'A wounded spirit who can bear?'--Solomon.
Every schoolboy has Giant Despair by heart. The rough road after the
meadow of lilies, the stile into By-Path-Meadow, the night coming on, the
thunder and the lightning and the waters rising amain, Giant Despair's
apprehension of Christian and Hopeful, their dreadful bed in his dungeon
from Wednesday morning till Saturday night, how they were famished with
hunger and beaten with a grievous crab-tree cudgel till they were not
able to turn, with many other sufferings too many and too terrible to be
told which they endured till Saturday about midnight, when they began to
pray, and continued in prayer till almost break of day;--John Bunyan is
surely the best story-teller in all the world. And, then, over and above
that, as often as a boy reads Giant Despair and his dungeon to his father
and mother, the two hearers are like Christian and Hopeful when the
Delectable shepherds showed them what had happened to some who once went
in at By-Path stile: the two pilgrims looked one upon another with tears
gushing out, but yet said nothing to the shepherds.
John Bunyan's own experience enters deeply into these terrible pages. In
composing these terrible pages, Bunyan writes straight and bold out of
his own heart and conscience. The black and bitter essence of a whole
black and bitter volume is crushed into these four or five bitter pages.
Last week I went over _Grace Abounding_ again, and marked the passages in
which its author describes his own experiences of doubt, diffidence, and
despair, till I gave over counting the passages, they are so many. I had
intended to illustrate the passage before us to-night out of the kindred
materials that I knew were so abundant in Bunyan's terrible
autobiography, but I had to give up that idea. It would have taken two
or three lectures to itself to tell all that Bunyan suffered all his life
long from an easily-wounded spirit. The whole book is just Giant Despair
and his dungeon, with a gleam here and there of that sunshiny weather
that threw the giant into one of his fits, in which he always lost for
the time the use of his limbs. Return often, my brethren, to that
masterpiece, _Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners_. I have read it a
hundred times, but last week it was as fresh and powerful and consoling
as ever to my sin-wounded spirit.
Let me select some of the incidents that offer occasion for a comment or
two.
1. And, in the first place, take notice, and lay well to heart, how
sudden, and almost instantaneous, is the fall of Christian and Hopeful
from the very gate of heaven to the very gate of hell. All the Sabbath
and the Monday and the Tuesday before that fatal Wednesday, the two
pilgrims had walked with great delight on the banks of a very pleasant
river; that river, in fact, which David the King called the river of God,
and John, the river of the water of life. They drank also of the water
of the river, which was pleasant and enlivening to their weary spirits.
On either side of the river was there a meadow curiously beautified with
lilies, and it was green all the year long. In this meadow they lay down
and slept, for here they might lie down and sleep safely. When they
awoke they gathered again of the fruits of the trees, and drank again of
the water of the river, and then lay down again to sleep. Thus they did
several days and nights. Now, could you have believed it that two such
men as our pilgrims were could be in the enjoyment of all that the first
half of the week, and then by their own doing should be in Giant
Despair's deepest dungeon before the end of the same week? And yet so it
was. And all that is written for the solemn warning of those who are at
any time in great enlargement and refreshment and joy in their spiritual
life. It is intended for all those who are at any time revelling in a
season of revival: those, for example, who are just come home from
Keswick or Dunblane, as well as for all those who at home have just made
the discovery of some great master of the spiritual life, and who are
almost beside themselves with their delight in their divine author. If
they are new beginners they will not take this warning well, nor will
even all old pilgrims lay it aright to heart; but there it is as plain as
the plainest, simplest, and most practical writer in our language could
put it.
Behold ye how these crystal streams do glide
To comfort pilgrims by the highway side;
The meadows green, besides their fragrant smell,
Yield dainties for them: And he that can tell
What pleasant fruits, yea leaves, these trees do yield,
Will soon sell all that he may buy this field.
Thus the two pilgrims sang: only, adds our author in a parenthesis, they
were not, as yet, at their journey's end.
