The Pilgrim’s Progress, John Bunyan [most popular novels .txt] 📗

id="note-149" epub:type="endnote">

This was the fact as it regards Bunyan when he was writing the Pilgrim. He had a wife, two sons, and two daughters. This conversation was first published in the second edition, 1678; and if he referred to his own family, it was to his second wife, a most worthy and heroic woman; but she and some of his children were fellow-pilgrims with him. His eldest son was a preacher 11 years before the Second Part of the Pilgrim was published. —⁠Editor ↩

Genesis 19:14. ↩

O soul! consider this deeply. It is the life of a Christian that carries more conviction and persuasion than his words. —⁠Mason ↩

Those that religiously name the name of Christ, and do not depart from iniquity, cause the perishing of many. A professor that hath not forsaken his iniquity is like one that comes out of a pesthouse to his home, with all his plague-sores running. He hath the breath of a dragon, and poisons the air round about him. This is the man that slays his children, his kinsmen, his friends, and himself. O! the millstone that God will shortly hang about your necks, when you must be drowned in the sea and deluge of God’s wrath. —⁠Bunyan’s Holy Life, vol. 2, p. 530 ↩

1 John 3:12. ↩

Ezekiel 3:19. ↩

How beautiful must that church be where Watchful is the porter; where Discretion admits the members; where Prudence takes the oversight; where Piety conducts the worship; and where Charity endears the members one to another! They partake of the Lord’s Supper, a feast of fat things, with wine well refined. —⁠J. B. ↩

Hebrews 2:14, 15.

Ah! theirs was converse such as it behooves
Man to maintain, and such as God approves⁠—
Christ and His character their only scope,
Their subject, and their object, and their hope.
O days of Heaven, and nights of equal praise!
Serene and peaceful as those heavenly days
When souls drawn upwards in communion sweet,
Enjoy the stillness of some close retreat,
Discourse, as if releas’d and safe at home,
Of dangers past, and wonders yet to come.

—⁠Cowper

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1 Samuel 2:8; Psalms 113:7. ↩

When Christiana and her party arrived at this house Beautiful, she requested that they might repose in the same chamber, called Peace, which was granted. The author, in his marginal note, explains the nature of this resting-place by the words, “Christ’s bosom is for all pilgrims.” —⁠Editor ↩

How suddenly that straight and glittering shaft
Shot ’thwart the earth! In crown of living fire
Up comes the day! As if they, conscious, quaff’d
The sunny flood, hill, forest, city, spire,
Laugh in the wakening light. Go, vain Desire!
The dusky lights have gone; go thou thy way!
And pining Discontent, like them expire!
Be called my chamber Peace, when ends the day,
And let me, with the dawn, like Pilgrim, sing and pray.
Great is the Lord our God,
And let His praise be great:
He makes His churches His abode,
His most delightful seat.

—⁠Dr. Watts

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Hebrews 11:33, 34. ↩

Should you see a man that did not go from door to door, but he must be clad in a coat of mail, and have a helmet of brass upon his head, and for his lifeguard not so few as a thousand men to wait on him, would you not say, Surely this man has store of enemies at hand? If Solomon used to have about his bed no less than threescore of the most valiant of Israel, holding swords, and being expert in war, what guard and safeguard doth God’s people need, who are, night and day, roared on by the unmerciful fallen angels? Why, they lie in wait for poor Israel in every hole, and he is forever in danger of being either stabbed or destroyed. —⁠Bunyan’s Israel’s Hope, vol. 1, p. 602 ↩

Christ himself is the Christian’s armoury. When he puts on Christ, he is then completely armed from head to foot. Are his loins girt about with truth? Christ is the truth. Has he on the breastplate of righteousness? Christ is our righteousness. Are his feet shod with the Gospel of peace? Christ is our peace. Does he take the shield of faith, and helmet of salvation? Christ is that shield, and all our salvation. Does he take the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God? Christ is the Word of God. Thus he puts on the Lord Jesus Christ; by his Spirit fights the fight of faith; and, in spite of men, of devils, and of his own evil heart, lays hold of eternal life. Thus Christ is all in all. —⁠J. B. ↩

The church in the wilderness, even her porch, is full of pillars⁠—apostles, prophets, and martyrs of Jesus. There are hung up also the shields that the old warriors used, and on the walls are painted the brave achievements they have done. There, also, are such encouragements that one would think that none who came thither would ever attempt to go back. Yet some forsake the place. —⁠Bunyan’s House of Lebanon ↩

The Delectable Mountains, as seen at a distance, represent those distinct views of the privileges and consolations, attainable in this life, with which believers are sometimes favoured. This is the preeminent advantage of Christian communion, and can only be enjoyed at some special seasons, when the Sun of Righteousness shines upon the soul. —⁠Scott ↩

Isaiah 33:16, 17. ↩

Thus it is, after a pilgrim has been favoured with any special and peculiar blessings, there is danger of his being puffed up by them, and exalted on account of them; so was even holy Paul; therefore, the messenger of Satan was permitted to buffet him