Chapter 186

This is a self-bemoaning, a bemoaning themselves in secret and retired places. You know it is common with them who are distressed with anguish, though all alone, to cry out to themselves of their present pains, saying, O my leg! O my arm! O my bowels! Or, as the son of the Shunammite, ‘My head! my head!’ (2 Kings 4:19). O the groans, the sighs, the cries, that the broken-hearted have, when by themselves, or alone! O, say they, my sins! my sins! my soul! my soul! How am I loaden with guilt! How am I surrounded with fear! O this hard, this desperate, this unbelieving heart! O how sin defileth my will, my mind, my conscience! ‘I am afflicted and ready to die’ (Psa 88:15).[9]

Could some of you carnal people but get behind the chamber-door, to hear Ephraim when he is at the work of self-bemoaning, it would make you stand amazed to hear him bewail that sin in himself in which you take delight; and to hear him bemoan his misspending of time, while you spend all in pursuing your filthy lusts; and to hear him offended with his heart, because it will not better comply with God’s holy will, while you are afraid of his Word and ways, and never think yourselves better than when farthest off from God. The unruliness of the passions and lusts of the broken-hearted make them often get into a corner, and thus bemoan themselves.

2. As they thus cry out in a bemoaning manner of and to themselves, so they have their outcries of and against themselves to others; as she said in another case, ‘Behold and see, if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow’ (Lam 1:12). O the bitter cries and complaints that the broken-hearted have, and make to one another! Still every one imagining that his own wounds are deepest, and his own sores fullest of anguish, and hardest to be cured. Say they, if our iniquities be upon us, and we pine away in them, how can we then live? (Eze 33:10).

Once being at an honest woman’s house, I, after some pause, asked her how she did? She said, Very badly. I asked her if she was sick? she answered, No. What then, said I, are any of your children ill? She told me, No. What, said I, is your husband amiss, or do you go back in the world? No, no, said she, but I am afraid I shall not be saved. And broke out with heavy heart, saying, ‘Ah, Goodman Bunyan! Christ and a pitcher; if I had Christ, though I went and begged my bread with a pitcher, it would be better with me than I think it is now!’ This woman had her heart broken, this woman wanted Christ, this woman was concerned for her soul. There are but few women, rich women, that count Christ and a pitcher better than the world, their pride, and pleasures. This woman’s cries are worthy to be recorded; it was a cry that carried in it, not only a sense of the want, but also of the worth of Christ. This cry, ‘Christ and a pitcher,’ made a melodious noise in the ears of the very angels![10]

But, I say, few women cry out thus; few women are so in love with their own eternal salvation, as to be willing to part with all their lusts and vanities for Jesus Christ and a pitcher. Good Jacob also was thus: ‘If the Lord,’ said he, ‘will give me bread to eat, and raiment to put on, then he shall be my God.’ Yea, he vowed it should be so. ‘And Jacob vowed a vow, saying, If God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat, and raiment to put on; so that I come again to my father’s house in peace: then shall the Lord be my God’ (Gen 28:20).

3. As they bemoan themselves, and make their complaints to one and another, so they cry to God. ‘O God,’ said Heman, ‘I have cried day and night before thee.’ But when? Why, when his soul was full of trouble, and his life drew near to the grave (Psa 88:1-3). Or, as it says in another place, out of the deep, ‘out of the belly of hell cried I’ (Psa 130:1; Jonah 2:2). By such words expressing what painful condition they were in when they cried.

See how God himself words it. ‘My pleasant portion,’ says he, is become ‘a desolate wilderness, _and being_ desolate, it mourneth unto me’ (Jer 12:11). And this also is natural to those whose hearts are broken. Whether goes the child, when it catcheth harm, but to its father, to its mother? Where doth it lay its head, but in their laps? Into whose bosom doth it pour out its complaint, more especially, but into the bosom of the father, of a mother, because there are bowels, there is pity, there is relief and succour? And thus it is with them whose bones, whose hearts are broken. It is natural to them; they must cry; they cannot but cry to him. ‘Lord, heal me,’ said David, ‘for my bones are vexed; Lord, heal me, for my soul is also sore vexed’ (Psa 6:1-3). He that cannot cry feels no pain, sees no want, fears no danger, or else is dead.

