{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_2308/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_2308","id":"gutenberg_2308","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2308","summary":null,"tags":["Bunyan, John, 1628-1688 -- Criticism and interpretation","Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Religion/Spirituality"],"text":"Transcribed from the 1895 Oliphant, Anderson and Ferrier edition by David\nPrice, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk\n\n\n\n\n\nBUNYAN CHARACTERS--THIRD SERIES\nLectures Delivered in St. George's Free Church Edinburgh\nBy Alexander Whyte, D.D.\n\n\nCHAPTER I--THE BOOK\n\n\n   '--the book of the wars of the Lord.'--_Moses_.\n\nJohn Bunyan's _Holy War_ was first published in 1682, six years before\nits illustrious author's death.  Bunyan wrote this great book when he was\nstill in all the fulness of his intellectual power and in all the\nripeness of his spiritual experience.  The _Holy War_ is not the\n_Pilgrim's Progress_--there is only one _Pilgrim's Progress_.  At the\nsame time, we have Lord Macaulay's word for it that if the _Pilgrim's\nProgress_ did not exist the _Holy War_ would be the best allegory that\never was written: and even Mr. Froude admits that the _Holy War_ alone\nwould have entitled its author to rank high up among the acknowledged\nmasters of English literature.  The intellectual rank of the _Holy War_\nhas been fixed before that tribunal over which our accomplished and\ncompetent critics preside; but for a full appreciation of its religious\nrank and value we would need to hear the glad testimonies of tens of\nthousands of God's saints, whose hard-beset faith and obedience have been\nkindled and sustained by the study of this noble book.  The _Pilgrim's\nProgress_ sets forth the spiritual life under the scriptural figure of a\nlong and an uphill journey.  The _Holy War_, on the other hand, is a\nmilitary history; it is full of soldiers and battles, defeats and\nvictories.  And its devout author had much more scriptural suggestion and\nsupport in the composition of the _Holy War_ than he had even in the\ncomposition of the _Pilgrim's Progress_.  For Holy Scripture is full of\nwars and rumours of wars: the wars of the Lord; the wars of Joshua and\nthe Judges; the wars of David, with his and many other magnificent battle-\nsongs; till the best known name of the God of Israel in the Old Testament\nis the Lord of Hosts; and then in the New Testament we have Jesus Christ\ndescribed as the Captain of our salvation.  Paul's powerful use of armour\nand of armed men is familiar to every student of his epistles; and then\nthe whole Bible is crowned with a book all sounding with the\nbattle-cries, the shouts, and the songs of soldiers, till it ends with\nthat city of peace where they hang the trumpet in the hall and study war\nno more.  Military metaphors had taken a powerful hold of our author's\nimagination even in the _Pilgrim's Progress_, as his portraits of\nGreatheart and Valiant-for-truth and other soldiers sufficiently show;\nwhile the conflict with Apollyon and the destruction of Doubting Castle\nare so many sure preludes of the coming _Holy War_.  Bunyan's early\nexperiences in the great Civil War had taught him many memorable things\nabout the military art; memorable and suggestive things that he\nafterwards put to the most splendid use in the siege, the capture, and\nthe subjugation of Mansoul.\n\nThe _Divine Comedy_ is beyond dispute the greatest book of personal and\nexperimental religion the world has ever seen.  The consuming intensity\nof its author's feelings about sin and holiness, the keenness and the\nbitterness of his remorse, and the rigour and the severity of his\nrevenge, his superb intellect and his universal learning, all set ablaze\nby his splendid imagination--all that combines to make the _Divine\nComedy_ the unapproachable masterpiece it is.  John Bunyan, on the other\nhand, had no learning to be called learning, but he had a strong and a\nhealthy English understanding, a conscience and a heart wholly given up\nto the life of the best religion of his religious day, and then, by sheer\ndint of his sanctified and soaring imagination and his exquisite style,\nhe stands forth the peer of the foremost men in the intellectual world.\nAnd thus it is that the great unlettered religious world possesses in\nJohn Bunyan all but all that the select and scholarly world possesses in\nDante.  Both Dante and Bunyan devoted their splendid gifts to the noblest\nof services--the service of spiritual, and especially of personal\nreligion; but for one appreciative reader that Dante has had Bunyan has\nhad a hundred.  Happy in being so like his Master in so many things,\nBunyan is happy in being like his unlettered Master in this also, that\nthe common people hear him gladly and never weary of hearing him.\n\nIt gives by far its noblest interest to Dante's noble book that we have\nDante himself in every page of his book.  Dante is taken down into Hell,\nhe is then led up through _Purgatory_, and after that still up and up\ninto the very Paradise of God.  But that hell all the time is the hell\nthat Dante had dug and darkened and kindled for himself.  In the\nPurgatory, again, we see Dante working out his own salvation with fear\nand trembling, God all the time working in Dante to will and to do of His\ngood pleasure.  And then the Paradise, with all its sevenfold glory, is\njust that place and that life which God hath prepared for them that love\nHim and serve Him as Dante did.  And so it is in the _Holy War_.  John\nBunyan is in the _Pilgrim's Progress_, but there are more men and other\nmen than its author in that rich and populous book, and other experiences\nand other attainments than his.  But in the _Holy War_ we have Bunyan\nhimself as fully and as exclusively as we have Dante in the _Divine\nComedy_.  In the first edition of the _Holy War_ there is a frontispiece\nconceived and executed after the anatomical and symbolical manner which\nwas so common in that day, and which is to be seen at its perfection in\nthe English edition of Jacob Behmen.  The frontispiece is a full-length\nlikeness of the author of the _Holy War_, with his whole soul laid open\nand his hidden heart 'anatomised.'  Why, asked Wordsworth, and Matthew\nArnold in our day has echoed the question--why does Homer still so live\nand rule without a rival in the world of letters?  And they answer that\nit is because he always sang with his eye so fixed upon its object.\n'Homer, to thee I turn.'  And so it was with Dante.  And so it was with\nBunyan.  Bunyan's _Holy War_ has its great and abiding and commanding\npower over us just because he composed it with his eye fixed on his own\nheart.\n\n   My readers, I have somewhat else to do,\n   Than with vain stories thus to trouble you;\n   What here I say some men do know so well\n   They can with tears and joy the story tell . . .\n   Then lend thine ear to what I do relate,\n   Touching the town of Mansoul and her state:\n   For my part, I (myself) was in the town,\n   Both when 'twas set up and when pulling down.\n   Let no man then count me a fable-maker,\n   Nor make my name or credit a partaker\n   Of their derision: what is here in view\n   Of mine own knowledge, I dare say is true.\n\nThe characters in the _Holy War_ are not as a rule nearly so clear-cut or\nso full of dramatic life and movement as their fellows are in the\n_Pilgrim's Progress_, and Bunyan seems to have felt that to be the case.\nHe shows all an author's fondness for the children of his imagination in\nthe _Pilgrim's Progress_.  He returns to and he lingers on their doings\nand their sayings and their very names with all a foolish father's fond\ndelight.  While, on the other hand, when we look to see him in his\nconfidential addresses to his readers returning upon some of the military\nand municipal characters in the _Holy War_, to our disappointment he does\nnot so much as name a single one of them, though he dwells with all an\nauthor's self-delectation on the outstanding scenes, situations, and\nepisodes of his remarkable book.\n\nWhat, then, are some of the more outstanding scenes, situations, and\nepisodes, as well as military and municipal characters, in the book now\nbefore us?  And what are we to promise ourselves, and to expect, from the\nstudy and the exposition of the _Holy War_ in these lectures?  Well, to\nbegin with, we shall do our best to enter with mind, and heart, and\nconscience, and imagination into Bunyan's great conception of the human\nsoul as a city, a fair and a delicate city and corporation, with its\nsituation, surroundings, privileges and fortunes.  We shall then enter\nunder his guidance into the famous and stately palace of this\nmetropolitan city; a palace which for strength might be called a castle,\nfor pleasantness a paradise, and for largeness a place so copious as to\ncontain all the world.  The walls and the gates of the city will then\noccupy and instruct us for several Sabbath evenings, after which we shall\nenter on the record of the wars and battles that rolled time after time\nround those city walls, and surged up through its captured gates till\nthey quite overwhelmed the very palace of the king itself.  Then we shall\nspend, God willing, one Sabbath evening with Loth-to-stoop, and another\nwith old Ill-pause, the devil's orator, and another with Captain\nAnything, and another with Lord Willbewill, and another with that\nnotorious villain Clip-promise, by whose doings so much of the king's\ncoin had been abused, and another with that so angry and so\nill-conditioned churl old Mr. Prejudice, with his sixty deaf men under\nhim.  Dear Mr. Wet-eyes, with his rope upon his head, will have a fit\ncongregation one winter night, and Captain Self-denial another.  We shall\nhave another painful but profitable evening before a communion season\nwith Mr. Prywell, and so we shall eat of that bread and drink of that\ncup.  Emmanuel's livery will occupy us one evening, Mansoul's Magna\nCharta another, and her annual Feast-day another.  Her Established Church\nand her beneficed clergy will take up one evening, some Skulkers in\nMansoul another, the devil's last prank another, and then, to wind up\nwith, Emmanuel's last speech and charge to Mansoul from his chariot-step\ntill He comes again to accomplish her rapture.  All that we shall see and\ntake part in; unless, indeed, our Captain comes in anger before the time,\nand spears us to the earth when He finds us asleep at our post or in the\nact of sin at it, which may His abounding mercy forbid!\n\nAnd now take these three forewarnings and precautions.\n\n1.  First:--All who come here on these coming Sabbath evenings will not\nunderstand the _Holy War_ all at once, and many will not understand it at\nall.  And little blame to them, and no wonder.  For, fully to understand\nthis deep and intricate book demands far more mind, far more experience,\nand far more specialised knowledge than the mass of men, as men are, can\npossibly bring to it.  This so exacting book demands of us, to begin\nwith, some little acquaintance with military engineering and\narchitecture; with the theory of, and if possible with some practice in,\nattack and defence in sieges and storms, winter campaigns and long drawn-\nout wars.  And then, impossible as it sounds and is, along with all that\nwe would need to have a really profound, practical, and at first-hand\nacquaintance with the anatomy of the human subject, and especially with\ncardiac anatomy, as well as with all the conditions, diseases, regimen\nand discipline of the corrupt heart of man.  And then it is enough to\nterrify any one to open this book or to enter this church when he is told\nthat if he comes here he must be ready and willing to have the whole of\nthis terrible and exacting book fulfilled and experienced in himself, in\nhis own body and in his own soul.\n\n2.  And, then, you will not all like the _Holy War_.  The mass of men\ncould not be expected to like any such book.  How could the vain and\nblind citizen of a vain and blind city like to be wakened up, as Paris\nwas wakened up within our own remembrance, to find all her gates in the\nhands of an iron-hearted enemy?  And how could her sons like to be\nreminded, as they sit in their wine gardens, that they are thereby fast\npreparing their city for that threatened day when she is to be hung up on\nher own walls and bled to the white?  Who would not hate and revile the\nbook or the preacher who prophesied such rough things as that?  Who could\nlove the author or the preacher who told him to his face that his eyes\nand his ears and all the passes to his heart were already in the hands of\na cruel, ruthless, and masterful enemy?  No wonder that you never read\nthe _Holy War_.  No wonder that the bulk of men have never once opened\nit.  The Downfall is not a favourite book in the night-gardens of Paris.\n\n3.  And then, few, very few, it is to be feared, will be any better of\nthe _Holy War_.  For, to be any better of such a terrible book as this\nis, we must at all costs lay it, and lay it all, and lay it all at once,\nto heart.  We must submit ourselves to see ourselves continually in its\nblazing glass.  We must stoop to be told that it is all, in all its\nterrors and in all its horrors, literally true of ourselves.  We must\ndeliberately and resolutely set open every gate that opens in on our\nheart--Ear-gate and Eye-gate and all the gates of sense and intellect,\nday and night, to Jesus Christ to enter in; and we must shut and bolt and\nbar every such gate in the devil's very face, and in the face of all his\nscouts and orators, day and night also.  But who that thinks, and that\nknows by experience what all that means, will feel himself sufficient for\nall that?  No man: no sinful man.  But, among many other noble and\nblessed things, the _Holy War_ will show us that our sufficiency in this\nimpossibility also is all of God.  Who, then, will enlist?  Who will risk\nall and enlist?  Who will matriculate in the military school of Mansoul?\nWho will submit himself to all the severity of its divine discipline?  Who\nwill be made willing to throw open and to keep open his whole soul, with\nall the gates and doors thereof, to all the sieges, assaults,\ncapitulations, submissions, occupations, and such like of the war of\ngospel holiness?  And who will enlist under that banner now?\n\n'Set down my name, sir,' said a man of a very stout countenance to him\nwho had the inkhorn at the outer gate.  At which those who walked upon\nthe top of the palace broke out in a very pleasant voice,\n\n   'Come in, come in;\n   Eternal glory thou shalt win.'\n\nWe have no longer, after what we have come through, any such stoutness in\nour countenance, yet will we say to-night with him who had it, Set down\nmy name also, sir!\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II--THE CITY OF MANSOUL AND ITS CINQUE PORTS\n\n\n   '--a besieged city.'--_Isaiah_.\n\nOur greatest historians have been wont to leave their books behind them\nand to make long journeys in order to see with their own eyes the ruined\nsites of ancient cities and the famous fields where the great battles of\nthe world were lost and won.  We all remember how Macaulay made a long\nwinter journey to see the Pass of Killiecrankie before he sat down to\nwrite upon it; and Carlyle's magnificent battle-pieces are not all\nimagination; even that wonderful writer had to see Frederick's\nbattlefields with his own eyes before he could trust himself to describe\nthem.  And he tells us himself how Cromwell's splendid generalship all\ncame up before him as he looked down on the town of Dunbar and out upon\nthe ever-memorable country round about it.  John Bunyan was not a great\nhistorian; he was only a common soldier in the great Civil War of the\nseventeenth century; but what would we not give for a description from\nhis vivid pen of the famous fields and the great sieges in which he took\npart?  