“Enquire, I pray thee, at the word of the Lord to day” (2 Chron. 18:4).
“Thy word hath quickened me” (Psa. 119:50).
The man of one book is always formidable, but when that book is the Bible he is irresistible.—W. M. Taylor.
There is no feature more noticeable in Bunyan’s character than the devout earnestness with which he studied the Divine Word, and the reverence which he cherished for it throughout the whole of his life.
In the time of his agony, when “a restless wanderer after rest,” he battled with fierce temptation, and was beset with Antinomian error, he gratefully records, “The Bible was precious to me in those days.” After deliverance it was his congenial life-work to exalt its honor, and to proclaim its truths.
Is he recommending growth in grace to his hearers? The Word is to be the aliment of their life. “Every grace is nourished by the Word, and without it there is no thrift in the soul.”
Has he announced some fearless exposition of truth? Hark how he disarms opposition and challenges scrutiny! “Give me a hearing: take me to the Bible, and let me find in thy heart no favor if thou find me to swerve from the standard.”
Is he uplifting the Word above the many inventions of his fellows? Mark the racy homeliness of his assertion: “A little from God is better than a great deal from men. What is from men is often tumbled over and over. Things that we receive at God’s hand come to us as things from the minting-house. Old truths are always new to us if they come with the smell of Heaven upon them.”
Is his righteous soul vexed with the indifference of the faithful, or with the impertinence of the profane? How manfully he proclaims his conviction of a pressing want of the times! “There wanteth even in the hearts of God’s people a greater reverence for the Word of God than to this day appeareth among us; and this let me say, that want of reverence for the Word is the ground of all the disorders that are in the heart, life, conversation, or Christian communion.”—W. Morley Punshon.