Books: Life of Bunyan
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Rev. James Hamilton >> Life of Bunyan
It is instructive to find, that, amid all the depression of these
anxious days, it was not any one sin, nor any particular class of
sins, which made him so fearful and unhappy. He felt that he was a
sinner, and as a sinner he wanted a perfect righteousness to present
him faultless before God. This righteousness, he also knew, was
nowhere to be found except in the person of Jesus Christ. "My
original and inward pollution,--that was my plague and affliction.
THAT I saw at a dreadful rate, always putting forth itself within
me,--that I had the guilt of to amazement; by reason of that I was
more loathsome in mine own eyes than a toad; and I thought I was so
in God's eyes too. Sin and corruption, I said, would as naturally
bubble out of my heart as water would out of a fountain. I thought
now that every one had a better heart than I had. I could have
changed hearts with any body. I thought none but the devil himself
could equalize me for inward wickedness and pollution of mind. I
fell, therefore, at the sight of my own vileness, deeply into
despair; for I concluded that this condition that I was in could not
stand with a state of grace. Sure, thought I, I am forsaken of God;
sure I am given up to the devil and a reprobate mind. And thus I
continued a long while, even for some years together."
During these painful apprehensions regarding his own state, it is no
marvel that he looked on secular things with an apathetic eye.
"While thus afflicted with the fears of my own damnation, there were
two things would make me wonder: the one was, when I saw old people
hunting after the things of this life, as if they should live here
always; the other was, when I found professors much distressed and
cast down when they met with outward losses, as of husband, wife,
child, &c. Lord, thought I, what a-do is here about such little
things as these! What seeking after carnal things by some, and what
grief in others for the loss of them! If they so much labour after,
and shied so many tears for the things of this present life, how am I
to be bemoaned, pitied, and prayed for! My soul is dying, my soul is
damning. Were my soul but in a good condition, and were I but sure
of it, ah! how rich would I esteem myself, though blessed but with
bread and water! I should count those but small afflictions, and
bear them as little burdens. A wounded spirit who can bear?"
This long interval of gloom was at last relieved by a brief sunburst
of joy. He heard a sermon on the text, "Behold, thou art fair, my
love;" in which the preacher said, that a ransomed soul is precious
to the Saviour, even when it appears very worthless to itself,--that
Christ loves it when tempted, assaulted, afflicted, and mourning
under the hiding of God's countenance. Bunyan went home musing on
the words, till the truth of what the preacher said began to force
itself upon his mind; and half incredulous at first, a hesitating
hope dawned in upon his spirit. "Then I began to give place to the
word, which, with power, did over and over make this joyful sound
within my soul--"Thou art my love, thou art my love; and nothing
shall separate thee from my love." And with that my heart was filled
full of comfort and hope; and now I could believe that my sins should
be forgiven me: yea, I was now so taken with the love and mercy of
God, that I remember I could not tell how to contain till I got home.
I thought I could have spoken of his love, and have told of his mercy
to me, even to the very crows that sat upon the ploughed lands before
me, had they been capable to have understood me. Wherefore, I said
in my soul, with much gladness, Well, I would I had pen and ink here.
I would write this down before I go any farther; for surely I will
not forget this forty years hence."
However, as he himself remarks, in less than forty days he had
forgotten it all. A flood of new and fierce temptations broke over
him, and had it not been for a strong sustaining arm which unseen
upheld him, his soul must have sunk in the deep and angry waters. At
one time he was almost overwhelmed in a hurricane of blasphemous
suggestions, and at another time his faith had wellnigh made
shipwreck on the shoals of infidelity or deliberate atheism. But the
very reluctance and dismay of his spirit showed that a new nature was
in him. "I often, when these temptations have been with force upon
me, did compare myself to the case of such a child whom some gipsy
hath by force took up in her arms, and is carrying from friend and
country; kick sometimes I did, and also shriek and cry; but yet I was
bound in the wings of the temptation, and the wind would carry me
away." It was all that he could do to refrain from articulating such
words as he imagined would amount to the sin against the Holy Ghost;
and for a year together he was haunted with such diabolical
suggestions that he was weary of his life, and fain would have
changed condition with a horse or a dog. During this dreary term it
is no wonder that his heart felt hard. "Though he should have given
a thousand pounds for a tear, he could not shed one; and often he had
not even the desire to shed one." Every ordinance was an affliction.
