John Lothrop Motley - "History of the United Netherlands, 1592"

Anthony Trollope - "John Bull on the Guadalquivir from Tales from all Countries"

Emile Zola - "The Three Cities Trilogy: Paris, Vol. 5"

Thucydides - "The History of the Peloponnesian War"

New Philadelphia Book Publisher Highlights Local Talent
Book and Publishing News from Publishers Newswire(tm)

Looking for Child to be on Cover of a New Book, 'The Model Child'
PHILADELPHIA, Pa. -- The Philadelphia literary world will celebrate the launch of two new players today, April 10th: Kay Square Press, a new publishing company focused on Philadelphia-area artists, their stories, and their art; and Kay Square's first release, 'With the Rich and Mighty: Emlen Etting of Philadelphia' (ISBN: 978-0-9815129-0-7), a critical biography by Kenneth C. Kaleta.

FlatSigned Press Alleges Don Imus Remarks Damage Legacy of President Gerald R. Ford
NEW YORK, N.Y. -- Nathan Yungerberg, an accomplished model scout and professional child photographer is launching a nation-wide casting call to find the cover model for his highly anticipated book release, 'The Model Child: A Parents Guide to the Child Modeling Industry' (ISBN: 978-0-9817018-0-6).

Books: The Works of John Bunyan Volume 1

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




The Father, as we see, will not forgive unless we come to him by
the Son. Why, then, should we conceit that the Son will forgive
these that come not to the Father by him?

So then, justifying righteousness is in the Son, and with him also
is intercession; but forgiveness is with the Father; yea, the gift
of the Holy Ghost, yea, and the power of imputing of the righteousness
of Christ is yet in the hand of the Father. Hence Christ prays
to the Father to forgive, prays to the Father to send the Spirit,
and it is God that imputeth righteousness to justification to us.
(Luke 23:34, John 14:16, Rom 4:6) The Father, then, doth nothing
but for the sake of and through the Son; the Son also doth nothing
derogating from the glory of the Father. But it would be a derogation
to the glory of the Father if the Son should grant to save them
that come not to the Father by him; wherefore you that cry Christ,
Christ, delighting yourselves in the thoughts of forgiveness, but
care not to come by Christ to the Father for it, you are not at all
concerned in this blessed text, for he only saves by his intercession
them that come to God by him.

There are three sorts of people that may be said to come to Christ,
but not to God by him.

1. They whose utmost design in coming is only that guilt and fear
of damning may be removed from them. And there are three signs of
such an one--(1.) He that takes up in a belief of pardon, and so
goes on in his course of carnality as he did before. (2.) He whose
comfort in the belief of pardon standeth alone, without other
fruits of the Holy Ghost. (3.) He that, having been washed, can
be content to tumble in the mire, as the sow again, or as the dog
that did spue to lick up his vomit again.

2. They may be said to come to Christ, but not to God by him, who
do pick and choose doctrines, itching only after that which sounds
of grace,12 but secretly abhorring of that which presseth to moral
goodness. These did never see God, what notions soever they may
have of the Lord Jesus, and of forgiveness from him. (Matt 5:8)

3. They surely did never come to God by Christ, however they may
boast of the grace of Christ, that will from the freeness of gospel
grace plead an indulgence for sin.

[Manner of coming to God.]--And now to speak a few words of coming
to God, or coming as the text intends. And in speaking to this, I
must touch upon two things--1. Concerning God. 2. Concerning the
frame of the heart of him that comes to him.

1. Of God. God is the chief good. Good so as nothing is but himself.
He is in himself most happy; yea, all good; and all true happiness
is only to be found in God, as that which is essential to his nature;
nor is there any good or any happiness in or with any creature
or thing but what is communicated to it by God. God is the only
desirable good, nothing without him is worthy of our hearts. Right
thoughts of God are able to ravish the heart; how much more happy
is the man that has interest in God. God alone is able by himself to
put the soul into a more blessed, comfortable, and happy condition
than can the whole world; yea, and more than if all the created
happiness of all the angels of heaven did dwell in one man's bosom.
God is the upholder of all creatures, and whatever they have that
is a suitable good to their kind, it is from God; by God all things
have their subsistence, and all the good that they enjoy. I cannot
tell what to say; I am drowned! The life, the glory, the blessedness,
the soul-satisfying goodness that is in God is beyond all expression.

