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

him, naturally tends to apostasy from him. Look well to your hearts and affections. “Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life” (Proverbs 4:23). If you neglect to watch, you will be sure to smart under the sense of sin on earth, or its curse in hell. “See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil” (Ephesians 5:15, 16). —⁠Mason ↩

Isaiah 62:4. ↩

Song of Solomon 2:10⁠–⁠12. ↩

O what a blessed state! what a glorious frame of soul is this! Job speaks of it as the candle of the Lord shining upon his head (29:3). The church, in a rapture, cries out, “Sing, O heavens; and be joyful, O earth; break forth into singing, O mountains: for the Lord hath comforted His people” (Isaiah 49:13). Paul calls this, “The fullness of the blessing of the Gospel of Christ” (Romans 15:29). O rest not short of enjoying the full blaze of Gospel peace and spiritual joy. —⁠Mason During the last days of that eminent man of God, Dr. Payson, he once said, “When I formerly read Bunyan’s description of the Land of Beulah, where the sun shines and the birds sing day and night, I used to doubt whether there was such a place; but now my own experience has convinced me of it, and it infinitely transcends all my previous conceptions.” The best possible commentary on the glowing descriptions in Bunyan is to be found in that very remarkable letter dictated by Dr. Payson to his sister, a few weeks before his death⁠—“Were I to adopt the figurative language of Bunyan, I might date this letter from the Land Beulah, of which I have been for some weeks a happy inhabitant. The Celestial City is full in my view. Its glories have been upon me, its breezes fan me, its odours are wafted to me, its sounds strike upon my ears, and its spirit is breathed into my heart. Nothing separates me from it but the River of Death, which now appears but as an insignificant rill, that may be crossed at a single step, whenever God shall give permission. The Sun of Righteousness has been gradually drawing nearer and nearer, appearing larger and brighter as He approached, and now He fills the whole hemisphere, pouring forth a flood of glory, in which I seem to float, like an insect in the beams of the sun; exulting, yet almost trembling, while I gaze on this excessive brightness, and wondering, with unutterable wonder, why God should deign thus to shine upon a sinful worm’. —⁠Cheever ↩

Isaiah 62:5. ↩

V. 8. ↩

V. 11. ↩

V. 12. ↩

In the immediate view of heavenly felicity, Paul “desired to depart hence, and be with Christ, as far better” than life. David “fainted for God’s salvation.” In the lively exercise of holy affections, the believer grows weary of this sinful world, longs to have his faith changed for sight, his hope swallowed up in enjoyment, and his love perfected. —⁠Scott ↩

Song of Solomon 5:8.

No other language than that of Bunyan himself, perused in the pages of his own sweet book, could be successful in portraying this beauty and glory; for now he seems to feel that all the dangers of the pilgrimage are almost over, and he gives up himself without restraint so entirely to the sea of bliss that surrounds him, and to the gales of Heaven that are wafting him on, and to the sounds of melody that float in the whole air around him, that nothing in the English language can be compared with this whole closing part of the Pilgrim’s Progress, for its entrancing splendour, yet serene and simple loveliness. The colouring is that of Heaven in the soul; and Bunyan has poured his own Heaven-entranced soul into it. With all its depth and power, there is nothing exaggerated, and it is made up of the simplest and most scriptural materials and images. We seem to stand in a flood of light, poured on as from the open gates of paradise. It falls on every leaf and shrub by the wayside; it is reflected from the crystal streams that, between grassy banks, wind amidst groves of fruit-trees into vineyards and flower-gardens. These fields of Beulah are just below the gate of Heaven; and with the light of Heaven there come floating down the melodies of Heaven, so that here there is almost an open revelation of the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him. —⁠Cheever ↩

Deuteronomy 23:24. ↩

This is the place, this is the state,
Of all that fear the Lord;
Which men nor angels may relate
With tongue, or pen, or word.
No night is here for to eclipse
Its spangling rays so bright;
Nor doubt, nor fear, to shut the lips
Of those within this light.

The strings of music here are timed
For heavenly harmony,
And every spirit here perfumed
With perfect sanctity.
Here run the crystal streams of life,
Quite thorow all our veins;
And here by love we do unite
With glory’s golden chains.

—⁠Bunyan’s One Thing Needful

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Mr. Flavel, being on a journey, set himself to improve the time by meditation; when his mind grew intent, till at length he had such ravishing tastes of heavenly joys, and such full assurance of his interest therein, that he utterly lost the sight and sense of this world and all its concerns, so that for hours he knew not where he was. At last, perceiving himself faint, he alighted from his horse and sat down at a spring, where he refreshed himself, earnestly desiring, if it were the will of God, that he might there leave the world. His spirit reviving,