What a find John Bunyan's 'Journals' and 'Letters Home from the\nSeat of War' would be to our historians and to their readers!  But, alas!\nsuch journals and letters do not exist.  Bunyan's complete silence in all\nhis books about the battles and the sieges he took his part in is very\nremarkable, and his silence is full of significance.  The Puritan soldier\nkeeps all his military experiences to work them all up into his _Holy\nWar_, the one and only war that ever kindled all his passions and filled\nhis every waking thought.  But since John Bunyan was a man of genius,\nequal in his own way to Cromwell and Milton themselves, if I were a\nsoldier I would keep ever before me the great book in which Bunyan's\nexperiences and observations and reflections as a soldier are all worked\nup.  I would set that classical book on the same shelf with Caesar's\n_Commentaries_ and Napier's _Peninsula_, and Carlyle's glorious battle-\npieces.  Even Caesar has been accused of too great dryness and coldness\nin his Commentaries, but there is neither dryness nor coldness in John\nBunyan's _Holy War_.  To read Bunyan kindles our cold civilian blood like\nthe waving of a banner and like the sound of a trumpet.\n\nThe situation of the city of Mansoul occupies one of the most beautiful\npages of this whole book.  The opening of the _Holy War_, simply as a\npiece of English, is worthy to stand beside the best page of the\n_Pilgrim's Progress_ itself, and what more can I say than that?  Now, the\nsituation of a city is a matter of the very first importance.  Indeed,\nthe insight and the foresight of the great statesmen and the great\nsoldiers of past ages are seen in nothing more than in the sites they\nchose for their citadels and for their defenced cities.  Well, then, as\nto the situation of Mansoul, 'it lieth,' says our military author, 'just\nbetween the two worlds.'  That is to say: very much as Germany in our day\nlies between France and Russia, and very much as Palestine in her day lay\nbetween Egypt and Assyria, so does Mansoul lie between two immense\nempires also.  And, surely, I do not need to explain to any man here who\nhas a man's soul in his bosom that the two armed empires that besiege his\nsoul are Heaven above and Hell beneath, and that both Heaven and Hell\nwould give their best blood and their best treasure to subdue and to\npossess his soul.  We do not value our souls at all as Heaven and Hell\nvalue them.  There are savage tribes in Africa and in Asia who inhabit\nterritories that are sleeplessly envied by the expanding and extending\nnations of Europe.  Ancient and mighty empires in Europe raise armies,\nand build navies, and levy taxes, and spill the blood of their bravest\nsons like water in order to possess the harbours, and the rivers, and the\nmountains, and the woods amid which their besotted owners roam in utter\nignorance of all the plots and preparations of the Western world.  And\nHeaven and Hell are not unlike those ancient and over-peopled nations of\nEurope whose teeming millions must have an outlet to other lands.  Their\nlife and their activity are too large and too rich for their original\nterritories, and thus they are compelled to seek out colonies and\ndependencies, so that their surplus population may have a home.  And, in\nlike manner, Heaven is too full of love and of blessedness to have all\nthat for ever shut up within itself, and Hell is too full of envy and ill-\nwill, and thus there continually come about those contentions and\ncollisions of which the _Holy War_ is full.  And, besides, it is with\nMansoul and her neighbour states of Heaven and Hell just as it is with\nsome of our great European empires in this also.  There is no neutral\nzone, no buffer state, no silver streak between Mansoul and her immediate\nand military neighbours.  And thus it is that her statesmen, and her\nsoldiers, and even her very common-soldier sentries must be for ever on\nthe watch; they must never say peace, peace; they must never leave for\none moment their appointed post.\n\nAnd then, as for the wall of the city, hear our excellent historian's own\nwords about that.  'The wall of the town was well built,' so he says.\n'Yea, so fast and firm was it knit and compact together that, had it not\nbeen for the townsmen themselves, it could not have been shaken or broken\ndown for ever.  For here lay the excellent wisdom of Him that builded\nMansoul, that the walls could never be broken down nor hurt by the most\nmighty adverse potentate unless the townsmen gave their consent thereto.'\nNow, what would the military engineers of Chatham and Paris and Berlin,\nwho are now at their wits' end, not give for a secret like that!  A wall\nimpregnable and insurmountable and not to be sapped or mined from the\noutside: a wall that could only suffer hurt from the inside!  And then\nthat wonderful wall was pierced from within with five magnificently\nanswerable gates.  That is to say, the gates could neither be burst in\nnor any way forced from without.  'This famous town of Mansoul had five\ngates, in at which to come, out of which to go; and these were made\nlikewise answerable to the walls; to wit, impregnable, and such as could\nnever be opened or forced but by the will and leave of those within.  The\nnames of the gates were these: Ear-gate, Eye-gate, Mouth-gate; in short,\n'the five senses,' as we say.\n\nIn the south of England, in the time of Edward the Confessor and after\nthe battle of Hastings, there were five cities which had special\nimmunities and peculiar privileges bestowed upon them, in recognition of\nthe special dangers to which they were exposed and the eminent services\nthey performed as facing the hostile shores of France.  Owing to their\nprivileges and their position, the 'Cinque Ports' came to be cities of\ngreat strength, till, as time went on, they became a positive weakness\nrather than a strength to the land that lay behind them.  Privilege bred\npride, and in their pride the Cinque Ports proclaimed wars and formed\nalliances on their own account: piracies by sea and robberies by land\nwere hatched within their walls; and it took centuries to reduce those\npampered and arrogant ports to the safe and peaceful rank of ordinary\nEnglish cities.  The Revolution of 1688 did something, and the Reform\nBill of 1832 did more to make Dover and her insolent sisters like the\nother free and equal cities of England; but to this day there are\nremnants of public shows and pageantries left in those old towns\nsufficient to witness to the former privileges, power, and pride of the\nfamous Cinque Ports.  Now, Mansoul, in like manner, has her cinque ports.\nAnd the whole of the _Holy War_ is one long and detailed history of how\nthe five senses are clothed with such power as they possess; how they\nabuse and misuse their power; what disloyalty and despite they show to\ntheir sovereign; what conspiracies and depredations they enter into; what\nuntold miseries they let in upon themselves and upon the land that lies\nbehind them; what years and years of siege, legislation, and rule it\ntakes to reduce our bodily senses, those proud and licentious gates, to\ntheir true and proper allegiance, and to make their possessors a people\nloyal and contented, law-abiding and happy.\n\nThe Apostle has a terrible passage to the Corinthians, in which he treats\nof the soul and the senses with tremendous and overwhelming power.  'Your\nbodies and your bodily members,' he argues, with crushing indignation,\n'are not your own to do with them as you like.  Your bodies and your\nsouls are both Christ's.  He has bought your body and your soul at an\nincalculable cost.  What! know ye not that your body is nothing less than\nthe temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, and ye are not any more\nyour own? know ye not that your bodies are the very members of Christ?'\nAnd then he says a thing so terrible that I tremble to transcribe it.  For\na more terrible thing was never written.  'Shall I then,' filled with\nshame he demands, 'take the members of Christ and make them the members\nof an harlot?'  O God, have mercy on me!  I knew all the time that I was\nabusing and polluting myself, but I did not know, I did not think, I was\nnever told that I was abusing and polluting Thy Son, Jesus Christ.  Oh,\ntoo awful thought.  And yet, stupid sinner that I am, I had often read\nthat if any man defile the temple of God and the members of Christ, him\nshall God destroy.  O God, destroy me not as I see now that I deserve.\nSpare me that I may cleanse and sanctify myself and the members of Christ\nin me, which I have so often embruted and defiled.  Assist me to summon\nup my imagination henceforth to my sanctification as Thine apostle has\nhere taught me the way.  Let me henceforth look at my whole body in all\nits senses and in all its members, the most open and the most secret, as\nin reality no more my own.  Let me henceforth look at myself with Paul's\ndeep and holy eyes.  Let me henceforth seat Christ, my Redeemer and my\nKing, in the very throne of my heart, and then keep every gate of my body\nand every avenue of my mind as all not any more mine own but His.  Let me\nopen my eye, and my ear, and my mouth, as if in all that I were opening\nChrist's eye and Christ's ear and Christ's mouth; and let me thrust in\nnothing on Him as He dwells within me that will make Him ashamed or\nangry, or that will defile and pollute Him.  That thought, O God, I feel\nthat it will often arrest me in time to come in the very act of sin.  It\nwill make me start back before I make Christ cruel or false, a\nwine-bibber, a glutton, or unclean.  I feel at this moment as if I shall\nyet come to ask Him at every meal, and at every other opportunity and\ntemptation of every kind, what He would have and what He would do before\nI go on to take or to do anything myself.  What a check, what a\nrestraint, what an awful scrupulosity that will henceforth work in me!\nBut, through that, what a pure, blameless, noble, holy and heavenly life\nI shall then lead!  What bodily pains, diseases, premature decays; what\nmental remorses, what shames and scandals, what self-loathings and what\nself-disgusts, what cups bitterer to drink than blood, I shall then\nescape!  Yes, O Paul, I shall henceforth hold with thee that my body is\nthe temple of Christ, and that I am not my own, but that I am bought with\na transporting price, and can, therefore, do nothing less than glorify\nGod in my body and in my spirit which are God's.  'This place,' says the\nPauline author of the _Holy War_--'This place the King intended but for\nHimself alone, and not for another with Him.'\n\nBut, my brethren, lay this well, and as never before, to heart--this,\nnamely, that when you thus begin to keep any gate for Christ, your King\nand Captain and Better-self,--Ear-gate, or Eye-gate, or Mouth-gate, or\nany other gate--you will have taken up a task that shall have no end with\nyou in this life.  Till you begin in dead earnest to watch your heart,\nand all the doors of your heart, as if you were watching Christ's heart\nfor Him and all the doors of His heart, you will have no idea of the\narduousness and the endurance, the sleeplessness and the self-denial, of\nthe undertaking.\n\n   'Mansoul!  Her wars seemed endless in her eyes;\n   She's lost by one, becomes another's prize.\n   Mansoul!  Her mighty wars, they did portend\n   Her weal or woe and that world without end.\n   Wherefore she must be more concern'd than they\n   Whose fears begin and end the self-same day.'\n\n'We all thought one battle would decide it,' says Richard Baxter, writing\nabout the Civil War.  'But we were all very much mistaken,' sardonically\nadds Carlyle.  Yes; and you will be very much mistaken too if you enter\non the war with sin in your soul, in your senses and in your members,\nwith powder and shot for one engagement only.  When you enlist here, lay\nwell to heart that it is for life.  There is no discharge in this war.\nThere are no ornamental old pensioners here.  It is a warfare for eternal\nlife, and nothing will end it but the end of your evil days on earth.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III--EAR-GATE\n\n\n   'Take heed what ye hear.'--_Our Lord in Mark_.\n\n   'Take heed how you hear.'--_Our Lord in Luke_.\n\nThis famous town of Mansoul had five gates, in at which to come, out at\nwhich to go, and these were made likewise answerable to the walls--to\nwit, impregnable, and such as could never be opened nor forced but by the\nwill and leave of those within.  'The names of the gates were these, Ear-\ngate, Eye-gate,' and so on.  Dr. George Wilson, who was once Professor of\nTechnology in our University, took this suggestive passage out of the\n_Holy War_ and made it the text of his famous lecture in the\nPhilosophical Institution, and then he printed the passage on the fly-\nleaf of his delightful book _The Five Gateways of Knowledge_.  That is a\nbook to read sometime, but this evening is to be spent with the master.\n\nFor, after all, no one can write at once so beautifully, so quaintly, so\nsuggestively, and so evangelically as John Bunyan.  'The Lord\nWillbewill,' says John Bunyan, 'took special care that the gates should\nbe secured with double guards, double bolts, and double locks and bars;\nand that Ear-gate especially might the better be looked to, for that was\nthe gate in at which the King's forces sought most to enter.  The Lord\nWillbewill therefore made old Mr. Prejudice, an angry and ill-conditioned\nfellow, captain of the ward at that gate, and put under his power sixty\nmen, called Deafmen; men advantageous for that service, forasmuch as they\nmattered no words of the captain nor of the soldiers.  And first the\nKing's officers made their force more formidable against Ear-gate: for\nthey knew that unless they could penetrate that no good could be done\nupon the town.  This done, they put the rest of their men in their\nplaces; after which they gave out the word, which was, Ye must be born\nagain!  And so the battle began.  Now, they in the town had planted upon\nthe tower over Ear-gate two great guns, the one called High-mind and the\nother Heady.  Unto these two guns they trusted much; they were cast in\nthe castle by Diabolus's ironfounder, whose name was Mr. Puff-up, and\nmischievous pieces they were.  They in the camp also did stoutly, for\nthey saw that unless they could open Ear-gate it would be in vain to\nbatter the wall.'  And so on, through many allegorical, and, if sometimes\nsomewhat laboured, yet always eloquent, pungent, and heart-exposing\npages.\n\nWith these for our text let us now take a rapid glance at what some of\nthe more Bunyan-like passages in the prophets and the psalms say about\nthe ear; how it is kept and how it is lost; how it is used and how it is\nabused.\n\n1.  The Psalmist uses a very striking expression in the 94th Psalm when\nhe is calling for justice, and is teaching God's providence over men.  'He\nthat planted the ear,' the Psalmist exclaims, 'shall he not hear?'  And,\nconsidering his church and his day, that is not a bad remark of Cardinal\nBellarmine on that psalm,--'the Psalmist's word _planted_,' says that\nable churchman, 'implies design, in that the ear was not spontaneously\nevolved by an act of vital force, but was independently created by God\nfor a certain object, just as a tree, not of indigenous growth, is of set\npurpose planted in some new place by the hand of man.'  The same thing is\nsaid in Genesis, you remember, about the Garden of Eden,--the Lord\nplanted it and put the man and the woman, whose ears he had just planted\nalso, into the garden to dress it and keep it.  How they dressed the\ngarden and kept it, and how they held the gate of their ear against him\nwho squatted down before it with his innuendoes and his lies, we all know\nto our as yet unrepaired, though not always irreparable, cost.\n\n2.  One would almost think that the scornful apostle had the Garden of\nEden in his eye when he speaks so bitterly to Timothy of a class of\npeople who are cursed with 'itching ears.'  