John Bunyan was immensely indebted to the Puritan preaching of his day. It was the Puritan preaching of his day that first opened John Bunyan's eyes to see himself. It was the Puritan preaching of his day that first opened his eyes to see his Saviour. And it was when his comforting time was come that he heard one preach a Puritan sermon on a sweet passage in the Song of Solomon. (Behold, thou art fair, my love, behold, thou art fair.)
Do you know my brethren, and from your own experience, what a truly Puritan sermon is? Do you know what it is that differentiates and exalts a genuine Puritan sermon above all other sermons? And can you trace in yourselves, and can you trace up to Puritan preaching, such a succession of spiritual blessings as John Bunyan traces here and indeed traces all through his “GraceAbounding?” For this very title of this spiritual masterpiece of his may very well be taken as the title of every genuine Puritan sermon; that is to say: first, sin abounding, and then grace much more abounding.
As to the special sermon of this comforting time, after many years Bunyan remembers the preacher's text, and his five heads, and his application of his fourth particular. And no wonder. For it was that application that sent Bunyan home from Church that Sabbath in such an ecstasy of unearthly joy. “So as I was going home that application came again into my thoughts; and, as I well remember, I said then in my heart: What shall I get by thinking on what I have now heard? And, still as what I had just heard ran thus in my mind, the words of the text waxed stronger and warmer, and began to make me look up. Now was my heart filled with comfort and hope, and now could I believe that my sins should be forgiven me. Yea, now, I was so taken with the love and mercy of God that I could not contain myself till I got home. I thought I could have spoken of God's love and mercy to me, even to the very crows that sat upon the ploughed lands before me, had they been capable to have understood me. Wherefore, I said in my soul, and with such gladness: Well, I would I had a pen and ink here, and I would write this down before I go any further. For surely I will not forget this forty years hence.”
Now like that comforting Sabbath morning to John Bunyan, so every returning Sabbath morning of our own is appointed of God to be a comforting time to us also. Every returning Sabbath morning the command comes forth from the God of salvation to all His true preachers: “Comfort my people, saith your God. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her that her iniquity is forgiven. Say to her that He who was delivered for her offences was raised again this morning for her justification.” Now all other preachers among us but the Puritan preachers are either afraid, or they are ashamed, or they are in some way not willing, or are in some way not able, to preach the one thing worth preaching: a free and a full justification by faith in Jesus Christ; and then, out of that, a life of evangelical obedience. You never hear the one divine message of a free and full and an immediate forgiveness from any other pulpit but the Puritan pulpit. Or if you ever hear it, all other preachers mix it up and adulterate it with the wood and the hay and the stubble of our own impossible performances. For my part, the older I grow and the wiser I grow, I both preach and pray and sing more and more every Sabbath morning Paul's gospel, that is to say, the Puritan gospel.
And Jonathan Edwards, that mighty Puritan, says to us that we are on this day (the Lord's day) specially to meditate upon and to celebrate the work of our redemption. We are with special joy to remember the resurrection of our Lord, because His resurrection was the full finish of our redemption. This was the Day of the great gladness of His heart. For this was the Day of His deliverance from the chains of death, as it was the day of our deliverance from the chains of hell. And as John Bunyan has it in his own inimitable and incomparable way: On every Sabbath morning he always asserted that he saw Jesus Christ, leaping and dancing and singing around his deserted grave, because He had that morning finished for ever John Bunyan's justification.
Keep up your hearts, all you Puritan preachers. For yours is the only truly heart-comforting and soul-satisfying preaching in all the world. That preaching of yours made Paul, and it made Luther, and it made Hooker, and it made all the English and Scottish Reformers and it made the Pilgrim Fathers, and it made Spurgeon. It made them all, because there is nothing else to be called true preaching: there is nothing else to make true preachers in all the world. There is no other preaching with such Scripturalness, and such depth, and such strength, and such insight, and such adequate and expert treatment of the case, and such adequate and expert treatment of the Cross. The true “Comforting time” comes again to every truly Puritan and evangelical preacher and people with every returning Lord's Day morning.
(By Grace ye are saved.)
This Page Title – “John Bunyan's Comforting Times” by Alexander Whyte The Wicket Gate Magazine "A Continuing Witness". Internet Edition number 85 – placed on line July 2010 Magazine web address – www.wicketgate.co.uk |