Works of John Bunyan — Complete. John Bunyan
trade, will be more vigilant in dealing with a twelvepenny customer than they will be with Christ when He comes to make unto them, by the gospel, a tender of the incomparable grace of God. Hence they are called fools, because a price is put into their hands to get wisdom, and they have no heart unto it (Prov 18:16). And hence, again, it is that that bitter complaint is made, 'But My people would not hearken to my voice; and Israel would none of Me' (Psa 81:11). Now, these things being found, as practised by the souls of sinners, must needs, after a wonderful manner, provoke; wherefore, no marvel that the heavens are bid to be astonished at this, and that damnation shall seize upon the soul for this (Jer 2).
And indeed, the soul that doth thus by practice, though with his mouth—as who doth not? he shall show much love, he doth, interpretatively, say these things:—
(1.) That he loveth sin better than grace, and darkness better than light, even as our Lord Jesus Christ hath showed, 'And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness more than light (as is manifest), because their deeds were evil' (John 3:19).
(2.) They do, also, by their thus rejecting of Christ and grace, say, that for what the law can do to them, they value it not; they regard not its thundering threatenings, nor will they shrink when they come to endure the execution thereof; wherefore God, to deter them from such bold and desperate ways, that do, interpretatively, fully declare that they make such desperate conclusions, insinuates that the burden of the curse thereof is intolerable, saying, 'Can thine heart endure, or can thine hands be strong, in the days that I shall deal with thee? I, the Lord, have spoken it, and will do it' (Eze 22:14).
(3.) Yea, by their thus doing, they do as good as say that they will run the hazard of a sentence of death at the day of judgment, and that they will, in the meantime, join issue, and stand a trial at that day with the great and terrible God. What else means their not hearkening to Him, their despising of His Son, and the rejecting of His grace; yea I say again, what else means their slighting of the curse of the law, and their choosing to abide in their sins till the day of death and judgment? And thus I have showed you the causes of the loss of the soul; and, assuredly, these things are no fables.
Objection. But some may object, and say, But you denounce all against the soul; the soul, as if the body were in no fault at all; or, as if there were no punishment assigned for the body.
Answer 1. The soul must be the part punished, because the soul is that which sins. 'Every sin that a man doeth is without the body,' fornication or adultery excepted (1 Cor 6:18). 'Is without the body; that is, as to the wilily inventing, contriving, and finding out ways to bring the motions of sin into action. For, alas! What can the body do as to these? It is in a manner wholly passive; yea, altogether as to the lusting and purposing to do the wickedness, excepting the sin before excepted; ay, and not excepting that, as to the rise of that sin; for even that, with all the rest, ariseth and proceedeth out of the heart—the soul; 'For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness: all these evil things come from within, and defile the man' (Mark 7:21–23). That is, the outward man. But a difference must always be put betwixt defiling and being defiled, that which defileth being the worst; not but that the body shall have its share of judgment, for body and soul must be destroyed in hell (Luke 12:4,5; Matt 10:28). The body as the instrument, the soul as the actor; but oh! the soul, the soul, the soul is the sinner; and, therefore, the soul, as the principal, must be punished.
And that God's indignation burneth most against the soul appears in that death hath seized upon every soul already; for the Scripture saith, that every natural or unconverted man is dead (Eph 2:1–3). Dead! How? Is his body dead? No, verily; his body liveth, but his soul is dead (1 Tim 5:6). Dead! But with what death? Dead to God, and to all things gospelly good, by reason of that benumbing, stupifying, and senselessness, that, by God's just judgment for and by sin, hath swallowed up the soul. Yea, if you observe, you shall see that the soul goeth first, or before, in punishment, not only by what has been said already, in that the soul is first made a partaker of death, but in that God first deals with the soul by convictions, yea, and terrors, perhaps, while the body is well; or, in that He giveth up the soul to judicial hardness and further blindness, while He leaveth the body to do His office in the world; yea, and also when the day of death and dissolution is come, the body is spared, while the soul is tormented in unutterable torment in hell. And so, I say, it shall be spared, and the clods of the valley shall be sweet unto it, while the soul mourneth in hell for sin. It is true, at the day of judgment, because that is the last and final judgment of God on men, then the body and soul shall be re-united, or joined together again, and shall then, together, partake of that recompence for their wickedness which is meet. When I say, the body is spared and the soul tormented, I mean not that the body is not then, at death, made to partake of the wages of sin, 'for the wages of sin is death' (Rom 3:23). But I mean, the body partakes then but of temporal death, which, as to sense and feeling, is sometimes over presently, and then resteth in the grave, while the soul is tormenting in hell. Yea, and why is death suffered to slay the body? I dare say, not chiefly for that the indignation of God most burneth against the body; but the body being the house for the soul in this world, God even pulls down this body, that the soul may be stript naked, and being stript, may be carried to prison, to the place where damned souls are, there to suffer in the beginning of suffering, that punishment that will be endless.
Answer 2. Therefore, the soul must be the part most sorely punished, because justice must be distributed with equity. God is a God of knowledge and judgment; by Him actions are weighed; actions in order to judgment (1 Sam 2). Now, by weighing of actions, since He finds the soul to have the deepest hand in sin; and He says that He hath so, of equity the soul is to bear the burden of punishment. 'Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right' in His famous distributing of judgment? (Gen 18:25). 'He will not lay upon man more than right, that he should enter into judgment with God' (Job 34:23). The soul, since deepest in sin, shall also be deepest in punishment. 'Shall one man sin,' said Moses, 'and wilt Thou be wroth with all the congregation?' (Num 1:22). He pleads here for equity in God's distributing of judgment; yea, and so exact is God in the distribution thereof, that He will not punish heathens so as He will punish Jews; wherefore He saith, 'Of the Jew first,' or chiefly, 'and also of the Gentile' (Rom 2:9). Yea, in hell He has prepared several degrees of punishment for the several sorts or degrees of offenders; And some 'shall receive greater damnation' (Luke 22:47). And will it not be unmeet for us to think, since God is so elect in all His doings, that He will, without His weights and measures, give to soul and body, as I may say, carelessly, not severally, their punishments, according to the desert and merit of each?
Answer 3. The punishment of the soul in hell must needs, to be sure, as to degree, differ from the punishment of the body there. When I say, differ, I mean, must needs be greater, whether the body be punished with the same fire with the soul, or fire of another nature. If it be punished with the same fire, yet not in the same way; for the fire of guilt, with the apprehensions of indignation and wrath, are most properly felt and apprehended by the soul, and by the body by virtue of its union with the soul; and so felt by the body, if not only, yet, I think, mostly, by way of sympathy with the soul; and the cause, we say, is worse than the disease; and if the wrath of God, and the apprehensions of it, as discharging itself for sin, and the breach of the law, be that with which the soul is punished, as sure it is: then the body is punished by the effects, or by those influences that the soul, in its torments, has upon the body, by virtue of that great oneness and union that is between them.
But if there be a punishment prepared for the body distinct in kind from that which is prepared for the soul, yet it must be a punishment inferior to that which is prepared for the soul; not that the soul and body shall be severed, but being made of things distinct, their punishments will be by that which is most suitable to each. I say, it must be inferior, because nothing can be so hot, so tormenting, so intolerably insupportable, as the quickest apprehensions of, and the immediate sinking under, that guilt and indignation that is proportional to the offence. Should all the wood, and brimstone, and combustible matter on earth be gathered together for the tormenting of one body, yet that cannot yield that torment to that which the sense of guilt and burning-hot application of the indignation of God will do to the soul; yea, suppose the fire wherewith the body is tormented