2. Now there must be in us something of a suitableness of spirit
to this God before we can be willing to come to him.

Before, therefore, God has been with a man, and has left some
impression of his glory upon him, that man cannot be willing to
come to him aright. Hence it is said concerning Abraham, that, in
order to his coming to God, and following of him aright, the Lord
himself did show himself unto him--'Men, brethren, and fathers,
hearken; The God of glory appeared unto our father Abraham, when
he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Charran, and said unto
him, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and come
into the land which I shall show thee.' (Acts 7:2,3, Gen 12:1)

It was this God of glory, the sight and visions of this God
of glory, that provoked Abraham to leave his country and kindred
to come after God. The reason why men are so careless of, and
so indifferent about, their coming to God, is because they have
their eyes blinded, because they do not perceive his glory. God is
so blessed a one, that did he not hide himself and his glory, the
whole world would be ravished with him. But he has, I will not
say reasons of state, but reasons of glory, glorious reasons why
he hideth himself from the world, and appeareth but to particular
ones. Now by his thus appearing to Abraham, down fell Abraham's
vanity, and his idolatrous fancies and affections, and his heart
began to turn unto God, for that there was in this appearance an
alluring and soul-instructing voice. Hence that which Moses calls
here an appearing, Christ calls a hearing, and a teaching, and a
learning--'It is written in the prophets, And they shall be all taught
of God. Every man, therefore, that hath heard and hath learned of
the Father, cometh unto me,' that is, to God by me. But, I say, what
must they hear and learn of the Father but that Christ is the way
to glory, the way to the God of glory. This is a drawing doctrine;
wherefore that which in this verse is called teaching and learning,
is called, in the verse before, the drawing of the Father--'No
man can come to me except the Father which hath sent me draw him';
that is, with powerful proposals, and alluring conclusions, and
heart-subduing influences. (John 6:44,45)

Having thus touched upon this, we will now proceed to show you
what kind of people they are that come to God by Christ; and then
shall draw some inferences from this also.

[Who are the people that come to Christ.]

There are, therefore, three sorts of people that come to God
by Christ. First, Men newly awakened. Second, Men turned from
backsliding. Third, The sincere and upright man.

[Of the newly awakened coming to Christ.]

First, Men newly awakened. By awakened, I mean awakened thoroughly.
So awakened as to be made to see themselves, what they are; the
world, what it is; the law, what it is; hell, what it is; death,
what it is; Christ, what he is; and God, what he is; and also what
judgment is.

A man that will come to God by Christ aright must needs, precedent
to his so coming, have a competent knowledge of things of this
kind.

1. He must know himself, what a wretched and miserable sinner he
is, before he will take one step forward in order to his coming
to God by Christ. This is plain from a great many scriptures; as
that of the parable of the prodigal, (Luke 15); that of the three
thousand, (Acts 2); that of the jailer, (Acts 16), and those of
many more besides. The whole have no need of the physician. They
were not the sound and whole, but the lame and diseased that came
to him to be cured of their infirmities; and it is not the righteous,
but the sinners that do well know themselves to be such, that come
to God by Christ.

It is not in the power of all the men on earth to make one man come
to God by Christ, because it is not in their power to make men see
their state by nature. And what should a man come to God for, that
can live in the world without him? Reason says so, experience says
so, the Scripture beareth witness that so it is of a truth. It is
a sight of what I am that must unroost me, that must shake my soul,
and make me leave my present rest. No man comes to God by Christ
but he that knows himself, and what sin hath done to him; that is
the first. (Job 21:7-15)

2. As he must know himself, and what a wretch he is, so he must
know the world, and what an empty thing it is. Cain did see himself,
but saw not the emptiness of this world; and therefore instead of
going to God by Christ, he went to the world, and there did take
up to his dying day. (Gen 4:16) The world is a great snare to the
soul, even to the souls of awakened sinners, by reason of its big
looks, and the fair promises that it makes to those that will please
to entertain it. It will also make as though it could do as much
to the quieting of the spirit as either sermon, Bible, or preacher.
Yea, and it has its followers ready at its heels continually to blow
its applause abroad, saying, 'Who will show us any [other] good?'
(Psa 4:6) and though 'this their way is their folly: yet their
posterity approve their sayings.' (Psa 49:13) So that unless a man,
under some awakenings, sees the emptiness of the world, he will
take up in the good things thereof, and not come to God by Christ.
Many there be now in hell that can seal to this for truth. It was
the world that took awakened Cain, awakened Judas, awakened Demas.
Yea, Balaam, though he had some kind of visions of God, yet was kept
by the world from coming to him aright. See with what earnestness
the young man in the gospel came to Jesus Christ, and that for
eternal life. He ran to him, he kneeled down to him, and asked, and
that before a multitude, 'Good master, what shall I do that I may
inherit eternal life?' (Mark 10:17-24) And yet when he was told he
could not come, the world soon stepped betwixt that life and him,
and persuaded him to take up in itself; and so, for aught we know,
he never looked after life more.

