The faithful and laborious clergyman of a very large and populous parish had been accustomed, for a long series of years, to preserve notes of his visits to the afflicted, with remarks on the outcome of their affliction – whether life or death, and of the subsequent conduct of those who recovered. He stated, that, during forty years, he had visited more than two thousand people apparently drawing near to death, and who revealed such signs of penitence as would have led him to indulge a good hope of their eternal safety – if they had died at that moment. When they were restored to life and health – he eagerly looked that they should bring forth fruits fit for repentance. But alas! Of the two thousand, only two people manifested an abiding and saving change! The rest, when the terrors of eternity ceased to be in immediate prospect, forgot their pious impressions and their solemn vows – and returned with new avidity to their former worldly mindedness and sinful pursuits, “as the dog returns to its vomit again, and as the sow that was washed to its wallowing in the mire.”
Gorham Abbott

The Entire Book: Christ a Complete Saviour – By John Bunyan

The Entire Book: Christ a Complete Saviour – By John Bunyan

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Acacia John Bunyan – Online Library
http://acacia.pair.com/Acacia.John.Bunyan/

C H R I S T
A
Complete Saviour:
OR,
The Intercession of Christ,
And Who Are Privileged in It.
The meaning of the word
‘ I N T E R C E S S I O N .’
The benefits of this intercession of Christ. Its perpetuity..
He ever liveth to make intercession. The persons who are interested in it.

By J O H N.B U N Y A N.

Published by E. Chandler, J. Wilson,
and C. Doe, 1692.
Published four years after John Bunyan’s death.

Edited by George Offor.

Advertisement by the Editor.

However strange it may appear, it is a solemn fact, that the heart of man, unless prepared by a sense of the exceeding sinfulness of sin, rejects Christ as a complete Saviour. The pride of human nature will not suffer it to fall, as helpless and utterly undone, into the arms of Divine mercy. Man prefers a partial Saviour; one who had done so much, that, with the sinner’s aid, the work might be completed. No such were the opinions of John Bunyan; the furnace of sharp conviction had burnt up this proud dross; he believed the testimony of Scripture, that from the crown of the head to the soles of the feet all nature is corrupted; so that out of the unsanctified heart of man proceed evil thoughts, murders, and the sad catalogue of crimes which our Lord enumerates, and which defile our best efforts after purity of heart and life. No sinner will ever totally rely upon the Saviour until he is sensible of his own perishing state; hanging by the brittle thread of life over the yawning gulf of perdition; sinking in that sin which will swallow him up in those awful torments which await the transgressor; feeling that sin has fitted him as stubble for the fire; then it is that the cry proceeds from his heart, Lord, save, I perish; and then, and not till then, are we made willing to receive ‘Christ as a complete Saviour’ to the uttermost, not of his ability, but of our necessity. This was the subject of all Mr. Bunyan’s writings, and, doubtless, of all his preaching. It was to direct sinners to the Lamb of God, who alone can take away sin. This little treatise was one of those ten ‘excellent manuscripts’ which, at Bunyan’s decease, were found prepared for the press. It was first published in 1692, by his friends E. Chandler, J. Wilson, and C. Doe.

It is limited to a subject which is too often lost sight of, because it is within the veil

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