The Works of John Bunyan, vol 3, John Bunyan [ebook reader color screen TXT] 📗

he died. So, being sick, and musing upon his former doings, the book that he had written came into his mind, and with it such a sense of his evil in writing of it, that it tore his conscience as a lion would tear a kid. He lay, therefore, upon his deathbed in sad case, and much affliction of conscience; some of my friends also went to see him; and as they were in his chamber one day, he hastily called for pen, ink, and paper; which when it was given him, he took it and writ to this purpose:—I, such a one, in such a town, must go to hell-fire, for writing a book against Jesus Christ, and against the Holy Scriptures. And would also have leaped out of the window of his house, to have killed himself, but was by them prevented of that; so he died in his bed, such a death as it was. It will be well if others take warning by him.[70]

ATTEN. This is a remarkable story.

WISE. It is as true as remarkable. I had it from them that I dare believe, who also themselves were eye and ear witnesses; and also that catched him in their arms, and saved him, when he would have leaped out of his chamber window, to have destroyed himself!

ATTEN. Well, you have told me what were Mr. Badman’s thoughts now, being sick, of his condition; pray tell me also what he then did when he was sick?

WISE. Did! he did many things which, I am sure, he never thought to have done; and which, to be sure, was not looked for of his wife and children. In this fit of sickness, his thoughts were quite altered about his wife; I say his thoughts, so far as could be judged by his words and carriages to her. For now she was his good wife, his godly wife, his honest wife, his duck and dear, and all. Now he told her that she had the best of it; she having a good life to stand by her, while his debaucheries and ungodly life did always stare him in the face. Now he told her the counsel that she often gave him was good; though he was so bad as not to take it.

Now he would hear her talk to him, and he would lie sighing by her while she so did. Now he would bid her pray for him, that he might be delivered from hell. He would also now consent that some of her good ministers might come to him to comfort him; and he would seem to show them kindness when they came, for he would treat them kindly with words, and hearken diligently to what they said; only he did not care that they should talk much of his ill-spent life, because his conscience was clogged with that already. He cared not now to see his old companions, the thoughts of them were a torment to him; and now he would speak kindly to that child of his that took after its mother’s steps, though he could not at all abide it before.

He also desired the prayers of good people, that God of his mercy would spare him a little longer; promising that if God would but let him recover this once, what anew, what a penitent man he would be toward God, and what a loving husband he would be to his wife; what liberty he would give her, yea, how he would go with her himself, to hear her ministers, and how they should go hand in hand in the way to heaven together.

ATTEN. Here was a fine show of things; I’ll warrant you, his wife was glad for this.

WISE. His wife! ay, and a many good people besides. It was noised all over the town what a great change there was wrought upon Mr.

Badman; how sorry he was for his sins, how he began to love his wife, how he desired good men should pray to God to spare him; and what promises he now made to God, in his sickness, that if ever he should raise him from his sick bed to health again, what a new penitent man he would be towards God, and what a loving husband to his good wife. Well, ministers prayed, and good people rejoiced, thinking verily that they now had gotten a man from the devil; nay, some of the weaker sort did not stick to say that God had begun a work of grace in his heart; and his wife, poor woman, you cannot think how apt she was to believe it so; she rejoiced, and she hoped as she would have it. But, alas! alas! in little time things all proved otherwise.

After he had kept his bed a while, his distemper began to abate, and he to feel himself better; so he in a little time was so finely mended, that he could walk about the house, and also obtained a very fine stomach to his food; and now did his wife and her good friends stand gaping to see Mr. Badman fulfil his promise of becoming new towards God, and loving to his wife; but the contrary only showed itself. For, so soon as ever he had hopes of mending, and found that his strength began to renew, his trouble began to go off his heart, and he grew as great a stranger to his frights and fears, as if he never had them.

CHAPTER XV.

[DEATH LEAVES HIM FOR A SEASON, AND HE RETURNS TO HIS SIN LIKE A SOW THAT HAS BEEN WASHED TO HER WALLOWING IN THE MIRE.]

But verily, I am apt to think that one reason of his no more regarding or remembering of his sick-bed fears, and of being no better for them was some words that the doctor that supplied him with physic said to him when he was mending. For as soon as Mr.