2. 'Now, I beheld in my dream that they had not journeyed far when the
river and the way for a time parted. At which the two pilgrims were not
a little sorry.' The two pilgrims could not perhaps be expected to break
forth into dancing and singing at the parting of the river and the way,
even though they had recollected at that moment what the brother of the
Lord says about our counting it all joy when we fall into divers
temptations. But it would not have been too much to expect from such
experienced pilgrims as they by this time were, that they should have
suspected and checked and commanded their sorrow. They should have said
something like this to one another: Well, it would have been very
pleasant had it been our King's will and way with us that we should have
finished the rest of our pilgrimage among the apples and the lilies and
on the soft and fragrant bank of the river; but we believe that it must
in some as yet hidden way be better for us that the river and our road
should part from one another at least for a season. Come, brother, and
let us go on till we find out our Master's deep and loving mind. But,
instead of saying that, Christian and Hopeful soon became like the
children of Israel as they journeyed from Mount Hor, their soul was much
discouraged because of the way. And always as they went on they wished
for a softer and a better way. And it was so that they very soon came to
the very thing they so much wished for. For, what is that on the left
hand of the hard road but a stile, and over the stile a meadow as soft to
the feet as the meadow of lilies itself? ''Tis just according to my
wish,' said Christian; 'here is the easiest going. Come, good Hopeful,
and let us go over.' Hopeful: 'But how if the path should lead us out of
the way?' 'That's not like,' said the other; 'look, doth it not go along
by the wayside?' So Hopeful, being persuaded by his fellow, went after
him over the stile.
Call to mind, all you who are delivered and restored pilgrims, that same
stile that once seduced you. To keep that stile ever before you is at
once a safe and a seemly occupation of mind for any one who has made your
mistakes and come through your chastisements. Christian's eyes all his
after-days filled with tears, and he turned away his face and blushed
scarlet, as often as he suddenly came upon any opening in a wall at all
like that opening he here persuaded Hopeful to climb through. It is too
much to expect that those who are just mounting the stile, and have just
caught sight of the smooth path beyond it, will let themselves be pulled
back into the hard and narrow way by any persuasion of ours. Christian
put down Hopeful's objection till Hopeful broke out bitterly when the
thunder was roaring over his head and he was wading about among the dark
waters: 'Oh that I had kept myself in my way!' Are you a little sorry to-
night that the river and the way are parting in your life? Is your soul
discouraged in you because of the soreness of the way? And as you go do
you still wish for some better way than the strait way? And have you
just espied a stile on the left hand of your narrow and flinty path, and
on looking over it is there a pleasant meadow? And does your companion
point out to your satisfaction, and, almost to your good conscience, that
the soft road runs right along the hard road, only over the stile and
outside the fence? Then, good-bye. For it is all over with you. We
shall meet you again, please God; but when we meet you again, your mind
and memory will be full of shame and remorse and suffering enough to keep
you in songs of repentance for all the rest of your life on earth.
Farewell!
The Pilgrims now, to gratify the flesh,
Will seek its ease; but oh! how they afresh
Do thereby plunge themselves new grieves into:
Who seek to please the flesh themselves undo.
3. The two transgressors had not gone far on their own way when night
came on and with the night a very great darkness. But what soon added to
the horror of their condition was that they heard a man fall into a deep
pit right before them, and it sounded to them as if he was dashed to
pieces by his fall. So they called to know the matter, but there was
none to answer, only they heard a groaning. Then said Hopeful: Where are
we now? Then was his fellow silent, as mistrusting that he had led
Hopeful out of the way. Now, all that also is true to the very life, and
has been taken down by Bunyan from the very life. We have all heard men
falling and heard them groaning just a little before us after we had left
the strait road. They had just gone a little farther wrong than we had
as yet gone,--just a very little farther; in some cases, indeed, not so
far, when they fell and were dashed to pieces with their fall. It was
well for us at that dreadful moment that we heard the same voice saying
to us for our encouragement as said to the two trembling transgressors:
'Let thine heart be toward the highway, even the way that thou wentest;
turn again.' Now, what is it in which you are at this moment going off
the right road? What is that life of disobedience or self-indulgence
that you are just entering on? Keep your ears open and you will hear
hundreds of men and women falling and being dashed to pieces before you
and all around you. Are you falling of late too much under the power of
your bodily appetites? It is not one man, nor two, well known to you,
who have fallen never to rise again out of that horrible pit. Are you
well enough aware that you are being led into bad company? Or, is your
companion, who is not a bad man in anything else, leading you, in this
and in that, into what at any rate is bad for you? You will soon, unless
you cut off your companion like a right hand, be found saying with
misguided and overruled Hopeful: Oh that I had kept me to my right way!
