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Books: The Works of John Bunyan Volume 1

J >> John Bunyan >> The Works of John Bunyan Volume 1




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 God 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 glass, 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
hell-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 multitude, 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 compassion 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 illustration is this of the Slough of Despond,
into which Christian and Pliable fell in 'The Pilgrim's Progress.'--Ed.

34 This illustrates 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 God, 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 God, '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 antitype--the
Son of God.--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 God, but
because they never repent of that sin, and never seek to God 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.

ADVERTISEMENT 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 glass of God's
Word, the inconceivableness of its value, while progressing through
time; and, aided by the same wondrous glass, he penetrates the
eternal world, unveils the joys of heaven and the torments of hell--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 God. 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 illustration 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 damn 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?

2. Because I perceive that this so great a thing, and about which
persons should be so much concerned, is neglected to amazement, and
that by the most of men; yea, who is there of the many thousands
that sit daily under the sound of the gospel that are concerned,
heartily concerned, about the salvation of their souls?--that is,
concerned, I say, as the nature of the thing requireth. If ever
a lamentation was fit to be taken up in this age about, for, or
concerning anything, it is about, for, and concerning the horrid
neglect that everywhere puts forth itself with reference to salvation.
Where is one man in a thousand--yea, where is there two of ten
thousand that do show by their conversation, public and private,
that the soul, their own souls, are considered by them, and that
they are taking that care for the salvation of them as becomes
them--to wit, as the weight of the work, and the nature of salvation
requireth?

3. I have therefore pitched upon this text at this time; to see,
if peradventure the discourse which God shall help me to make upon
it, will awaken you, rouse you off your beds of ease, security, and
pleasure, and fetch you down upon your knees before Him, to beg of
Him grace to be concerned about the salvation of your souls. And
then, in the last place, I have taken upon me to do this, that
I may deliver, if not you, yet myself, and that I may be clear of
your blood, and stand quit, as to you, before God, when you shall,
for neglect, be damned, and wail to consider that you have lost
your souls. 'When I say,' saith God, 'unto the wicked, Thou shalt
surely die; and thou,' the prophet or preacher, 'givest him not
warning, nor speakest to warn the wicked from his wicked way, to
save his life; the same wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but
his blood will I require at thine hand. Yet if thou warn the wicked,
and he turn not front his wickedness, nor from his wicked way, he
shall die in his iniquity; but thou hast delivered thy soul' (Eze
3:18, 19).

'Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?'

In my handling of these words, I shall first speak to the occasion
of them, and then to the words themselves.

The occasion of the words was, for that the people that now were
auditors to the Lord Jesus, and that followed him, did it without
that consideration as becomes so great a work--that is, the generality
of them that followed Him were not for considering first with
themselves, what it was to profess Christ, and what that profession
might cost them.

'And when he had called the people unto him,' the great multitude
that went with him (Luke14:25) 'with his disciples also, he said
unto them, 'Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself,
and take up his cross, and follow me (Mark 8:34). Let him first sit
down and count up the cost, and the charge he is like to be at, if
he follows me. For following of me is not like following of some
other masters. The wind sits always on my face, and the foaming rage
of the sea of this world, and the proud and lofty waves thereof,
do continually beat upon the sides of the bark of the ship that
myself, my cause, and my followers are in; he therefore that will
not run hazards, and that is afraid to venture a drowning, let him
not set foot into this vessel. So whosever doth not bear his cross,
and come after me, he cannot be my disciple. For which of you,
intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first and counteth
the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it (Luke 14:27-29).

True, to reason, this kind of language tends to cast water upon
weak and beginning desires, but to faith, it makes the things set
before us, and the greatness, and the glory of them, more apparently
excellent and desirable. Reason will say, Then who will profess
Christ that hath such coarse entertainment at the beginning? but
faith will say, Then surely the things that are at the end of a
Christian's race in this world must needs be unspeakably glorious;
since whoever hath had but the knowledge and due consideration of
them, have not stuck to run hazards, hazards of every kind, that
they might embrace and enjoy them. Yea, saith faith, it must needs
be so, since the Son himself, that best knew what they were, even,
'for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising
the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God'
(Heb 12:2).