Eve's ears itched\nunappeasably for the devil's promised secret; and we have all inherited\nour first mother's miserable curiosity.  How eager, how restless, how\nimportunate, we all are to hear that new thing that does not at all\nconcern us; or only concerns us to our loss and our shame.  And the more\nforbidden that secret is to us, and the more full of inward evil to\nus--insane sinners that we are--the more determined we are to get at it.\nLet any forbidden secret be in the keeping of some one within earshot of\nus and we will give him no rest till he has shared the evil thing with\nus.  Let any specially evil page be published in a newspaper, and we will\ntake good care that that day's paper is not thrown into the waste-basket;\nwe will hide it away, like a dog with a stolen bone, till we are able to\ndig it up and chew it dry in secret.  The devil has no need to blockade\nor besiege the gate of our ear if he has any of his good things to offer\nus.  The gate that can only be opened from within will open at once of\nitself if he or any of his newsmongers but squat down for a moment before\nit.  Shame on us, and on all of us, for our itching ears.\n\n3.  Isaiah speaks of some men in his day whose ears were 'heavy' and\nwhose hearts were fat, and the Psalmist speaks of some men in his day\nwhose ears were 'stopped' up altogether.  And there is not a better thing\nin Bunyan at his very best than that surly old churl called Prejudice, so\nill-conditioned and so always on the edge of anger.  By the devil's plan\nof battle old Prejudice was appointed to be warder of Ear-gate, and to\nenable him to keep that gate for his master he had sixty deaf men put\nunder him, men most advantageous for that post, forasmuch as it mattered\nnot to them what Emmanuel and His officers said.  There could be no\nmanner of doubt who composed that inimitable passage.  There is all the\ntruth and all the humour and all the satire in Old Prejudice that our\nauthor has accustomed us to in his best pieces.  The common people always\nget the best literature along with the best religion in John Bunyan.\n'They are like the deaf adder that stoppeth her ear, and which will not\nhearken to the voice of charmers charming never so wisely,' says the\nPsalmist, speaking about some bad men in his day.  Now, I will not stand\nupon David's natural history here, but his moral and religious meaning is\nevident enough.  David is not concerned about adders and their ears, he\nis wholly taken up with us and our adder-like animosity against the\ntruth.  Against what teacher, then; against what preacher; against what\nwriter; against what doctrine, reproof, correction, has your churlish\nprejudice adder-like shut your ear?  Against what truth, human or divine,\nhave you hitherto stopped up your ear like the Psalmist's serpent?  To\nask that boldly, honestly, and in the sight of God, at yourself to-night,\nwould end in making you the lifelong friend of some preacher, some\nteacher, some soul-saving truth you have up till to-night been prejudiced\nagainst with the rooted prejudice and the sullen obstinacy of sixty deaf\nmen.  O God, help us to lay aside all this adder-like antipathy at men\nand things, both in public and in private life.  Help us to give all men\nand all causes a fair field and no favour, but the field and the favour\nof an open and an honest mind, and a simple and a sincere heart.  He that\nhath ears, let him hear!\n\n4.  As we work our way through the various developments and vicissitudes\nof the Holy War we shall find Ear-gate in it and in ourselves passing\nthrough many unexpected experiences; now held by one side and now by\nanother.  And we find the same succession of vicissitudes set forth in\nHoly Scripture.  If you pay any attention to what you read and hear, and\nthen begin to ask yourselves fair in the face as to your own prejudices,\nprepossessions, animosities, and antipathies,--you will at once begin to\nreap your reward in having put into your possession what the Scriptures\nso often call an 'inclined' ear.  That is to say, an ear not only\nunstopped, not only unloaded, but actually prepared and predisposed to\nall manner of truth and goodness.  Around our city there are the remains,\nthe still visible tracks, of roads that at one time took the country\npeople into our city, but which are now stopped up and made wholly\nimpassable.  There is no longer any road into Edinburgh that way.  There\nare other roads still open, but they are very roundabout, and at best\nvery uphill.  And then there are other roads so smooth, and level, and\nbroad, and well kept, that they are full of all kinds of traffic; in the\ncentre carts and carriages crowd them, on the one side horses and their\nriders delight to display themselves, and on the other side pedestrians\nand perambulators enjoy the sun.  And then there are still other roads\nwith such a sweet and gentle incline upon them that it is a positive\npleasure both to man and beast to set their foot upon them.  And so it is\nwith the minds and the hearts of the men and the women who crowd these\nroads.  Just as the various roads are, so are the ears and the\nunderstandings, the affections and the inclinations of those who walk and\nride and drive upon them.  Some of those men's ears are impassably\nstopped up by self-love, self-interest, party-spirit, anger, envy, and\nill-will,--impenetrably stopped up against all the men and all the truths\nof earth and of heaven that would instruct, enlighten, convict or correct\nthem.  Some men's minds, again, are not so much shut up as they are\ncrooked, and warped, and narrow, and full of obstruction and opposition.\nWhereas here and there, sometimes on horseback and sometimes on foot;\nsometimes a learned man walking out of the city to take the air, and\nsometimes an unlettered countryman coming into the city to make his\nmarket, will have his ear hospitably open to every good man he meets, to\nevery good book he reads, to every good paper he buys at the street\ncorner, and to every good speech, and report, and letter, and article he\nreads in it.  And how happy that man is, how happy his house is at home,\nand how happy he makes all those he but smiles to on his afternoon walk,\nand in all his walk along the roads of this life.  Never see an I\nincline' on a railway or on a driving or a walking road without saying on\nit before you leave it, 'I waited patiently for the Lord, and He inclined\nHis ear unto me and heard my cry.  Because He hath inclined His ear unto\nme, therefore will I call upon Him as long as I live.  Incline not my\nheart to any evil thing, to practise wicked works with them that work\niniquity.  Incline my heart unto Thy testimonies, and not to\ncovetousness.  I have inclined mine heart to perform Thy statutes alway,\neven unto the end.'\n\n5.  Shakespeare speaks in _Richard the Second_ of 'the open ear of\nyouth,' and it is a beautiful truth in a beautiful passage.  Young men,\nwho are still young men, keep your ears open to all truth and to all duty\nand to all goodness, and shut your ears with an adder's determination\nagainst all that which ruined Richard--flattering sounds, reports of\nfashions, and lascivious metres.  'Our souls would only be gainers by the\nperfection of our bodies were they wisely dealt with,' says Professor\nWilson in his _Five Gateways_.  'And for every human being we should aim\nat securing, so far as they can be attained, an eye as keen and piercing\nas that of the eagle; an ear as sensitive to the faintest sound as that\nof the hare; a nostril as far-scenting as that of the wild deer; a tongue\nas delicate as that of the butterfly; and a touch as acute as that of the\nspider.  No man ever was so endowed, and no man ever will be; but all men\ncome infinitely short of what they should achieve were they to make their\nsenses what they might be made.  The old have outlived their opportunity,\nand the diseased never had it; but the young, who have still an undimmed\neye, an undulled ear, and a soft hand; an unblunted nostril, and a tongue\nwhich tastes with relish the plainest fare--the young can so cultivate\ntheir senses as to make the narrow ring, which for the old and the infirm\nencircles things sensible, widen for them into an almost limitless\nhorizon.'\n\nTake heed what you hear, and take heed how you hear.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV--EYE-GATE\n\n\n   'Mine eye affecteth mine heart.'--_Jeremiah_.\n\n'Think, in the first place,' says the eloquent author of the _Five\nGateways of Knowledge_, 'how beautiful the human eye is.  The eyes of\nmany of the lower animals are, doubtless, very beautiful.  You must all\nhave admired the bold, fierce, bright eye of the eagle; the large,\ngentle, brown eye of the ox; the treacherous, green eye of the cat,\nwaxing and waning like the moon; the pert eye of the sparrow; the sly eye\nof the fox; the peering little bead of black enamel in the mouse's head;\nthe gem-like eye that redeems the toad from ugliness, and the\nintelligent, affectionate expression which looks out of the human-like\neye of the horse and dog.  There are many other animals whose eyes are\nfull of beauty, but there is a glory that excelleth in the eye of a man.\nWe realise this best when we gaze into the eyes of those we love.  It is\ntheir eyes we look at when we are near them, and it is their eyes we\nrecall when we are far away from them.  The face is all but a blank\nwithout the eye; the eye seems to concentrate every feature in itself.  It\nis the eye that smiles, not the lips; it is the eye that listens, not the\near; it is the eye that frowns, not the brow; it is the eye that mourns,\nnot the voice.  The eye sees what it brings the power to see.  How true\nis this!  The sailor on the look-out can see a ship where the landsman\ncan see nothing.  The Esquimaux can distinguish a white fox among the\nwhite snow.  The astronomer can see a star in the sky where to others the\nblue expanse is unbroken.  The shepherd can distinguish the face of every\nsingle sheep in his flock,' so Professor Wilson.  And then Dr. Gould\ntells us in his mystico-evolutionary, Behmen-and-Darwin book, _The\nMeaning and the Method of Life_--a book which those will read who can and\nought--that the eye is the most psychical, the most spiritual, the most\nuseful, and the most valued and cherished of all the senses; after which\nhe adds this wonderful and heart-affecting scientific fact, that in death\nby starvation, every particle of fat in the body is auto-digested except\nthe cream-cushion of the eye-ball!  So true is it that the eye is the\nmistress, the queen, and the most precious, to Creator and creature\nalike, of all the five senses.\n\nNow, in the _Holy War_ John Bunyan says a thing about the ear, as\ndistinguished from the eye, that I cannot subscribe to in my own\nexperience at any rate.  In describing the terrible war that raged round\nEar-gate, and finally swept up through that gate and into the streets of\nthe city, he says that the ear is the shortest and the surest road to the\nheart.  I confess I cannot think that to be the actual case.  I am\ncertain that it is not so in my own case.  My eye is very much nearer my\nheart than my ear is.  My eye much sooner affects, and much more\npowerfully affects, my heart than my ear ever does.  Not only is my eye\nby very much the shortest road to my heart, but, like all other short\nroads, it is cram-full of all kinds of traffic when my ear stands\naltogether empty.  My eye is constantly crowded and choked with all kinds\nof commerce; whole hordes of immigrants and invaders trample one another\ndown on the congested street that leads from my eye to my heart.  Speaking\nfor myself, for one assault that is made on my heart through my ear there\nare a thousand assaults successfully made through my eye.  Indeed, were\nmy eye but stopped up; had I but obedience and courage and\nself-mortification enough to pluck both my eyes out, that would be half\nthe cleansing and healing and holiness of my evil heart; or at least, the\nhalf of its corruption, rebellion, and abominable wickedness would\nhenceforth be hidden from me.  I think I can see what led John Bunyan in\nhis day and in this book to make that too strong statement about the ear\nas against the eye; but it is not like him to have let such an\nover-statement stand and continue in his corrected and carefully finished\nwork.  The prophet Jeremiah, I feel satisfied, would not have subscribed\nto what is said in the _Holy War_ in extenuation of the eye.  That heart-\nbroken prophet does not say that it has been his ear that has made his\nhead waters.  It is his eye, he says, that has so affected his heart.  The\nProphet of the Captivity had all the _Holy War_ potentially in his\nimagination when he penned that so suggestive sentence.  And the Latin\npoet of experience, the grown-up man's own poet, says somewhere that the\nthings that enter by his eye seize and hold his heart much more swiftly\nand much more surely than those things that but enter by his ear.  I\nshall continue, then, to hold by my text, 'Mine eye affecteth mine\nheart.'\n\n1.  Turning then, to the prophets and proverb-makers of Israel, and then\nto the New Testament for the true teaching on the eye, I come, in the\nfirst place, on that so pungent saying of Solomon that 'the eyes of a\nfool are in the ends of the earth.'  Look at that born fool, says\nSolomon, who has his eyes and his heart committed to him to keep.  See\nhim how he gapes and stares after everything that does not concern him,\nand lets the door of his own heart stand open to every entering thief.\nLondon is a city of three million inhabitants, and they are mostly fools,\nCarlyle once said.  And let him in this city whose eyes keep at home cast\nthe first stone at those foreign fools.  I will wager on their side that\nmany of you here to-night know better what went on in Mashonaland last\nweek than what went on in your own kitchen downstairs, or in your own\nnursery or schoolroom upstairs.  Some of you are ten times more taken up\nwith the prospects of Her Majesty's Government this session, and with the\nplots of Her Majesty's Opposition, than you are with the prospects of the\ngood and the evil, and the plots of God and the devil, all this winter in\nyour own hearts.  You rise early, and make a fight to get the first of\nthe newspaper; but when the minister comes in in the afternoon you blush\nbecause the housemaid has mislaid the Bible.  Did you ever read of the\nstargazer who fell into an open well at the street corner?  Like him, you\nmay be a great astronomer, a great politician, a great theologian, a\ngreat defender of the faith even, and yet may be a stark fool just in\nkeeping the doors and the windows of your own heart.  'You shall see a\npoor soul,' says Dr. Goodwin, 'mean in abilities of wit, or\naccomplishments of learning, who knows not how the world goes, nor upon\nwhat wheels its states turn, who yet knows more clearly and\nexperimentally his own heart than all the learned men in the world know\ntheirs.  And though the other may better discourse philosophically of the\nacts of the soul, yet this poor man sees more into the corruption of it\nthan they all.'  And in another excellent place he says: 'Many who have\nleisure and parts to read much, instead of ballasting their hearts with\ndivine truth, and building up their souls with its precious words, are\nmuch more versed in play-books, jeering pasquils, romances, and feigned\nstaves, which are but apes and peacocks' feathers instead of pearls and\nprecious stones.  Foreign and foolish discourses please their eyes and\ntheir ears; they are more chameleons than men, for they live on the east\nwind.'\n\n2.  'If thine eye offend thee'--our Lord lays down this law to all those\nwho would enter into life--'pluck it out and cast it from thee; for it is\nbetter for thee to enter into life with one eye, rather than, having two\neyes, to be cast into hell-fire.'  