The Riches of Bunyan: Selected from His WorksBunyan, John
Religion
The Riches of Bunyan: Selected from His Works
Bunyan, John
Theology, Doctrinal
How many deaths have some been delivered from and saved out of
before conversion. Some have fallen into rivers, some into wells,
some into the sea, some into the hands of men; yea, they have been
justly arraigned and condemned, as the thief upon the cross, but
must not die before they were converted. They were preserved in
Christ, and called.
II. THE TRINITY
IF in the Godhead there be but one, not three, then the Father, the
Son, or the Spirit must needs be that one, if any one only; so then
the other two are nothing. Again, if the reality of a being be
neither in the Father, Son, nor Spirit, as such, but in the eternal
Deity, without consideration of Father Son and Spirit as three, then
neither of the three are any thing but notions in us, or
manifestations of the Godhead, or nominal distinctions, so related
by the word; but if so, then when the Father sent the Son, and the
Father and Son the Spirit, one notion sent another one manifestation
sent another. This being granted, it unavoidably follows there was
no Father to beget a Son, no Son to be sent to save us, no Holy
Ghost to be sent to comfort us and to guide us into all the truth of
the Father and Son. At most it amounts to hut this: a notion sent a
notion, a distinction sent a distinction, or one manifestation sent
another. Of this error these are the consequences: we are only to
believe in notions and distinctions, when we believe in the Father
and the Son; and so shall have no other heaven and glory than
notions and nominal distinctions can furnish us withal.
If thou feel thy thoughts begin to wrestle about this truth, and to
struggle concerning this, one against another, take heed of
admitting such a question, "How can this be?" for here is no room
for reason to make it out; here is only room to believe it is a
truth. You find not one of the prophets propounding an argument to
prove it, but asserting it; they let it lie for faith to take it up
and embrace it.
"The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the
communion of the Holy Ghost, be with you all. Amen."
In a word, if you would see it altogether, God's love was the cause
why Christ was sent to bleed for sinners. Jesus Christ's bleeding
stops the cries of divine justice. God looks upon them as complete
in him, and gives them to him as by right of purchase. Jesus ever
lives to pray for them that are thus given unto him. God sends his
Holy Spirit into them to reveal this to them, sends his angels to
minister for them, and all this by virtue of an everlasting covenant
between the Father and the Son. "Happy the people that are in such a
case." He hath made them brethren with Jesus Christ, members of his
flesh and of his bones, the spouse of this Lord Jesus; and all to
show how dearly, really, and constantly he loveth us who by the
faith of his operation have laid hold upon him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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