But, I say, there is not in every man this knowledge of things and
so by consequence not such consideration as can make the cross and
self-denial acceptable to them for the sake of Christ, and of the
things that are where He now sitteth at the right hand of God (Col
3:2-4). Therefore our Lord Jesus doth even at the beginning give
to His followers this instruction. And lest any of them should take
distaste at His saying, He presenteth them with the consideration
of three things together--namely, the cross, the loss of life, and
the soul; and then reasoneth with them from the same, saying, Here
is the cross, the life, and the soul.

1. The cross, and that you must take up, if you will follow Me.

2. The life, and that you may save for a time, if you cast Me off.

3. And the soul, which will everlastingly perish if you come not
to Me, and abide not with Me.

Now consider what is best to be done. Will you take up the cross,
come after Me, and so preserve your souls from perishing? or will
you shun the cross to save your lives, and so run the danger of
eternal damnation? Or, as you have it in John, will you love your
life till you lose it? or will you hate your life, and save it? 'He
that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in
this world shall keep it unto life eternal' (John 12:25). As who
should say, He that loveth a temporal life, he that so loveth it,
as to shun the profession of Christ to save it, shall lose it upon
a worse account, than if he had lost it for Christ and the gospel;
but he that will set light by it, for the love that he hath to
Christ, shall keep it unto life eternal.

Christ having thus discoursed with His followers about their denying
of themselves, their taking up their cross and following of Him,
doth, in the next place, put the question to them, and so leaveth
it upon them for ever, saying, 'For what shall it profit a man, if
he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?' (Mark 8:36).
As who should say, I have bid you take heed that you do not lightly,
and without due consideration, enter into a profession of Me and
of My gospel; for he that without due consideration shall begin to
profess Christ, will also without it forsake Him, turn from Him, and
cast Him behind his back; and since I have even at the beginning,
laid the consideration of the cross before you, it is because you
should not be surprised and overtaken by it unawares, and because
you should know that to draw back from Me after you have laid your
hand to My plough, will make you unfit for the kingdom of heaven
(Luke 9:62).

Now, since this is so, there is no less lies at stake than salvation,
and salvation is worth all the world, yea, worth ten thousand
worlds, if there should be so many. And since this is so also, it
will be your wisdom to begin to profess the gospel with expectation
of the cross and tribulation, for to that are my gospellers1 in
this world appointed (James 1:12; 1 Thess 3:3). And if you begin
thus, and hold it, the kingdom and crown shall be yours; for as God
counteth it a righteous thing to recompense tribulation to them
that trouble you, so to you who are troubled and endure it, for 'we
count them happy,' says James, 'that endure,' (James 5:11), rest
with saints, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with
His mighty angels in flaming fire, to take vengeance on them that
know not God, and that obey not the gospel, etc. (2 Thess 1:7, 8).
And if no less lies at stake than salvation, then is a man's soul
and his all at the stake; and if it be so, what will it profit
a man if, by forsaking of Me, he should get the whole world? 'For
what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and
lose his own soul?'

Having thus laid the soul in one balance, and the world in the
other, and affirmed that the soul out-bids the whole world, and is
incomparably for value and worth beyond it; in the next place, he
descends to a second question, which is that I have chosen at this
time for my text, saying, 'Or what shall a man give in exchange
for his soul?'

In these words, we have first a supposition, and such an one as
standeth upon a double bottom. The supposition is this--That the
soul is capable of being lost; or thus--'Tis possible for a man to
lose his soul. The double bottom that this supposition is grounded
upon is, first, a man's ignorance of the worth of his soul, and of
the danger that it is in; and the second is, for that men commonly
do set a higher price upon present ease and enjoyments than they
do upon eternal salvation. The last of these doth naturally follow
upon the first; for if men be ignorant of the value and worth
of their souls, as by Christ in the verse before is implied, what
should hinder but that men should set a higher esteem upon that
with which their carnal desires are taken, than upon that about
which they are not concerned, and of which they know not the worth.

But again, as this by the text is clearly supposed, so to here is
also something implied; namely, that it is impossible to possess
some men with the worth of their souls until they are utterly and
everlastingly lost. 'What shall a man give in exchange for his soul?'
That is, men when their souls are lost, and shut down under the
hatches in the pits and hells in endless perdition and destruction,
then they will see the worth of their souls, then they will consider
what they have lost, and truly not till then. This is plain, not
only to sense, but by the natural scope of the words, 'What shall
a man give in exchange for his soul?' Or what would not those that
are now for sin, made to see themselves lost, by the light of hell
fire--for some will never be convinced that they are lost till, with
rich Dives, they see it in the light of hell flames (Luke 16:22,
23). I say, what would not such, if they had it, give in exchange
for their immortal souls, or to recover them again from that place
and torment?2

I shall observe two truths in the words.

