This man sees what he hath done, what should | parting from the living God; a hardness completed help him, and what will become of him; yet he through the deceitfulness of sin. He. ii. 7, &c. Such cannot repent; he pulled away his shoulder before, as that in the provocation, of whom God sware, he stopped his ears before, he shut up his eyes that they should not enter into his rest. It was before, and in that very posture God left him, and this kind of hardness also, that both Cain, and so he stands to this very day. I have had a fancy, Ishmael, and Esau, were hardened with, after that Lot's wife, when she was turned into a pillar they had committed their great transgressions. of salt, stood yet looking over her shoulder, or else with her face towards Sodom; as the judgment caught her, so it bound her, and left her a monument of God's anger to after generations. Ge. xix. 26. IV. 2. We read of some that are seared with a hot iron, and that are past feeling; for so seared persons in seared parts are. Their conscience is seared. 1 Ti. The conscience is the thing that must be touched with feeling, fear, and remorse, if ever any good be done with the sinner. How then can any good be done to those whose conscience is worse than that? that is, fast asleep in sin. Ep. iv. 19. For that conscience that is fast asleep, may yet be effectually awakened and saved; but that conscience that is seared, dried, as it were, into a cinder, can never have sense, feeling, or the least regret in this world. Barren fig-tree, hearken, judicial hardening is dreadful! There is a difference betwixt that hardness of heart that is incident to all men, and that which comes upon some as a signal or special judgment of God. And although all kinds of hardness of heart, in some sense may be called a judgment, yet to be hardened with this second kind, is a judgment peculiar only to them that perish; a hardness that is sent as a punishment for the abuse of light received, for a reward of apostacy. This judicial hardness is discovered from that which is incident to all men, in these particulars : 2. It is the greatest kind of hardness; and hence they are said to be harder than a rock, or than an adamant, that is, harder than flint so hard, that nothing can enter. Je. v. 3. Zec. vii. 12. 3. It is a hardness given in much anger, and that to bind the soul up in an impossibility of repentance. 4. It is a hardness, therefore, which is incurable, of which a man must die and be damned. Barren professor, hearken to this. A fourth sign that such a professor is quite past grace, is, when he fortifies his hard heart against the tenor of God's word. Job ix. 4, &c. This is called hardening themselves against God, and turning of the Spirit against them. As thus, when after a profession of faith in the Lord Jesus, and of the doctrine that is according to godliness, they shall embolden themselves in courses of sin, by promising themselves that they shall have life and salvation notwithstanding. Barren professor, hearken to this! This man is called, 'a root that beareth gall and wormwood,' or a poisonful herb, such an one as is abominated of God, yea, the abhorred of his soul. For this man saith, ‘I shall have peace, though I walk in the imagination' or stubbornness of mine heart, to add drunkenness to thirst;' an opinion flat against the whole Word of God, yea, against the very nature of God himself. De. xxix. 18, 19. Wherefore he adds, "Then the anger of the Lord, and his jealousy, shall smoke against that man, and all the curses that are written in God's book shall lie upon him, and the Lord shall blot out his name from under heaven.' De. xix. 20. Such hardness as Pharaoh had, after the Lord Yea, that man shall not fail to be effectually dehad wrought wondrously before him; such hard-stroyed, saith the text: The Lord shall separate ness as the Gentiles had, a hardness which dark- that man unto evil, out of all the tribes of Israel, ened the heart, a hardness which made their according to all the curses of the covenant.' De. xix. minds reprobate. This hardness is also the same He shall separate him unto evil; he shall give with that the Hebrews are cautioned to beware of, him up, he shall leave him to his heart; he shall a hardness that is caused by unbelief, and a de- separate him to that or those that will assuredly be too hard for him. 1. It is a hardness that comes after some great light received, because of some great sin committed against that light, and the grace that gave it. of Spira's despair must have made a strong impression upon 'Here see a soul that's all despair; a man A wounded spirit bear? Reader, would'st see, what may you never feel What flames appear: His eyes flames; wishes curses, life a death; -Fearful Estate of Francis Spira.