The Riches of Bunyan: Selected from His Works. John Bunyan
of affliction. He therefore, in blessing his people, lays his hands across, guiding them wittingly and laying the chiefest blessing on the head of Ephraim, or in that providence that sanctifies affliction. Abel-what to the reason of Eve was he, in comparison with Cain? Rachel called Benjamin the son of her sorrow; but Jacob knew how to give him a better name. Jabez, also, though his mother so called him because, as it seems, she brought him forth with more than ordinary sorrow, was yet more honorable, more godly, than his brethren.
He that has skill to judge of providences aright, has a great ability in him "to comprehend with other saints what is the breadth and length and depth and height;" but he that has no skill as to discerning them, is but a child in his judgment in those high and mysterious things. And hence it is that some shall suck honey out of that at which others tremble, for fear it should poison them. I have often been made to say, "Sorrow is better than laughter, and the house of mourning better than the house of mirth." And I have more often seen that the afflicted are always the best sort of Christians. There is a man never well, never prospering, never but under afflictions, disappointments, and sorrows; why, this man, if he be a Christian, is one of the best of men: "They that go down to the sea, that do business in great waters, they see the works of the Lord and his wonders in the deep."
I do not question but that there are some that are alive who have been able to say the days of affliction have been the best unto them, and who could, if it were lawful, pray that they might always be in affliction, if God would but do to them as he did when his hand was last upon them; for by them he caused his light to shine.
Oh how should we, and how would we were but our eyes awake, stand and wonder at the preservations, the deliverances, the salvations, and benefits with which we are surrounded daily, while so many mighty evils seek daily to swallow us up as the grave!
How many deaths have some been delivered from and saved out of before conversion. Some have fallen into rivers, some into wells, some into the sea, some into the hands of men; yea, they have been justly arraigned and condemned, as the thief upon the cross, but must not die before they were converted. They were preserved in Christ, and called.
II. THE TRINITY
IF in the Godhead there be but one, not three, then the Father, the Son, or the Spirit must needs be that one, if any one only; so then the other two are nothing. Again, if the reality of a being be neither in the Father, Son, nor Spirit, as such, but in the eternal Deity, without consideration of Father Son and Spirit as three, then neither of the three are any thing but notions in us, or manifestations of the Godhead, or nominal distinctions, so related by the word; but if so, then when the Father sent the Son, and the Father and Son the Spirit, one notion sent another one manifestation sent another. This being granted, it unavoidably follows there was no Father to beget a Son, no Son to be sent to save us, no Holy Ghost to be sent to comfort us and to guide us into all the truth of the Father and Son. At most it amounts to hut this: a notion sent a notion, a distinction sent a distinction, or one manifestation sent another. Of this error these are the consequences: we are only to believe in notions and distinctions, when we believe in the Father and the Son; and so shall have no other heaven and glory than notions and nominal distinctions can furnish us withal.
If thou feel thy thoughts begin to wrestle about this truth, and to struggle concerning this, one against another, take heed of admitting such a question, "How can this be?" for here is no room for reason to make it out; here is only room to believe it is a truth. You find not one of the prophets propounding an argument to prove it, but asserting it; they let it lie for faith to take it up and embrace it.
"The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost, be with you all. Amen."
In a word, if you would see it altogether, God's love was the cause why Christ was sent to bleed for sinners. Jesus Christ's bleeding stops the cries of divine justice. God looks upon them as complete in him, and gives them to him as by right of purchase. Jesus ever lives to pray for them that are thus given unto him. God sends his Holy Spirit into them to reveal this to them, sends his angels to minister for them, and all this by virtue of an everlasting covenant between the Father and the Son. "Happy the people that are in such a case." He hath made them brethren with Jesus Christ, members of his flesh and of his bones, the spouse of this Lord Jesus; and all to show how dearly, really, and constantly he loveth us who by the faith of his operation have laid hold upon him.
The doctrine of the Trinity! that is the substance, that is the ground and fundamental of all, for by this doctrine and this only the man is made a Christian; and he that has not this doctrine, his profession is not worth a button.
You must know that sometimes the church in the wilderness has but little light, hut the diminution of her light is not then so much in or as to substantials, as it is as to circumstantial things; she has then the substantials with her in her darkest day.
The doctrine of the Trinity! you may ask me what that is? I answer, it is that doctrine that showeth us the love of God the Father in giving his Son, the love of God the Son in giving himself, and the love of the Lord the Spirit in his work of regenerating us, that we may be made able to lay hold of the love of the Father by his Son, and so enjoy eternal life by grace.
The Father's grace saveth no man without the grace of the Son, neither do the Father and the Son save any without the grace of the Spirit; for as the Father loves, the Son must die, and the Spirit must sanctify, or no soul must be saved.
Some think that the love of the Father, without the blood of the Son, will save them; but they are deceived, "for without shedding of blood is no remission."
Some think that the love of the Father and blood of the Son will do, without the holiness of the Spirit of God; but they are deceived also, for "if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his."
There is a third sort, that think the holiness of the Spirit is sufficient of itself; but they are deceived also, for it must be the grace of the Father, the grace of the Son, and the grace of the Spirit, jointly, that must save them.
But yet, as these three do put forth grace jointly and truly in the salvation of a sinner, so they put it forth after a diverse manner. The Father designs us for heaven, the Son redeems from sin and death, and the Spirit makes us meet for heaven: not by electing, that is the work of the Father; not by dying, that is the work of the Son; but by his revealing Christ, and applying Christ to our souls, by shedding the love of God abroad in our hearts, by sanctifying our souls, and taking possession of us as an earnest of our possession in heaven.
III. THE SCRIPTURES.
THE Scriptures carry such a blessed beauty in them to that soul that has faith in the things contained in them, that they do take the heart and captivate the soul of him that believeth them into the love and liking of them, believing all things that are written in the law and the prophets, and having hope towards God that there shall be a resurrection of the dead both of the just and unjust.
To him that believes the Scriptures aright, the promises or threatenings are of more power to comfort or cast down, than all the promises or threatenings of all the men in the world; and this was the cause why the martyrs of Jesus did so slight both the promises of their adversaries when they would have overcome them with proffering the great things of this world unto them, and also their threatenings when they told them they would rack them, hang them, burn them. None of these things could prevail upon them or against them.
I never had in all my life so great an inlet into the word of God as now, [in prison.] Those scriptures that I saw nothing in before, were made in this place and state to shine upon me. Jesus Christ also was never more real and apparent than now. Here I have seen and felt him indeed: O that word, "We have not preached unto you cunningly devised fables," and that, "God raised Christ from the dead and gave him glory,