The ornament and beauty of this lower world, next to God and his wonders, are the men that spangle and shine in godliness.

THE FAMILY IN HEAVEN AND EARTH

“The whole family in heaven, and earth.”  The difference betwixt us and them is, not that we are really two, but one body in Christ, in divers places.  True, we are below stairs, and they above; they in their holiday, and we in our working-day clothes; they in harbor, but we in the storm; they at rest, but we in the wilderness; they singing, as crowned with joy, we crying, as crowned with thorns.  But we are all of one house, one family, and are all the children of one Father.

FEEBLENESS OF THE CHRISTIAN

Israel, as the child of God, is a pitiful thing of himself; one that is full of weaknesses, infirmities, and defects, should we speak nothing of his transgressions.  He that is to be attended with so many mercies, absolutely necessary mercies, must needs be in himself a poor indigent creature.  Should you see a child attended with so many engines to make him go, as the child of God is attended with mercies to make him stand, you would say, “What an infirm, decrepid, helpless thing is this!” Would you not say, “Such a one is not worth the keeping, and his father cannot look for any thing from him, but that he should live upon high charge and expense, as long as he liveth?” Why, this is the case.  Israel is such a one, nay, a worse:  he cannot live without tender mercy, without great mercy, without rich mercy, without manifold mercy.  He cannot stand, if mercy doth not compass him round about, nor go, unless mercy follows him.  Yea, if mercy that rejoiceth against judgment doth not continually flutter over him, the very moth will eat him up, the canker will consume him.

THE CHRISTIAN UNDER A SENSE OF GUILT—­BUNYAN’S EXPERIENCE

I had no sooner began to recall to my mind my former experience of the goodness of God to my soul, but there came flocking into my mind an innumerable company of my sins and transgressions; amongst which these were at this time most to my affliction, namely, my deadness, dulness, and coldness in holy duties; my wanderings of heart, my wearisomeness in all good things, and my want of love to God, his ways, and his people, with this at the end of all:  “Are these the fruits of Christianity?  Are these the tokens of a blessed man?” Now, I sunk and fell in my spirit, and was giving up all for lost; but, as I was walking up and down in the house, as a man in a most woful state, that word of God took hold of my heart, “Ye are justified freely by his grace, through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ.”  But Oh, what a turn it made upon me.