IGNORANCE

"I was alive without the law once."--_Paul_.

"I was now a brisk talker also myself in the matter of

religion."--_Bunyan_.

This is a new kind of pilgrim. There are not many pilgrims like this

bright brisk youth. A few more young gentlemen like this, and the

pilgrimage way would positively soon become fashionable and popular, and

be the thing to do. Had you met with this young gentleman in society,

had you noticed him beginning to come about your church, you would have

lost no time in finding out who he was. I can well believe it, you would

have replied. Indeed, I felt sure of it. I must ask him to the house. I

was quite struck with his appearance and his manners. Yes; ask him at

once to your house; show him some pointed attentions and you will never

regret it. For if he goes to the bar and works even decently at his

cases, he will be first a sheriff and then a judge in no time. If he

should take to politics, he will be an under-secretary before his first

parliament is out. And if he takes to the church, which is not at all

unlikely, our West-end congregations will all be competing for him as

their junior colleague; and, if he elects either of our Established

churches to exercise his profession in it, he will have dined with Her

Majesty while half of his class-fellows are still half-starved

probationers. Society fathers will point him out with anger to their

unsuccessful sons, and society mothers will smile under their eyelids as

they see him hanging over their daughters.

Well, as this handsome and well-appointed youth stepped out of his own

neat little lane into the rough road on which our two pilgrims were

staggering upward, he felt somewhat ashamed to be seen in their company.

And I do not wonder. For a greater contrast you would not have seen on

any road in all that country that day. He was at your very first sight

of him a gentleman and the son of a gentleman. A little over-dressed

perhaps; as, also, a little lofty to the two rather battered but

otherwise decent enough men who, being so much older than he, took the

liberty of first accosting him. "Brisk" is his biographer's description

of him. Feather-headed, flippant, and almost impudent, you might have

been tempted to say of him had you joined the little party at that

moment. But those two tumbled, broken-winded, and, indeed,

broken-hearted old men had been, as an old author says, so emptied from

vessel to vessel--they had had a life of such sloughs and stiff

climbs--they had been in hunger and thirst, in cold and nakedness so

often--that it was no wonder that their dandiacal companion walked on a

little ahead of them. 'Gentlemen,' his fine clothes and his cane and his

head in the air all said to his two somewhat disreputable-looking fellow-

travellers,--"Gentlemen, you be utter strangers to me: I know you not.

And, besides, I take my pleasure in walking alone, even more a great deal

than in company, unless I like it better." But all his society manners,

and all his costly and well-kept clothes, and all his easy and

self-confident airs did not impose upon the two wary old pilgrims. They

had seen too much of the world, and had been too long mixing among all

kinds of pilgrims, young and old, true and false, to be easily imposed

upon. Besides, as one could see from their weather-beaten faces, and

their threadbare garments, they had found the upward way so dreadfully

difficult that they both felt a real apprehension as to the future of

this light-hearted and light-headed youth. "You may find some difficulty

at the gate," somewhat bluntly broke in the oldest of the two pilgrims on

their young comrade. "I shall, no doubt, do at the gate as other good

people do," replied the young gentleman briskly. "But what have you to

show at the gate that may cause that the gate be opened to you?" "Why, I

know my Lord's will, and I have been a good liver all my days, and I pay

every man his own. I pray, moreover, and I fast. I pay tithes, and give

alms, and have left my country for whither I am going." Now, before we

go further: Do all you young gentlemen do as much as that? Have you

always been good livers? Have you paid every man and woman their due? Do

you pray to be called prayer? And, if so, when, and where, and what for,

and how long at a time? I do not ask if your private prayer-book is like

Bishop Andrewes' _Devotions_, which was so reduced to pulp with tears and

sweat and the clenching of his agonising hands that his literary

executors were with difficulty able to decipher it. Clito in the

_Christian Perfection_ was so expeditious with his prayers that he used

to boast that he could both dress and do his devotions in a quarter of an

hour. What was the longest time you ever took to dress or undress and

say your prayers? Then, again, there is another Anglican young gentleman

in the same High Church book who always fasts on Good Friday and the

Thirtieth of January. Did you ever deny yourself a glass of wine or a

cigar or an opera ticket for the church or the poor? Could you honestly

say that you know what tithes are? And is there a poor man or woman or

child in this whole city who will by any chance put your name into their

prayers and praises at bedtime to-night? I am afraid there are not many

young gentlemen in this house to-night who could cast a stone at that

brisk lad Ignorance, Vain-Hope, door in the side of the hill, and all. He

was not far from the kingdom of heaven; indeed, he got up to the very

gate of it. How many of you will get half as far?