Does your eye offend you, my brethren?\nDoes your eye cause you to stumble and fall, as it is in the etymology?\nThe right use of the eye is to keep you from stumbling and falling; but\nso perverted are the eye and the heart of every sinner that the city\nwatchman has become a partaker with thieves, and our trusted guide and\nguardian a traitor and a knave.  If thine eye, therefore, offends thee;\nif it places a stone or a tree in thy way in a dark night; if it digs a\ndeep ditch right across thy way home; if it in any way leads thee astray,\nor lets in upon thee thine enemies--then, surely, thou wert better to be\nwithout that eye altogether.  Pluck it out, then; or, what is still\nharder to go on all your days doing, pluck the evil thing out of it.  Shut\nup that book and put it away.  Throw that paper and that picture into the\nfire.  Cut off that companion, even if he were an adoring lover.  Refuse\nthat entertainment and that amusement, though all the world were crowding\nupto it.  And soon, and soon, till you have plucked your eye as clean of\ntemptations and snares as it is possible to be in this life.  For this\nlife is full of that terrible but blessed law of our Lord.  The life of\nall His people, that is; and you are one of them, are you not?  You will\nknow whether or no you are one of them just by the number of the\nbeautiful things, and the sweet things, and the things to be desired,\nthat you have plucked out of your eye at His advice and demand.  True\nreligion, my brethren, on some sides of it, and at some stages of it, is\na terribly severe and sore business; and unless it is proving a terribly\nsevere and sore business to you, look out! lest, with your two hands and\nyour two feet and your two eyes, you be cast, with all that your hands\nand feet and eyes have feasted on, into the everlasting fires!  Woe unto\nthe world because of offences, but woe much more to that member and\nentrance-gate of the body by which the offence cometh!  Wherefore, if\nthine eye offend thee--!\n\n3.  'Let thine eyes look right on, and let thine eyelids look straight\nbefore thee.'  Now, if you wish both to preserve your eyes, and to escape\nthe everlasting fires at the same time, attend to this text.  For this is\nalmost as good as plucking out your two eyes; indeed, it is almost the\nvery same thing.  Solomon shall speak to the man in this house to-night\nwho has the most inflammable, the most ungovernable, and the most\ndesperately wicked heart.  You, man, with that heart, you know that you\ncannot pass up the street without your eye becoming a perfect hell-gate\nof lust, of hate, of ill-will, of resentment and of revenge.  Your eye\nfalls on a man, on a woman, on a house, on a shop, on a school, on a\nchurch, on a carriage, on a cart, on an innocent child's perambulator\neven; and, devil let loose that you are, your eye fills your heart on the\nspot with absolute hell-fire.  Your presence and your progress poison the\nvery streets of the city.  And that, not as the short-sighted and the\nvulgar will read Solomon's plain-spoken Scripture, with the poison of\nlewdness and uncleanness, but with the still more malignant, stealthy,\nand deadly poison of social, professional, political, and ecclesiastical\nhatred, resentment, and ill-will.  Whoredom and wine openly slay their\nthousands on all our streets; but envy and spite, dislike and hatred\ntheir ten thousands.  The fact is, we would never know how malignantly\nwicked our hearts are but for our eyes.  But a sudden spark, a single\nflash through the eye falling on the gunpowder that fills our hearts,\nthat lets us know a hundred times every day what at heart we are made of.\n'Of a verity, O Lord, I am made of sin, and that my life maketh\nmanifest,' prays Bishop Andrewes every day.  Why, sir, not to go to the\nstreet, the direction in which your eyes turn in this house this evening\nwill make this house a very 'den,' as our Lord said--yes, a very den to\nyou of temptation and transgression.  My son, let thine eyes look right\non.  Ponder the path of thy feet, turn not to the right hand nor to the\nleft--remove thy foot from all evil!\n\n4.  There is still another eye that is almost as good as an eye out\naltogether, and that is a Job's eye.  Job was the first author of that\neye and all we who have that excellent eye take it of him.  'I have made\na covenant with mine eyes,' said that extraordinary man--that\nextraordinarily able, honest, exposed and exercised man.  Now, you must\nall know what a covenant is.  A covenant is a compact, a contract, an\nagreement, an engagement.  In a covenant two parties come to terms with\none another.  The two covenanters strike hands, and solemnly engage\nthemselves to one another: I will do this for you if you will do that for\nme.  It is a bargain, says the other; let us have it sealed with wax and\nsigned with pen and ink before two witnesses.  As, for instance, at the\nLord's Table.  I swear, you say, over the Body and the Blood of the Son\nof God, I swear to make a covenant with mine eyes.  I will never let them\nread again that idle, infidel, scoffing, unclean sheet.  I will not let\nthem look on any of my former images or imaginations of forbidden\npleasures.  I swear, O Thou to whom the night shineth as the day, that I\nwill never again say, Surely the darkness shall cover me!  See if I do\nnot henceforth by Thy grace keep my feet off every slippery street.  That,\nand many other things like that, was the way that Job made his so noble\ncovenant with his eyes in his day and in his land.  And it was because he\nso made and so kept his covenant that God so boasted over him and said,\nHast thou considered my servant Job?  And then, every covenant has its\ntwo sides.  The other side of Job's covenant, of which God Himself was\nthe surety, you can read and think over in your solitary lodgings\nto-night.  Read Job xxxi. 1, and then Job xl. to the end, and then be\nsure you take covenant paper and ink to God before you sleep.  And let\nall fashionable young ladies hear what Miss Rossetti expects for herself,\nand for all of her sex with her who shall subscribe her covenant.  'True,'\nshe admits, 'all our life long we shall be bound to refrain our soul, and\nkeep it low; but what then?  For the books we now refrain to read we\nshall one day be endowed with wisdom and knowledge.  For the music we\nwill not listen to we shall join in the song of the redeemed.  For the\npictures from which we turn we shall gaze unabashed on the Beatific\nVision.  For the companionship we shun we shall be welcomed into angelic\nsociety and the communion of triumphant saints.  For the amusements we\navoid we shall keep the supreme jubilee.  For all the pleasures we miss\nwe shall abide, and for evermore abide, in the rapture of heaven.'\n\n5.  And then there is the Pauline eye.  An eye, however, that Job would\nhave shared with Paul and with the Corinthian Church had the patriarch\nbeen privileged to live in our New Testament day.  Ever since the Holy\nGhost with His anointing oil fell on us at Pentecost, says the apostle,\nwe have had an eye by means of which we look not at the things that are\nseen, but at the things that are not seen.  Now, he who has an eye like\nthat is above both plucking out his eyes or making a covenant with them\neither.  It is like what Paul says about the law also.  The law is not\nmade for a righteous man.  A righteous man is above the law and\nindependent of it.  The law does not reach to him and he is not hampered\nwith it.  And so it is with the man who has got Paul's splendid eyes for\nthe unseen.  He does not need to touch so much as one of his eye-lashes\nto pluck them out.  For his eyes are blind, and his ears are deaf, and\nhis whole body is dead to the things that are temporal.  His eyes are\ninwardly ablaze with the things that are eternal.  He whose eyes have\nbeen opened to the truth and the love of his Bible, he will gloat no more\nover your books and your papers filled with lies, and slander, and spite,\nand lewdness!  He who has his conversation in heaven does not need to set\na watch on his lips lest he take up an ill report about his neighbour.  He\nwho walks every day on the streets of gold will step as swiftly as may\nbe, with girt loins, and with a preoccupied eye, out of the slippery and\nunsavoury streets of this forsaken earth.  He who has fast working out\nfor him an exceeding and eternal weight of glory will easily count all\nhis cups and all his crosses, and all the crooks in his lot but as so\nmany light afflictions and but for a moment.  My Lord Understanding had\nhis palace built with high perspective towers on it, and the site of it\nwas near to Eye-gate, from the top of which his lordship every day looked\nnot at the things which are temporal, but at the things which are\neternal, and down from his palace towers he every day descended to\nadminister his heavenly office in the city.\n\nYour eye, then, is the shortest way into your heart.  Watch it well,\ntherefore; suspect and challenge all outsiders who come near it.  Keep\nthe passes that lead to your heart with all diligence.  Let nothing\ncontraband, let nothing that even looks suspicious, ever enter your\nhearts; for, if it once enters, and turns out to be evil, you will never\nget it all out again as long as you live.  'Death is come up into our\nwindows,' says our prophet in another place, 'and is entered into our\npalaces, to cut off our children in our houses and our young men in our\nstreets.'  Make a covenant, then, with your eyes.  Take an oath of your\neyes as to which way they are henceforth to look.  For, let them look\nthis way, and your heart is immediately full of lust, and hate, and envy,\nand ill-will.  On the other hand, lead them to look that way and your\nheart is as immediately full of truth and beauty, brotherly kindness and\ncharity.  The light of the body is the eye; if, therefore, thine eye be\nsingle, thy whole body shall be full of light; but if thine eye be evil,\nthy whole body is full of darkness.  If, therefore, the light that is in\nthee be darkness, how great is that darkness!\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V--THE KING'S PALACE\n\n\n   'The palace is not for man, but for the Lord God.'--_David_.\n\n'Now, there is in this gallant country a fair and delicate town, a\ncorporation, called Mansoul: a town for its building so curious, for its\nsituation so commodious, for its privileges so advantageous, that I may\nsay of it, there is not its equal under the whole heaven.  Also, there\nwas reared up in the midst of this town a most famous and stately palace:\nfor strength, it might be called a castle; for pleasantness, a paradise;\nand for largeness, a place so copious as to contain all the world.  This\nplace the King intended for Himself alone, and not for another with Him,\nso great was His delight in it.'  Thus far, our excellent allegorical\nauthor.  But there are other authors that treat of this great matter now\nin hand besides the allegorical authors.  You will hear tell sometimes\nabout a class of authors called the Mystics.  Well, listen at this stage\nto one of them, and one of the best of them, on this present matter--the\nhuman heart, that is.  'Our heart,' he says, 'is our manner of existence,\nor the state in which we feel ourselves to be; it is an inward life, a\nvital sensibility, which contains our manner of feeling what and how we\nare; it is the state of our desires and tendencies, of inwardly seeing,\ntasting, relishing, and feeling that which passes within us; our heart is\nthat to us inwardly with regard to ourselves which our senses of seeing,\nhearing, feeling, and such like are with regard to things that are\nwithout or external to us.  Your heart is the best and greatest gift of\nGod to you.  It is the highest, greatest, strongest, and noblest power of\nyour nature.  It forms your whole life, be it what it will.  All evil and\nall good come from your heart.  Your heart alone has the key of life and\ndeath for you.'  I was just about to ask you at this point which of our\ntwo authors, our allegorical or our mystical author upon the heart, you\nlike best.  But that would be a stupid and a wayward question since you\nhave them both before you, and both at their best, to possess and to\nenjoy.  To go back then to John Bunyan, and to his allegory of the human\nheart.\n\n1.  To begin with, then, there was reared up in the midst of this town of\nMansoul a most famous and stately palace.  And that palace and the town\nimmediately around it were the mirror and the glory of all that its\nfounder and maker had ever made.  His palace was his very top-piece.  It\nwas the metropolitan of the whole world round about it; and it had\npositive commission and power to demand service and support of all\naround.  Yes.  And all that is literally, evidently, and actually true of\nthe human heart.  For all other earthly things are created and upheld,\nare ordered and administered, with an eye to the human heart.  The human\nheart is the final cause, as our scholars would say, of absolutely all\nother earthly things.  Earth, air, water; light and heat; all the\nsuccessively existing worlds, mineral, vegetable, animal, spiritual;\ngrass, herbs, corn, fruit-trees, cattle and sheep, and all other living\ncreatures; all are upheld for the use and the support of man.  And, then,\nall that is in man himself is in him for the end and the use of his\nheart.  All his bodily senses; all his bodily members; every fearfully\nand wonderfully made part of his body and of his mind; all administer to\nhis heart.  She is the sovereign and sits supreme.  And she is worthy and\nis fully entitled so to sit.  For there is nothing on the earth greater\nor better than the heart, unless it is the Creator Himself, who planned\nand executed the heart for Himself and not for another with Him.  'The\nbody exists,' says a philosophical biologist of our day, 'to furnish the\ncerebral centres with prepared food, just as the vegetable world, viewed\nbiologically, exists to furnish the animal world with similar food.  The\nhigher is the last formed, the most difficult, and the most complex; but\nit is just this that is most precious and significant--all of which shows\nHis unrolling purpose.  It is the last that alone explains all that went\nbefore, and it is the coming that will alone explain the present.  God\nbefore all, through all, foreseeing all, and still preparing all; God in\nall is profoundly evident.'  Yes, profoundly evident to profound minds,\nand experimentally and sweetly evident to religious minds, and to renewed\nand loving and holy hearts.\n\n2.  For fame and for state a palace, while for strength it might be\ncalled a castle.  In sufficiently ancient times the king's palace was\nalways a castle also.  David's palace on Mount Zion was as much a\nmilitary fortress as a royal residence; and King Priam's palace was the\nprotection both of itself and of the whole of the country around.  In\nthose wild times great men built their houses on high places, and then\nthe weak and endangered people gathered around the strongholds of the\npowerful, as we see in our own city.  Our own steep and towering rock\ninvited to its top the castle-builder of a remote age, and then the\nexposed country around began to gather itself together under the shelter\nof the bourg.  And thus it is that the military engineering of the _Holy\nWar_ makes that old allegorical book most excellent to read, not only for\ncommon men like you and me, who are bent on the fortification and the\ndefence of our own hearts, but for the military historians of those old\ntimes also, for the experts of to-day also, and for all good students of\nfortification.  And the New Testament of the Divine peace itself, as well\nas the Old Testament so full of the wars of the Lord--they both support\nand serve as an encouragement and an example to our spiritual author in\nthe elaboration of his military allegory.  