Bunyan, John, 1628-1688 -- Criticism and interpretation
Think-well! Think-well! My brethren, what do you think, what do you
say, as you hear that fine name? I will tell you what I think and say.
If I overcome, and have that white stone given to me, and in that stone a
new name written which no man shall know saving he that receiveth it; and
if it were asked me here to-night what I would like my new name to be, I
would say on the spot, Let it be THINK-WELL! Let my new name among the
saved and the sanctified before the throne be THINK-WELL! As, O God, it
will be the bottomless pit to me, if I am forsaken of Thee for ever to my
evil thoughts. Send down and prevent it. Stir up all Thy strength and
give commandment to prevent it. Do Thou prevent it. For, after I have
done all,--after I have made all my overt acts blameless, after I have
tamed my tongue which no man can tame--all that only the more throws my
thoughts into a very devil's garden, a thicket of hell, a secret swamp of
sin to the uttermost. How, then, am I ever to attain to that white stone
and that shining name? And that in a world of such truth that every
man's name and title there shall be a strict and true and entirely
accurate and adequate description and exposition of the very thoughts and
intents and imaginations of his heart? How shall I, how shall you, my
brethren, ever have 'Think-well' written on our forehead?--Well, with God
all things are possible. With God, with a much meditating mind, and a
true and humble and tender heart, and a pure conscience, a conscience
void of offence, working together with Him--He, with all these
inheritances and all these environments working together with Him, will
at last enable us, you and me, to lift up such a clear and transparent
forehead. But not without our constant working together. We must
ourselves make head, and heart, and, especially, conscience of all our
thoughts--for a long lifetime we must do that. The _Ductor Dubitantium_
has a deep chapter on 'The Thinking Conscience.' And what a reproof to
many of us lies in the mere name! For how much evil-thinking and evil-
speaking we have all been guilty of through our unthinking conscience and
through a zeal for God, but a zeal without knowledge. Look back at the
history of the Church and see; look back at your own history in the
Church and see. Yes, make conscience of your thoughts: but let it first
be an instructed conscience, a thinking conscience, a conscience full of
the best and the clearest light. And then let us also make ourselves a
new heart and a new spirit, as Ezekiel has it. For our hearts are
continually perverting and polluting and poisoning our thoughts. That is
a fearful thing that is said about the men on whom the flood soon came.
You remember what is said about them, and in explanation and
justification of the flood. God saw, it is said, that every imagination
of the thoughts of their hearts was evil, and only evil continually.
Fearful! Far more fearful than ten floods! O God, Thou seest us. And
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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