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

albeit, saith Satan, thou prayest sometimes, yet is not thy heart possessed with a belief that God will not regard thee? Yes, says the sinner. Why, then, despair, and go hang thyself, saith the devil. And now we are at the end of the thing designed and driven at by Satan. But what shall I now do, saith the sinner? I answer, take up the words of the text against him, “That ye may be able to comprehend the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge-(Saints’ Knowledge of Christ’s Love, vol. 2, p. 37).

[206] Giant Despair, it seems, has fits in sunshiny weather; that is, a gleam of hope, from Christ the Sun of righteousness, sometimes darted into their minds-(Burder).

[207] Satan and his angels will not be wanting to help forward the calamity of the man, who, in coming to Christ, is beat out of breath, out of heart, out of courage, by wind that blows him backward. They will not be wanting to throw up his heels in their dirty places, nor to trouble his head with the fumes of their foul breath. And now it is hard coming to God; Satan has the art of making the most of every sin; he can make every hair on the head as big as a cedar. But, soul, Christ can save unto the uttermost!

come, man, come. He can do exceeding abundantly above all we can ask or think!-(Bunyan’s Complete Saviour, vol. 1, p. 209). Poor Christian! What! tempted to destroy thyself? Lord, what is man!

But see, despairing souls, mark the truth of that word, “There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will, with the temptation, also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it” (1 Cor. 10:13)-(Mason).

[208] Bunyan had an acute sense of the exceeding sinfulness of sin, and no saint had suffered more severely from despair. One of his great objects, in most of his works, is to arm poor pilgrims against desponding fears. Thus, in his first treatise on Gospel Truths-“He (the devil) will be sure to present to thy conscience the most sad sentences of the Scripture; yea, and set them home with such cunning arguments, that if it be possible he will make thee despair, and make away thyself as did Judas”-(Vol. 2, p.132).

Sin, when seen in its colours, and when appearing in its monstrous shape and hue, frighteth all mortals out of their wits, away from God, and, if He stops them not, also out of the world. This is manifest by Cain, Judas, Saul, and others. They fly from before God, one to one fruit of despair, and one to another-(Pharisee and Publican, vol. 2, p. 260).

[209] An admirable chain of reasoning, pointing out the evils of despair, is to be found in the Jerusalem Sinner Saved (vol. 1, pp. 91, 92), under the head Fifthly. “It will make a man his own tormentor, and flounce and fling like a wild bull in a net (Isa.

51:20). Despair! it drives a man to the study of his own ruin, and brings him at last to be his own executioner” (2 Sam. 17:3-5)-(ED).

[210] Alas, how chang’d! Expressive of his mind, His eyes are sunk, arms folded, head reclin’d; Those awful syllables, hell, death, and sin, Though whisper’d, plainly tell what works within.—(Cowper’s Hope).

“A wounded spirit who can bear?”

[211] To bring the state of Christian’s mind before us, read the lamentations of the Psalmist, when he was a prisoner in Doubting Castle, under Giant Despair, in Psalm 88; and Bunyan’s experience, as narrated in No. 163 of Grace Abounding. Despair swallowed him up, and that passage fell like a hot thunderbolt upon his conscience, “He was rejected, for he found no place for repentance”-(Ivimey).

[212] Dr. Donne, the celebrated Dean of St. Paul’s, had recently published a thesis, to prove that suicide, under some circumstances, was justifiable. Hopeful answers all his arguments, and proves it to be the foulest of murders. Bunyan, in his treatise on Justification, volume 1, page 314, thus notices the jailer’s intent to commit suicide, when the doors of the prison in which Paul was confined were thrown open-“Even now, while the earthquake shook the prison, he had murder in his heart-murder, I say, and that of a high nature, even to have killed his own body and soul at once”-(ED).

[213] Here is the blessing of a hopeful companion; here is excellent counsel. Let vain professors say what they may against looking back to past experiences, it is most certainly good and right so to do; not to encourage present sloth and presumption, but to excite fresh confidence of hope in the Lord. We have David’s example, and Paul’s word to encourage us to this, “The Lord that delivered me out of the paw of the lion, and out of the paw of the bear, he will deliver me out of the hand of this Philistine” (1 Sam. 17:37); and says Paul, “We had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead” (2 Cor. 1:9)-(Mason).

[214] It is a curious picture which Bunyan has drawn of the intercourse between the giant and his wife Diffidence. They form a very loving couple in their way; and the giant takes no new step in the treatment of the pilgrims without consulting Mrs. Diffidence over night, so that the curtain lectures to which we listen are very curious. But Mrs. Diffidence ought rather to have been called Dame Desperation, or Desperate Resolution; for she seems, if anything, the more stubborn genius of the two-(Cheever). By these conversations between Diffidence and Despair, after they had retired to bed, Bunyan perhaps designed to intimate that, as melancholy persons seldom get rest at night, the gloominess of the season contributes to the distress of their minds. So Asaph complains: “My sore ran in the night, and ceased not: my soul refused to be comforted” (Psa. 67:2)-(Ivimey).

