(Continued from p. 297).
BUNYAN was not yet of the deep morass, but he was upheld by precious promises of Scripture coming to him, but these would be followed by the thought of Esau’s sad case and that of the falling away of those mentioned in Hebs. vi., etc. For two and a half years he struggled on ever and again the thought being present with him that he had sinned the unpardonable sin. Then he put to himself the question: “Whether it be impossible that any who have committed this sin could receive comfort from God through Christ as he was time and again getting?” And he concluded they could not. Then the passages of Scripture in Hebrews suddenly appeared different. “I found their visage changed,” he says, “for they looked not so grimly on me as before I thought they did.” As these passages have often been to others as they were to Bunyan full of terror we will give at full length from “Grace Abounding” what they now had become to him. “And, first, I came to the sixth of Hebrews,” he says, “yet trembling for fear it should strike me; which when I had considered, I found that the falling there intended was falling quite away; that is, as I conceived, a falling from, and an absolute denying of the gospel of remission of sins by Christ; for from them the Apostle begins his argument, ver. 1-3. Secondly, I found this falling away must be openly, even in the view of the world, even so as ‘to put Christ to an open shame.’ Thirdly, I found that those he there intended were for ever shut up of God, both in blindness, hardness, and impenitency: it is impossible they should be renewed again unto repentance. By all these particulars I found, to God’s everlasting praise, my sin was not the sin in this place intended. First, I confessed I was fallen, but not fallen away, that is, from the profession of faith in Jesus unto eternal life. Secondly, I confessed that I had put Jesus Christ to shame by my sin, but not to open shame: I did not deny Him before men, nor condemn Him as a fruitless one before the world. Thirdly, nor did I find that God had shut me up, or denied me to come, though I had found it hard work indeed to come to Him by sorrow and repentance. Blessed be God for unsearchable grace!
Then I considered that in the tenth of the Hebrews, and found that the wilful sin there mentioned is not every wilful sin, but that which doth throw off Christ, and then His commandments too. Secondly, that must also be done openly, before two or three witnesses, to answer that of the law. Thirdly, this sin cannot be committed but with great despite done to the Spirit of grace; despising both the dissuasions from that sin, and the persuasions to the contrary. But the Lord knows, though this my sin was devilish, yet it did not amount to these.
And as touching that in the twelfth of the Hebrews, about Esau’s selling his birthright, though this was that which killed me and stood like a spear against me; yet now I did consider, first, that his was not a hasty thought against the continual labour of his mind, but a thought consented to and put in practice likewise, and that too after some deliberation. Secondly, it was a public and open action, even before his brother, if not before many more; this made his sin of a far more heinous nature than otherwise it would have been. Thirdly, he continued to slight his birthright: ‘He did eat and drink and went his way; thus Esau despised his birthright.’ Yea, twenty years after, he was found to despise it still: ‘And Esau said, I have enough, my brother; keep that thou hast unto thyself.’
Now, as touching this, that Esau sought a place of repentance, thus I thought:—First, this was not for the birthright, but for the blessing; this is clear from the Apostle, and is distinguished by Esau himself: ‘He took away my birthright (that is, formerly); and, behold, now he hath taken away my blessing.’ Secondly, now, this being thus considered, I came again to the Apostle, to see what might be the mind of God in a New Testament style and sense concerning Esau’s sin; and, so far as I conceive, this was the mind of God—That the birthright signified regeneration, and the blessing the eternal inheritance; for so the Apostle seems to hint: ‘Lest there be any profane person, as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright’; as if he should say, lest there be any person amongst you that shall cast off all those blessed beginnings of God that at present are upon him, in order to a new birth, lest they become as Esau, even be rejected afterwards when they would inherit the blessing. For many there are who, in the day of grace and mercy, despise those things which are indeed the birthright to heaven, who yet, when the deciding day appears, will cry as loud as Esau, ‘Lord, Lord, open to us!’ but then, as Esau would not repent, no more will God the Father, but will say, I have blessed these, yea and they shall be blessed; but as for you, depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity.’
(To be continued).