He could not listen to a sermon, or take up a religious book, but a
crowd of wild and horrid fancies rushed in betwixt the subject and
his bewildered mind, he could not assume the attitude of prayer but
he felt impelled to break off, almost as if some one had been pulling
him away; or, to mar his devotion, some ridiculous object was sure to
be presented to his fancy. It is not surprising that he should have
concluded that he was possessed by the devil; and it is scarcely
possible to peruse his own and similar recitals without the forcible
conviction that they are more than the mere workings of the mind,
either in its sane or its disordered state.
Only relieved by some glimpses of comfort, "which, like Peter's
sheet, were of a sudden caught up from him into heaven again," this
horrible darkness lasted no less than a year. The light which first
stole in upon it, and in which it finally melted away, was a clear
discovery of the person of Christ, more especially a distinct
perception of the dispositions which he manifested while here on
earth. And one thing greatly helped him. He alighted on a congenial
mind, and an experience almost identical with his own. From the
emancipation which this new acquaintance gave to his spirit, as well
as the tone which he imparted to Bunyan's theology, we had best
relate the incident in his own words. "Before I had got thus far out
of my temptations, I did greatly long to see some ancient godly man's
experience, who had writ some hundreds of years before I was born;
for those who had writ in our days, I thought (but I desire them now
to pardon me) that they had writ only that which others felt; or else
had, through the strength of their wits and parts, studied to answer
such objections as they perceived others perplexed with, without
going down themselves into the deep. Well, after many such longings
in my mind, the God in whose hands are all our days and ways, did
cast into my hands one day a book of Martin Luther's: it was his
Comment on the Galatians; it also was so old that it was ready to
fall piece from piece if I did but turn it over. Now I was pleased
much that such an old book had fallen into my hands; the which, when
I had but a little way perused, I found my condition in his
experience so largely and profoundly handled, as if his book had been
written out of my heart. This made me marvel: for thus, thought I,
this man could not know anything of the state of Christians now, but
must needs write and speak the experience of former days. Besides,
he doth most gravely also, in that book, debate of the sin of these
temptations, namely, blasphemy, desperation, and the like; shewing
that the law of Moses, as well as the devil, death, and hell, hath a
very great hand therein: flee which, at first, was very strange to
me; but considering and watching, I found it so indeed. But of
particulars here I intend nothing; only this, methinks, I must let
fall before all men, I do prefer this book of Martin Luther upon the
Galatians--excepting the Holy Bible--before all the books that ever I
have seen, as most fit for a wounded conscience."
There was one thing of which Bunyan was very conscious--that his
extrication from the fearful pit was the work of an almighty hand.
The transition was very blissful; but just because his present views
were so bright and assuring, he knew that flesh and blood had not
revealed them. "Now I had an evidence, as I thought, of my salvation
from heaven, with many golden seals thereon, all hanging in my sight.
Now could I remember this manifestation and the other discovery of
grace with comfort, and should often long and desire that the last
day were come, that I might be for ever inflamed with the sight and
joy and communion with him, whose head was crowned with thorns, whose
face was spit on and body broken, and soul made an offering for my
sins: for, whereas before I lay continually trembling at the mouth
of hell, now methought I was got so far therefrom, that I could not,
when I looked back, scarce discern it. And oh! thought I, that I
were fourscore years old now, that I might die quickly, that my soul
might be gone to rest." "And now I found, as I thought, that I loved
Christ dearly. Oh! methought that my soul cleaved unto him, my
affections cleaved unto him. I felt love to him as hot as fire; and
new, as Job said, I thought I should die in my nest."
Another period of fearful agony, however, awaited him, and, like the
last, it continued for a year. In perusing his own recital of these
terrible conflicts, the first relief to our tortured sympathy is in
the recollection that it is all over now, and that the sufferer,
escaped from his great tribulation, is long ago before the throne.