And so on in all manner of sin and trespass. Those who have ears to hear
such things hear every day one man after another falling through lust or
pride or malice or idleness or infidelity, till there is none to answer.
4. 'All hope abandon' was the writing that Dante read over the door of
hell. And the two prisoners all but abandoned all hope when they found
themselves in Giant Despair's dungeon. Only, Christian, the elder man,
had the most distress because their being where they now were lay mostly
at his door. All this part of the history also is written in Bunyan's
very heart's blood. 'I found it hard work,' he tells us of himself, 'to
pray to God because despair was swallowing me up. I thought I was as
with a tempest driven away from God. About this time I did light on that
dreadful story of that miserable mortal, Francis Spira, a book that was
to my troubled spirit as salt when rubbed into a fresh wound; every groan
of that man with all the rest of his actions in his dolours, as his
tears, his prayers, his gnashing of teeth, his wringing of hands, was as
knives and daggers in my soul, especially that sentence of his was
frightful to me: "Man knows the beginning of sin, but who bounds the
issues thereof?"' We never read anything like Spira's experience and
_Grace Abounding_ and Giant Despair's dungeon in the books of our day.
And why not, do you think? Is there less sin among us modern men, or did
such writers as John Bunyan overdraw and exaggerate the sinfulness of
sin? Were they wrong in holding so fast as they did hold that death and
hell are the sure wages of sin? Has divine justice become less fearful
than it used to be to those who rush against it, or is it that we are so
much better men? Is our faith stronger and more victorious over doubt
and fear? Is it that our hope is better anchored? Whatever the reason
is, there can be no question but that we walk in a liberty that our
fathers did not always walk in. Whether or no our liberty is not
recklessness and licentiousness is another matter. Whether or no it
would be a better sign of us if we were better acquainted with doubt and
dejection and diffidence, and even despair, is a question it would only
do us good to put to ourselves. When we properly attend to these matters
we shall find out that, the holier a man is, the more liable he is to the
assaults of doubt and fear and even despair. We have whole psalms of
despair, so deep was David's sense of sin, so high were his views of
God's holiness and justice, and so full of diffidence was his wounded
heart. And David's Son, when our sin was laid upon Him, felt the curse
and the horror of His state so much that His sweat was in drops of blood,
and His cry in the darkness was that His God had forsaken Him. And when
our spirits are wounded with our sins, as the spirits of all God's great
saints have always been wounded, we too shall feel ourselves more at home
with David and with Asaph, with Spira even, and with Bunyan. Despair is
not good, but it is infinitely better than indifference. 'It is a common
saying,' says South, 'and an observation in divinity, that where despair
has slain its thousands, presumption has slain its ten thousands. The
agonies of the former are indeed more terrible, but the securities of the
latter are far more fatal.'
5. 'I will,' says Paul to Timothy, 'that men pray everywhere, lifting up
holy hands without doubting.' And, just as Paul would have it, Christian
and Hopeful began to lift up their hands even in the dungeon of Doubting
Castle. 'Well,' we read, 'on Saturday night about midnight they began to
pray, and continued in prayer till almost break of day. Now, before it
was day, good Christian, as one half amazed, broke out in this passionate
speech: "What a fool," quoth he, "am I thus to lie in a stinking dungeon
when I may as well walk at liberty; I have a key in my bosom, called
Promise, that will, I am persuaded, open any lock in all Doubting
Castle." Then said Hopeful: "That's good news, good brother; pluck it
out of thy bosom and try."' Then Christian pulled the key out of his
bosom and the bolt gave back, and Christian and Hopeful both came out,
and you may be sure they were soon out of the giant's jurisdiction.
