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"...The church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth."
I Timothy 3:15
Writings on the Scriptures
From Riches of Bunyan, 1850
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 here 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, that
our faith and hope might be in God,” were blessed words unto me in this condition.
These three or four scriptures also have been great refreshments in this condition to me, John 14:1-4; 16:33; Heb. 12:22-24; so that sometimes, when I have been in the savor of them, I have been able to laugh at destruction, and to fear neither the horse nor his rider.
I have had sweet sights of the forgiveness of my sins in this place, and of my being
with Jesus in another world. Oh the mount Zion, the heavenly Jerusalem, the innumerable
company of angels, and God the judge of all, and the spirits of just men made perfect;
and Jesus has been sweet to me in this place: I have seen that here, which I am persuaded
I shall never while in this world be able to express. I have seen a truth in this
scripture, “Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet
believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory.”
Read, and read again, and do not despair of help to understand something of the will and mind of God, though you think they are fast locked up from you. Neither trouble your heads though you have not commentaries and expositions; pray and read, and read and pray; for a little from God is better than a great deal from men: also what is from men is uncertain, and is often lost and tumbled over and over by men; but what is from God is fixed as a nail in a sure place.
There is nothing that so abides with us, as what we receive from God; and the reason why Christians at this day are at such a loss as to some things, is because they are content with what comes from men’s mouths, without searching and kneeling before God to know of him the truth of things. Things that we receive at God’s hand come to us as things from the minting-house, though old in themselves, yet new to us. Old truths are always new to us, if they come to us with the smell of heaven upon them.