Happy Reformation Day!
October 31
A Litany of Graces
From the Pen of John Bunyan
“. . . Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for ‘God opposes the proud by gives grace to the humble’”
1 Peter 5: 5b.
There is hope, another grace of the Spirit bestowed upon us and how often is that also as to the excellency of working, made to flag? “I shall perish,” saith David; “I am cut off from before thine eyes,” said he. (Psalm 31: 22) And now where was his hope[found], in the right discovery of the gospel?
There is love that should be in us as hot as fire. It is compared to fire, to fire of the hottest sort. Yea, it is said to be hotter than the coals of juniper (Canticles [Song of Songs] 8: 6-7). But who finds this heat in love so much as for one poor quarter of an hour together?
The grace of humility, whe[re] is it? Who has a thimbleful . . . [of it]? Where is he that is “clothed with humility,” and that does what he is commanded “with all humility of mind”?
For zeal, where is that also? Zeal for God against sin, profaneness, superstition, and idolatry. I speak now to the godly. [Those] who have this zeal in the root and habit. But oh, how little of it puts forth itself into actions in such a day as this is!
There is reverence, fear, and standing in awe of God’s Word and judgments, where are the excellent workings thereof to be found? And where it is most, how far short of perfect acts is it?
Simplicity and godly sincerity also, with how much dirt is it mixed in the best; especially among those of the saints that are rich, who have got the poor and beggarly art of complimenting? For the more compliment, the less sincerity. Many words will not fill a bushel. But “in the multitude of words there wanteth not sin.” (Proverbs 10: 19).
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