Now, I do not know that I can do better at this point, and in closing,
than just to tell you about some of that bunch of keys that John Bunyan
found from time to time in his own bosom, and which made all his prison
doors one after another fly open at their touch. 'About ten o'clock one
day, as I was walking under a hedge, full of sorrow and guilt, God knows,
and bemoaning myself for my hard hap, suddenly this sentence bolted in
upon me: The blood of Christ remits all guilt. Again, when I was fleeing
from the face of God, for I did flee from His face, that is, my mind and
spirit fled before Him; for by reason of His highness I could not endure;
then would the text cry: Return unto Me; it would cry with a very great
voice: Return unto me, for I have redeemed thee. And this would make me
look over my shoulder behind me to see if I could discern that this God
of grace did follow me with a pardon in His hand. Again, the next day,
at evening, being under many fears, I went to seek the Lord, and as I
prayed, I cried, with strong cries: O Lord, I beseech Thee, show me that
Thou hast loved me with an everlasting love. I had no sooner said it
but, with sweetness, this returned upon me as an echo or sounding-again,
I have loved thee with an everlasting love. Now, I went to bed at quiet;
also, when I awaked the next morning it was fresh upon my soul and I
believed it . . . Again, as I was then before the Lord, that Scripture
fastened on my heart: O man, great is thy faith, even as if one had
clapped me on the back as I was on my knees before God . . . At another
time I remember I was again much under this question: Whether the blood
of Christ was sufficient to save my soul? In which doubt I continued
from morning till about seven or eight at night, and at last, when I was,
as it were, quite worn out with fear, these words did sound suddenly
within my heart: He is able. Methought this word _able_ was spoke so
loud unto me and gave such a justle to my fear and doubt as I never had
all my life either before that or after . . . Again, one morning, when I
was at prayer and trembling under fear, that piece of a sentence dashed
in upon me: My grace is sufficient. At this, methought: Oh, how good a
thing it is for God to send His word! . . . Again, one day as I was in a
meeting of God's people, full of sadness and terror, for my fears were
again strong upon me, and as I was thinking that my soul was never the
better, these words did with great power suddenly break in upon me: My
grace is sufficient for thee, My grace is sufficient for thee, three
times together; and, oh! methought that every word was a mighty word unto
me; as _My_, and _grace_, and _sufficient_, and _for thee_. These words
were then, and sometimes still are, far bigger words than others are.
Again, one day as I was passing in the field, and that, too, with some
dashes in my conscience, suddenly this sentence fell upon my soul: Thy
righteousness is in heaven. And methought withal I saw, with the eyes of
my soul, Jesus Christ at God's right hand. I saw also, moreover, that it
was not my good frame of heart that made my righteousness better, nor my
bad frame that made my righteousness worse, for my righteousness was
Jesus Christ Himself, the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever . . .
Again, oh, what did I see in that blessed sixth of John: Him that cometh
to Me I will in nowise cast out. I should in those days often flounce
toward that promise as horses do toward sound ground that yet stick in
the mire. Oh! many a pull hath my heart had with Satan for this blessed
sixth of John . . . And, again, as I was thus in a muse, that Scripture
also came with great power upon my spirit: Not by works of righteousness
which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us. Now was I
got on high: I saw my self within the arms of Grace and Mercy, and though
I was before afraid to think of a dying hour, yet now I cried: Let me
die. Now death was lovely and beautiful in my sight; for I saw that we
shall never live indeed till we be gone to the other world. Heirs of
God, methought, heirs of God! God himself is the portion of His saints.
This did sweetly revive my spirit, and help me to hope in God; which when
I had with comfort mused on a while, that word fell with great weight
upon my mind: Oh Death, where is thy sting? Oh Grave, where is thy
victory? At this I became both well in body and mind at once, for my
sickness did presently vanish, and I walked comfortably in my work for
God again.'
Such were some of the many keys by the use of which God let John Bunyan
so often out of despair into full assurance and out of darkness into
light. Which of the promises have been of such help to you? Over what
Scriptures have you ever cried out: Oh, how good a thing it is for God to
send me His word! Which are the biggest words in all the Bible to you?
To what promise did you ever flounce as a horse flounces when he is
sticking in the mire? And has any word of God so made God your God that
even death itself, since it alone separates you from His presence, is
lovely and beautiful in your eyes? Have you a cluster of such keys in
your bosom? If you have, take them all out to-night and go over them
again with thanksgiving before you sleep.