John Bunyan and election

[cygnusx1]

John Bunyan and election

"First to speak about my questioning my election, I found at this time that though I was very eager to find the way to heaven and glory, and though nothing could keep me from this, yet this question did so offend and discourage me that it was, especially sometimes, as if the very strength of my body had been taken away by the force and power thereof. Also this Scriptureseemed to me to trample upon all my desires: "It is not of him that wills, nor of him that runs, but of God that shows mercy" (Romans 9:16). With this Scripture I could not tell what to do, for I clearly saw that unless God in His infinite grace and bounty had voluntarily chosen me to be a vessel of mercy, although I should desire and long and labor until my heart did break, it would be to no avail. Therefore these questions would stick with me: "How can you tell that you are elected? And what if you are not? What then?"



"O Lord," I cried, "what if I am not indeed?"

"Maybe you are not," said the tempter.

"It may be so indeed," thought I.

"Why then," said Satan, "you might as well stop now and strive no further; for if indeed you are not elected and chosen of God, there is no hope of your being saved, for 'It is not of him that wills, nor of him that runs, but of God that shows mercy.'" By these things I was driven to my wits' end, not knowing what to say or how to answer these torments. Indeed, I little thought that Satan had thus assaulted me, but thought it was my own prudence thus to start the question. That the elect only obtained eternal life, I without scruple did heartily argee; but that I myself was one of them, there lay the question.

For several days I was greatly assaulted and perplexed, and was often, when I had been walking, ready to sink where I went from faintness of heart. But one dat, after I had been for many weeks oppressed and cast down with this, as I was now quite giving up the ghost of all my hopes of ever attaining life, this sentence fell with weight upon my spirit: "Look at the generations of old and see if ever any trusted in God and yet were confounded."

With that I was greatly enlightened and encouraged, for at that very instant it was expounded to me: "Begin at the beginning of Genesis, and read to the end of the Revelation, and see if you can find that there was ever any that trusted in the Lord but was confounded." So coming home, I presently went to my Bible to see if I cound find that saying, not doubting but to find it presently, for it was so fresh and with such strength and comfort to my spirit that it was as if it talked with me. Well, I looked but could not find it, yet it stayed with me.

Then I asked first one good man and then another, if they knew where it was located, but they knew of no such verse. At this I wondered that such a sentence should so suddenly and with such comfort and strength seize in my heart, and yet that none could find it, for I doubted not but that it was in the Holy Scriptures. Thus I continued for more than a year but I could not find the place. At last, casting my eye upon the Apocryphal books, I found it in Ecclesiasticus 2:10. This at the first did somewhat daunt me, but because by this time I had more experience of the love and kindness of God, it troubled me less, especially when I considered that although it was not in those texts that we call holy and canonical, yet as much as this sentence was the sum and substance of many of the promises, it was my duty to take comfort in it. I bless God for that word, for it was of good to me. That word does still many times shine before my face."

http://homepages.which.net/~gk.sherman/baaaaadh.htm

 

[cygnusx1]

f the Antiquity of Reprobation.

Having now proceeded so far as to shew you what reprobation is, it will not be amiss if in this place I briefly shew you its antiquity, even when it began its rise; the which you may gather by these following particulars.

First, Reprobation is before the person cometh into the world, or hath done good or evil: This is evident by that of Paul to the Romans: 'For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand not of works, but of him that calleth; it was said unto Rebecca, The elder shall serve the younger' (9:11). Here you find twain in their mother's womb, and both receiving their destiny, not only before they had done good or evil, but before they were in a capacity to do it, they being yet unborn; their destiny, I say, the one unto, the other not unto, the blessing of eternal life; the one chose, the other refused; the one elect, the other reprobate. The same also might be said of Ishmael and his brother Isaac, both which did also receive their destiny before they came into the world: for the promise that this Isaac should be the heir, it was also before Ishmael was born, though he was elder by fourteen years, or more, than his brother (Gen 15:4,5, 16:4,5,16, 17:25, 21:5). And it is yet further evident,

1. Because election is an act of grace; 'There is a remnant according to the election of grace' (Rom 11:5). Which act of grace saw no way so fit to discover its purity and independency, as by fastening on the object before it came into the world; that being the state in which at least no good were done, either to procure good from God, or to eclipse and darken this precious act of grace. For though it is true that no good thing that we have done before conversion, can obtain the grace of election; yet the grace of election then appeareth most, when it prevents[3] our doing good, that we might be loved therefore: wherefore he saith again, 'That the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth; it was said unto her, The elder shall serve the younger' (Rom 9:11,12).

