ANSWERED.

GENTLE READER,

It was the great care of the Apostle Paul to deliver his gospel to the churches in its own simplicity, because so it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth. And if it was his care so to deliver it to us, it should be ours to seek so to continue it; and the rather, because of the unaptness of the minds even of the saints themselves to retain it without commixture. For, to say nothing of the projects of hell, and of the cunning craftiness of some that lie in wait to deceive even the godly themselves, as they are dull of hearing, so much more dull in receiving and holding fast the simplicity of the gospel of Jesus Christ. From their sense, and reason, and unbelief, and darkness, arise many imaginations and high thoughts, which exalt themselves against the knowledge of God and the obedience of Jesus Christ, wherefore they themselves have much ado to stand complete in all the will of God. And were they not concerned in electing love, by which they are bound up in the bundle of life, and blessed with the enjoyment of saving grace, which enlighteneth their souls and maintaineth their faith and hope, they would not only be assaulted and afflicted with their own corruptions, but, as others, overcome thereby.

Alas! how ordinary a thing is it for professors to fall from the knowledge they have had of the glorious gospel of the blessed God, and to be turned unto fables, seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils, through the intoxications of delusions and the witchcraft of false preachers. Now this their swerving from the gospel ariseth,

1. Either from their not having, or, having,

not retaining, the true knowledge of the person of the Lord Jesus Christ; or,

2. From their not believing the true causes of his coming into the world, with his doing and suffering there.

Upon one or both these accounts, I say, it is that they everlastingly perish; for if they have not, and do not also retain the knowledge of his person, they want the He, on whom if they believe not, they must die in their sins; and if they know not the reason of his coming, doing, and suffering, they are in the same condition also.

Now those professors that have had some knowledge of these things, and yet have lost them, it hath come thus to pass with them because they first lost the knowledge of themselves and of their sins.

They know not themselves to be such nothingones as the scripture reporteth them to be, nor their sins to be so heinous as the law hath concluded; therefore they either turn again with the dog to his vomit, or adhere to a few of the rags of their own fleshly righteousness, and so become pure in their own eyes, yet are not purged by blood from their filthiness.

For the person and doings of Jesus Christ are only precious to them that get and retain the true knowledge of themselves, and the due reward of their sins by the law: these are desolate, being driven out of all; these embrace the rock instead of a shelter: the sensible sinner receiveth him joyfully.

And because a miscarriage in this great truth is the most dangerous and damning miscarriage, therefore should professors be the more fearful of swerving aside therefrom. The man that rejecteth the true knowledge of the person of the Lord Jesus, and the causes of his doing and suf

fering in the world, takes the next way to be guilty of that transgression that is not to be purged with sacrifice for ever; that fearful transgression for which is left no offering at all, nor anything to be expected by the person transgressing but fearful judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversary.

Now, for their sakes that have not sinned this sin, for their sakes that are in danger thereof, but yet not overcome, for their sakes have I written this little book, wherein is largely, and yet with few words, discovered the doctrine of the person, and doings, and sufferings of Christ, with the true cause thereof, also a removal of those objections that the crafty children of darkness have framed against the same.

And I have been the more plain and simple in my writing, because the sin against the Holy Ghost is in these days more common than formerly, and the way unto it more beautified with colour and pretence of truth. I may say of the way to this sin, it is, as was once the way to Jerusalem, strewed with boughs and branches, and by some there is cried a kind of hosanna to them that are treading these steps to hell. Oh, the plausible pretences, the golden names, the feigned holiness, the demure behaviours mixed with damnable hypocrisy, that attend the persons that have forsaken the Lord Jesus, that have despised his person, trampled upon him, and counted the blood of the covenant wherewith he was sanctified an unholy thing! They have crucified him to themselves, and think that they

can go to heaven without him; yea, pretend they love him, when they hate him; pretend they have him, when they have cast him off; pretend they trust in him, when they bid defiance to his undertakings for the world.

Reader, let me beseech thee to hear me patiently; read, and consider, and judge. I have presented thee with that which I have received from God; and the holy men of God, who spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost, do bear me witness. Thou wilt say, all pretend to this. Well, but give me the hearing, take me to the Bible, and let me find in thy heart no favour if thou find me to swerve from the standard.

I say again, receive my doctrine; I beseech thee, in Christ's stead, receive it; I know it to be the way of salvation; I have ventured my own soul thereon with gladness; and if all the souls in the world were mine, as mine own soul is, I would, through God's grace, venture every one of them there. I have not writ at a venture, nor borrowed my doctrine from libraries. I depend upon the sayings of no man. I found it in the scriptures of truth, among the true sayings of God.

I have done when I have exhorted thee to pray, and give heed to the words of God as revealed in the holy writ. The Lord Jesus Christ himself give thee light and life by faith in him; to whom, with the Father and the good Spirit of grace, be glory and dominion, now and for ever. Amen. JOHN BUNYAN.

intend that which God made to David himself. "Men and brethren,” said Peter, “let me freely speak unto you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his sepulchre is with us unto this day. Therefore being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him, that of the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, he would raise up Christ to sit on his throne; he seeing this before, spake of the resurrection of Christ," &c., Acts, ii. 29, 30.