—(ED.) 21. Now this judgment is much effected when God hath given a man up unto Satan, and hath given Satan leave, without fail, to complete his destruction. I say, when God hath given Satan leave effectually to complete his destruction; for all that are delivered up unto Satan have not, nor do not come to this end. But that is the man whom God shall separate to evil, and shall leave in the hands of Satan, to complete, without fail, his destruction. Thus he served Ahab, a man that sold himself Wherefore, against these despisers God hath set himself, and foretold that they shall not believe, but perish: Behold, ye despisers, and wonder, and perish: for I work a work in your days, a work which ye shall in nowise believe, though a man declare it unto you.' Ac. xiii, 41. to work wickedness in the sight of the Lord. And | He. x. 28. will go forth, and be a lying spirit in the mouth of Wherefore, in these judgments the Lord doth much concern himself for the management thereof, because of the provocation wherewith they have provoked him. This is the man whose ruin contriveth, and bringeth to pass by his own contrivance: I also will choose their delusions' for them; I will bring their fears upon them.' Is. Ixvi. 4. I will choose their devices, or the wickednesses that their hearts are contriving of. I, even I, will cause them to be accepted of, and delightful to them. But who are they that must thus be feared? Why, those among professors that have chosen their own ways, those whose soul delighteth in their abominations. Because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved: for this cause God shall send them strong delusions, that they should believe a lie, that they all might be damned, who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unright There is nothing more provoking to the Lord, than for a man to promise when God threateneth; for a man to be light of conceit that he shall be safe, and yet to be more wicked than in former days, this man's soul abhorreth the truth of God; no marvel, therefore, if God's soul abhorreth him; he hath invented a way contrary to God, to bring about his own salvation; no marvel, therefore, if God invent a way to bring about this man's damnation: and seeing that these rebels are at this point, we shall have peace; God will see whose word will stand, his or theirs. A fifth sign of a man being past grace is, when he shall at this scoff, and inwardly grin and fret against the Lord, secretly purposing to continue his course, and put all to the venture, despising the messengers of the Lord. He that despised Moses' law, died without mercy; - of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God?' &c., After that thou shalt cut it down. Thus far we have treated of the barren fig-tree, or fruitless professor, with some signs to know him by; whereto is added also some signs of one who neither will nor can, by any means, be fruitful, but they must miserably perish. Now, being come to the time of execution, I shall speak a word to that also; After that thou shalt cut it down.' [PROPOSITION SECOND. The death or cutting down of such men will be dreadful.] Christ, at last, turns the barren fig-tree over to the justice of God, shakes his hands of him, and gives him up to the fire for his unprofitableness. After that thou shalt cut it down.' Two things are here to be considered: First. The executioner; thou, the great, the dreadful, the eternal God. These words, therefore, as I have already said, signify that Christ the Mediator, through whom alone salvation comes, and by whom alone execution hath been deferred, now giveth up the soul, forbears to speak one syllable more for him, or to do the least act of grace further, to try for his recovery; but delivereth him up to that fearful dispensation, to fall into the hands of the living God.' He. x. 31. Second. The second to be considered is, The instrument by which this execution is done, and that is death, compared here to an axe; and forasmuch as the tree is not felled at one blow, therefore the strokes are here continued, till all the blows be struck at it that are requisite for its felling: for now cutting time, and cutting work, is come; cutting must be his portion till he be cut down. After that thou shalt cut it down.' Death, I say, is the axe, which God often useth, therewith to take the barren fig-tree out of the vineyard, out of a profession, and also out of the world at once. But this axe is now new ground, it cometh welledged to the roots of this barren fig-tree. It hath been whetted by sin, by the law, and by a formal profession, and therefore must, and will make deep gashes, not only in the natural life, but in the heart and conscience also of this professor: The wages of sin is death,' the sting of death is sin.' Ro. vi. 23. 