Sixth. Another sign of a broken heart, and of a contrite spirit is, it trembleth at God’s Word. ‘To him that is poor, and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my Word’ (Isa 66:2).

The Word of God is an awful Word to a broken-hearted man. Solomon says, ‘The word of a king is as the roaring of a lion’; and if so, what is the Word of God? for by the wrath and fear is meant the authoritative word of a king. We have a proverb, ‘The burnt child dreads the fire, the whipped child fears the rod’; even so the broken-hearted fears the Word of God. Hence you have a remark set upon them that tremble at God’s Word, to wit, they are they that keep among the godly; they are they that keep within compass; they are they that are aptest to mourn, and to stand in the gap, when God is angry; and to turn away his wrath from a people.

It is a sign the Word of God has had place, and wrought powerfully, when the heart trembleth at it, is afraid, and stands in awe of it. When Joseph’s mistress tempted him to lie with her, he was afraid of the Word of God. ‘How then can I do this great wickedness,’ said he, ‘and sin against God?’ He stood in awe of God’s Word, durst not do it, because he kept in remembrance what a dreadful thing it was to rebel against God’s Word. When old Eli heard that the ark was taken, his very heart trembled within him; for he read by that sad loss that God was angry with Israel, and he knew the anger of God was a great and terrible thing. When Samuel went to Bethlehem, the elders of the town trembled; for they feared that he came to them with some sad message from God, and they had had experience of the dread of such things before (Gen 39:7-9; 1 Sam 4:13, 16:1-4). When Ezra would have a mourning in Israel for the sins of the land, he sent, and there came to him ‘every one that trembled at the words of the God of Israel, because of the transgressions of those that had been carried away’ (Ezra 9:4).

There are, I say, a sort of people that tremble at the words of God, and that are afraid of doing ought that is contrary to them; but they are only such with whose souls and spirits the Word has had to do. For the rest, they are resolved to go on their course, let God say what he will. ‘As for the word’ of the Lord, said rebellious Israel to Jeremiah, ‘that thou hast spoken unto us in the name of the Lord, we will not hearken unto thee. But we will certainly do whatsoever thing goeth forth out of our own mouth’ (Jer 44:16). But do you think that these people did ever feel the power and majesty of the Word of God to break their hearts? No, verily; had that been so, they would have trembled at the words of God; they would have been afraid of the words of God. God may command some people what he will, they will do what they list. What care they for God? what care they for his Word? Neither threats nor promises, neither punishments or favours will make them obedient to the Word of God; and all because they have not felt the power of it, their hearts have not been broken with it. When king Josias did but read in God’s Book what punishment God had threatened against rebellious Israel, though he himself was a holy and good man, he humbled himself, ‘he rent his clothes,’ and wept before the Lord, and was afraid of the judgment threatened (2 Kings 22; 2 Chron 34). For he knew what a dreadful thing the Word of God is. Some men, as I said before, dare do anything, let the Word of God be never so much against it; but they that tremble at the Word dare not do so. No, they must make the Word their rule for all they do; they must go to the Holy Bible, and there inquire what may or may not be done; for they tremble at the Word. This then is another sign, a true sign, that the heart has been broken, namely, ‘When the heart is made afraid of, and trembleth at the Word’ (Acts 9:4-6, 16:29,30). Trembling at the Word is caused by a belief of what is deserved, threatened, and of what will come, if not prevented by repentance; and therefore the heart melts, and breaks before the Lord.

[IV. THE NECESSITY THERE IS THAT THE HEART MUST BE BROKEN.]

I come, in the next place, to speak to this question.

But what necessity is there that the heart must be broken? Cannot a man be saved unless his heart be broken? I answer, Avoiding secret things, which only belong to God, there is a necessity of breaking the heart, in order to salvation; because a man will not sincerely comply with the means conducing thereunto until his heart is broken. For,

First. Man, take him as he comes into the world, as to spirituals, as to evangelical things, in which mainly lies man’s eternal felicity, and there he is as one dead, and so stupefied, and wholly in himself, as unconcerned with it. Nor can any call or admonition, that has not a heart-breaking power attending of it, bring him to a due consideration of his present state, and so unto an effectual desire to be saved.

