Читать книгу The Riches of Bunyan: Selected from His Works - John Bunyan - Страница 23

O how great a task is it for a poor soul that comes, sensible of sin and the wrath of God, to say in faith but this one word, Father! I tell you, however hypocrites think, yet the Christian that is so indeed finds all the difficulty in this very thing; he cannot say God is his Father. O, saith he, I dare not call him Father. And hence it is that the Spirit must be sent into the hearts of God's people for this very thing, to cry Father; it being too great a work for any man to do knowingly and believingly without it. When I say knowingly, I mean knowing what it is to be a child of God and to be born again; and when I say believingly, I mean for the soul to believe, and that from good experience, that the work of grace is wrought in him. This is the right calling of God, Father; and not as many do, to say in a babbling way the Lord's prayer by heart. No, here is the life of prayer, when in or with the Spirit, a man being made sensible of sin and how to come to the Lord for mercy, he comes, I say, in the strength of the Spirit, and crieth, Father. That one word spoken in faith, is better than a thousand prayers in a formal, cold, lukewarm way.

Naturally the name of God is dreadful to us, especially when he is discovered to us by those names that declare his justice, holiness, power, and glory; but the word FATHER is a familiar word; it frighteth not the sinner, but rather inclineth his heart to love and be pleased with the remembrance of him. Hence Christ also, when he would have us to pray with godly boldness, put this word FATHER into our mouths, saying, "When ye pray, say, Our Father which art in heaven;" concluding thereby that in the familiarity which by such a word is intimated, the children of God may take more holdness to pray for and ask great things. I myself have often found that when I can say but this word, FATHER, it doth me more good than when I call him by any other scripture name.

It is worth your noting, that to call God by his relative title was rare among the saints in Old Testament times; but now in New Testament times, he is called by no name so often as this, both by the Lord Jesus Christ himself and by the apostles afterwards. Indeed the Lord Jesus was he that first made this name common among the saints, and that taught them in their discourses, in their prayers, and in their writings, so much to use it; it being more pleasing to, and discovering more plainly our interest in God, than any other expression. For by this one name we are made to understand that all our mercies are the offspring of God, and that we also who are called are his children by adoption.