There are four things in the world that have a tendency to lull an
awakened man asleep, if God also makes him not afraid of the world.

(1.) There is the bustle and cumber of the world, that will call
a man off from looking after the salvation of his soul. This is
intimated by the parable of the thorny ground. (Luke 8:14) Worldly
cumber is a devilish thing; it will hurry a man from his bed without
prayer; to a sermon, and from it again, without prayer; it will
choke prayer, it will choke the Word, it will choke convictions,
it will choke the soul, and cause that awakening shall be to no
saving purpose.

(2.) There is the friendship of this world, to which, if a man is
not mortified, there is no coming for him to God by Christ. And a
man can never be mortified to it unless he shall see the emptiness
and vanity of it. Whosoever makes himself a friend of this world
is the enemy of God. And how, then, can he come to him by Christ?
(James 4:4)

(3.) There are the terrors of the world, if a man stands in fear
of them, he also will not come to God by Christ. The fear of man
brings a snare. How many have, in all ages, been kept from coming
to God aright by the terrors of the world? Yea, how many are there
to one's thinking have almost got to the gates of heaven, and have
been scared and driven quite back again by nothing but the terrors
of this world? This is that which Christ so cautioneth his disciples
about, for he knew it was a deadly thing. Peter also bids the
saints beware of this as of a thing very destructive. (Luke 12:4-6,
1 Peter 3:14,15)

(4.) There is also the glory of the world, an absolute hindrance
to convictions and awakenings, to wit, honours, and greatness,
and preferments: 'How can ye believe,' said Christ, 'which receive
honour one of another, and seek not the honour that cometh from
God only.' (John 5:44) If therefore a man is not in his affections
crucified to these, it will keep him from coming to God aright.

3. As a man must know himself, how vile he is, and know the world,
how empty it is, so he must know the law, how severe it is; else
he will not come to God by Jesus Christ our Lord.

A man that is under awakenings, is under a double danger of falling
short of coming to God by Christ. If he knows not the severity of
the law, he is either in danger of slighting its penalty, or of
seeking to make amends to it by doing of good works; and nothing
can keep him from splitting his soul upon one of these two rocks,
but a sound knowledge of the severity of the law.

(1.) He is in danger of slighting the penalty. This is seen by the
practice of all the profane in the world. Do they not know the law?
Verily, many of them can say the Ten Commandments without book.
But they do not know the severity of the law; and therefore when
at any time awakenings come upon their consciences, they strive
to drive away the guilt of one sin, by wallowing in the filth of
another.

But would they do thus if they knew the severity of the law?
they would as soon eat fire. The severity of the law would be an
intolerable, insupportable burden to their consciences; it would
drive them, and make them fly for refuge, to lay hold on the hope
set before them.

(2.) Or if he slights not the penalty, he will seek to make amends
to it by doing of good works for the sins he has committed. This
is manifest by the practice of the Jews and Turks, and all that
swerve on that hand--to wit, to seek life and happiness by the law.
Paul also was here before he meet with Jesus in the way. This is
natural to consciences that are awakened, unless also they have given
to them to see the true severity of the law; the which that thou
mayest do, if my mite will help, I will cast in for thy conviction
these four things--

(a.) The law charges thee with its curse, as well for the pollution
of thy nature, as for the defilements of thy life; yea, and if
thou hadst never committed sinful act, thy pollution of nature must
stand in thy way to life, if thou comest not to God for mercy by
Christ.

(b.) The law takes notice of, and chargeth thee with its curse,
as well for sinful thoughts as for vile and sinful actions. 'The
[very] thought of foolishness is sin,' (Prov 24:9), though it never
breaks out into act, and will as surely merit the damnation of the
soul as will the greatest transgression in the world.

(c.) If now thou couldst keep all the commandments, that will do
thee no good at all, because thou hast sinned first: 'The soul that
sinneth shall die.' Unless, then, thou canst endure the curse, and
so in a legal way overcome it for the sins that thou hast committed,
thou art gone, if thou comest not to God by Christ for mercy and
pardon.

