The Works of John Bunyan, vol 1 by John Bunyan (best book clubs txt) 📖

ascribeth his motions to what is good to himself only as he is spiritual, or the new man: ‘If then I do that which I would not, I consent to the law that it is good’ (Rom 7).

But I trow, Sir, your consenting to what is good is not by that part which doth do what you would not; no, no, saith he, that which doth do what I would not, I disown, and count it no part of sanctified Paul: ‘Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me; for—in me, that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good, I find not: for the good that I would, I do not; but the evil which I would not, that I do: Now, if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwells in me’ (Rom 7). Thus you see Paul is forced to make two men of himself, saying, I and I; I do; I do not; I do, I would not do; what I hate, that I do. Now it cannot be the same I unto whom these contraries are applied; but his sinful flesh is one I, and his godly mind the other: and indeed so he concludes it in this chapter, saying, ‘So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.’

Thus therefore the Christian man must distinguish concerning himself; and doing so, he shall find, though he has flesh, and as he is such, he hath lusts contrary to God: yet as he is a new creature, he allows not, but hates the motions and desires of the flesh, and consents to, and wills and delights in the law of God (Rom 15:17-22).

Yea, as a new creature, he can do nothing else: for the new man, inward man, or hidden man of the heart, being the immediate work of the Holy Ghost, and consisting only of that which is divine and heavenly, cannot breathe, or act, or desire to act, in ways and courses that are carnal. Wherefore, in this sense, or as the righteous man is thus considered, ‘his desires are only good.’

(2.) As the righteous man must here be taken for the best part, for the I that would do good, for the I that hates the evil; so again, we must consider of the desires of this righteous man, as they flow from that fountain of grace, which is the Holy Ghost within him; and as they are immediately mixed with those foul channels, in and through which they must pass, before they can be put forth into acts. For though the desire, as to its birth, and first being, is only good; yet before it comes into much motion, it gathers that from the defilements of the passages through which it comes, as makes it to bear a tang of flesh and weakness in the skirts of it; and the evil that dwells in us is so universal, and also always so ready, that as sure as there is any motion to what is good, so sure evil is present with it; ‘for when’ or whenever ‘I would do good,’ says Paul, ‘evil is present with me’ (Rom 7:21). Hence it follows, that all our graces, and so our desires, receive disadvantage by our flesh, that mixing itself with what is good, and so abates the excellency of the good.

There is a spring that yieldeth water good and clear, but the channels through which this water comes to us are muddy, foul, or dirty: now, of the channels the waters receive a disadvantage, and so come to us as savouring of what came not with them from the fountain, but from the channels. This is the cause of the coolness, and of the weakness, of the flatness, and of the many extravagancies that attend some of our desires. They come warm from the Spirit and grace of God in us; but as hot water running through cold pipes, or as clear water running through dirty conveyances, so our desires [cool and] gather soil.

You read in Solomon’s Ecclesiastes of a time when desires fail, for that ‘man goeth to his long home’ (Eccl 12:5). And as to good desires, there is not one of them, when we are in our prime, but they fail also as to the perfecting of that which a man desires to do. ‘To will is present with me,’ says Paul, ‘but how to perform that which is good I find not’ (Rom 7:18). To will or to desire, that is present with me, but when I have willed or desired to do, to perform is what I cannot attain to. But why not attain to a performance? Why, says he, I find a law ‘in my members warring against the law of my mind’; and this law takes me prisoner, and brings ‘me into captivity to the law of sin, which is in my members’

(Rom 7:23). Now, where things willed and desired meet with such obstructions, no marvel if our willing and desiring, though they set out lustily at the beginning, come yet lame home in conclusion.

There is a man, when he first prostrates himself before God, doth it with desires as warm as fire coals; but erewhile he finds, for all that, that the metal of those desires, were it not revived with fresh supplies, would be quickly spent and grow cold.[6] But yet the desire is good, and only good, as it comes from the breathing of the Spirit of God within us. We must therefore, as I said, distinguish betwixt what is good and that which doth annoy it, as gold is to be distinguished from the earth and dross that doth attend it. The man that believed desired to believe better, and so cries out, ‘Lord, help mine unbelief’ (Mark 9:24). The man that feared God desired to fear him better, saying, ‘I desire to fear thy name’ (Neh 1:11). But these desires failed, as to the performance of what was begun, so that they were forced to come off but lamely, as to their faith and fear they had; yet the desires were true, good, and such as was accepted of God by Christ; not according to what they had not, but as to those good motions which they had.

