John Bunyan :: The Text Treated by Way of Observation

THE TEXT TREATED BY WAY OF OBSERVATION.

Thus have I in brief passed through this text by way of explications. My next work is to speak to it by way of observation, but I shall be also as brief in that as the nature of the thing will admit.

"All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out" (Jhn 6:37).

And now I come to some observations, and a little briefly to speak to them, and then conclude the whole.

The words thus explained afford us many, some of which are these:

• 1. That God the Father, and Christ his Son, are two distinct persons in the Godhead.
  
  

• 2. That by them, not excluding the Holy Ghost, is contrived and determined the salvation of fallen mankind.
  
  

• 3. That this contrivance resolved itself into a covenant between these persons in the Godhead, which standeth in giving on the Father's part and receiving on the Son's. "All that the Father giveth me," etc.
  
  

• 4. That every one that the Father hath given to Christ, according to the mind of God in the text, shall certainly come to him.
  
  

• 5. That coming to Jesus Christ is therefore not by the will, wisdom, or power of man, but by the gift, promise, and drawing of the Father. "All that the Father giveth me shall come."
  
  

• 6. That Jesus Christ will be careful to receive, and will not in any wise reject, those that come or are coming to him. "And him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out."

There are, besides these, some other truths implied in the words. As—

• 7. They that are coming to Jesus Christ are ofttimes heartily afraid that he will not receive them.
  
  

• 8. Jesus Christ would not have them that in truth are coming to him once think that he will cast them out.

These observations lie all of them in the words, and are plentifully confirmed by the Scriptures of truth; but I shall not at this time speak to them all, but shall pass by the first, second, third, fourth, and sixth, partly because I design brevity, and partly because they are touched upon in the explicatory part of the text. I shall therefore begin with the fifth observation, and so make that the first in order, in the following discourse.