But in the calmer, because remoter, contemplation of this fiery
trial, it is easy to see "the end of the Lord." When He permitted
Satan to tempt his servant Job, it was not for Job's sake merely, nor
for the sake of the blessed contrast which surprised his latter days,
that he allowed such thick-coming woes to gather round the patriarch;
but it was to provide in his parallel experience a storehouse of
encouragement and hope for the future children of sorrow. And when
the Lord permitted the adversary so violently to assail our worthy,
and when he caused so many of his own waves and billows to pass over
him, it was not merely for the sake of Bunyan; it was for the sake of
Bunyan's readers down to the end of time. By selecting this strong
spirit as the subject of these trials, the Lord provided, in his
intense feelings and vivid realizations, a normal type--a glaring
instance of those experiences which, in their fainter modifications,
are common to most Christians; and, through his graphic pen, secured
a guidebook for Zion's pilgrims in ages yet to come. In the
temptations we are now called to record, there is something so
peculiar, that we do not know if Christian biography supplies any
exact counterpart; but the time and manner of its occurrence have
many and painful parallels. It was after he had entered into "rest"-
-when he had received joyful assurance of his admission into God's
family, and was desiring to depart and be with Christ--it was then
that this assault was made on his constancy, and it was a fiercer
assault than any. If we do not greatly err, it is not uncommon for
believers to be visited after conversion with temptations from which
they were exempt in the days of their ignorance; as well as
temptations which, but for their conversion, could not have existed.
The temptation to which we have alluded, took this strange and
dreadful form--to sell and part with his Saviour, to exchange him for
the things of this life--for anything. This horrid thought he could
not shake out of his mind, day nor night, for many months together.
It intermixed itself with every occupation, however sacred, or
however trivial. "He could not eat his food, stoop for a pin, chop a
stick, nor cast his eye to look on this or that, but still the
temptation would come, 'Sell Christ for this, sell Christ for that,
sell him, sell him.' Sometimes it would run in my thoughts not so
little as a hundred times together, Sell him, sell him, sell him:
Against which, I may say, for whole hours together, I have been
forced to stand as continually leaning and forcing my spirit against
it; lest haply, before I was aware, some wicked thought might arise
in my heart that might consent thereto: and sometimes the tempter
would make me believe I had consented to it; but then should I be as
tortured on a rack for whole days together."--"But, to be brief, one
morning as I did lie in my bed, I was, as at other times, most
fiercely assaulted with this temptation to sell and part with Christ-
-the wicked suggestion still running in my mind, Sell him, sell him,
sell him, sell him, as fast as a man could speak, against which I
also, as at other times, answered, No, no; not for thousands,
thousands, thousands, at least twenty times together. But at last,
after much striving, even until I was almost out of breath, I felt
this thought pass through my heart, Let him go, if he will; and I
thought also that I felt my heart freely consent thereto. Oh, the
diligence of Satan! Oh, the desperateness of man's heart! Now was
the battle won, and down fell I, as a bird that is shot from the top
of a tree, into great guilt and fearful despair. Thus getting out of
my bed, I went moping into the field, but, God knows, with as heavy a
heart as mortal man, I think, could bear. Where, for the space of
two hours, I was like a man bereft of life, and as now past all
recovery, and bound over to eternal punishment. And withal, that
scripture did seize upon my soul, 'O profane person, as Esau, who,
for one morsel of meat, sold his birth-right; for ye know how that
afterwards, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was
rejected; for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it
carefully with tears.' These words were to my soul like fetters of
brass, in the continual sound of which I went for several months
together."
The anxious casuistry in which he sought relief, and the alternation
of wistful hope and blank despair, in which for many a dismal day he
was tossed to and fro, none but himself can properly describe. They
are deeply affecting, and to some may prove instructive.
"Then began I, with sad and careful heart, to consider of the nature
and largeness of my sin, and to search into the word of God, if in
any place I could espy a word of promise, or any encouraging sentence
by which I might take relief. Wherefore I began to consider that of
Mark iii., 'All manner of sins and blasphemies shall be forgiven unto
the sons of men, wherewith soever they shall blaspheme:' which place,
methought, at a blush, did contain a large and glorious promise for
the pardon of high offences. But considering the place more fully, I
thought it was rather to be understood as relating more chiefly to
those who had, while in a natural state, committed such things as
there are mentioned; but not to me, who had not only received light
and mercy, but that had, both after and also contrary to that, so
slighted Christ as I had done. I feared, therefore, that this wicked
sin of mine might be that sin unpardonable, of which he there thus
speaketh, 'But he that blasphemeth against the Holy Ghost hath never
forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation.'