QUEST. 4. What was it for Jesus to be raised thus up of God to Israel?

Here we have two things to consider of1. Who Israel is.

2. What it was for Jesus to be raised up unto them.

1. Who Israel is. By "Israel" sometimes we should understand the whole stock of Jacob, the natural children of his flesh; for that name they have of him, for he obtained it when he wrestled with the angel, and prevailed, (Gen. xxxii.) and it remained with his seed in their generations.

By"Israel" we are to understand all those that God hath promised to Christ. The children of "the promise are counted for the seed," the elect Jews and Gentiles. These are called "the Israel of God," and the seed of Abraham, whom Jesus in special regarded in his undertaking the work of man's redemption, Rom. ix. 6; Gal. vi. 16; Heb. ii. 14-16.

2. What it was for Jesus to be raised up unto them.

This word " raised up" is diversely taken in the scripture.

1. It is taken for "sending;" as when he saith, he raised them up judges, saviours, and prophets, he means, he sent them such, (Judges, ii. 16, 18; iii. 9, 15; Amos, ii. 11;) and thus he raised up Jesus-that is," he sent him." "I have not spoken of myself; but the Father which sent me gave me a commandment," John,

xii. 49.

2. To be raised up, intimateth one "invested with power and authority." Thus he raised up David to be the king of Israel, he anointed him and invested him with kingly power, 1 Samuel, xvi. 13; Acts, xiii. 22. And thus was Jesus Christ raised up. Hence he is called "the horn of salvation," "" He hath raised up for us an horn of salvation in the house of his servant David," Luke, ii. 69.

3. To be raised up, intimateth quickening and strengthening, to oppose and overcome all opposition. Thus was Jesus raised up from under sin, death, the rage of the world, and hell, that day that God raised him out of the grave.

Thus, therefore, was Jesus raised up to Israel -that is, he was sent, authorized, and strengthened to and in the work of their salvation, to the completing of it.

The words thus opened do lay before us these two observations

First, That in all ages God gave his people a promise, and so ground for a believing remembrance, that he would one day send them a Saviour. Secondly, That when Jesus was come into the world, then was that promise of God fulfilled.

To begin with the first, that in all ages God

gave his people a promise, and so ground for a believing remembrance that he would one day send them a Saviour.

This Zacharias testifies when he was filled with the Holy Ghost, for speaking of the Messias, or the Saviour, he saith, that "God spake of him by the mouth of all the prophets which have been since the world began;" to which I will add that of Peter," Yea, and all the prophets from Samuel, and those that follow after, as many as have spoken have likewise foretold of these days," Luke, ii. 69, 70; Acts, iii. 24.

From these texts it is evident that in every generation or age of the world God did give his people a promise, and so ground for a believing remembrance, that he would one day send them a Saviour; for indeed the promise is not only a ground for a remembrance, but for a believing remembrance. What God saith is sufficient ground for faith, because he is truth, and cannot lie or repent. But that is not all; his heart was engaged, yea, all his heart, in the promise which he spoke of sending us a Saviour.

From this observation I shall make inquiry into these three things

1. What it is to be a Saviour.

2. How it appears that God in all ages gave his people a promise that he would one day send them a Saviour.

3. That this was ground for a believing remembrance that a Saviour should one day come. First, What it is to be a Saviour.

1. This word "Saviour" is easy to be understood, it being all one with Deliverer, Redeemer, &c. "A Saviour, Jesus," both words are of the same signification, and are doubled, perhaps to teach us that the person mentioned in the text is not called "Jesus" only to distinguish him from other men, (for names are given to distinguish,) but also and especially to specify his office: his name is Saviour, because it was to be his work, his office, his business in the world. "His name shall be called Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins," Matt. i. 21.

Secondly, This word "Saviour" is a word so large that it hath place in all the undertakings of Christ; for whatever he doth in his mediation he doth as a Saviour. He interposeth between God and man as a Saviour; he engageth against sin, the devil, death, and hell, as a Saviour, and triumphed over them by himself as a Saviour.

Thirdly, The word "Saviour," as I said, is all one with Redeemer, Deliverer, Reconciler, Peace-maker, or the like; for though there be variation in the terms, yet Saviour is the intendment of them all. By redeeming he becomes a Saviour, by delivering he becomes a Saviour, by reconciling he becomes a Saviour, and by making peace he becometh a Saviour. But I pass this now, intending to speak more to the same question afterwards.

Secondly, How it appears that God in all ages gave his people a promise that he would one day send them a Saviour.

It appears evidently, for so soon as man had sinned, God came to him with a heart full of promise, and continued to renew and renew, till the time of the promised Messias to be revealed

was come.