Every good soldier of Jesus\nChrist has by heart the noble paradox of Paul to the Philippians--that\nthe peace of God which passeth all understanding shall keep their hearts\nand minds through Christ Jesus.  Let God's peace, he says, be your man of\nwar.  Let His surpassing peace do both the work of war and the work of\npeace also in your hearts and in your minds.  Let that peace both fortify\nwith walls, and garrison with soldiers, and watch every gate, and hold\nevery street and lane of your hearts and of your minds all around your\nhearts.  And all through the Prince of Peace, the Captain of all Holy\nWar, Jesus Christ Himself.  No wonder, then, that in a strength--in a\nkind and in a degree of strength--that passeth all understanding, this\nstately palace of the heart is also here called a well-garrisoned castle.\n\n3.  And then for pleasantness the human heart is a perfect paradise.  For\npleasantness the human heart is like those famous royal parks of Nineveh\nand Babylon that sprang up in after days as if to recover and restore the\nGarden of Eden that had been lost to those eastern lands.  But even\nAdam's own paradise was but a poor outside imitation in earth and water,\nin flowers and fruits, of the far better paradise God had planted within\nhim.  Take another Mystic at this point upon paradise.  'My dear man,'\nexclaims Jacob Behmen, 'the Garden of Eden is not paradise, neither does\nMoses say so.  Paradise is the divine joy, and that was in their own\nhearts so long as they stood in the love of God.  Paradise is the divine\nand angelical joy, pure love, pure joy, pure gladness, in which there is\nno fear, no misery, and no death.  Which paradise neither death nor the\ndevil can touch.  And yet it has no stone wall around it; only a great\ngulf which no man or angel can cross but by that new birth of which\nChrist spoke to Nicodemus.  Reason asks, Where is paradise to be found?\nIs it far off or near?  Is it in this world or is it above the stars?\nWhere is that desirable native country where there is no death?  Beloved,\nthere is nothing nearer you at this moment than paradise, if you incline\nthat way.  God beckons you back into paradise at this moment, and calls\nyou by name to come.  Come, He says, and be one of My paradise children.\nIn paradise,' the Teutonic Philosopher goes on, 'there is nothing but\nhearty love, a meek and a gentle love; a most friendly and most courteous\ndiscourse: a gracious, amiable, and blessed society, where the one is\nalways glad to see the other, and to honour the other.  They know of no\nmalice in paradise, no cunning, no subtlety, and no sly deceit.  But the\nfruits of the Spirit of God are common among them in paradise, and one\nmay make use of all the good things of paradise without causing\ndisfavour, or hatred, or envy, for there is no contrary affection there,\nbut all hearts there are knit together in love.  In paradise they love\none another, and rejoice in the beauty, loveliness, and gladness of one\nanother.  No one esteems or accounts himself more excellent than another\nin paradise; but every one has great joy in another, and rejoices in\nanother's fair beauty, whence their love to one another continually\nincreases, so that they lead one another by the hand, and so friendly\nkiss one another.'  Thus the blessed Behmen saw paradise and had it in\nhis heart as he sat over his hammer and lapstone in his solitary stall.\nFor of such as Jacob Behmen and John Bunyan is the kingdom of heaven, and\nall such saintly souls have paradise restored again and improved upon in\ntheir own hearts.\n\n4.  And for largeness a place so copious as to contain all the world.\nOver against the word 'copious' Bunyan hangs for a key, Ecclesiastes\nthird and eleventh; and under it Miss Peacock adds this as a\nnote--'_Copious_, spacious.  Old French, _copieux_; Latin, _copiosus_,\nplentiful.'  The human heart, as we have already read to-night, is the\nhighest, greatest, strongest, and noblest part of human nature.  And so\nit is.  Fearfully and wonderfully made as is the whole of human nature,\nthat fear and that wonder surpass themselves in the spaciousness and the\ncopiousness of the human heart.  For what is it that the human heart has\nnot space for, and to spare?  After the whole world is received home into\na human heart, there is room, and, indeed, hunger, for another world, and\nafter that for still another.  The sun is--I forget how many times bigger\nthan our whole world, and yet we can open our heart and take down the sun\ninto it, and shut him out again and restore him to his immeasurable\ndistances in the heavens, and all in the twinkling of an eye.  As for\ninstance.  As I wrote these lines I read a report of a lecture by Sir\nRobert Ball in which that distinguished astronomer discoursed on recent\nsolar discoveries.  A globe of coal, Sir Robert said, as big as our\nearth, and all set ablaze at the same moment, would not give out so much\nheat to the worlds around as the sun gives out in a thousandth part of a\nsecond.  Well, as I read that, and ere ever I was aware what was going\non, my heart had opened over my newspaper, and the sun had swept down\nfrom the sky, and had rushed into my heart, and before I knew where I was\nthe cry had escaped my lips, 'Great and marvellous are Thy works, Lord\nGod Almighty!  Who shall not fear Thee and glorify thy name?'  And then\nthis reflection as suddenly came to me: How good it is to be at peace\nwith God, and to be able and willing to say, My Father!  That the whole\nof the surging and flaming sun was actually down in my straitened and\nhampered heart at that idle moment over my paper is scientifically\ndemonstrable; for only that which is in the heart of a man can kindle the\npassions that are in the heart of that man; and nothing is more sure to\nme than that the great passions of fear and love, wonder and rapture were\nat that moment at a burning point within me.  There is a passage well on\nin the _Holy War_, which for terror and for horror, and at the same time\nfor truth and for power, equals anything either in Dante or in Milton.\nLucifer has stood up at the council board to second the scheme of\nBeelzebub.  'Yes,' he said, amid the plaudits of his fellow-princes--'Yes,\nI swear it.  Let us fill Mansoul full with our abundance.  Let us make of\nthis castle, as they vainly call it, a warehouse, as the name is in some\nof their cities above.  For if we can only get Mansoul to fill herself\nfull with much goods she is henceforth ours.  My peers,' he said, 'you\nall know His parable of how unblessed riches choke the word; and, again,\nwe know what happens when the hearts of men are overcharged with\nsurfeiting and with drunkenness.  Let us give them all that, then, to\ntheir heart's desire.'  This advice of Lucifer, our history tells us, was\nhighly applauded in hell, and ever since it has proved their masterpiece\nto choke Mansoul with the fulness of this world, and to surfeit the heart\nwith the good things thereof.  But, my brethren, you will outwit hell\nherself and all her counsellors and all her machinations, if, out of all\nthe riches, pleasures, cares, and possessions, that both heaven and earth\nand hell can heap into your heart, those riches, pleasures, cares, and\npossessions but produce corresponding passions and affections towards God\nand man.  Only let fear, and love, and thankfulness, and helpfulness be\nkindled and fed to all their fulness in your heart, and all the world and\nall that it contains will only leave the more room in your boundless\nheart for God and for your brother.  All that God has made, or could make\nwith all His counsel and all His power laid out, will not fill your\nboundless and bottomless heart.  He must come down and come into your\nboundless and bottomless heart Himself.  Himself: your Father, your\nRedeemer, and your Sanctifier and Comforter also.  Let the whole universe\ntry to fill your heart, O man of God, and after it all we shall hear you\nsinging in famine and in loneliness the doleful ditty:\n\n   'O come to my heart, Lord Jesus,\n   There is room in my heart for Thee.\n\n5.  'Madame,' said a holy solitary to Madame Guyon in her misery--'Madame,\nyou are disappointed and perplexed because you seek without what you have\nwithin.  Accustom yourself to seek for God in your own heart and you will\nalways find Him there.'  From that hour that gifted woman was a Mystic.\nThe secret of the interior life flashed upon her in a moment.  She had\nbeen starving in the midst of fulness; God was near and not far off; the\nkingdom of heaven was within her.  The love of God from that hour took\npossession of her soul with an inexpressible happiness.  Prayer, which\nhad before been so difficult, was now delightful and indispensable; hours\npassed away like moments: she could scarcely cease from praying.  Her\ndomestic trials seemed great to her no longer; her inward joy consumed\nlike a fire the reluctance, the murmur, and the sorrow, which all had\ntheir birth in herself.  A spirit of comforting peace, a sense of\nrejoicing possession, pervaded all her days.  God was continually with\nher, and she seemed continually yielded up to God.  'Madame,' said the\nsolitary, 'you seek without for what you have within.'  Where do you seek\nfor God when you pray, my brethren?  To what place do you direct your\neyes?  Is it to the roof of your closet?  Is it to the east end of your\nconsecrated chapel?  Is it to that wooden table in the east end of your\nchapel?  Or, passing out of all houses made with hands and consecrated\nwith holy oil, do you lift up your eyes to the skies where the sun and\nthe moon and the stars dwell alone?  'What a folly!' exclaims Theophilus,\nin the golden dialogue, 'for no way is the true way to God but by the way\nof our own heart.  God is nowhere else to be found.  And the heart itself\ncannot find Him but by its own love of Him, faith in Him, dependence upon\nHim, resignation to Him, and expectation of all from Him.'  'You have\nquite carried your point with me,' answered Theogenes after he had heard\nall that Theophilus had to say.  'The God of meekness, of patience, and\nof love is henceforth the one God of my heart.  It is now the one bent\nand desire of my soul to seek for all my salvation in and through the\nmerits and mediation of the meek, humble, patient, resigned, suffering\nLamb of God, who alone has power to bring forth the blessed birth of\nthose heavenly virtues in my soul.  What a comfort it is to think that\nthis Lamb of God, Son of the Father, Light of the World; this Glory of\nheaven and this Joy of angels is as near to us, is as truly in the midst\nof us, as He is in the midst of heaven.  And that not a thought, look, or\ndesire of our heart that presses toward Him, longing to catch one small\nspark of His heavenly nature, but is as sure a way of finding Him, as the\nwoman's way was who was healed of her deadly disease by longing to touch\nbut the border of His garment.'\n\nTo sum up.  'There is reared up in the midst of Mansoul a most famous and\nstately palace: for strength, it may be called a castle; for\npleasantness, a paradise; and for largeness, a place so copious as to\ncontain all the world.  This palace the King intends but for Himself\nalone, and not another with Him, and He commits the keeping of that\npalace day and night to the men of the town.'\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI--MY LORD WILLBEWILL\n\n\n   --'to will is present with me.'--_Paul_\n\nThere is a large and a learned literature on the subject of the will.\nThere is a philosophical and a theological, and there is a religious and\nan experimental literature on the will.  Jonathan Edwards's well-known\nwork stands out conspicuously at the head of the philosophical and\ntheological literature on the will, while our own Thomas Boston's\n_Fourfold State_ is a very able and impressive treatise on the more\npractical and experimental side of the same subject.  The Westminster\nConfession of Faith devotes one of its very best chapters to the teaching\nof the word of God on the will of man, and the Shorter Catechism touches\non the same subject in Effectual Calling.  Outstanding philosophical and\ntheological schools have been formed around the will, and both able and\nlearned and earnest men have taken opposite sides on the subject of the\nwill under the party names of Necessitarians and Libertarians.  This is\nnot the time, nor am I the man, to discuss such abstruse subjects; but\nthose students who wish to master this great matter of the will, so far\nas it can be mastered in books, are recommended to begin with Dr. William\nCunningham's works, and then to go on from them to a treatise that will\nreward all their talent and all their enterprise, Jonathan Edwards's\nperfect masterpiece.\n\n1.  But, to come to my Lord Willbewill, one of the gentry of the famous\ntown of Mansoul:--well, this Lord Willbewill was as high-born as any man\nin Mansoul, and was as much a freeholder as any of them were, if not\nmore.  Besides, if I remember my tale aright, he had some privileges\npeculiar to himself in that famous town.  Now, together with these, he\nwas a man of great strength, resolution, and courage; nor in his occasion\ncould any turn him away.  But whether he was too proud of his high\nestate, privileges, and strength, or what (but sure it was through pride\nof something), he scorns now to be a slave in Mansoul, as his own proud\nword is, so that now, next to Diabolus himself, who but my Lord\nWillbewill in all that town?  Nor could anything now be done but at his\nbeck and good pleasure throughout that town.  Indeed, it will not out of\nmy thoughts what a desperate fellow this Willbewill was when full power\nwas put into his hand.  All which--how this apostate prince lost power\nand got it again, and lost it and got it again--the interested and\ncurious reader will find set forth with great fulness and clearness in\nmany powerful pages of the _Holy War_.\n\nJohn Bunyan was as hard put to it to get the right name for this head of\nthe gentry of Mansoul as Paul was to get the right name for sin in the\nseventh of the Romans.  In that profoundest and intensest of all his\nprofound and intense passages, the apostle has occasion to seek about for\nsome expression, some epithet, some adjective, as we say, to apply to sin\nso as to help him to bring out to his Roman readers something of the\nmalignity, deadliness, and unspeakable evil of sin as he had sin living\nand working in himself.  But all the resources of the Greek language,\nthat most resourceful of languages, utterly failed Paul for his pressing\npurpose.  And thus it is that, as if in scorn of the feebleness and\nfutility of that boasted tongue, he tramples its grammars and its\ndictionaries under his feet, and makes new and unheard-of words and\ncombinations of words on the spot for himself and for his subject.  He\nheaps up a hyperbole the like of which no orator or rhetorician of Greece\nor Rome had ever needed or had ever imagined before.  He takes sin, and\nhe makes a name for sin out of itself.  The only way to describe sin, he\nfeels, the only way to characterise sin, the only way to aggravate sin,\nis just to call it sin; sinful sin; 'sin by the commandment became\nexceeding sinful.'  And, in like manner, John Bunyan, who has only his\nown mother tongue to work with, in his straits to get a proper name for\nthis terrible fellow who was next to Diabolus himself, cannot find a\nproud enough name for him but just by giving him his own name, and then\ndoubling it.  Add will to will, multiply will by will, and multiply it\nagain, and after you have done all you are no nearer to a proper name for\nthat apostate, who, for pride, and insolence, and headstrongness, in one\nword, for wilfulness, is next to Diabolus himself.  But as Willbewill, if\nhe is to be named and described at all, is best named and described by\nhis own naked name; so Bunyan is always best illustrated out of his own\nworks.  