The first is, That the loss of the soul is the highest, the greatest
loss--a loss that can never be repaired or made up. 'What shall a
man give in exchange for his soul?'--that is, to recover or redeem
his lost soul to liberty?

The second truth is this, That how unconcerned and careless soever
some now be, about the loss or salvation of their souls, yet the day
is coming; but it will then be too late, when men will be willing,
had they never so much, to give it all in exchange for their souls.
For so the question implies--'What will a man give in exchange for
his soul?' What would he not give? What would he not part with at
that day, the day in which he will see himself damned, if he had
it, in exchange for his soul?

The first observation, or truth, drawn from the words is cleared by
the text, 'What shall a man give in exchange for his soul?'--that
is, there is not anything, nor all the things under heaven, were
they all in one man's hand, and all at his disposal, that would
go in exchange for the soul, that would be of value to fetch back
one lost soul, or that would certainly recover it from the confines
of hell. 'The redemption of their soul is precious, and it ceaseth
for ever' (Psa 49:8). And what saith the words before the text but
the same--'For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the
whole world, and lose his own soul?' What shall profit a man that
has lost his soul? Nothing at all, though he hath by that loss gained
the whole world; for all the world is not worth a sou1, not worth
a soul in the eye of God and judgment of the law. And it is from
this consideration that good Elihu cautioneth Job to take heed,
'Because there is wrath,' saith he, 'beware lest He take thee away
with His stroke: then a great ransom cannot deliver thee. Will He
esteem thy riches? no, not gold, nor all the forces of strength'
(Job 36:18,19). Riches and power, what is there more in the world?
for money answereth all things--that is, all but soul concerns.
It can neither be a price for souls while here, nor can that, with
all the forces of strength, recover one out of hell fire.

DOCTRINE FIRST.

So then, the first truth drawn from the words stands firm--namely,

That the loss of the soul is the highest, the greatest loss; a loss
that can never be repaired or made up.

In my discourse upon this subject, I shall observe this method:--

FIRST, I shall show you what the soul is.

SECOND, I shall show you the greatness of it.

THIRD, I shall show you what it is to lose the soul.

FOURTH, I shall show you the cause for which men lose their souls;
and by this time the greatness of the loss will be manifest.

[WHAT THE SOUL IS.]

FIRST, I shall show you what the soul is, both as to the various
names it goes under, as also, by describing of it by its powers
and properties, though in all I shall be but brief, for I intend
no long discourse.3

[Names of the Soul.]

1. The soul is often called the heart of man, or that, in and by
which things to either good or evil, have their rise; thus desires
are of the heart or soul; yea, before desires, the first conception
of good or evil is in the soul, the heart. The heart understands,
wills, affects, reasons, judges, but these are the faculties of
the soul; wherefore, heart and soul are often taken for one and
the same. 'My son, give me thine heart' (Prov 23:26). 'Out of the
heart proceed evil thoughts,' etc. (Matt 15:19; 1 Peter 3:15; Psa
26:2).

2. The soul of man is often called the spirit of a man; because it
not only giveth being, but life to all things and actions in and
done by him. Hence soul and spirit are put together, as to the
same notion. 'With my soul have I desired thee in the night; yea,
with my spirit within me will I seek thee early' (Isa 26:9). When
he saith, 'Yea, with my spirit--will I seek thee,' he explaineth
not only with what kind of desires he desired God, but with what
principal matter his desires were brought forth. It was with my
soul, saith he; to wit, with my spirit within me. So that of Mary,
'My soul,' saith she, 'doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath
rejoiced in God my Saviour' (Luke 1:46,47). Not that soul and
spirit are, in this place, to be taken for two superior powers in
man; but the same great soul is here put under two names, or terms,
to show that it was the principal part in Mary; to wit, her soul,
that magnified God, even that part that could spirit and put life
into her whole self to do it. Indeed, sometimes spirit is not taken
so largely, but is confined to some one power or faculty of the soul,
as 'the spirit of my understanding,' (Job 20:3) 'and be renewed in
the spirit of your mind.' And sometime by spirit we are to understand
other things; but many times by spirit we must understand the soul,
and also by soul the spirit.