"And now was I both a burden and a terror to myself; nor did I ever
so know as now what it was to be weary of my life and yet afraid to
die. O how gladly would I have been anybody but myself! anything but
a man! and in any condition but my own! for there was nothing did
pass more frequently over my mind, than that it was impossible for me
to be forgiven my transgression, and to be saved from wrath to come."
He set himself to compare his sin with that of David and Peter, but
saw that there were specialties in his guilt which made it far
greater. The only case which he could compare to his own was that of
Judas.
"About this time I did light on the dreadful story of that miserable
mortal, Francis Spira. Every sentence in that book, every groan of
that man, with all the rest of his actions in his dolors, as his
tears, his prayers, his gnashing of teeth, his wringing of hands, his
twisting, and languishing, and pining away, under the mighty hand of
God that was upon him, was as knives and daggers to my soul;
especially that sentence of his was frightful to me, 'Man knows the
beginning of sin, but who bounds the issues thereof!' Then would the
former sentence, as the conclusion of all, fall like a hot
thunderbolt again upon my conscience, 'For you know how, that
afterwards, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was
rejected; for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it
carefully with tears.' Then should I be struck into a very great
trembling, insomuch that at sometimes I could, for whole days
together, feel my very body, as well as my mind, to shake and totter
under the sense of this dreadful judgment of God.
"Now I should find my mind to flee from God as from the face of a
dreadful judge; yet this was my torment, I could not escape his hand.
'It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the hiving God.'
But blessed be his grace, that scripture in these flying fits would
call as running after me,--'I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, thy
transgressions, and as a cloud thy sins; return unto me, for I have
redeemed thee.' This, I say, would come in upon my mind when I was
fleeing from the face of God; for I did flee from his face, that is,
my mind and spirit fled before him: by reason of his highness I
could not endure. Then would that text cry, Return unto me; it would
cry aloud, with a very great voice, Return unto me, for I have
redeemed thee. Indeed this would make me make a little stop, and, as
it were, look over my shoulder behind me, to see if I could discern
that the God of grace did follow me with a pardon in his hand.
"Once as I was walking to and fro in a good man's shop, bemoaning of
myself in my sad and doleful state, afflicting myself with self-
abhorrence for this wicked and ungodly thought; lamenting also this
hard hap of mine, for that I should commit so great a sin, greatly
fearing I should not be pardoned; praying also in my heart, that if
this sin of mine did differ from that against the Holy Ghost, the
Lord would shew it me; and being now ready to sink with fear,
suddenly there was as if there had rushed in at the window the noise
of wind upon me, but very pleasant, and as if I heard a voice
speaking,--'Didst ever refuse to be justified by the blood of
Christ?' And withal my whole life of profession past was in a moment
opened to me, wherein I was made to see that designedly I had not; so
my heart answered groaningly, No. Then fell with power that word of
God upon me, See that ye refuse not him that speaketh. This made a
strange seizure upon my spirit: it brought light with it, and
commanded a silence in my heart of all those tumultuous thoughts that
before did rise, like masterless hell-hounds, to roar and bellow, and
make a hideous noise within me. It shewed me also that Jesus Christ
had yet a word of grace and mercy for me that he had not, as I
feared, quite forsaken and cast off my soul: Yea, this was a kind of
check for my proneness to desperation; a kind of threatening of me if
I did not, notwithstanding my sins and the heinousness of them,
venture my salvation upon the Son of God. But as to my determining
about this strange dispensation, what it was, I know not. I have not
yet in twenty years' time been able to make a judgment of it. I
thought then what here I should be loath to speak. But verily, that
sudden rushing wind was as if an angel had come upon me; but both it
and the salvation, I will leave until the day of judgment. Only this
I say, it commanded a great calm in my soul. It persuaded me there
might be hope; it shewed me, as I thought, what the sin unpardonable
was, and that my soul had yet the blessed privilege to flee to Jesus
Christ for mercy. But I say concerning this dispensation, I know not
what yet to say unto it. I leave it to be thought on by men of sound
judgment. I lay not the stress of my salvation thereupon, but upon
the Lord Jesus in the promise; yet seeing I am here unfolding of my
secret things, I thought it might not be altogether inexpedient to
let this also shew itself, though I cannot now relate the matter as
then I did experience it. This lasted in the savour thereof about
three or four days, and then I began to mistrust and despair again."
