John Bunyan, answered from the texts and cited to the page.
The text itself is the answer, and it is John 6:37: him that cometh, in no wise cast out. Every clause of it is for the coming sinner. Whoever he is, and whatever he has done, the door is open to him, and the welcome is meant, because Christ means it. Yet I hold, with the same Scripture, that none come but by the gift, promise and drawing of the Father.
I put both to you as Scripture puts them, and I do not trim one to make room for the other. Notice what the drawing does to the doubt. When Satan roars that you are not elected, the text gives you help against him: coming to Christ is by virtue of the Father's gift, promise and drawing, and you are a-coming. Therefore God has given you, promised you, and is drawing you.
If your heart moves after Jesus Christ, that motion would not be, were it not given by the power of the Father.1 So the decree stands behind the invitation and not in front of it. A man who will not come until he first knows he is chosen has made the secret things of God his door, when the door is Christ. Put the order right and the trouble clears.
Election is before calling as to God, but the knowledge of calling must go before the belief of election as to ourselves. Souls that labour to know their election before they have proved their calling only plunge themselves deeper into a labyrinth.2 Lay the thoughts of election by, and ask whether you see your lost condition, whether you see that salvation is nowhere but in Christ, and whether you would share in it by faith and be saved from the filth as well as the guilt.
This is the way to prove we are elect.2 Then leap into the arms of Christ, which are as open now as when they were nailed to the cross.2 Nor will I have the sinner say, I am too foul to come. You would not tell a physician's patient to make himself whole first and then call upon the doctor. He is bidden come with his sores all running on him, like the woman with her bloody issue, and Mary Magdalene with her belly full of devils.3
He who can make himself clean has no need of Christ. And when you stand at the door, remember that the Lord has his eye upon the first moving of your heart. The prodigal's father saw him while he was yet a great way off, and Christ saw Nathanael under the fig-tree.4 As for those who are not drawn, they are not damned for a decree they never read.
They are judged for hating the Christ, the Father and the Spirit of grace, and for hindering the poor sinner who was coming.5 So the welcome is in earnest to every one that comes, and the coming, when it is done, is itself the proof that God was in it.
God chose his people in Christ before the world began, and none come to Christ but those the Father draws. That is the ground of the offer, not a bar to it: the promise "him that cometh" shuts out no one who comes, however great his sins, and the sinner's business is to come, not to pry into the decree. A man is shown to be a reprobate by nothing but his final refusal; the damned perish for their sin and their unbelief, not for want of a name in a book they never read.678
That coming to Christ is by virtue of the gift, promise, and drawing of the Father; but thou art a-coming; therefore God hath given thee, promised thee, and is drawing thee to Jesus Christ.Come and Welcome to Jesus Christ
Though election is, in order, before calling, as to God, yet the knowledge of calling must go before the belief of my election, as to myself.The Jerusalem Sinner Saved
Physicians, you know, if they love to be honoured, they will not bid the patients first make themselves whole, and then come to them; no, but bid them come with their sores all running on them, as the woman with her bloody issue (Mark 5).The Doctrine of the Law and Grace Unfolded
It is said of the prodigal, that while he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, had his eye upon him, and upon the going out of his heart after him (Luke 15:20).Come and Welcome to Jesus Christ
Thou shalt be judged for one that hath hated, maligned, and reproached Jesus Christ, to whom this poor sinner is coming.Come and Welcome to Jesus Christ
He therefore setteth Christ before his eyes; there is nothing in heaven or earth, he knows, that can save his soul and secure him from the wrath of God, but Christ; that is, nothing but his personal righteousness and blood. [Import of the words IN NO WISE.] "And him that cometh to me, I will in no wise cast out." IN NO WISE: by these words there is [First,] Something expressed; and [Second,] Something implied.Come and Welcome to Jesus Christ
But let them know again, that we have had men of all ranks and qualities, that have been taken with the glory of our Lord Jesus, and have left all to follow him. As Abel, Seth, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Samuel, David, Solomon; and who not, that had either wit or grace, to savour heavenly things?Come and Welcome to Jesus Christ
What, therefore, I have said of presumption, concerns not the humble in spirit at all. I therefore am for gathering up the stones, and for taking the stumbling-blocks out of the way of God's people; and forewarning of them, that they lay the stumbling-block of their iniquity before their faces; and [of those] that are for presuming upon God's mercy; and let them look to themselves (Eze 14:6-8).The Jerusalem Sinner Saved
The tension his critics have pressed hardest: a predestinarian whose pages beg every reader to come. Read as a Calvinist tract, as a pastoral Arminian, and as a theology of terror.