Many ways God has manifested this. He has threatened men with temporal judgments; yea, sent such judgments upon them, once and again, over and over, but they will not do. What! says he, ‘I have given you cleanness of teeth in all your cities; I have withholden the rain from you; I have smitten you with blasting and mildew; I have sent among you the pestilence; I have overthrown some of you, as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. Yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the Lord’ (Amos 4:6-11). See here! Here is judgment upon judgment, stroke after stroke, punishment after punishment, but all will not do, unless the heart is broken. Yea, another prophet seems to say that such things, instead of converting the soul, sets it further off. If heart-breaking work attend such strokes, ‘Why should ye be stricken any more?’ says he, ‘ye will revolt more and more’ (Isa 1:5).

Man’s heart is fenced, it is grown gross; there is a skin that, like a coat of mail, has wrapped it up, and inclosed it in on every side. This skin, this coat of mail, unless it be cut off and taken away, the heart remains untouched, whole; and so as unconcerned, whatever judgments or afflictions light upon the body (Matt 13:15; Acts 28:27). This which I call the coat of mail, the fence of the heart, has two great names in Scripture. It is called, ‘the foreskin of the heart,’ and the armour in which the devil trusteth (Deut 10:16; Luke 11:22).

Because these shield and fence the heart from all gospel doctrine, and from all legal punishments, nothing can come at it till these are removed. Therefore, in order unto conversion, the heart is said to be circumcised; that is, this foreskin is taken away, and this coat of mail is spoiled. ‘I will circumcise thy heart,’ saith he, ‘to love the Lord thy God with all thine heart’—and then the devil’s goods are spoiled—‘that thou mayst live’ (Deut 30:6; Luke 11:22).

And now the heart lies open, now the Word will prick, cut, and pierce it; and it being cut, pricked, and pierced, it bleeds, it faints, it falls, and dies at the foot of God, unless it is supported by the grace and love of God in Jesus Christ. Conversion, you know, begins at the heart; but if the heart be so secured by sin and Satan, as I have said, all judgments are, while that is so, in vain. Hence Moses, after he had made a long relation of mercy and judgment unto the children of Israel, suggests that yet the great thing was wanting to them, and that thing was, an heart to perceive, and eyes to see, and ears to hear unto that day (Deut 29:2,3). Their hearts were as yet not touched to the quick, were not awakened, and wounded by the holy Word of God, and made tremble at its truth and terror.

But I say, before the heart be touched, pricked, made smart, &c., how can it be thought, be the danger never so great, that it should repent, cry, bow, and break at the foot of God, and supplicate there for mercy! and yet thus it must do; for thus God has ordained, and thus God has appointed it; nor can men be saved without it. But, I say, can a man spiritually dead, a stupid man, whose heart is past feeling, do this; before he has his dead and stupid heart awakened, to see and feel its state and misery without it? But,

Second. Man, take him as he comes into the world—and how wise soever he is in worldly and temporal things—he is yet a fool as to that which is spiritual and heavenly. Hence Paul says, ‘the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness unto him,’ because he is indeed a fool to them; ‘neither,’ says the text, ‘can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned’ (1 Cor 2:14). But how now must this fool be made wise? Why, wisdom must be put into his heart (Job 38:36). Now, none can put it there but God; and how doth he put it there, but by making room there for it, by taking away the thing which hinders, which is that folly and madness which naturally dwelleth there? But how doth he take that away but by a severe chastising of his soul for it, until he has made him weary of it? The whip and stripes are provided for the natural fool, and so it is for him that is spiritually so (Prov 19:29).