(d.) And never think of repentance, thereby to stop the mouth of
the law; for the law calleth not for repentance, but life; nor will
it accept of any, shouldst thou mourn and weep for thy sins till
thou hast made a sea of blood with tears. This, I say, thou must
know, or thou wilt not come to God by Christ for life. For the
knowledge of this will cause that thou shalt neither slight the
severity of the law, nor trust to the works thereof for life. Now,
when thou doest neither of these, thou canst not but speed thee to
God by Christ for life; for now thou hast no stay; pleasures are
gone, all hope in thyself is gone. Thou now diest, and that is the
way to love; for this inward death is, or feels like, a hunger-bitten
stomach, that cannot but crave and gape for meat and drink. Now it
will be as possible for thee to sleep with thy finger in the fire,
as to forbear craving of mercy so long as this knowledge remains.

4. As a man must know himself, the emptiness of this world, and
the law, so it is necessary for him to know that there is a hell,
and how insupportable the torments of it are; for all threatenings,
curses, and determinations to punish in the next world will prove
but fictions and scarecrows, if there be no woeful place, no woeful
state, for the sinner to receive his wages in for sin, when his days
are ended in this world. Wherefore, this word 'saved' supposeth
such a place and state. He is able to save from hell, from the
woeful place, from the woeful state of hell, them that come unto
God by him.

Christ, therefore, often insinuated the truth of a hell in his
invitations to the sinners of this world to come to him; as where
he tells them they shall be saved if they do, they shall be damned
if they do not. As if he had said, there is a hell, a terrible
hell, and they that come to me I will save them from it; but they
that come not, the law will damn them in it. Therefore, that thou
mayest indeed come to God by Christ for mercy, believe there is a
hell, a woeful, terrible place. Hell is God's creature, 'he hath
made it deep and large'! The punishments are by the lashes of his
wrath, which will issue from his mouth like a stream of burning
brimstone, ever kindling itself upon the soul. (Isa 30:33) Thou
must know this by the Word, and fly from it, or thou shalt know it
by thy sins, and lie and cry in it.

I might enlarge, but if I did, I should be swallowed up; for we
are while here no more able to set forth the torments of hell, than
we are whole here to set forth the joys of heaven; only this may,
and ought to be said, that God is able, as to save, so to cast into
hell. (Luke 12:5) And as he is able to make heaven sweet, good,
pleasurable, and glorious beyond thought; so he is able to make the
torments of hell so exquisite, so hot, so sharp, so intolerable,
that no tongue can utter it, no, not the damned in hell themselves.
(Isa 64:4) If thou lovest thy soul, slight not the knowledge of hell,
for that, with the law, are the spurs which Christ useth to prick
souls forward to himself withal. What is the cause that sinners can
play so delightfully with sin? It is for that they forget there is
a hell for them to descend into for their so doing, when they go
out of this world. For here usually he gives our stop to a sinful
course; we perceive that hell hath opened her mouth before us. Lest
thou shouldst forget, I beseech thee, another time, to retain the
knowledge of hell in thine understanding, and apply the burning-hot
thoughts thereof to thy conscience; this is one way to make thee
gather up thy heels, and mend thy pace in thy coming to Jesus
Christ, and to God the Father by him.13

5. It is also necessary that he that cometh to God by the Lord Jesus,
should know what death is, and the uncertainty of its approaches
upon us. Death is, as I may call it, the feller, the cutter down.
Death is that that puts a stop to a further living here, and that
which lays man where judgment finds him. If he is in the faith in
Jesus, it lays him down there to sleep till the Lord comes; if he
be not in the faith, it lays him down in his sins till the Lord
comes. (Heb 11:13, 1 Thess 4:14, Job 20:11) Again; if thou hast
some beginnings that look like good, and death should overtake thee
before those beginnings are ripe, thy fruit will wither, and thou
wilt fall short of being gathered into God's barn. Some men are
'cut off as the tops of the ears of corn,' and some are even nipped
by death in the very bud of their spring; but the safety is when
a man is ripe, and shall be gathered to his grave, as a shock of
corn to the barn in its season. (Job 24:20-24, 5:26)

Now if death should surprise and seize thee before thou art fit
to die, all is lost; for there is no repentance in the grave, or
rather, as the wise man has it, 'Whatsoever thy hand findeth to
do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor
knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest.' (Eccl
9:10)

