Table of Contents
THE STRAIT GATE;
OR,
GREAT DIFFICULTY OF GOING TO HEAVEN:
PLAINLY PROVING, BY THE SCRIPTURES, THAT NOT ONLY THE RUDE AND
PROFANE, BUT MANY GREAT PROFESSORS, WILL COME SHORT OF THAT KINGDOM.
'Enter ye in at the strait gate; for wide is the gate, and broad is the way that
leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: because strait is the gate,
and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.'--Matthew
7:13, 14
ADVERTISEMENT BY THE EDITOR.
If any uninspired writer has been entitled to the name of Boanerges, or a son of
thunder, it is the author of the following treatise. Here we have a most searching and
faithful display of the straitness or exact dimensions of that all-important gate, which
will not suffer many professors to pass into the kingdom of heaven, encumbered as they are
with fatal errors. Still 'it is no little pinching wicket, but wide enough for all the
truly gracious and sincere lovers of Jesus Christ; while it is so strait, that no others
can by any means enter in.' This is a subject calculated to rouse and stimulate all
genuine professors to solemn inquiry; and it was peculiarly intended to dart at, and fix
convictions upon, the multitudes of hypocritical professors who abounded in Bunyan's time,
especially under the reigns of the later Stuarts.
During the Protectorate, wickedness was discountenanced, and skulked in the holes and
corners of Mansoul; but when a debauched monarch, who had taken refuge in the most
licentious court in Europe, was called to occupy the throne of his fathers, the most
abandoned profligacy and profaneness were let loose upon the nation. Vice was openly
patronized, while virtue and religion were as openly treated with mockery and contempt.
Bunyan justly says, 'The text calls for sharpness, so do the times.' 'With those whose
religion lieth in some circumstantials, the kingdom swarms at this day.' When they stand
at the gate, they will 'shake like a quagmire--their feigned faith, pretended love, shows
of gravity, and holiday words, will stand them in little stead; some professors do with
religion just as people do with their best apparel--hang it on the wall all the week, and
put it on on Sundays; they save it till they go to a meeting, or meet with a godly
chapman.' This state of society called for peculiar sharpness, and Bunyan preached and
published, in 1676, this awful alarm to professors. No subject could be more peculiarly
applicable than 'The Gate of heaven,' and 'the difficulties of entering in thereat'; a
subject of the deepest interest to all mankind--to stimulate the careless to find, and to
enter the gate of this the only city of refuge from eternal misery--to fill the heart of
God's children with love and joy in their prospects of a blessed immortality--and to sting
the hypocrites with the awful thought of finding the gate shut against them for ever.
Their cries and tears will be too late; they will stand without and vehemently cry, 'Lord,
Lord, open unto us'; in vain will be their outcry, 'the devils are coming; Lord, Lord, the
pit opens her mouth upon us; Lord, Lord, there is nothing but hell and damnation left us,
if thou hast not mercy upon us.' These were professors who pretended to have found the
gate and way to heaven; who passed for pilgrims who were seeking a better, even a heavenly
country; such deluded victims must be, of all men, the most miserable.
