--"all other remedies come from and return to the Dead Sea"--while the water of life issues from, and leads the soul to, the throne of G.o.d. It cleanseth from the old leaven. The Divine Physician is ever ready to administer to the wearied soul. Be not misled by worldly-wis.e.m.e.n to take advice of the doctor"s boy, but go direct to Jesus; he is ready--he is willing to cure and save to the uttermost. His medicine may be sharp, but merely so as to effect the cure "where bad humours are tough and churlish." "It revives where life is, and gives life where it is not. Take man from this river, and nothing can make him live: let him have this water and nothing can make him die."
The river of water of life allegorically represents the Spirit and grace of G.o.d; thus the truth is mercifully set before us, for "what is more free than water, and what more beneficial and more desirable than life?" Vast and majestic rivers convey but a faint idea of the immensity of Divine grace; in comparison with which "the most mighty mountain dwindles into the least ant"s egg or atom in the world." A stream of grace issued from the same source during the patriarchal dispensation, and then mankind were directed to it by immediate revelation, or by the tradition of their fathers.