1 Co. xv. 56. Wherefore death comes not to this man as he doth to saints, muzzled, or without his sting, but with open mouth, in all his strength; yea, he sends his first-born, which is guilt, to devour his strength, and to bring him to the king of terrors. Job xviii. 13, 14. But to give you, in a few particulars, the manner of this man's dying. 1. Now he hath his fruitless fruits beleaguer him round his bed, together with all the bands and legions of his other wickedness. But how will this man die? Can his heart now endure, or can his hands be strong? Eze. xxii. 14. (1.) God, and Christ, and pity, have left him. Sin against light, against mercy, and the long-suf His own ini-fering of God, is come up against him; his hope and confidence now lie a-dying by him, and his conscience totters and shakes continually within him! quities shall take the wicked himself, and he shall be holden with the cords of his sins.' Pr. v. 22. 2. Now some terrible discovery of God is made out unto him, to the perplexing and terrifying of his guilty conscience. 'God shall cast upon him, and not spare;' and he shall be afraid of that which is high.' Job xxvii. 22. Ec. xii. 5. 3. The dark entry he is to go through will be a sore amazement to him; for fears shall be in the way.' Ec. xii. 5. Yea, terrors will take hold on him, when he shall see the yawning jaws of death to gape upon him, and the doors of the shadow of death open to give him passage out of the world. Now, who will meet me in this dark entry? how shall I pass through this dark entry into another world? 4. For by reason of guilt, and a shaking conscience, his life will hang in continual doubt before him, and he shall be afraid day and night, and shall have no assurance of his life. De. xxviii. 66, 67. (2.) Death is at his work, cutting of him down, hewing both bark and heart, both body and soul asunder. The man groans, but death hears him not; he looks ghastly, carefully, dejectedly; he sighs, he sweats, he trembles, but death matters nothing. (3.) Fearful cogitations haunt him, misgivings, direful apprehensions of God, terrify him. Now he hath time to think what the loss of heaven will be, and what the torments of hell will be: now he looks no way but he is frighted. (4.) Now would he live, but may not; he would live, though it were but the life of a bed-rid man, but he must not. He that cuts him down sways him as the feller of wood sways the tottering tree; now this way, then that, at last a root breaks, a heart-string, an eye-string, sweeps asunder. (5.) And now, could the soul be annihilated, or brought to nothing, how happy would it count it5. Now also want will come up against him; he self, but it sees that may not be. Wherefore it is will come up like an armed man. This is a terrible put to a wonderful strait; stay in the body it may army to him that is graceless in heart, and fruitless not, go out of the body it dares not. Life is going, in life. This WANT will continually cry in thine the blood settles in the flesh, and the lungs being no cars, Here is a new birth wanting, a new heart, more able to draw breath through the nostrils, at and a new spirit wanting; here is faith wanting; last out goes the weary trembling soul, which is here is love and repentance wanting; here is the immediately seized by devils, who lay lurking in fear of God wanting, and a good conversation want-every hole in the chamber for that very purpose. ing: Thou art weighed in the balances, and art IIis friends take care of the body, wrap it up in the found wanting.' Da. v. 27. sheet or coffin, but the soul is out of their thought and reach, going down to the chambers of death. I had thought to have enlarged, but I forbear. God, who teaches man to profit, bless this brief and plain discourse to thy soul, who yet standest a professor in the land of the living, among the trees of his garden. Amen. 74 THE LIFE AND DEATH OF MR. BADMAN, PRESENTED TO THE WORLD IN A FAMILIAR DIALOGUE BETWEEN MR. WISEMAN AND MR. ATTENTIVE. BY JOIIN BUNYAN, THE AUTHOR OF THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS.' Printed by J. A. for Nath. Ponder, at the Peacock in the Poultry, near the Church, 1680. ADVERTISEMENT BY THE EDITOR. The life of Badman forms a third part to the Pilgrim's Progress, not a delightful pilgrimage to heaven, but, on the contrary, a wretched downward journey to the infernal realms. The author's