blood shall not at all wash you. Depart, for you shall not set one foot into the kingdom of heaven. Depart, ye cursed! Ye are cursed of God, cursed of his law, cursed of me, cursed by the saints, and cursed by the angels, cursed all over, nothing but cursed, and therefore depart from me. And whither? Into everlasting fire; fire that will scald, scorch, burn, and flame to purpose; "fire that shall never be quenched;" fire that will last to eternity. And must we be all alone? No, you shall have company, store of company with you-namely, all the raging, roaring devils, together with an innumerable company of fellow-damned sinners, men, women, and children. And if the Scriptures be true, (as they will one day wonderfully appear to be,) then this must and shall be thy portion if thou live and die in this state, and of all them who continue in sinning against the truth contained in the Scriptures. As-1. Dost thou delight to sin against plain commands? "Thou art gone." 2. Dost thou slight and scorn the counsels contained in the Scriptures, and continue in so doing?" Then thou art gone." 3. Dost thou continually neglect to come to Christ, and use arguments in thine own heart to satisfy thy soul in so doing? "Then thou art gone." Luke xiv. 17, 18 compare with verse 24 and Heb. ii. 3. "How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?" How shall we escape?—that is, there is no way to escape. 1. Because God hath said we shall not. "See that ye refuse not him that speaketh; for if they escaped not who refused him that spake on earth, (that was Moses,) much more shall not we escape if we turn away from Him that speaketh from heaven." 2. Because he hath not only said they shall not, but also hath bound it with an oath, saying, "So I sware in my wrath, They shall not enter into my rest." To whom did he swear that they should not enter into his rest? Answer, To them that believed not. "So we see they could not enter in, because of unbelief." Secondly. This will teach us what to think and conclude of such who, though they do not so openly discover their folly by open and gross sins against the law, yet will give more heed to their own spirits and the movings thereof, though they be neither commanded nor commended for the same in Scripture, nay, though the Scripture command and commend the contrary, than they will to the holy and revealed will of God. I say, such men are in as bad a state as the other to the full, being disobedient to God's will revealed in his word as well as they, though in a different manner; the one openly transgressing against the plain and well-known truths revealed in it; the other, though more close and hidden, yet secretly rejecting and slighting them, giving more heed to their own spirits and the notions thereof, although not warranted by the Scrip tures. A few words more, and so I shall conclude. And-1. Take heed that you content not yourselves with a bare notion of the Scriptures in your heads, by which you may go far, even so far as to be able to dispute for the truth, to preach the Gospel, and labour to vindicate it in opposition to gainsayers, and yet be found at the left hand of Christ at the judgment-day, forasmuch as thou didst content thyself with a portion of traditional knowledge of them. 2. Have a care that thou own the whole Scripture, and not own one part and neglect another or slight it; as thus, to own the law and slight the Gospel, or to think that thou must be saved by thy good doings and works, for that is all one as if thou didst thrust Christ away from thee; or else so to own the Gospel as if by it thou wert exempted from all obedience to the ten commandments and conformity to the law in life and conversation, for in so doing thou wilt for certain make sure of eternal vengeance. 3. Have a care that thou put not wrong names on the things contained in the Scripture, as to call the law Christ and Christ the law, for some having done so (in my knowledge) have so darkened to themselves the glorious truth of the Gospel that in a very little time they have been resolved to thwart and oppose them, and so have made room in their own souls for the devil to inhabit, and obtained a place in hell for their own souls to be tormented for ever and ever. Against this danger, therefore, in reading and receiving the testimomy of Scripture, learn to distinguish between the law and the Gospel, and to keep them clear asunder as to the salvation of thy soul. And that thou mayest so do, in the first place beg of God that he would show thee the nature of the Gospel, and set it home effectually with life and power upon thy soul by faith; which is this, that God would show thee that as thou, being man, hast sinned against God, so Christ, being God- | sin, while thou remainest still a servant to the man, hath bought thee again, and with his most precious blood set thee free from the bondage thou hadst fallen into by thy sins; and that not upon condition that thou wilt do thus and thus, this and the other good work, but rather that thou, being justified freely by mere grace through the blood of Jesus, shouldst also receive thy strength from Him who hath bought thee, to walk before him in all well-pleasing, being enabled thereto by virtue of his Spirit, which hath revealed to thy soul that thou art delivered already from wrath to come, by the obedience, not of thee, but of another man—viz., Jesus Christ. 