Badman began to mend, the doctor comes and sits him down by him in his house, and there fell into discourse with him about the nature of his disease; and among other things they talked of Badman’s trouble, and how he would cry out, tremble, and express his fears of going to hell when his sickness lay pretty hard upon him. To which the doctor replied, that those fears and outcries did arise from the height of his distemper; for that disease was often attended with lightness of the head, by reason the sick party could not sleep, and for that the vapours disturbed the brain: but you see, Sir, quoth he, that so soon as you got sleep and betook yourself to rest, you quickly mended, and your head settled, and so those frenzies left you. And it was so indeed, thought Mr.

Badman; was my troubles only the effects of my distemper, and because ill vapours got up into my brain? Then surely, since my physician was my saviour, my lust again shall be my god. So he never minded religion more, but betook him again to the world, his lusts and wicked companions: and there was an end of Mr. Badman’s conversion.

ATTEN. I thought, as you told me of him, that this would be the result of the whole; for I discerned, by your relating of things, that the true symptoms of conversion were wanting in him, and that those that appeared to be anything like them, were only such as reprobates may have.

WISE. You say right, for there wanted in him, when he was most sensible, a sense of the pollution of his nature; he only had guilt for his sinful actions, the which Cain, and Pharaoh, and Saul, and Judas, those reprobates, have had before him (Gen 4:13,14; Exo 9:27; 1 Sam 15:24; Matt 27:3-5).

Besides, the great things that he desired, were to be delivered from going to hell, and who would, willingly? and that his life might be lengthened in this world. We find not, by all that he said or did, that Jesus Christ the Saviour was desired by him, from a sense of his need of his righteousness to clothe him, and of his Spirit to sanctify him. His own strength was whole in him, he saw nothing of the treachery of his own heart: for had he, he would never have been so free to make promises to God of amendment. He would rather have been afraid, that if he had mended, he should have turned with the dog to his vomit, and have begged prayers of the saints, and assistance from heaven upon that account, that he might have been kept from doing so. It is true he did beg prayers of good people, and so did Pharaoh of Moses and Aaron, and Simon Magus of Simon Peter (Exo 9:28; Acts 8:24). His mind also seemed to be turned to his wife and child; but, alas! it was rather from conviction that God had given him concerning their happy estate over his, than for that he had any true love to the work of God that was in them. True, some shows of kindness he seemed to have for them, and so had rich Dives when in hell, to his five brethren that were yet in the world: yea, he had such love as to wish them in heaven, that they might not come thither to be tormented (Luke 16:27,28).

ATTEN. Sick-bed repentance is seldom good for anything.

WISE. You say true, it is very rarely good for anything indeed.

Death is unwelcome to nature, and usually when sickness and death visit the sinner; the first taking of him by the shoulder, and the second standing at the bed-chamber door to receive him; then the sinner begins to look about him, and to bethink with himself, these will have me away before God; and I know that my life has not been as it should, how shall I do to appear before God! Or if it be more the sense of the punishment, and the place of the punishment of sinners, that also is starting to a defiled conscience, now roused by death’s lumbering at the door. And hence usually is sick-bed repentance, and the matter of it; to wit, to be saved from hell, and from death, and that God will restore again to health till they mend, concluding that it is in their power to mend, as is evident by their large and lavishing promises to do it. I have known many that, when they have been sick, have had large measures of this kind of repentance, and while it has lasted, the noise and sound thereof has made the town to ring again. But, alas! how long has it lasted? ofttimes scarce so long as until the party now sick has been well. It has passed away like a mist or a vapour, it has been a thing of no continuance. But this kind of repentance is by God compared to the howling of a dog. ‘And they have not cried unto me with their heart, when they howled upon their beds’

(Hosea 7:14).

ATTEN. Yet one may see by this the desperateness of man’s heart; for what is it but desperate wickedness to make promise to God of amendment, if he will but spare them; and yet, so soon as they are recovered, or quickly after, fall to sin as they did before, and never to regard their promise more.

WISE. It is a sign of desperateness indeed; yea, of desperate madness (Deut 1:34,35). For, surely, they must needs think that God took notice of their promise, that he heard the words that they spake, and that he hath laid them up against the time to come; and will then bring out, and testify to their faces, that they flattered him with their mouth, and