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Children, grace
be with you, Amen. I being taken from you in presence, and so tied up, that I
cannot perform that duty that from God doth lie upon me to youward, for your
further edifying and building up in faith and holiness, &c., yet that you
may see my soul hath fatherly care and desire after your spiritual and
everlasting welfare; I now once again, as before, from the top of Shenir and
Hermon, so 'now' from the lions' dens, from the mountains of the leopards (Song
4:8), do look yet after you all, greatly longing to see your safe arrival into
the desired haven. 3
I thank God upon
every remembrance of you; and rejoice, even while I stick between the teeth of
the lions in the wilderness, at the grace, and mercy, and knowledge of Christ
our saviour, which God hath bestowed upon you, with abundance of faith and love.
Your hungerings and thirstings also after further acquaintance with the Father,
in his Son; your tenderness of heart, your trembling at sin, your sober and holy
deportment also, before both God and men, is great refreshment to me; "For
ye are my glory and joy" (1 Thess 2:20).
I have sent you
here enclosed, a drop of that honey, that I have taken out of the carcase of a
lion (Judg 14:5-9). I have eaten thereof myself also, and am much refreshed
thereby. (Temptations, when we meet them at first, are as the lion that roared
upon Samson; but if we overcome them, the next time we see them, we shall find a
nest of honey within them.) The Philistines understand me not. It is 'something
of' a relation of the work of God upon my own soul, even from the very first,
till now; wherein you may perceive my castings down, and raisings up; for he
woundeth, and his hands make whole. It is written in the Scripture (Isa 38:19),
"The father to the children shall make known the truth of God." Yea,
it was for this reason I lay so long at Sinai (Deut 4:10,11), to see the fire,
and the cloud, and the darkness, that I might fear the Lord all the days of my
life upon earth, and tell of his wondrous works to my children (Psa 78:3-5).
Moses (Num
33:1,2) writ of the journeyings of the children of Israel, from Egypt to the
land of Canaan; and commanded also, that they did remember their forty years'
travel in the wilderness. "Thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord
thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee, and
to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldest
keep his commandments, or no" (Deut 8:2). Wherefore this I have endeavoured
to do; and not only so, but to publish it also; that, if God will, others may be
put in remembrance of what he hath done for their souls, by reading his work
upon me.
It is profitable
for Christians to be often calling to mind the very beginnings of grace with
their souls. "It is a night to be much observed unto the Lord for
bringing them out from the land of Egypt: this is that night of the Lord
to be observed of all the children of Israel in their generations" (Exo
12:42). "O my God," saith David (Psa 42:6), "my soul is cast down
within me; therefore will I remember thee from the land of Jordan, and of the
Hermonites, from the hill Mizar." He remembered also the lion and the bear,
when he went to fight with the giant of Gath (1 Sam 17:36,37).
It was Paul's
accustomed manner (Acts 22), and that when tried for his life (Acts 24), even to
open, before his judges, the manner of his conversion: he would think of that
day, and that hour, in the which he first did meet with grace; 4
for he found it support unto him. When God had brought the children of Israel
through the Red Sea, far into the wilderness, yet they must turn quite about
thither again, to remember the drowning of their enemies there (Num 14:25). For
though they sang his praise before, yet "they soon forgat his works"
(Psa 106:11-13).
In this discourse
of mine you may see much; much, I say, of the grace of God towards me. I thank
God I can count it much, for it was above my sins and Satan's temptations too. I
can remember my fears, and doubts, and sad months with comfort; they are as the
head of Goliah in my hand. There was nothing to David like Goliah's sword, even
that sword that should have been sheathed in his bowels; for the very sight and
remembrance of that did preach forth God's deliverance to him. Oh, the
remembrance of my great sins, of my great temptations, and of my great fears of
perishing for ever! They bring afresh into my mind the remembrance of my great
help, my great support from heaven, and that the great grace that God extended
to such a wretch as I.
My dear children,
call to mind the former days, "and the years of ancient times: remember
also your songs in the night; and commune with your own heart" (Psa
73:5-12). Yea, look diligently, and leave no corner therein unsearched, for
there is treasure hid, even the treasure of your first and second experience of
the grace of God toward you. Remember, I say, the word that first laid hold upon
you; remember your terrors of conscience, and fear of death and hell; remember
also your tears and prayers to God; yea, how you sighed under every hedge for
mercy. Have you never a hill Mizar to remember? Have you forgot the close, the
milk house, the stable, the barn, and the like, where God did visit your soul? 5
Remember also the Word--the Word, I say, upon which the Lord hath caused you to
hope. If you have sinned against light; if you are tempted to blaspheme; if you
are down in despair; if you think God fights against you; or if heaven is hid
from your eyes, remember it was thus with your father, but out of them all the
Lord delivered me.
I could have
enlarged much in this my discourse, of my temptations and troubles for sin; as
also of the merciful kindness and working of God with my soul. I could also have
stepped into a style much higher than this in which I have here discoursed, and
could have adorned all things more than here I have seemed to do, but I dare
not. God did not play in convincing of me, the devil did not play in tempting of
me, neither did I play when I sunk as into a bottomless pit, when the pangs of
hell caught hold upon me; wherefore I may not play in my relating of them, but
be plain and simple, and lay down the thing as it was. He that liketh it, let
him receive it; and he that does not, let him produce a better. Farewell.
My dear children,
the milk and honey is beyond this wilderness. God be merciful to you, and grant
'that' you be not slothful to go in to possess the land.
JOHN BUNYAN.
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