Faithfulness becomes the ministers of Christ in dealing with the souls of men; and
pre-eminently faithful is John Bunyan in this treatise. Reader, he will be clear of thy
blood. Enter upon the solemn inquiry, Have I sought the gate? Shall I be admitted into, or
shut out from, that blessed kingdom? The openly profane can have no hope. Are you a
professor?--there is danger sill. In vain will it be to urge, 'We have prophesied in thy
name, and in thy name cast out devils.' To the secretly profane, whatever may be their
profession, there can be no well-grounded hope of entrance in at this gate. Those only
will be admitted whom the Lord knows to be his--the sheep of his pasture, who have heard
his voice, and obeyed it. Against all others the door will be shut, and the awful words,
'I know you not--depart, ye cursed,' will hurry them to eternal darkness. The question,
'Are there few that be saved?' will suggest itself to our minds; may the answer fix upon
our conscience, 'STRIVE to enter in.' It is very probable that it was in preaching upon
this text, Bunyan was assailed with a want of charity. The anecdote is thus narrated by
Mr. Doe in The Struggler:--'As Mr. Bunyan was preaching in a barn, and showing
the fewness of those that should be saved, there stood one of the learned to take
advantage of his words; and having done preaching, the schoolman said to him, You are a
deceiver, a person of no charity, and therefore not fit to preach; for he that [in effect]
condemneth the greatest part of his hearers hath no charity, and therefore is not fit to
preach. Then Mr. Bunyan answered, The Lord Jesus Christ preached in a ship to his hearers
on the shore (Mat 13), and showed that they were as four sorts of ground, the highway, the
stony, the thorny, and the good ground, but those represented by the good ground were the
only persons to be saved. And your position is, That he that in effect condemneth the
greatest part of his hearers, hath no charity, and therefore is not fit to preach the
gospel. But here the Lord Jesus Christ did so, then your conclusion is, The Lord Jesus
Christ wanted charity, and therefore was not fit to preach the gospel. Horrid blasphemy;
away with your hellish logic, and speak Scripture.' Of one thing we are certain, that
while hollow-hearted hypocritical professors will ever complain of faithful dealing with
their soul's eternal interests; the sincere and humble Christina will be most thankful for
searching inquiries, that, if wrong, he may be set right before his final destiny is
irrevocably fixed. May our souls submit to a scriptural measurement of this gate, and the
terms upon which alone it can be opened unto us.
The difficulties that prevent 'the many' from entering in are, 1. Forgetfulness that we
can only enter heaven by the permission of the law--every jot and tittle must be
fulfilled. Now, if we could live from our conversion to our death in the holiest obedience
to all its precepts, yet, having previously violated them, the stain must not only be
washed away in the blood of atonement, but we, as part of the body of Christ, must, in
him, render perfect obedience. 2. In addition to the disinclination of our hearts to
submit to this perfect righteousness, we have outward storms of temptation and
persecution. 'The world will seek to keep thee out of heaven with mocks, flouts, taunts,
threats, jails, gibbets, halters, burnings, and a thousand deaths; therefore strive!
Again, if it cannot overcome thee with these, it will flatter, promise, allure, entice,
entreat, and use a thousand tricks on this hand to destroy thee; and many that have been
stout against the threats of the world have yet been overcome with the bewitching
flatteries of the same. O that we may by grace escape all these enemies, and so strive as
to enter into the joy of our Lord.'
GEO. OFFOR.
TO THE READER.
COURTEOUS READER,
God, I hope, hath put it into my heart to write unto thee another time, and that about
matters of greatest moment--for now we discourse not about things controverted among the
godly, but directly about the saving or damning of the soul; yea, moreover, this discourse
is about the fewness of them that shall be saved, and it proves that many a high professor
will come short of eternal life; wherefore the matter must needs be sharp, and so disliked
by some, but let it not be rejected by thee. The text calls for sharpness, so do the
times, yea, the faithful discharge of my duty towards thee hath put me upon it.
I do not now pipe, but mourn; and it will be well for thee if thou canst graciously
lament. (Matt 11:17) Some, say they, make the gate of heaven too wide, and some make it
too narrow; for my part, I have here presented thee with as true a measure of it as by the
Word of God I can. Read me, therefore, yea, read me, and compare me with the Bible; and if
thou findest my doctrine and that book of God concur, embrace it, as thou wilt answer the
contrary in the day of judgment. This awakening work--if God will make it so--was prepared
for thee: if there be need, and it wounds, get healing by blood: if it disquiets, get
peace by blood: if it takes away all thou hast, because it was naught (for this book is
not prepared to take away true grace from any), then buy of Christ 'gold tried in the
fire, that thou mayest be rich, and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that
the shame of thy nakedness do not appear, and anoint thine eyes with eye-salve, that thou
mayest see.' (Rev 3:18) Self- flatteries, self-deceivings, are easy and pleasant, but
damnable. The Lord give thee a heart to judge right of thyself, right of this book, and so
to prepare for eternity, that thou mayest not only expect entrance, but be received into
the kingdom of Christ and of God. Amen.
So prays thy Friend,
JOHN BUNYAN.