And I turn accordingly to the _Heavenly Footman_ for an excellent\nillustration of the wilfulness of the will both in a good man and in a\nbad; as, thus: 'Your self-willed people, nobody knows what to do with\nthem.  We use to say, He will have his own will, do all we can.  If a man\nbe willing, then any argument shall be matter of encouragement; but if\nunwilling, then any argument shall give discouragement.  The saints of\nold, they being willing and resolved for heaven, what could stop them?\nCould fire and fagot, sword or halter, dungeons, whips, bears, bulls,\nlions, cruel rackings, stonings, starvings, nakedness?  So willing had\nthey been made in the day of His power.  And see, on the other side, the\nchildren of the devil, because they are not willing, how many shifts and\nstarting-holes they will have!  I have married a wife; I have a farm; I\nshall offend my landlord; I shall lose my trade; I shall be mocked and\nscoffed at, and therefore I cannot come.  But, alas! the thing is, they\nare not willing.  For, were they once soundly willing, these, and a\nthousand things such as these, would hold them no faster than the cords\nheld Samson when he broke them like flax.  I tell you the will is all.\nThe Lord give thee a will, then, and courage of heart.'\n\n2.  Let that, then, suffice for this man's name and nature, and let us\nlook at him now when his name and his nature have both become evil; that\nis to say, when Willbewill has become Illwill.  You can imagine; no, you\ncannot imagine unless you already know, how evil, and how set upon evil,\nIllwill was.  His whole mind, we are told, now stood bending itself to\nevil.  Nay, so set was he now upon sheer evil that he would act it of his\nown accord, and without any instigation at all from Diabolus.  And that\nwent on till he was looked on in the city as next in wickedness to very\nDiabolus himself.  Parable apart, my ill-willed brethren, our ill-will\nhas made us very fiends in human shape.  What a fall, what a fate, what a\ncurse it is to be possessed of a devil of ill-will!  Who can put proper\nwords on it after Paul had to confess himself silent before it?  Who can\nutter the diabolical nature, the depth and the secrecy, the subtlety and\nthe spirituality, the range and the reach-out of an ill-will?  Our hearts\nare full of ill-will at those we meet and shake hands with every day.  At\nmen also we have never seen, and who are totally ignorant even of our\nexistence.  Over a thousand miles we dart our viperous hearts at innocent\nmen.  At great statesmen we have ill-will, and at small; at great\nchurchmen and at small; at great authors and at small; at great, and\nfamous, and successful men in all lines of life; for it is enough for ill-\nwill that another man be praised, and well-paid, and prosperous, and then\nplaced in our eye.  No amount of suffering will satiate ill-will; the\nvery grave has no seal against it.  And, now and then, you have it thrust\nupon you that other men have the same devil in them as deeply and as\nactively as he is in you.  You will suddenly run across a man on the\nstreet.  His face was shining with some praise he had just had spoken to\nhim, or with some recognition he had just received from some great one;\nor with some good news for himself he had just heard, before he caught\nsight of you.  But the light suddenly dies on his face, and darkness\ncomes up out of his heart at his sudden glimpse of you.  What is the\nmatter? you ask yourself as he scowls past you.  What have you done so to\ndarken any man's heart to you?  And as you stumble on in the sickening\ncloud he has left behind him, you suddenly recollect that you were once\ncompelled to vote against that man on a public question: on some question\nof home franchise, or foreign war, or church government, or city\nbusiness; or perchance, a family has left his shop to do business in\nyours, or his church to worship God in yours, or such like.  It will be a\ncertain relief to you to recollect such things.  But with it all there\nwill be a shame and a humiliation and a deep inward pain that will escape\ninto a cry of prayer for him and for yourself and for all such sinners on\nthe same street.  If you do not find an escape from your sharp resentment\nin ejaculatory prayer and in a heart-cleansing great good-will, your\nheart, before you are a hundred steps on, will be as black with ill-will\nas his is.  But that must not again be.  Would you hate or strike back at\na blind man who stumbled and fell against you on the street?  Would you\nretaliate at a maniac who gnashed his teeth and shook his fist at you on\nhis way past you to the madhouse?  Or at a corpse being carried past you\nthat had been too long without burial?  And shall you retaliate on a\nmiserable man driven mad with diabolical passion?  Or at a poor sinner\nwhose heart is as rotten as the grave?  Ill-will is abroad in our learned\nand religious city at all hours of the day and night.  He glares at us\nunder the sun by day, and under the street lamps at night.  We suddenly\nfeel his baleful eye on us as we thoughtlessly pass under his overlooking\nwindows: it will be a side street and an unfrequented, where you will not\nbe ashamed and shocked and pained at heart to meet him.  Public men; much\npurchased and much praised men; rich and prosperous men; men high in\ntalent and in place; and, indeed, all manner of men,--walk abroad in this\nlife softly.  Keep out of sight.  Take the side streets, and return home\nquickly.  You have no idea what an offence and what a snare you are to\nmen you know, and to men you do not know.  If you are a public man, and\nif your name is much in men's mouths, then the place you hold, the prices\nand the praises you get, do not give you one-tenth of the pleasure that\nthey give a thousand other men pain.  Men you never heard of, and who\nwould not know you if they met you, gnaw their hearts at the mere mention\nof your name.  Desire, then, to be unknown, as A Kempis says.  O teach me\nto love to be concealed, prays Jeremy Taylor.  Be ambitious to be\nunknown, Archbishop Leighton also instructs us.  And the great Fenelon\ntook _Ama nesciri_ for his crest and for his motto.  No wonder that an\napostle cried out under the agony and the shame of ill-will.  No wonder\nthat to kill it in the hearts of men the Son of God died under it on the\ncross.  And no wonder that all the gates of hell are wide open, day and\nnight, for there is no day there, to receive home all those who will\nentertain ill-will in their hearts, and all the gates of heaven shut\nclose to keep all ill-will for ever out.\n\n3.  But, bad enough as all that is, the half has not been told, and never\nwill be told in this life.  Butler has a passage that has long stumbled\nme, and it stumbles me the more the longer I live and study him and\nobserve myself.  'Resentment,' he says, in a very deep and a very serious\npassage--'Resentment being out of the case, there is not, properly\nspeaking, any such thing as direct ill-will in one man towards another.'\nWell, great and undisputed as Butler's authority is in all these matters,\nat the same time he would be the first to admit and to assert that a\nman's inward experience transcends all outward authority.  Well, I am\nfilled with shame and pain and repentance and remorse to have to say it,\nbut my experience carries me right in the teeth of Butler's doctrine.  I\nhave dutifully tried to look at Butler's inviting and exonerating\ndoctrine in all possible lights, and from all possible points of view, in\nthe anxious wish to prove it true; but I dare not say that I have\nsucceeded.  The truth for thee--my heart would continually call to me--the\nbest truth for thee is in me, and not in any Butler!  And when looking as\nclosely as I can at my own heart in the matter of ill-will, what do I\nfind--and what will you find?  You will find that after subtracting all\nthat can in any proper sense come under the head of real resentment, and\nin cases where real resentment is out of the question; in cases where you\nhave received no injury, no neglect, no contempt, no anything whatsoever\nof that kind, you will find that there are men innocent of all that to\nyou, yet men to whom you entertain feelings, animosities, antipathies,\nthat can be called by no other name than that of ill-will.  Look within\nand see.  Watch within and see.  And I am sure you will come to subscribe\nwith me to the humbling and heart-breaking truth, that, even where there\nis no resentment, and no other explanation, excuse, or palliation of that\nkind, yet that festering, secret, malignant ill-will is working in the\nbottom of your heart.  If you doubt that, if you deny that, if all that\nkind of self-observation and self-sentencing is new to you, then observe\nyourself, say, for one week, and report at the end of it whether or no\nyou have had feelings and thoughts and wishes in your secret heart toward\nmen who never in any way hurt you, which can only be truthfully described\nas pure ill-will; that is to say, you have not felt and thought and\nwished toward them as you would have them, and all men, feel and think\nand wish toward you.\n\n4.  'To will is present with me, but how to perform I find not,' says the\napostle; and again, 'Ye cannot do the things that ye would.'  Or, as\nDante has it,\n\n      'The power which wills\n   Bears not supreme control; laughter and tears\n   Follow so closely on the passion prompts them,\n   They wait not for the motion of the will\n   In natures most sincere.'\n\nNow, just here lies a deep distinction that has not been enough taken\naccount of by our popular, or even by our more profound, spiritual\nwriters.  The will is often regenerate and right; the will often bends,\nas Bunyan has it, to that which is good; but behind the will and beneath\nthe will the heart is still full of passions, affections, inclinations,\ndispositions that are evil; instinctively, impulsively, involuntarily\nevil, even 'in natures most sincere.'  And hence arises a conflict, a\ncombat, a death-grip, an agony, a hell on earth, that every regenerate\nand advancing soul of man is full of His will is right.  If his will is\nwrong; if he chooses evil; then there is no mystery in the matter so far\nas he is concerned.  He is a bad man, and he is so intentionally and\ndeliberately and of set purpose; and it is a rule in divine truth that\n'wilfulness in sinning is the measure of our sinfulness.'  But his will\nis right.  To will is present with him.  He is every day like Thomas\nBoston one Sabbath-day: 'Though I cannot be free of sin, God Himself\nknows that He would be welcome to make havoc of my sins and to make me\nholy.  I know no lust that I would not be content to part with to-night.\nMy will, bound hand and foot, I desire to lay at His feet.'  Now, is it\nnot as clear as noonday that in the case of such a man as Boston his mind\nis one thing and his heart another?  Is it not plain that he has both a\ngood-will and an ill-will within him?  A will that immediately and\nresolutely chooses for God, and for truth, and for righteousness, and for\nlove; and another law in his members warring against that law of his\nmind?  'Before conversion,' says Thomas Shepard, 'the main wound of a man\nis in his will.  And then, after conversion, though his will is changed,\nyet, _ex infirmitate_, there are many things that he cannot do, so strong\nis the remnant of malignity that is still in his heart.  Let him get\nChrist to help him here.'  In all that ye see your calling, my brethren.\n\n5.  'Now, if I do that I would not,' adds the apostle, extricating\nhimself and giving himself fair-play and his simple due among all his\nmisery and self-accusation--'Now, if I do that I would not, it is no more\nI that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.'  Or, again, as William Law\nhas it: 'All our natural evil ceases to be our own evil as soon as our\nwill turns away from it.  Our natural evil then changes its nature and\nloses all its poison and death, and becomes an holy cross on which we die\nto self and this life and enter the kingdom of heaven.'  My dear\nbrethren, tell me, is your sin your cross?  Is your sinfulness your\ncross?  Is the evil that is ever present with you your holy cross?  For,\nevery other cross beside sin is a cross of straw, a cross of feathers, a\npaste-board and a painted cross, and not a real and genuine cross at all.\nThe wood and the nails and the spear all taken together were not our\nLord's real cross.  His real cross was sin; our sin laid on His hands,\nand on His heart, and on His imagination, and on His conscience, till it\nwas all but His very own sin.  Our sin was so fearfully and wonderfully\nlaid upon Christ that He was as good as a sinner Himself under it.  So\nmuch so that all the nails and all the spears, all the thirst and all the\ndarkness that His body and His soul could hold were as nothing beside the\nsin that was laid upon Him.  And so it is with us; with as many of us as\nare His true disciples.  Our sin is our cross; not our actual\ntransgressions, any more than His; but our inward sinfulness.  And not\nthe sinfulness of our will; that is no real cross to any man; but the\nsinfulness of our hearts against our will, and beneath our will, and\nbehind our will.  And this is such a cross that if Christ had something\nin His cross that we have not, then we have something in ours that He had\nnot.  He made many sad and sore Psalms His own; but even if He had lived\non earth to read the seventh of the Romans, He could not have made it His\nown.  His true people are beyond Him here.  The disciple is above his\nMaster here.  The Master had His own cross, and it was a sufficient\ncross; but we can challenge Him to come down and look and say if He ever\nsaw a cross like our cross.  He was made a curse.  He was hanged on the\ntree.  He bore our sins in His own body on the tree.  But his people are\nbeyond Him in the real agony and crucifixion of sin.  For He never in\nGethsemane or on Calvary either cried as Paul once cried, and as you and\nI cry every day--To will is present with me!  But the good that I would I\ndo not!  And, oh! the body of this death!\n\n6.  Now, if any total stranger to all that shall ask me: What good there\nis in all that? and, Why I so labour in such a world of unaccustomed and\nunpleasant things as that?  I have many answers to his censure.  For\nexample, and first, I labour and will continue to labour more and more in\nthis world of things, and less and less in any other world, because here\nwe begin to see things as they are--the deepest things of God and of man,\nthat is.  Also, because I have the precept, and the example, and the\nexperience of God's greatest and best saints before me here.  Because,\nalso, our full and true salvation begins here, goes on here, and ends\nhere.  Because, also, teaching these things and learning these things\nwill infallibly make us the humblest of men, the most contrite, the most\nself-despising, the most prayerful, and the most patient, meek, and\nloving of men.  And, students, I labour in this because this is science;\nbecause this is the first in order and the most fruitful of all the\nsciences, if not the noblest and the most glorious of all the sciences.\nThere is all that good for us in this subject of the will and the heart,\nand whole worlds of good lie away out beyond this subject that eye hath\nnot seen nor ear heard.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII--SELF-LOVE\n\n\n   'This know, that men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous,\n   boasters, proud, unthankful, without natural affection,\n   truce-breakers, false accusers, traitors, heady, high-minded: from all\n   such turn away.'--_Paul_.\n\n'Pray, sir, said Academicus, tell me more plainly just what this self of\nours actually is.  Self, replied Theophilus, is hell, it is the devil, it\nis darkness, pain, and disquiet.  It is the one and only enemy of Christ.\nIt is the great antichrist.  