[215] How would the awful lesson of the man in the iron cage, at the Interpreter’s house, now recur to poor Christian’s mind: “I cannot get out, O now I cannot! I left off to watch, and am shut up in this iron cage, nor can all the men in the world let me out.”

Christian’s answer to the despairing pilgrim now soon broke upon his memory: “The Son of the Blessed is very pitiful”-(ED).

[216] What! Pray in the custody of Giant Despair, in the midst of Doubting Castle, and when their own folly brought them there too?

Yes; mind this, ye pilgrims, ye are exhorted, “I will that men pray everywhere, without doubting” (1 Tim. 2:8). We can be in no place but God can hear, nor in any circumstance but God is able to deliver us from. And be assured, that when the spirit of prayer comes, deliverance is nigh at hand-(Mason). Perhaps the author selected Saturday at midnight for the precise time when the prisoners began to pray, in order to intimate that the preparation for the Lord’s day, which serious persons are reminded to make for its sacred services, are often the happy means of recovering those that have fallen into sin and despondency-(Scott).

[217] All at once, by a new revelation, which none but the Saviour could make, Christian finds the promises. Christ had been watching over his erring disciples-He kept back the hand of Despair from destroying them-He binds up the broken heart, and healeth all their wounds-(Cheever). As a key enters all the intricate wards of a lock, and throws back its bolts, so the precious promises of God in his Word, if turned by the strong hand of faith, will open all the doors which unbelief and despair have shut upon us-(Burder).

[218] Bunyan was a plain-spoken man, and feared not to offend delicate ears when truth required honest dealing. In his treatise on the Law and Grace, he says: “And therefore, my brethren, seeing God, our Father, hath sent us, damnable traitors, a pardon from Heaven, even all the promises of the Gospel, and hath also sealed to the certainty of it with the heart-blood of His dear Son, let us not be daunted”-(Vol. 1, p. 562).

[219] Precious promise! The promises of God in Christ are the life of faith, and the quickeners of prayer. O how oft do we neglect God’s great and precious promises in Christ Jesus, while doubts and despair keep us prisoners! So it was with these pilgrims; they were kept under hard bondage of soul for four days. Hence see what it is to grieve the Spirit of God: for He only is the Comforter: and if He withdraws His influences, who or what can comfort us?

Though precious promises are revealed in the Word, yet we can get no comfort from them but by the grace of the Spirit-(Mason).

[220] It was Sabbath morning. The sun was breaking over the hills, and fell upon their pale, haggard countenances, it was to them a new creation; they breathed the fresh, reviving air, and brushed, with hasty steps, the dew from the untrodden grass, and fled the nearest way to the stile, over which they had wandered. They had learned a lesson by suffering, which nothing else could have taught them, and which would remain with them to the day of their death—(Cheever). The experience of these “three or four” dreadful days is specially recorded in Grace Abounding, (Nos. 261-263). The key which opened the doors in Doubting Castle was these words, applied with power to his soul, “I must go to Jesus,” in connection with Hebrews 12:22-24. Of the first night of his deliverance he says, “I could scarcely lie in my bed for joy and peace, and triumph through Christ”-(ED).

[221] They fell to devising what soldiers, and how many, Diabolus should go against Mansoul with, to take it; and after some debate, it was concluded that none were more fit for that expedition than an army of terrible DOUBTERS. They therefore concluded to send against Mansoul an army of sturdy doubters. Diabolus was to beat up his drum for 20 or 30,000 men in the Land of Doubting, which land lieth upon the confines of a place called Hell-gate Hill.

Captain Rage was over the election doubters; his were the red colours; his standard-bearer was Mr. Destructive; and the great red dragon he had for his scutcheon. Captain Fury was over the vocation doubters; his standard-bearer was darkness; his colours were pale; and his scutcheon the fiery flying serpent. Captain Damnation was over the grace doubters; his were the red colours; Mr. No-life bore them; his scutcheon was the Black Den, &c.-(Holy War).

[222] When offending Christians are brought to deep repentance, renewed exercises of lively faith, and willing obedience in those self-denying duties which they had declined, the Lord “restores to them the joy of His salvation,” and their former comforts become more abundant and permanent. The Delectable Mountains seem intended to represent those calm seasons of peace and comfort-(Scott).

[223] O how many professors grow weary of the way, fall short, and fail of coming to the end! Though the way be too far, too strait, and too narrow for many who set out, and never hold out to the end; yet all who are begotten by the Word of grace, and born of the Spirit of truth, shall persevere to the end, being kept by the mighty power of God, through faith, unto eternal salvation (1

Peter 1:5)-(Mason).

[224] There is in this laconic description of the homely dreamer a richness of beauty which no efforts of the artist can adequately portray; and in the concise dialogue