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Come and Welcome Written By J O H N.B U N Y A N, Author of "THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS." "And they shall come which were ready to perish." –Isaiah 27:13. L O N D O N, 1681. Published seven years before John Bunyan's death. |
ADVERTISEMENT BY THE EDITOR.
ome and welcome to Jesus Christ," is a subject
peculiarly fitted to the deep and searching experience of John Bunyan. He knew all
the wiles of sin and Satan, in placing stumblingblocks in the way of a sincere penitent;
all the human craft employed in keeping the soul from a simple and entire reliance
upon Christ for salvation. This little work soon became most deservedly popular,
passing through four large editions during the last seven years of the author's life.
It is an enlightened display of the dealings of the Father in giving sinners to Christ;
the Son in saving them by his atonement, mediation, and intercession; and the Holy
Spirit in sanctifying and fitting them for glory. Here is no Calvinism, Lutheranism,
or Arminianism; no Episcopacy, Presbytery, or Independency; nothing but Christism
and Bibleism. The gracious invitation is addressed to all who feel their misery,
Come unto me, and I will make you happy and blessed. All who feel the leprosy of
sin are invited to this spiritual Physician, and he only can and will heal them.
All who suffer under the slavery of sin and Satan, Christ alone can make you free.
Come to him, and you shall be free indeed. The analysis of Bunyan's treatise shows
that ALL mankind are born in sin. ALL sinners are invited to Christ. None will come
but such as feel the plague, and see the leprosy of sin. Those who come are drawn
in a variety of ways —some terrified with the horrors of hell, others allured by
the gracious voice of the Saviour, and the prospects of heavenly felicity. ALL who
sincerely come, attain the same end, a sincere and total reliance upon the Saviour
as the only refuge from the roaring lion.
Every other way to life is guarded by the flaming swords of the cherubim. Christ
opens his golden arms wider than all our miseries. But he suffers no rival on his
throne, no partnership with Moses or John Baptist. The personification of "shall
come," and of "ignorance," is strikingly illustrative; as is "sin,
the winding-sheet of the soul;" "unbelief, the white devil;" the sinner
being a counsellor for Satan; and the two ways of taking our own likeness. His appeal
to persecutors is most forcible. But I must not detain the reader longer from the
pleasure and profit he will receive from an attentive perusal of these pages.
HACKNEY, 1850.
GEORGE OFFOR.
[FIRST, THE TEXT TREATED BY WAY OF EXPLICATION.]
[SECOND, THE TEXT TREATED BY WAY OF OBSERVATION.]
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