Death is God's sergeant, God's bailiff, and he arrests in God's
name when he comes, but seldom gives warning before he clappeth us
on the shoulder; and when he arrests us, though he may stay a little
while, and give us leave to pant, and tumble, and toss ourselves
for a while upon a bed of languishing, yet at last he will prick
our bladder, and let out our life, and then our soul will be poured
upon the ground, yea, into hell, if we are not ready and prepared
for the life everlasting. He that doth not watch for, and is not
afraid lest death should prevent him, will not make haste to God
by Christ. What Job said of temporal afflictions, such an one will
death be if thou art not aware--'When I looked for good, then evil
came--The days of affliction prevented me.' (Job 30:26,27) If thou
lookest, or beginnest to look for good, and the day of death shall
cut thee off before thou hast found that good thou lookest for,
all is lost, soul, and life, and heaven, and all. Wherefore it
is convenient that thou conclude the grave is thy house, and that
thou make thy bed once a day in the grave; also that thou say unto
corruption, 'Thou art my father; to the worm, thou art my mother
and my sister.' (Job 17:13,14) I say, be acquainted with the grave
and death. The fool puts the evil day far away, but the wise man
brings it nigh. Better be ready to die seven years before death
comes, than want one day, one hour, one moment, one tear, one
sorrowful sigh at the remembrance of the ill-spent life that I have
lived. This, then, is that which I admonish thee of; namely, that
thou know death, what it is, what it doth when it comes. Also, that
thou consider well of the danger that death leaves that man in, to
whom he comes before he is ready and prepared to be laid by it in
the grave.

6. Thou must also be made by thy awakenings to see what Christ
is. This is of absolute necessity; for how can or shall a man be
willing to come to Christ that knows not what he is, what God has
appointed him to do? He is the Saviour, every man will say so; but
to sense, smell, and taste, what saving is, and so to understand
the nature of the office and work of a Saviour, is a rare thing,
kept close from most, known but by some. Jesus of Nazareth is the
Saviour or the reconciler of men to God in the body of his flesh
through death. (Col 1:19-21) This is he whose business in coming
from heaven to earth was to save his people from their sins. Now,
as was said, to know how he doth this, is that which is needful to
be inquired into; for some say he doth it one way, some, he doth it
another; and it must be remembered that we are now speaking of the
salvation of that man that from new or first awakenings, is coming
to God by Christ for life. (1.) Some say he doth it, by giving of
us precepts and laws to keep, that we might be justified thereby.
(2.) Some say that he doth it, by setting himself a pattern for us
to follow him.(3.) Some again hold, that he doth it by our following
the light within.

But thou must take heed of all these, for he justifies us by none
of these means, and thou dost need to be justified. I say, he
justifieth us, not either by giving laws unto us, or by becoming our
example, or by our following of him in any sense, but by his blood
shed for us. His blood is not laws, nor ordinances, nor commandments,
but a price, a redeeming price. (Rom 5:7-9, Rev 1:5) He justifies
us by bestowing upon us, not by expecting from us; he justifies us
by his grace, not by our works. (Eph 1:7) In a word, thou must be
well grounded in the knowledge of what Christ is, and how men are
justified by him, or thou wilt not come unto God by him.

As thou must know him, and how men are justified by him, so thou
must know the readiness that is in him to receive and to do for
those what they need that come unto God by him. Suppose his merits
were never so efficacious, yet if it could be proved that there is
a loathness in him that these merits should be bestowed upon the
coming ones, there would but few adventure to wait upon him. But
now, as he is full, he is free. Nothing pleases him better than to
give what he has away; than to bestow it upon the poor and needy.
And it will be convenient that thou who art a coming soul shouldst
know this for thy comfort to encourage thee to come to God by him.
Take two or three sayings of his, for the confirming of what is
now said. 'Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden,
and I will give you rest.' (Matt 11:28) 'All that the Father giveth
me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise
cast out.' (John 6:37) 'I came not to call the righteous, but sinners
to repentance.' (Mark 2:17) 'This is a faithful saying, and worthy
of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save
sinners; of whom I am chief.' (1 Tim 1:15)

7. As a man that would come to God by Christ must, antecedent to
his so coming, know himself, what he is; the world, how empty it
is; the law, how severe it is; death, and what it is; and Christ,
and what he is; so also he must know God. 'He that cometh to God
must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that
diligently seek him.' (Heb 11:6) God must be known, else how can
the sinner propound him as his end, his ultimate end? For so doth
every one that indeed doth come to Christ aright; he comes to Christ
because he is the way; he comes to God because he is the end. But,
I say, if he knows him not, how can he propound him as the end? The
end is that for the sake of which I propound to myself anything,
and for the sake of which I use any means. Now, then, I would be
saved; but why? Even because I would enjoy God. I use the means
to be saved; and why? Because I would enjoy God. I am sensible that
sin has made me come short of the glory of God, and that Christ Jesus
is he, the only he, that can put me into a condition of obtaining
the glory of God; and, therefore, I come to God by him. (Rom 3:23,
5:1,2)