No solid peace can enter the soul except that which is brought by the
Comforter. It is not the word read and heard, but the word revealed
by the Spirit, which is saving and assuring. There is undoubtedly a
divine operation on the mind wherever any special impression is
produced by the truths of God; and whether that impression should be
made with audible and visible manifestations accompanying it--as on
the day of Pentecost--or should be so vivid as to convert a mental
perception into a bodily sensation, as we are disposed to think was
the case with some of the remarkable sights and heavenly voices which
good men have recorded, is really of little moment. In Bunyan's
case, so warm was his imagination, that every clear perception was
sure to be instantaneously sounding in his ear, or standing out a
bright vision before his admiring eyes. This feature of his mental
conformation has been noticed already; but this may be the proper
place to allude to it again.
After the short breathing time we just noticed, Bunyan began to sink
in the deep waters again. It was in vain that he asked the prayers
of God's people, and equally in vain that he imparted his grief to
those who had passed through the same conflicts with the devil. One
"ancient Christian," to whom he stated his fear that he had committed
the sin for which there is no forgiveness, thought so too. "Thus was
I always sinking, whatever I did think or do. So one day I walked to
a neighbouring town, and sat down upon a settle in the street, and
fell into a very deep panic about the most fearful state my sin had
brought me to; and after long musing, I lifted up my head; but
methought I saw as if the sun that shineth in the heavens did grudge
to give light; and as if the very stones in the street, and tiles
upon the houses, did bend themselves against me: methought that they
all combined together to banish me out of the world; I was abhorred
of them, and unfit to dwell among them, or be partaker of their
benefits, because I had sinned against the Saviour. Then breaking
out in the bitterness of my soul, I said to my soul, with a grievous
sigh, 'How can God comfort such a wretch as I am?' I had no sooner
said it, but this returned upon me, as an echo doth answer a voice,
'This sin is not unto death.' At which I was as if raised out of the
grave, and cried out again, 'Lord, how couldst thou find out such a
word as this?' for I was filled with admiration at the fitness and at
the unexpectedness of the sentence. The fitness of the word; the
rightness of the timing of it; the power and sweetness and light and
glory that came with it also, were marvellous to me to find. I was
now for the time out of doubt as to that about which I was so much in
doubt before. I seemed now to stand upon the same ground with other
sinners, and to have as good right to the word and prayer as any of
them."
In coming to this conclusion, he had made a great step in advance.
His misery had hitherto been occasioned by a device of the devil,
which keeps many anxious souls from comfort. He regarded his own
case as a special exception to which a gospel, otherwise general, did
not apply; but this snare was now broken, and, though with halting
pace, he was on the way to settled rest and joy. Frequently he would
feel that his transgressions had cut him off from Christ, and left
him "neither foot-hold nor handhold among all the props and stays in
the precious word of life;" but presently he would find some gracious
assurance--he knew not how--sustaining him. At one time he would
appear to himself like a child fallen into a mill-pond, "who thought
it could make some shift to sprawl and scramble in the water," yet,
as it could find nothing to which to cling, must sink at last; but by
and by he would perceive that an unseen power was buoying him up, and
encouraging him to cry from the depths. At another time he would be
so discouraged and daunted, that he scarcely dared to pray, and yet
in a sort of desperation beginning, he found it true that "men ought
always to pray and not to faint." On one occasion, whilst
endeavouring to draw near the throne of grace, the tempter suggested
"that neither the mercy of God, nor yet the blood of Christ, at all
concerned him, nor could they help him by reason of his sin;
therefore it was vain to pray." Yet he thought with himself, "I will
pray." "But," said the tempter, "your sin is unpardonable." "Well,"
said he, "I will pray." "It is to no boot," said the adversary. And
still he answered, "I will pray." And so he began his prayer, "Lord,
Satan tells me that neither they mercy, nor Christ's blood, is
sufficient to save my soul. Lord, shall I honour thee most by
believing thou wilt and canst? or him, by believing thou neither wilt
nor canst? Lord, I would fain honour thee by believing thou canst
and thou wiliest." And whilst he was thus speaking, "as if some one
had clapped him on the back," that scripture fastened on his mind, "O
man great is thy faith."