object is to warn poor thoughtless sinners, not with smooth words, to which they would take no heed; but to thunder upon their consciences the peril of their souls, and the increasing wretchedness into which they were madly hurrying. He who is in imminent, but unseen danger, will bless the warning voice if it reach his ears, however rough and startling the sound may be. THE life of Badman is a very interesting descrip- | reprinted the whole in the author's plain and powertion, a true and lively portraiture, of the demoral-ful language. ized classes of the trading community in the reign of King Charles II.; a subject which naturally led the author to use expressions familiar among such persons, but which are now either obsolete or considered as vulgar. In fact it is the only work proceeding from the prolific pen and fertile imagination of Bunyan, in which he uses terms that, in this delicate and refined age, may give offence. So, in the venerable translation of the holy oracles, there are some objectionable expressions, which, although formerly used in the politest company, now point to the age in which it was written. The same ideas or facts would now be expressed by terms which could not give offence; and every reader must feel great pleasure in the improvement of our language, as seen in the contrast between the two periods, and especially in the recollection that the facts might be stated with equal precision, and reflections made with equal force, in terms at which the most delicate mind could not be of fended. Those who read the writings of Bunyan must feel continually reminded of his ardent attachment to his Saviour, and his intense love to the souls of sinners. He was as delicate in his expressions as any writer of his age, who addressed the openly vicious and profane-calling things by their most forcible and popular appellations. A wilful untruth is, with him, a lie.' To show the wickedness and extreme folly of swearing, he gives the words and imprecations then commonly in use; but which, happily for us, we never hear, except among the most degraded classes of society. Swearing was formerly considered to be a habit of gentility; but now it betrays the blackguard, even when disguised in genteel attire. Those dangerous diseases which are so surely engendered by filth and uncleanness, he calls not by Latin but by their plain English names. In every case, the Editor has not ventured to make the slightest alteration; but has The life of Badman was written in an age when profligacy, vice, and debauchery, marched like a desolating army through our land, headed by the king, and officered by his polluted courtiers; led on with all the pomp and splendour which royalty could display. The king and his ministers well knew that the most formidable enemies to tyranny, oppression, and misgovernment, were the piety and stern morality of the Puritans, Nonconformists, and the small classes of virtuous citizens of other denominations; and therefore every effort was made by allurements and intimidation to debauch and demoralize their minds. p. 592. Well does Bunyan say that wickedness like a flood is like to drown our English world. It has almost swallowed up all our youth, our middle age, old age, and all are almost carried away of this flood. It reels to and fro like a drunkard, it is like to fall and rise no more.' p. 593. It is the very haunts and walks of the internal spirits.' 'England shakes and makes me totter for its transgressions.' The gradations of a wicked man in that evil age, from his cradle to his grave, are graphically set before the reader; it is all drawn from reality, and not from efforts of imagination. Every example is a picture of some real occurrence, either within the view of the author, or from the narratives of credible witnesses. All the things that Bunyan's pictures, of which the life of Badman is a continued series, are admirably painted from life. The extraordinary depths of hypocrisy, used in gaining the affections of a pious wealthy young admirably drawn, as is its companion or counterpart, when Badman, in his widower-hood, suffers an infamous strumpet to inveigle him into a miserable marriage, as he so richly deserved. The Badman, is a masterpiece. In fact the whole is a series of pictures drawn by a most admirable artist, and calculated to warn and attract the sinner from his downward course. here I discourse of, have been acted upon the stage | our Lord's saying, 'with what measure ye mete. of this world, even many times before mine eyes.' it shall be measured to you again.' Badman is represented as having had the very great advantage of pious parents, and