Now (what think you?), was it not a very bold thing in John Bunyan, whose

own descent was of such a low and inconsiderable generation, his father's

house being of that rank that is meanest and most despised of all the

families in the land--was it not almost too bold in such a clown to take

such a gentleman-scholar as Saul of Tarsus, the future Apostle of the

Lord, and put him into the _Pilgrim's Progress_, and there go on to

describe him as a very brisk lad and nickname him with the nickname of

Ignorance? For, in knowledge of all kinds to be called knowledge,

Gamaliel's gold medallist could have bought the unlettered tinker of

Elstow in one end of the market and sold him in the other. And nobody

knew that better than Bunyan did. And yet such a lion was he for the

truth, such a disciple of Luther was he, and such a defender and preacher

of the one doctrine of a standing or falling church, that he fills page

after page with the crass ignorance of the otherwise most learned of all

the New Testament men. Bunyan does not accuse the rising hope of the

Pharisees of school or of synagogue ignorance. That young Hebrew Rabbi

knew every jot and tittle of the law of Moses, and all the accumulated

traditions of the fathers to boot. But Bunyan has Paul himself with him

when he accuses and convicts Saul of an absolutely brutish ignorance of

his own heart and hidden nature. That so very brisk lad was always

boasting in himself of the day on which he was circumcised, and of the

old stock of which he had come; of his tribe, of his zeal, of his

blamelessness, and of the profit he had made of his educational and

ecclesiastical opportunities. Whereas Bunyan is fain to say of himself

in his _Grace Abounding_ that he is "not able to boast of noble blood or

of a high-born state according to the flesh. Though, all things

considered, I magnify the Heavenly Majesty for that by this door He

brought me into this world to partake of the grace and life that is in

Christ by the Gospel."

As we listen to the conversation that goes on between the two old

pilgrims and this smartly appointed youth, we find them striving hard,

but without any sign of success, to convince him of some of the things

from which he gets his somewhat severe name. For one thing, they at last

bluntly told him that he evidently did not know the very A B C about

himself. Till, when too hard pressed by the more ruthless of the two old

men, the exasperated youth at last frankly burst out: "I will never

believe that my heart is thus bad!" There is a warm touch of Bunyan's

own experience here, mixed up with his so dramatic development of Paul's

morsels of autobiography that he lets drop in his Epistles to the

Philippians and to the Galatians. "Now was I become godly; now I was

become a right honest man. Though as yet I was nothing but a poor

painted hypocrite, yet I was proud of my godliness. I read my Bible, but

as for Paul's Epistles, and such like Scriptures, I could not away with

them; being, as yet, but ignorant both of the corruptions of my nature

and of the want and worth of Jesus Christ to save me. The new birth did

never enter my mind, neither knew I the deceitfulness and treachery of my

own wicked heart. And as for secret thoughts, I took no notice of them."

My brethren, old and young, what do you think of all that? What have you

to say to all that? Does all that not open a window and let a flood of

daylight into your own breast? I am sure it does. That is the best

portrait of you that ever was painted. Do you not see yourself there as

in a glass? And do you not turn with disgust and loathing from the

stupid and foolish face? You complain and tell stories about how

impostors and cheats and liars have come to your door and have impudently

thrust themselves into your innermost rooms; but your own heart, if you

only knew it, is deceitful far above them all. Not the human heart as it

stands in confessions, and in catechisms, and in deep religious books,

but your own heart that beats out its blood-poison of self-deceit, and

darkness, and death day and night continually. "My heart is a good

heart," said that poor ill-brought-up boy, who was already destroyed by

his father and his mother for lack of self-knowledge. I entirely grant

you that those two old sinners by this time were taking very pessimistic

and very melancholy views of human nature, and, therefore, of every human

being, young and old. They knew that no language had ever been coined in

any scripture, or creed, or catechism, or secret diary of the deepest

penitent, that even half uttered their own evil hearts; and they had

lived long enough to see that we are all cut out of one web, are all dyed

in one vat, and are all corrupted beyond all accusation or confession in

Adam's corruption. But how was that poor, mishandled lad to know or

believe all that? He could not. It was impossible. "You go so fast,

gentlemen, that I cannot keep pace with you. Go you on before and I will

stay a while behind." Then said Christian to his companion: "It pities

me much for this poor lad, for it will certainly go ill with him at

last." "Alas!" said Hopeful, "there are abundance in our town in his

condition: whole families, yea, whole streets, and that of pilgrims too."