1. Then if the law thou readest of tell thee in thy conscience thou must do this and the other good work of the law if ever thou wilt be saved, answer plainly that for thy part, thou art resolved not only to work for life, but to believe in the virtue of that blood shed upon the cross, upon Mount Calvary, for the remission of sins; and yet, because Christ hath justified thee freely by his grace, thou wilt serve him in holiness and righteousness all the days of thy life, yet not in a legal spirit or in a covenant of works, but mine obedience (say thou) I will endeavour to have it free and cheerful, out of love to my Lord Jesus. 2. Have a care thou receive not this doctrine in the notion only, lest thou bring a just damnation upon thy soul by professing thyself to be freed by Christ's blood from the guilt of filth of sin. For I must tell you that unless you have the true and saving work of the faith and grace of the Gospel in your hearts, you will either go on in a legal holiness, according to the tenor of the law, or else, through a notion of the Gospel, (the devil bewitching and beguiling thy understanding, will, and affections,) thou wilt, Ranter-like, turn the grace of God into wantonness, and bring upon thy soul double if not treble damnation, in that thou couldst not be contented to be damned for thy sins against the law, but also, to make ruin sure to thy soul, thou wouldst dishonour the Gos pel, and turn the grace of God held forth and discovered to men by that into licentiousness. But, that thou mightest be sure to escape these dangerous rocks on the right hand and on the left, see that thy faith be such as is spoken of in the Scripture, and that thou be not satisfied without that, which is a faith wrought by the mighty operation of God, revealing Christ to and in thee, as having wholly freed thee from thy sins by his most precious blood; which faith, if thou attain unto, will so work in thy heart that first thou wilt see the nature of the law, and also the nature of the Gospel, and delight in the glory of it; and also thou wilt find an engaging of thy heart and soul to Jesus Christ, even to the giving up of thy whole man unto him, to be ruled and governed by him to his glory and thy comfort, by the faith of the Lord Jesus. A CONFESSION OF MY FAITH AND A REASON OF MY PRACTICE; OR. WITH WHO, AND WHO NOT, I CAN HOLD CHURCH FELLOWSHIP OR THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS: SHOWING, BY DIVERS ARGUMENTS, THAT THOUGH I DARE NOT COMMUNICATE WITH THE OPEN PROFANE, YET I CAN WITH THOSE VISIBLE SAINTS THAT DIFFER ABOUT WATER BAPTISM; WHEREIN IS ALSO DISCOURSED WHETHER THAT BE THE ENTERING ORDINANCE INTO FELLOWSHIP OR NO. I believed, and therefore have I spoken.-Ps. cxvi. 10. SIR: TO THE READER. I marvel not that both yourself and others do think my long imprisonment strange, or rather strangely of me for the sake of that; for verily I should also have done it myself had not the Holy Ghost long since forbidden me. Nay, verily, that notwithstanding, had the adversary but fastened the supposition of guilt upon me, my long trials might by this time have put it beyond dispute; for I have not hitherto been so sordid as to stand to a doctrine right or wrong, much less when so weighty an argument as above eleven years' imprisonment is continually dogging of me to weigh and pause, and pause again, the grounds and foundation of those principles for which I thus have suffered; but having not only at my trial asserted them, but also since, even all this tedious track of time, in cold blood, a thousand times, by the word of God, examined them and found them good, I cannot, I dare not, now revolt or deny the same, on pain of eternal damnation. And that my principles and practice may be open to the view and judgment of all men, though they stand and fall to none but the word of God alone,) I have in this small treatise presented to this generation A Confession of My Faith and a Reason of my Practice in the Worship of God; by which, although it be brief, candid Christians may, I hope, without a violation to faith or love, judge I may have the root of the matter found in me. Neither have I in this relation abusively presented my reader with other doctrines or practices than what I held, professed and preached when apprehended and cast into prison. Nor did I then or now retain a doctrine besides or which is not thereon grounded. The subject I should have preached upon, even then when the constable came, was, Dost thou believe on the Son of God? From whence I intended to show the absolute need of faith in Jesus Christ, and that it was also a thing of the highest concern for men to inquire into, and to ask their own hearts whether they had it or no. Faith and holiness are my professed princi ples, with an endeavour, so far as in me lieth, to be at peace with all men. What shall I say? Let mine enemies themselves be judges if anything in these following doctrines, or if aught that any man hath heard me preach, doth or hath, according to the true intent of my words, savoured