2. This is most agreeable to the nature of the promise of giving seed to Abraham; which promise, as it was made before the child was conceived, so it was fulfilled at the best time, for the discovery of the act of grace, that could have been pitched upon: At this time will I come (saith God) 'and Sarah shall have a son' (Gen 18:14); which promise, because it carried in its bowels the very grace of electing love, therefore it left out Ishmael, with the children of Keturah: 'For in Isaac shall thy seed be called' (Rom 4:16-19, 9:7).

3. This was the best and fittest way for the decrees to receive sound bottom, even for God both to choose and refuse, before the creature had done good or evil, and so before they came into the world: 'That the purpose of God according to election might stand,' saith he, therefore before the children were yet born, or had done any good or evil, it was said unto her, &c. God's decree would for ever want foundation, should it depend at all upon the goodness and holiness either of men or angels; especially if it were to stand upon that good that is wrought before conversion, yea, or after conversion either. We find, by daily experience, how hard and difficult it is, for even the holiest in the world, to bear up and maintain their faith and love to God; yea, so hard, as not at all to do it without continual supplies from heaven. How then is it possible for any so to carry it before God, as to lay, by this his holiness, a foundation for election, as to maintain that foundation, and thereby to procure all those graces that infallibly saveth the sinner? But now the choice, I say, being a choice of grace, as is manifest, it being acted before the creature's birth; here grace hath laid the cornerstone, and determined the means to bring the work to perfection. Thus 'the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are his' (2 Tim 2:19). That is, who he hath chosen, having excluded works, both good and bad, and founded all in an unchangeable act of grace; the negative whereof, is this harmless reprobation.

Second, But secondly, To step a little backward, and so to make all sure: This act of reprobation was before the world began; which therefore must needs confirm that which was said but now, that they were, before they were born, both destinated before they had done good or evil. This is manifest by that of Paul to the Ephesians, at the beginning of his epistle; where, speaking of Election, whose negative is reprobation, he saith, 'God hath chosen us in Christ before the foundation of the world.' Nay further, if you please, consider, that as Christ was ordained to suffer before the foundation of the world, and as we that are elected were chosen in him before the foundation of the world; so it was also ordained we should know him, before the foundation of the world; ordained that we should be holy before him in love, before the foundation of the world; and that we in time should be created in him to good works, and ordained before that we should walk in them. Wherefore reprobation also, it being the negative of electing love; that is, because God elected but some, therefore he left the rest: these rest therefore must needs be of as ancient standing under reprobation, as the chosen are under election; both which, it is also evident, was before the world began. Which serveth yet further to prove that reprobation could not be with respect to this or the other sin, it being only a leaving them, and that before the world, out of that free choice which he was pleased to bless the other with. Even as the clay with which the dishonourable vessel is made, did not provoke the potter, for the sake of this or that impediment, therefore to make it so; but the potter of his own will, of the clay of the same lump, of the clay that is full as good as that of which he hath made the vessel to honour, did make this and the other a vessel of dishonour, &c. (1 Peter 1:20,21; 1 Cor 2:7; Eph 1:3,4, 2:10).

http://acacia.pair.com/Acacia.John.Bunyan/Sermons.Allegories/Reprobation.Asserted/3.html

 

[cygnusx1]

In 1660 Bunyan was arrested for unlawful preaching under an Elizabethan law, even before the so-called “Clarendon Code” came into operation. He refused to conform, or to agree to stop preaching. For the next twelve years he remained in Bedford jail, writing, and making tagged laces to support his family. Grace Abounding dates from this period, as does A Relation of my Imprisonment, which was not printed until the discovery of a manuscript in 1765, some poems, and a number of treatises of popular theology. A Mapp Shewing the Order & Causes of Salvation & Damnation, a fascinating visual depiction of the Calvinist “double decree” of predestination to salvation and damnation, also dates from this time.

Bunyan was released under the Declaration of Indulgence in 1672, and was chosen as pastor of the Bedford nonconformist church (which still survives as Bunyan Meeting). Although he was imprisoned again, for six months, in 1676, Bunyan became a celebrated preacher after 1672, with contacts in London particularly, where, for example, he gave the Pinner's Hall lecture published as On the Greatness of the Soul in 1682.

In 1678 Bunyan published The Pilgrim's Progress from this world to that which is to come, which remains his greatest imaginative creation. In it he combines something of the allegorical manner, largely dependent on the Bible, with a satiric realism particularly directed against religious hypocrisy. In this way it straddles the imaginative worlds represented by Langland and Spenser and the new attention to social and psychological detail characteristic of prose fiction. Yet what makes it a spiritual as well as a literary classic is a compelling account of a journey from being burdened to being free, with all sorts of conflicts and “bypaths”. The journey of Christian and his friends, Faithful and Hopeful, to the Celestial City has an archetypal power, and impresses us with its picture of courage against murderous opposition and false pilgrims alike. The book was an instantaneous success, running into ten editions in ten years.

http://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=640