It is the scarlet whore, it is the fiery\ndragon, it is the old serpent that is mentioned in the Revelation of St\nJohn.  You rather terrify me than instruct me by this description, said\nAcademicus.  It is indeed a very frightful matter, returned Theophilus;\nfor it contains everything that man has to dread and to hate, to resist\nand to avoid.  Yet be assured, my friend, that, careless and merry as\nthis world is, every man that is born into this world has all those\nenemies to overcome within himself; and every man, till he is in the way\nof regeneration, is more or less governed by those enemies.  No hell in\nany remote place, no devil that is separate from you, no darkness or pain\nthat is not within you, no antichrist either at Rome or in England, no\nfurious beast, no fiery dragon, without you or apart from you, can do you\nany real hurt.  It is your own hell, your own devil, your own beast, your\nown antichrist, your own dragon that lives in your own heart's blood that\nalone can hurt you.  Die to this self, to this inward nature, and then\nall outward enemies are overcome.  Live to this self, and then, when this\nlife is out, all that is within you, and all that is without you, will be\nnothing else but a mere seeing and feeling this hell, serpent, beast, and\nfiery dragon.  But, said Theogenes, a third party who stood by, I would,\nif I could, more perfectly understand the precise nature of self, or what\nit is that makes it to be so full of evil and misery.  To whom Theophilus\nturned and replied: Covetousness, envy, pride, and wrath are the four\nelements of self.  And hence it is that the whole life of self can be\nnothing else but a plague and torment of covetousness, envy, pride, and\nwrath, all of which is precisely sinful nature, self, or hell.  Whilst\nman lives, indeed, among the vanities of time, his covetousness, his\nenvy, his pride, and his wrath, may be in a tolerable state, and may help\nhim to a mixture of peace and trouble; they may have their gratifications\nas well as their torments.  But when death has put an end to the vanity\nof all earthly cheats, the soul that is not born again of the\nsupernatural Word and Spirit of God must find itself unavoidably devoured\nby itself, shut up in its own insatiable, unchangeable, self-tormenting\ncovetousness, envy, pride, and wrath.  O Theogenes! that I had power from\nGod to take those dreadful scales off men's eyes that hinder them from\nseeing and feeling the infinite importance of this most certain truth!\nGod give a blessing, Theophilus, to your good prayer.  And then let me\ntell you that you have quite satisfied my question about the nature of\nself.  I shall never forget it, nor can I ever possibly after this have\nany doubt about the truth of it.'\n\n1.  'All my theology,' said an old friend of mine to me not long ago--'all\nmy theology is out of Thomas Goodwin to the Ephesians.'  Well, I find\nThomas Goodwin saying in that great book that self is the very\nquintessence of original sin; and, again, he says, study self-love for a\nthousand years and it is the top and the bottom of original sin; self is\nthe sin that dwelleth in us and that doth most easily beset us.  Now,\nthat is just what Academicus and Theophilus and Theogenes have been\nsaying to us in their own powerful way in their incomparable dialogue.\nAll sin and all misery; all covetousness, envy, pride, and wrath,--trace\nit all back to its roots, travel it all up to its source, and, as sure as\nyou do that, self and self-love are that source, that root, and that\nblack bottom.  I do not forget that Butler has said in some stately pages\nof his that self-love is morally good; that self-love is coincident with\nthe principle of virtue and part of the idea; and that it is a proper\nmotive for man.  But the deep bishop, in saying all that, is away back at\nthe creation-scheme and Eden-state of human nature.  He has not as yet\ncome down to human nature in its present state of overthrow,\ndismemberment, and self-destruction.  But when he does condescend and\ncomes close to the mind and the heart of man as they now are in all men,\neven Butler becomes as outspoken, and as eloquent, and as full of passion\nand pathos as if he were an evangelical Puritan.  Self-love, Butler\nstartles his sober-minded reader as he bursts out--self-love rends and\ndistorts the mind of man!  Now, you are a man.  Well, then, do you feel\nand confess that rending and distorting to have taken place in you?\nButler is a philosopher, and Goodwin is a preacher, but you are more: you\nare a man.  You are the owner of a human heart, and you can say whether\nor no it is a rent and a distorted heart.  Is your mind warped and\nwrenched by self-love, and is your heart rent and torn by the same wicked\nhands?  Do you really feel that it needs nothing more to take you back\nagain to paradise but that your heart be delivered from self-love?  Do\nyou now understand that the foundations of heaven itself must be laid in\na heart healed and cleansed and delivered from self-love?  If you do,\nthen your knowledge of your own heart has set you abreast of the greatest\nof philosophers and theologians and preachers.  Nay, before multitudes of\nmen who are called such.  It is my meditation all the day, you say.  I\nhave more understanding now than all my teachers; for Thy testimonies are\nmy meditation.  I understand more than the ancients; because now I keep\nThy precepts.\n\n2.  'Self-love has made us all malicious,' says John Calvin.  We are\nCalvinists, were we to call any man master.  But we are to call no man\nmaster, and least of all in the matters of the heart.  Every man must be\nhis own philosopher, his own moralist, and his own theologian in the\nmatters of the heart.  He who has a heart in his bosom and an eye in his\nhead can need no Calvin, no Butler, no Goodwin, and no Law to tell him\nwhat goes on in his own heart.  And, on the other hand, his own heart\nwill soon tell him whether or no Calvin, and Butler, and Goodwin, and Law\nknow anything about those matters on which some men would set them up as\nour masters.  Well, come away all of you who own a human heart.  Come and\nsay whether or no your heart, and the self-love of which it is full, have\nmade you a malicious man.  I do not ask if you are always and to\neverybody full of maliciousness.  No; I know quite well that you are\nsometimes as sweet as honey and as soft as butter.  For, has not even\nTheophilus said that whilst a man still lives among the vanities of time,\nhis covetousness, his envy, his pride, and his wrath may be in a\ntolerable state, and may help him to a mixture of peace and trouble;\nthese vices may have their gratifications as well as their torments.  No;\nI do not trifle with you and with this serious matter so as to ask if you\nare full of malice at all times and to all men.  No.  For, let a man be\nfortunate enough to be on your side; let him pass over to your party; let\nhim become profitable to you; let him be clever enough and mean enough to\npraise and to flatter you up to the top of your appetite for praise and\nflattery, and, no doubt, you will love that man.  Or, if that is not\nexactly love, at least it is no longer hate.  But let that man\nunfortunately be led to leave your party; let him cease being profitable\nto you; let him weary of flattering you with his praise; let him forget\nyou, neglect you, despise you, and go against you, and then look at your\nown heart.  Do you care now to know what malice is?  Well, that is malice\nthat distorts and rends your heart as often as you meet that man on the\nstreet or even pass by his door.  That is malice that dances in your eyes\nwhen you see his name in print.  That is malice with which you always\nbreak out when his name is mentioned in conversation.  That is malice\nthat heats your heart when you suddenly recollect him in the multitude of\nyour thoughts within you.  And you are in good company all the time.  'We,\nourselves,' says Paul to Titus, 'we also at one time lived in malice and\nin envy.  We were hateful and we hated one another.'  'Hateful,' Goodwin\ngoes on in his great book, 'every man is to another man more or less; he\nis hated of another and he hateth another more or less; and if his nature\nwere let out to the full, there is that in him, \"every man is against\nevery man,\" as is said of Ishmael.  _Homo homini lupus_,' adds our brave\npreacher.  And Abbe Grou speaks out with the same challenge from the\nopposite church pole, and says: 'Yes; self-love makes us touchy, ready to\ntake offence, ill-tempered, suspicious, severe, exacting, easily\noffended; it keeps alive in our hearts a certain malignity, a secret joy\nat the mortifications which befall our neighbour; it nourishes our\nreadiness to criticise, our dislike at certain persons, our ill-feeling,\nour bitterness, and a thousand other things prejudicial to charity.'\n\n3.  'Myself is my own worst enemy,' says Abbe Grou.  That is to say, we\nmay have enemies who hate us more than we hate ourselves, and enemies who\nwould hurt us, if they could, as much as we hurt ourselves; but the\nAbbe's point is that they cannot.  And he is right.  No man has ever hurt\nme as I have hurt myself.  There are men who hate me so much that they\nwould poison my life of all its peace and happiness if they could.  But\nthey cannot.  They cannot; but let them not be cast down on that account,\nfor there is one who can do, and who will do as long as he lives, what\nthey cannot do.  A man's foes, to be called foes, are in his own house:\nthey are in his own heart.  Let our enemies attend to their own peace and\nhappiness, and our self-love will do all, and more than all, that they\nwould fain do.  At the most, they and their ill-will can only give\noccasion to our self-love; but it is our self-love that seizes upon the\noccasion, and through it rends and distorts our own hearts.  And were our\nhearts only pure of self-love, were our hearts only clothed with meekness\nand humility, we could laugh at all the ill-will of our enemies as\nleviathan laughs at the shaking of a spear.  'Know thou,' says A Kempis\nto his son, 'that the love of thyself doth do thee more hurt than\nanything in the whole world.'  Yes; but we shall never know that by\nmerely reading _The Imitation_.  We must read ourselves.  We must study,\nas we study nothing else, our own rent and distorted hearts.  Our own\nhearts must be our daily discovery.  We must watch the wounds our hearts\ntake every day; and we must give all our powers of mind to tracing all\nour wounds back to their true causes.  We must say: 'that sore blow came\non my mind and on my heart from such and such a quarter, from such and\nsuch a hand, from such and such a weapon; but this pain, this rankling,\npoisoned, and ever-festering wound, this sleepless, gnawing, cancerous\nsore, comes from the covetousness, the pride, the envy, and the wrath of\nmy own heart.'  When we begin to say that, we shall then begin to\nunderstand and to love Thomas; we shall sit daily at his feet and shall\nbe numbered among his sons.\n\n4.  And this suffering at our own hands goes on till at last the tables\nare completely turned against self-love, and till what was once to us the\ndearest thing in the whole world becomes, as Pascal says, the most\nhateful.  We begin life by hating the men, and the things, who hurt us.\nWe hate the men who oppose us and hinder us; the men who speak, and\nwrite, and act, and go in any way against us.  We bitterly hate all who\nhumble us, despise us, trample upon us, and in any way ill-use us.  But\nafterwards, when we have become men, men in experience of this life, and,\nespecially, of ourselves in this life; after we gain some real insight\nand attain to some real skill in the life of the heart, we come round to\nforgive those we once hated.  We have come now to see why they did it.  We\nsee now exactly how much they hurt us after all, and how little.  And,\nespecially, we have come to see,--what at one time we could not have\nbelieved,--that all our hurt, to be called hurt, has come to us from\nourselves.  And thus that great revolution of mind and that great\nrevulsion of feeling and of passion has taken place, after which we are\nleft with no one henceforth to hate, to be called hating, but ourselves.\nWe may still continue to avoid our enemies, and we may do that too long\nand too much; we may continue to fear them and be on the watch against\nthem far too much; but to deliberately hate them is henceforth\nimpossible.  All our hatred,--all our deliberate, steady, rooted, active\nhatred,--is now at ourselves; at ourselves, that is, so far and so long\nas we remain under the malignant and hateful dominion of self-love.  When\nButler gets our self-love restored to reasonableness, and made coincident\nwith virtue and part of the idea; when our self-love becomes uniformly\ncoincident with the principle of obedience to God's commands, then we\nshall love ourselves as our neighbour, and our neighbour as ourselves,\nand both in God.  But, till then, there is nothing and no one on earth or\nin hell so hateful to us as ourselves and our own hateful hearts.  And if\nin that we are treading the winepress alone as far as our fellow-men are\nconcerned, all the more we have Him with us in all our agony who wept\nover the heart of man because He knew what was in it, and what must\nalways come out of it.  Evil thoughts, He said, and fornications, and\nmurders, and thefts, and covetousness, and wickedness, and deceit, and an\nevil eye, and pride, and folly, and what not.  And Paul has the mind of\nChrist with him in the text.  I do not need to repeat again the hateful\nwords.  Now, what do you say? was Pascal beyond the truth, was he deeper\nthan the truth or more deadly than the truth when he said with a stab\nthat self is hateful?  I think not.\n\n5.  'Oh that I were free, then, of myself,' wrote Samuel Rutherford from\nAberdeen in 1637 to John Ferguson of Ochiltree.  'What need we all have\nto be ransomed and redeemed from that master-tyrant, that cruel and\nlawless lord, ourself!  Even when I am most out of myself, and am best\nserving Christ, I have a squint eye on myself.'  And to the Laird of\nCally in the same year and from the same place: 'Myself is the master\nidol we all bow down to.  Every man blameth the devil for his sins, but\nthe house devil of every man that eateth with him and lieth in his bosom\nis himself.  Oh blessed are they who can deny themselves!'  And to the\nIrish ministers the year after: 'Except men martyr and slay the body of\nsin in sanctified self-denial, they shall never be Christ's.  Oh, if I\ncould but be master of myself, my own mind, my own will, my own credit,\nmy own love, how blessed were I!  But alas!  I shall die only minting and\naiming at being a Christian.'\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII--OLD MR. PREJUDICE, THE KEEPER OF EAR-GATE, WITH HIS SIXTY\nDEAF MEN UNDER HIM\n\n\n   'Are not Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the\n   waters of Israel?'--_Naaman_.\n\n   'Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth?'--_Nathanael_.\n\n   ' . . observe these things without prejudice, doing nothing by\n   partiality.'--_Paul_.\n\nOld Mr. Prejudice was well known in the wars of Mansoul as an angry,\nunhappy, and ill-conditioned old churl.  Old Mr. Prejudice was placed by\nDiabolus, his master, as keeper of the ward at the post of Ear-gate, and\nfor that fatal service he had sixty completely deaf men put under him as\nhis company.  Men eminently advantageous for that fatal service.\nEminently advantageous,--inasmuch as it mattered not one atom to them\nwhat was spoken in their ear either by God or by man.\n\n1.  Now, to begin with, this churlish old man had already earned for\nhimself a very evil name.  For what name could well be more full of evil\nmemories and of evil omens than just this name of Prejudice?  Just\nconsider what prejudice is.  