Distinguish then the desires of the righteous in the nature of them, from that corruption and weakness of ours that cleaveth to them, and then again, ‘they are only good.’

(3.) There is another thing to be considered, and that is, the different frames that our inward man is in while we live as pilgrims in the world. A man, as he is not always well without, so neither is he always well within. Our inward man is subject to transient, though not to utter decays (Isa 1:5). And as it is when the outward man is sick, strength and stomach, and lust, or desire fails, so it is when our inward man has caught a cold likewise (Eze 34:4).

The inward man I call the new creature, of which the Spirit of God is the support, as my soul supports my body. But, I say, this new man is not always well. He knows nothing that knows not this. Now being sick, things fail. As when a man is not in health of body, his pulse beats so as to declare that he is sick; so when a man is not well within, his inward pulse, which are his desires—for I count the desires for the pulse of the inward man—they also declare that the man is not well within. They beat too little after God, weak and faintly after grace; they also have their halts, they beat not evenly, as when the soul is well, but so as to manifest all is not well there.

We read that the church of Sardis was under sore sickness, insomuch that some of her things were quite dead, and they that were not so were yet ready to die (Rev 3:2). Yet ‘life is life,’ we say, and as long as there is a pulse, or breath, though breath scarce able to shake a feather, we cast not away all hope of life. Desires, then, though they be weak, are, notwithstanding, true desires, if they be the desires of the righteous thus described, and therefore are truly good, according to our text. David says he ‘opened his mouth and panted,’ for he longed for God’s commandments (Psa 119:131). This was a sickness, but not such a one as we have been speaking of. The spouse also cried out that she was ‘sick of love.’

Such sickness would do us good, for in it the pulse beats strongly well (Cant 5:8).

[Some objections answered.]

Object. But it may be objected, I am yet in doubt of the goodness of my desires, both because my desires run both ways, and because those that run towards sin and the world seem more and stronger than those that run after God, and Christ, and grace.

Answ. There is not a Christian under heaven but has desires that run both ways, as is manifest from what hath been said already.

Flesh will be flesh; grace shall not make it otherwise. By flesh I mean that body of sin and death that dwelleth in the godly (Rom 6:6). As grace will act according to its nature, so sin will act according to the nature of sin (Eph 2:3). Now, the flesh has desires, and the desires of the flesh and of the mind are both one in the ungodly; thank God it is not so in thee! (Rom 7:24). The flesh, I say, hath its desires in the godly; hence it is said to lust enviously; it lusts against the Spirit; ‘The flesh lusteth against the Spirit’ (Gal 5:17). And if it be so audacious as to fly in the face of the Holy Ghost, wonder that thou art not wholly carried away with it! (Rom 7:25).

Object. But those desires that run to the world and sin seem most and strongest in me.

Answ. The works of the flesh are manifest; that is, more plainly discovered even in the godly than are the works of the Holy Ghost (Gal 5:19). And this their manifestation ariseth from these following particulars:

1. We know the least appearance of a sin better by its native hue than we know a grace of the Spirit. 2. Sin is sooner felt in its bitterness to and upon a sanctified soul than is the grace of God.

A little aloes will be sooner tasted than will much sweet, though mixed therewith. 3. Sin is dreadful and murderous in the sight of a sanctified soul: wherefore the apprehending of that makes us often forget, and often question whether we have any grace or no.

4. Grace lies deep in the hidden part, but sin lies high, and floats above in the flesh; wherefore it is easier, oftener seen than is the grace of God (Psa 51:6). The little fishes swim on the top of the water, but the biggest and best keep down below, and so are seldomer seen. 5. Grace, as to quantity, seems less than sin. What is leaven, or a grain of mustard seed, to the bulky lump of a body of death (Matt 13:31-33). 6. Sin is seen by its own darkness, and also in the light of the Spirit; but the Spirit itself neither discovers itself, nor yet its graces, by every glance of its own light. 7. A man may have the Spirit busily at work in him, he may also have many of his graces in their vigorous