Is your family such a family as this? And are you yourself just such a

pilgrim as Ignorance was, and are you hastening on to just such an end?

And then, as a consequence, being wholly ignorant of his own corruption

and condemnation in the sight of God, this miserable man must remain

ignorant and outside of all that God has done in Christ for corrupt and

condemned men. "I believe that Christ died for sinners and that I shall

be justified before God from the curse through His gracious acceptance of

my obedience to His law. Or, then, to take it this way, Christ makes my

duties that are religious acceptable to His Father by virtue of His

merits, and so shall I be justified." Now, I verify believe that nine

out of ten of the young men who are here to-night would subscribe that

statement and never suspect there was anything wrong with it or with

themselves. And yet, what does Christian, who, in this matter, is just

John Bunyan, who again is just the word of God--what does the old pilgrim

say to this confession of this young pilgrim's faith? "Ignorance is thy

name," he says, "and as thy name is, so art thou: even this thy answer

demonstrateth what I say. Ignorant thou art of what justifying

righteousness is, and as ignorant how to secure thy soul through the

faith of it from the heavy wrath of God. Yea, thou also art ignorant of

the true effect of saving faith in this righteousness of Christ's, which

is to bow and win over the heart to God in Christ, to love His name, His

word, His ways, and His people." Paul sums up all his own early life in

this one word, "ignorant of God's righteousness." "Going about," he says

also, "to establish our own righteousness, not submitting ourselves to be

justified by the righteousness that God has provided with such wisdom and

grace, and at such a cost in His Son Jesus Christ." Now, young men, I

defy you to be better born, better brought up, or to have better

prospects than Saul of Tarsus had. I defy you to have profited more by

all your opportunities and advantages than he had done. I defy you to be

more blameless in your opening manhood than he was. And yet it all went

like smoke when he got a true sight of himself, and, with that, a true

sight of Christ and His justifying righteousness. Read at home to-night,

and read when alone, what that great man of God says about all that in

his classical epistle to the Philippians, and refuse to sleep till you

have made the same submission. And, to-night, and all your days, let

_submission_, Paul's splendid submission, be the soul and spirit of all

your religious life. Submission to be searched by God's holy law as by a

lighted candle: submission to be justified from all that that candle

discovers: submission to take Christ as your life and righteousness,

sanctification and redemption: and submission of your mind and your will

and your heart to Him at all times and in all things. Nay, stay still,

and say where you sit, Lord, I submit. I submit on the spot to be

pardoned. I submit now to be saved. I submit in all things from this

very hour and house of God not any longer to be mine own, but to be

Thine, O God, Thine, Thine, for ever, in Jesus Christ Thy Son and my

Saviour!

"But, one day, as I was passing in the field, and that, too, with some

dashes in my conscience, fearing lest all was not right, suddenly this

sentence fell upon my soul, Thy Righteousness is in heaven! And,

methought, I saw with the eyes of my soul Jesus Christ at God's right

hand. There, I saw, was my Righteousness. I also saw, moreover, that it

was not my good frame of heart that made my Righteousness better, nor my

bad frame of heart that made my Righteousness worse: for my Righteousness

was Jesus Christ Himself, the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever.

'Twas glorious to me to see His exaltation, and the worth and prevalency

of His benefits. And that because I could now look from myself to Him

and should reckon that all those graces of God that were now green in me

were yet but like those crack-groats and four-pence halfpennies that rich

men carry in their purses when their gold is in their trunks at home! Oh,

I saw that day that my gold was all in my trunk at home! Even in Christ,

my Lord and Saviour! Now, Christ was all to me: all my wisdom, all my

righteousness, all my sanctification and all my redemption."

"Methinks in this God speaks,

No tinker hath such power."