either of heresy or rebellion. I say again, let they themselves be judges if aught they find in my writing or preaching doth render me worthy of almost twelve years' imprisonment, or one that deserveth to be hanged or banished for ever, according to their tremendous sentence. In deed, my principles are such as lead me to a denial to communicate in the things of the kingdom of Christ with the ungodly and open profane; neither can I, in or by the superstitious inventions of this world, consent that my soul should be governed in any of my approaches to God, because commanded to the contrary and commended for so refusing. Wherefore, excepting this one thing, for which I ought not to be rebuked, I shall, I trust, in despite of slander and falsehood, discover myself at all times a peaceable and an obedient servant. But if nothing will do unless I make of my conscience a continual butchery and slaughter-shop, unless, putting out my own. eyes, I commit me to the blind to lead me, as I doubt is desired by some, I have determined, the Almighty God being my help and shield, yet to suffer, if frail life might continue so long, even till the moss shall grow on mine eyebrows, rather than thus to violate my faith and principles. Will a man leave the snow of Lebanon that cometh from the rock of the field? or shall the cold flowing waters that come from another place be forsaken? "Hath a nation changed their gods which yet are no gods? For all people will walk every one in the name of his god, and we will walk in the name of the Lord our God for ever and ever." Touching my practice as to communion with visible saints, although not baptized with water, I say it is my present judgment so to do, and am willing to render a farther reason thereof, shall I see the leading hand of God thereto. Thine, in the bonds of the Gospel, JOHN BUNYAN. A CONFESSION OF MY FAITH. 1. I BELIEVE that there is but one only | worthy of that world and of the resurrection true God, and that there is none other but he: "To us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things. And this is life eternal, that they might know thee, the only true God," &c. 2. I believe that this God is almighty, eternal, invisible, incomprehensible, &c.: "I am the Almighty God; walk before me, and be thou perfect." "The eternal God is thy refuge." "Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honour and glory for ever and ever." 3. I believe that this God is unspeakably perfect in all his attributes of power, wisdom, justice, truth, holiness, mercy, love, &c. His power is said to be eternal, his understanding and wisdom infinite; he is called the just Lord, in opposition to all things; he is said to be truth itself, and the God thereof. There is none holy as the Lord. "God is love." "Canst thou by searching find out God? Canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection?" 4. I believe that in the Godhead there are three persons or subsistences: "There are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost." 5. I believe that these three are, in nature, essence, and eternity, equally one: "These three are one." 6. I believe "there is a world to come." 7. I believe that there shall be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and unjust. "Many that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to everlasting shame and contempt. Marvel not at this. For the hour is coming in the which all that are in their graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good, to the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, to the resurrection of damnation." 8. I believe that they that shall be counted from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage, neither can they die any more; for they are equal to the angels, and are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection." 9. I believe that those that die impenitent shall be tormented with the devil and his angels, and shall be cast with them into the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, "where the worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched." 10. I believe that, because God is naturally holy and just, even as he is good and merciful, therefore, all having sinned, none can be saved without the means of a Redeemer. "Then he is gracious unto him, and saith, Deliver him from going down to the pit; I have found a ransom. We have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of our sins. For which, without shedding of blood, is no remission." 11. I believe that Jesus Christ our Lord himself is the Redeemer. "They remembered that God was their rock and the high God their Redeemer." "Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, such as silver and gold, from your vain conversation, received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot." 12. I believe that the great reason why the Lord, the second person in the Godhead, did clothe himself with our flesh and blood was, that he might be capable of obtaining the redemption that before the world was intended for us. "Forasmuch, then, as the children were made partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same, (mark,) that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bond |