a godly master, but run riot in wickedness from his childhood. Lying and pilfering mark his early days; followed in after life by swearing, cheating, drunk-woman, and entrapping her into a marriage, are enness, hypocrisy, infidelity and atheism. His conscience became hardened to that awful extent, that he had no bands in his death. The career of wickedness has often been so pictured, as to encourage and cherish vice and profanity-to ex-death-bed scene of the pious broken-hearted Mrs. cite the unregenerate mind to ride post by other men's sins.'1 Not so the life of Badman. The ugly, wretched, miserable consequences that as suredly follow a vicious career, are here displayed in biting words-alarming the conscience, and awfully warning the sinner of his destiny, unless happily he finds that repentance that needeth not to be repented of. No debauchee ever read the life of Badman to gratify or increase his thirst for sin. The tricks which in those days so generally accompanied trading, are unsparingly exposed; becoming bankrupt to make money, a species of robbery, which ought to be punished as felony; double weights, too heavy for buying, and light to sell by, overcharging those who take credit, and the taking advantage of the necessities of others, with the abuse of evil gains in debauchery, and its ensuing miseries, are all faithfully displayed. In comparison with the times of Bunyan, England has now become wonderfully reformed from those grosser pollutions which disgraced her name. Persons of riper age, whose reminiscences go back to the times of the slave trade, slavery, and war, will call to mind scenes of vice, brutality, open debauchery and profligacy, which, in these peaceful and prosperous times, would be instantly repressed and properly punished. Should peace be preserved, domestic, social, and national purity and happiness must increase with still greater and more delightful rapidity. Civilization and Christianity will triumph over despotism, vice, and false religions, and the time be hastened on, in which the divine art of rendering each other happy will engross the attention of all mankind. Much yet remains to be connections of Mr. Badman; but the leaven of Christianity must, in spite of all opposition, eventually spread over the whole mass. 2 In the course of the narrative, a variety of awful examples of divine vengeance are introduced; some from that singular compilation, Clarke's Looking-done for the conversion of the still numerous family glass for Saints and Sinners; others from Beard's Theatre of God's Judgments; and many that happened under the author's own immediate knowledge. The faithfulness of his extracts from books has been fully verified. The awful death of Dorothy Mately, of Ashover, in Derbyshire, mentioned in 1. 604, I had an opportunity of testing, by the aid of my kind friend, Thomas Bateman, Esq., of Yolgrave. lle sent me the following extract from the Ashover Register for 1660:- Dorothy Mately, supposed wife to John Flint of this parish, forswore herself; whereupon the ground opened, and she sunk over head, March 23, and being found dead, she was buried, March 25.' Thus fully confirming the facts, as stated by Bunyan. Solemn providences, intended, in the inscrutable wisdom God, for wise purposes, must not be always called In two things the times have certainly improved. ⚫ divine judgments.' A ship is lost, and the good Bunyan describes all 'pawnbrokers' to have been with the bad, sink together; a missionary is mur-vile wretches,' and, in extortion, the women to be dered; a pious Malay is martyred; still no one can suppose that these are instances of divine vengeance. But when the atrocious bishop Bonner, in his old age, miserably perishes in prison, it reminds us of Homely proverbs abound in this narrative, all of which are worthy of being treasured up in our memories. Is nothing so secret but it will be revealed? we are told that Hedges have eyes and pitchers have ears. They who encourage evil propensities are nurses to the devil's brats.' It is said of him who, hurries on in a career of folly and sin, The devil rides him off his legs.' 'As the devil corrects vice,' refers to those who pretend to correct bad habits by means intended to promote them. The devil is a cunning schoolmaster.' Satan taking the wicked into his foul embraces is oflike to like, as the devil said to the collier.' Reynolds' preface to God's Revenge against Murder. worse than the men. p. 638. Happily for our days, good and even pious pawnbrokers may be found, who are honourable exceptions to Mr. Bunyan's sweeping rule; nor do our women in any respect 2 See note on p. 606. |