Solomon intimates, that it is a hard thing to make a fool become wise. ‘Though thou shouldest bray a fool in a mortar among wheat with a pestle, yet will not his foolishness depart from him’ (Prov 27:22). By this it appears that it is a hard thing to make a fool a wise man. To bray one in a mortar is a dreadful thing, to bray one there with a pestle; and yet it seems a whip, a mortar, and a pestle is the way. And if this is the way to make one wise in this world, and if all this will hardly do, how must the fool that is so in spirituals be whipped and beaten, and stripped before he is made wise therein? Yea, his heart must be put into God’s mortar, and must be beaten; yea, brayed there with the pestle of the law, before it loves to hearken unto heavenly things. It is a great word in Jeremiah, ‘Through deceit,’ that is, folly, ‘they refuse to know me, saith the Lord.’ And what follows? Why, ‘Therefore, thus saith the Lord of hosts, behold I will melt them, and try them,’ that is, with fire, ‘for how shall I do for the daughter of my people’ (Jer 9:6,7). I will melt them: I will put them into my furnace, and there I will try them; and there will I make them know me, saith the Lord. When David was under spiritual chastisement for his sin, and had his heart under the breaking hand of God, then he said, God should make him know wisdom (Psa 51:6). Now he was in the mortar, now he was in the furnace, now he was bruised and melted; yea, now his bones, his heart, was breaking, and now his folly was departing. Now, says he, thou shalt make me to know wisdom. If I know anything of the way of God with us fools, there is nothing else will make us wise men; yea, a thousand breakings will not make us so wise as we should be.

We say, Wisdom is not good till it is bought; and he that buys it, according to the intention of that proverb, usually smarts for it. The fool is wise in his own conceit; wherefore there is a double difficulty attends him before he can be wise indeed. Not only his folly, but his wisdom, must be removed from him; and how shall that be, but by ripping up of his heart by some sore conviction, that may show him plainly that his wisdom is his folly, and that which will undo him. A fool loves his folly; that is, as treasure, so much is he in love with it. Now then, it must be a great thing that must make a fool forsake his folly. The foolish will not weigh, nor consider, nor compare wisdom with their folly. ‘Folly is joy to him that is destitute of wisdom.’ ‘As a dog returneth to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly’ (Prov 15:21, 26:11). So loth are they when driven from it to let it go, to let it depart from them. Wherefore there must go a great deal to the making of a man a Christian; for as to that, every man is a fool, yea, the greatest fool, the most unconcerned fool, the most self-willed fool of all fools; yea, one that will not be turned from his folly but by the breaking of his heart. David was one of these fools; Manasseh was one of these fools; Saul, otherwise called Paul, was one of these fools; and so was I—and that the biggest of all.[11]

Third. Man, take him as he comes into the world, and he is not only a dead man, and a fool, but a proud man also. Pride is one of those sins that first showeth itself to children, yea, and it grows up with them, and mixeth itself with all they do: but it lies most hid, most deep in man as to his soul-concerns. For the nature of sin, as sin, is not only to be vile, but to hide its vileness from the soul. Hence many think they do well when they sin. Jonah thought he did well to be angry with God (Jonah 4:9). The Pharisees thought they did well when they said, Christ had a devil (John 8:48). And Paul thought verily, that he ought to do many things against, or contrary to, the name of Jesus; which he also did with great madness (Acts 26:9,10). And thus sin puffs up men with pride, and a conceit of themselves, that they are a thousand times better than they are. Hence they think they are the children of God, when they are the children of the devil; and that they are something as to Christianity, when they neither are such, nor know what it is that they must have to make them such (John 8:41-44; Gal 6:3).

Now, whence flows this but from pride, and a self-conceit of themselves, and that their state is good for another world, when they are yet in their sins, and under the curse of God? Yea, and this pride is so strong and high, and yet so hid in them, that all the ministers in the world cannot persuade them that this is pride, not grace, in which they are so confident. Hence they slight all reproofs, rebukes, threatenings, or admonitions that are pressed upon them, to prevail with them to take heed, that they be not herein deceived. ‘Hear ye,’ saith the prophet, ‘and give ear: be not proud, for the Lord hath spoken.’ ‘But if ye will not hear it, my soul shall weep in secret places for your pride’ (Jer 13:15-17). And what was the conclusion? Why, all the proud men stood out still, and maintained their resistance of God and his holy prophet (Jer 43:2).

Nor is there any thing that will prevail with these to the saving of their souls, until their hearts are broken. David, after he had defiled Bathsheba, and slain her husband, yet boasted himself in his justice and holiness, and would by all means have the man put to death that had but taken the poor man’s lamb, when, alas! poor soul, himself was the great transgressor. But would he believe it? No, no; he stood upon the vindicating of himself to be a just doer; nor would he be made to fall until Nathan, by authority from God, did tell him that he was the man whom himself had condemned; ‘Thou art the man,’ said he: at which word his conscience was awakened, his heart wounded, and so his soul made to fall under the burden of his guilt, at the feet of the God of heaven for mercy (2 Sam 12:1-13).

Ah! pride, pride! thou art that which holds many a man in the chains of his sins; thou art it, thou cursed self-conceit, and keepest them from believing that their state is damnable. ‘The wicked, through the pride of his countenance, will not seek after God’ (Psa 10:4). And if there is so much in the pride of his countenance, what is there, think you, in the pride of his heart? Therefore Job says it is to hide pride from man, and so to save his soul from hell, that God chasteneth him with pain upon his bed, until the multitude of his bones stick out, and until his life draws nigh to the destroyer (Job 33:17-22).

It is a hard thing to take a man off his pride, and make him, instead of trusting in, and boasting of his goodness, wisdom, honesty, and the like, to see himself a sinner, a fool, yea, a man that is cruel, as to his own immortal soul. Pride of heart has a power in it, and is therefore compared to an iron sinew, and an iron chain, by which they are made stout, and with which they are held in that stoutness, to oppose the Lord, and drive his Word from their hearts (Lev 26:19; Psa 73:6).

This was the sin of devils, and it is the sin of man, and the sin, I say, from which no man can be delivered until his heart is broken; and then his pride is spoiled, then he will be glad to yield. If a man be proud of his strength or manhood, a broken leg will maul him; and if a man be proud of his goodness, a broken heart will maul him; because, as has been said, a broken heart comes by the discovery and charge of sin, by the power of God upon the conscience.

Fourth. Man, take him as he comes into the world, and he is not only a dead man, a fool, and proud, but also self-willed and headstrong (2 Peter 2:10). A stubborn ungain creature is man before his heart is broken. Hence they are so often called rebels, rebellious, and disobedient: they will only do what they list. ‘All day long,’ says God, ‘have I stretched out my hand to a disobedient and gainsaying people.’ And hence, again, they are compared to a self-willed or headstrong horse, that will, in spite of his rider, rush into the battle. ‘Every one,’ says God, ‘turneth to his course, as the horse rusheth into battle’ (Jer 8:6). They say, ‘With our tongue will we prevail, our lips are our own; who is lord over us’ (Psa 12:4).

Hence they are said to stop their ears, to pull away their shoulder, to shut their eyes, and harden their hearts, ‘against the words of God, and contemned the counsel of the Most High’ (Psa 107:11; Zech 7:10,12). They are fitly compared to the rebellious son who would not be ruled by his parents, or to the prodigal, who would have all in his own hand, and remove himself far away from father and father’s house (Deut 21:20; Luke 15:13). Now for such creatures, nothing will do but violence. The stubborn son must be stoned till he dies; and the prodigal must be famished out of all; nothing else, I say, will do. Their self-willed stubborn heart will not comply with the will of God before it is broken (Deut 21:21; Luke 15:14-17). These are they that are called the stout-hearted; these are said to be far from righteousness, and so will remain until their hearts are broken; for so they must be made to know themselves (Isa 9:9-11).

Fifth. Man, as he comes into the world, is not only a dead man, a fool, proud, and self-willed, but also a fearless creature. ‘There is,’ saith the text, ‘no fear of God before their eyes’ (Rom 3:18). No fear of God! There is fear of man, fear of losing his favour, his love, his good-will, his help, his friendship; this is seen everywhere. How do the poor fear the rich, the weak fear the strong, and those that are threatened, them that threaten! But come now to God; why, none fear him; that is, by nature, none reverence him; they neither fear his frowns, nor seek his favour, nor inquire how they may escape his revenging hand that is lifted up against their sins and their souls because of sin. Little things they fear the losing of them; but the soul they are not afraid to lose. ‘They fear not me, saith the Lord’ (Mal 3:5).