Prejudice, when we stop over it and take it\nto pieces and look well at it,--prejudice is so bad and so abominable\nthat you would not believe it could be so bad till you had looked at it\nand at how it acts in your own case.  For prejudice gives judgment on\nyour case and gives orders for your execution before your defence has\nbeen heard, before your witnesses have been called, before your summons\nhas been served, ay, and even before your indictment has been drawn out.\nWhat a scandal and what an uproar a malfeasance of justice like that\nwould cause if it were to take place in any of our courts of law!  Only,\nthe thing is impossible; you cannot even imagine it.  We shall have Magna\nCharta up before us in the course of these lectures.  Well, ever since\nMagna Charta was extorted from King John, such a scandal as I have\nsupposed has been impossible either in England or in Scotland.  And that\nsuch cases should still be possible in Russia and in Turkey places those\ntwo old despotisms outside the pale of the civilised world.  And yet,\nloudly as we all denounce the Czar and the Sultan, eloquently as we boast\nover Magna Charta, Habeas Corpus, and what not, every day you and I are\ndoing what would cost an English king his crown, and an English judge his\nhead.  We all do it every day, and it never enters one mind out of a\nhundred that we are trampling down truth, and righteousness, and fair-\nplay, and brotherly love.  We do not know what a diabolical wickedness we\nare perpetrating every day.  The best men among us are guilty of that\niniquity every day, and they never confess it to themselves; no one ever\naccuses them of it; and they go down to death and judgment unsuspicious\nof the discovery that they will soon make there.  You would not steal a\nstick or a straw that belonged to me; but you steal from me every day\nwhat all your gold and mine can never redeem; you murder me every day in\nmy best and my noblest life.  You me, and I you.\n\n2.  Old Mr. Prejudice.  Now, there is a golden passage in Jonathan\nEdwards's _Diary_ that all old men should lay well to heart and\nconscience.  'I observe,' Edwards enters, 'that old men seldom have any\nadvantage of new discoveries, because these discoveries are beside a way\nof thinking they have been long used to.  Resolved, therefore, that, if\never I live to years, I will be impartial to hear the reasons of all\npretended discoveries, and receive them, if rational, how long soever I\nhave been used to another way of thinking.  I am too dogmatical; I have\ntoo much of egotism; my disposition is always to be telling of my dislike\nand my scorn.'  What a fine, fresh, fruitful, progressive, and peaceful\nworld we should soon have if all our old and all our fast-ageing men\nwould enter that extract into their diary!  How the young would then love\nand honour and lean upon the old; and how all the fathers would always\nabide young and full of youthful life like their children!  Then the\nrighteous should flourish like the palm-tree; he should grow like a cedar\nin Lebanon.  They that be planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish\nin the courts of our God.  They shall still bring forth fruit in old age;\nthey shall be fat and flourishing.  What a free scope would then be given\nto all God's unfolding providences, and what a warm welcome to all His\nadvancing truths!  What sore and spreading wounds would then be salved,\nwhat health and what vigour would fill all the body political, as well as\nall the body mystical!  May the Lord turn the heart of the fathers to the\nchildren, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest the earth\nbe smitten with a curse!\n\n3.  Mr. Prejudice was an old man; and this also has been handed down\nabout him, that he was almost always angry.  And if you keep your eyes\nopen you will soon see how true to the life that feature of old Mr.\nPrejudice still is.  In every conversation, discussion, debate,\ncorrespondence, the angry man is invariably the prejudiced man; and,\naccording to the age and the depth, the rootedness and the intensity of\nhis prejudices, so is the ferocity and the savagery of his anger.  He has\nalready settled this case that you are irritating and wronging him so\nmuch by your still insisting on bringing up.  It is a reproach to his\nunderstanding for you to think that there is anything to be said in that\nmatter that he has not long ago heard said and fully answered.  Has he\nnot denounced that bad man and that bad cause for years?  You insult me,\nsir, by again opening up that matter in my presence.  He will have none\nof you or of your arguments either.  You are as bad yourself as that bad\nman is whose advocate you are.  We all know men whose hearts are full of\ncoals of juniper, burning coals of hate and rage, just by reason of their\nferocious prejudices.  Hate is too feeble a word for their gnashing rage\nagainst this man and that cause, this movement and that institution.\nThere is an absolutely murderous light in their eye as they work\nthemselves up against the men and the things they hate.  Charity rejoices\nnot in iniquity; but you will see otherwise Christian and charitable men\nso jockeyed by the devil that they actually rejoice in iniquity and do\nnot know what they are doing, or who it is that is egging them on to do\nit.  You will see otherwise and at other times good men so full of the\nrage and madness of prejudice and partiality that they will storm at\nevery report of goodness and truth and prosperity in the man, or in the\ncause, or in the church, or in the party, they are so demented against.\nJockey is not the word.  There is the last triumph of pure devilry in the\nway that the prince of the devils turns old Prejudice's very best\nthings--his love of his fathers, his love of the past, his love of order,\nhis love of loyalty, his love of the old paths, and his very truest and\nbest religion itself--into so much fat fuel for the fires of hate and\nrage that are consuming his proud heart to red-hot ashes.  If the light\nthat is in us be darkness, how great is that darkness; and if the life\nthat is in us be death, how deadly is that death!\n\n4.  Old, angry, and ill-conditioned.  Ill-conditioned is an old-fashioned\nword almost gone out of date.  But, all the same, it is a very\nexpressive, and to us to-night a quite indispensable word.  An\nill-conditioned man is a man of an in-bred, cherished, and confirmed ill-\nnature.  His heart, which was a sufficiently bad heart to begin with, is\nnow so exercised in evil and so accustomed to evil, that,--how can he be\nborn again when he is so old and so ill-natured?  All the qualities, all\nthe passions, all the emotions of his heart are out of joint; their bent\nis bad; they run out naturally to mischief.  Now, what could possibly be\nmore ill-conditioned than to judge and sentence, denounce and execute a\nman before you have heard his case?  What could be more ill-conditioned\nthan positively to be afraid lest you should be led to forgive, and\nredress, and love, and act with another man?  To be determined not to\nhear one word that you can help in his defence, in his favour, and in his\npraise?  Could a human heart be in a worse state on this side hell itself\nthan that?  Nay, that is hell itself in your evil heart already.  Let\nprejudice and partiality have their full scope among the wicked passions\nof your ill-conditioned heart, and lo! the kingdom of darkness is already\nwithin you.  Not, lo, here! or, lo, there! but within you.  Look to\nyourselves, says John to us all, full as we all are of our own\nill-conditions.  Look to yourselves.  But we have no eyes left with which\nto see ourselves; we look so much at the faults and the blames of our\nneighbour.  'Publius goes to church sometimes, and reads the Scriptures;\nbut he knows not what he reads or prays, his head is so full of politics.\nHe is so angry at kings and ministers of state that he has no time nor\ndisposition to call himself to account.  He has the history of all\nparliaments, elections, prosecutions, and impeachments by heart, and he\ndies with little or no religion, through a constant fear of Popery.'\nPoor, old, ill-conditioned Publius!\n\n5.  And, then, his sixty deaf men under old, angry, ill-conditioned\nPrejudice.  We read of engines of sixty-horse power.  And here is a man\nwith the power of resisting and shutting out the truth equal to that of\nsixty men like himself.  We all know such men; we would as soon think of\nspeaking to those iron pillars about a change of mind as we would to\nthem.  If you preach to their prejudices and their prepossessions and\ntheir partialities, they are all ears to hear you, and all tongues to\ntrumpet your praise.  But do not expect them to sit still with ordinary\ndecency under what they are so prejudiced against; do not expect them to\nread a book or buy a passing paper on the other side.  Sixty deaf men\nhold their ears; sixty ill-conditioned men hold their hearts.  Habit with\nthem is all the test of truth; it must be right, they've done it from\ntheir youth.  And thus they go on to the end of their term of life, full\nof their own fixed ideas, with their eyes full of beams and jaundices and\ndarkness and death.  Some people think that we take up too much of our\ntime with newspapers in our day, and that, if things go on as they are\ngoing, we shall soon have neither time nor taste for anything else but\nhalf a dozen papers a day.  But all that depends on the conditions with\nwhich we read.  If we would read as Jonathan Edwards read the weekly news-\nletters of his day; if we read all our papers to see if the kingdom of\nGod was coming in reply to our prayer; if we read, observing all things,\nlike Timothy, without prejudice or partiality, then I know no better\nreading for an ill-conditioned heart begun to look to itself than just a\ngood, out-and-out party newspaper.  And if it is a church paper all the\nbetter for your purpose.  If you read with your fingers in your ears; if\nyou read with a beam in your eye, you had better confine yourself in your\nreading; if you feel that your prejudices are inflamed and your\npartiality is intensified, then take care what paper you take in.  But if\nyou read all you read for the love of the truth, for justice, for fair-\nplay, and for brotherly love, and all that in yourself; if you read all\nthe time with your eyes on your own ill-conditioned heart, then, as James\nsays, count it all joy when you fall into divers temptations.  Take up\nyour political and ecclesiastical paper every morning, saying to\nyourself, Go to, O my heart, and get thy daily lesson.  Go to, and enter\nthy cleansing and refining furnace.  Go to, and come well out of thy\ndaily temptation.--A nobler school you will not find anywhere for a\nprejudiced, partial, angry, and ill-conditioned heart than just the party\njournals of the day.  For the abating of prejudice; for seeing the\nodiousness of partiality, and for putting on every day a fair, open,\ncatholic, Christian mind, commend me to the public life and the public\njournals of our living day.  And it is not that this man may be up and\nthat man down; this cause victorious and that cause defeated; this truth\nvindicated and that untruth defeated, that public life rolls on and that\nits revolutions are reported to us.  Our own minds and our own hearts are\nthe final cause, the ultimate drift, and the far-off end and aim of it\nall.  We are not made for party and for the partialities and prosperities\nof party; party and all its passions and all its successes and all its\ndefeats are made, and are permitted to be made for us; for our\nopportunity of purging ourselves free of all our ill-conditions, of all\nour prejudices, of all our partialities, and of all the sin and misery\nthat come to us of all these things.\n\n6.  'It is the work of a philosopher,' says Addison in one of his best\n_Spectators_, 'to be every day subduing his passions and laying aside his\nprejudices.'  We are not philosophers, but we shall be enrolled in the\nforemost ranks of philosophy if we imitate such philosophers in their\ndaily work, as we must do and shall do.  Well, are we begun to do it?  Are\nwe engaged in that work of theirs and ours every day?  Is God our witness\nand our judge that we are?  Are we so engaged upon that inward work, and\nso succeeding in it, that we can read our most prejudiced newspaper with\nthe same mind and spirit, with the same profit and progress, with which\nwe read our Bible?  A good man, a humble man, a man acutely sensible of\nhis ill-conditions, will look on every day as lost or won according as he\nhas lost or won in this inward war.  If his partialities are dropping off\nhis mind; if his prejudices are melting; if he can read books and papers\nwith pleasure and instruction that once filled him with dark passions and\nangry outbursts; if his Calvinism lets him read Thomas A Kempis and\nJeremy Taylor and William Law; if his High-Churchism lets him delight to\nworship God in an Independent or a Presbyterian church; if his\nFree-Churchism permits him to see the Establishment reviving, and his\nState-Churchism admits that the Free Churches have more to say to him\nthan he had at one time thought; if his Toryism lets him take in a\nRadical paper, and his Radicalism a Unionist paper--then let him thank\nGod, for God is in all that though he knew it not.  And when he counts up\nhis incalculable benefits at each return of the Lord's table, let him\ncount up as not the least of them an open mind and a well-conditioned\nheart, an unprejudiced mind, and an impartial heart.\n\n7.  And now, to conclude: Take old, angry, ill-conditioned Prejudice, his\ndaily prayer: 'My Adorable God and Creator!  Thy Holy Church is by the\nwickedness of men divided into various communions, all hating,\ncondemning, and endeavouring to destroy one another.  I made none of\nthese divisions, nor am I any longer a defender of them.  I wish\neverything removed out of every communion that hinders the Common Unity.\nThe wranglings and disputings of whole churches and nations have so\nconfounded all things that I have no ability to make a true and just\njudgment of the matters between them.  If I knew that any one of these\ncommunions was alone acceptable to Thee, I would do or suffer anything to\nmake myself a member of it.  For, my Good God, I desire nothing so much\nas to know and to love Thee, and to worship Thee in the most acceptable\nmanner.  And as I humbly presume that Thou wouldst not suffer Thy Church\nto be thus universally divided, if no divided portion could offer any\nworship acceptable unto Thee; and as I have no knowledge of what is\nabsolutely best in these divided parts, nor any ability to put an end to\nthem; so I fully trust in Thy goodness, that Thou wilt not suffer these\ndivisions to separate me from Thy mercy in Christ Jesus; and that, if\nthere be any better ways of serving Thee than those I already enjoy, Thou\nwilt, according to Thine infinite mercy, lead me into them, O God of my\npeace and my love.'  After this manner old, angry, ill-conditioned\nPrejudice prayed every day till he died, a little child, in charity with\nall men, and in acceptance with Almighty God.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX--CAPTAIN ANYTHING\n\n\n   'I am made all things to all men . . . I please all men in all\n   things.'--_Paul_\n\nCaptain Anything came originally from the ancient town of Fair-speech.\n\nFair-speech had many royal bounties and many special privileges bestowed\nupon it, and Captain Anything and his family had come to many titles and\nto great riches in that ancient, loyal, and honourable borough.  My Lord\nTurn-about, my Lord Time-server, my Lord Fair-speech (from whose\nancestors that town first took its name), as also such well-known\ncommoners as Mr. Smooth-man, Mr. Facing-both-ways, and Mr. Two-tongues\nwere all sprung with Captain Anything from the same ancient and\nlong-established ancestry.  As to his religion, from a child young\nAnything had sat under the parson of the parish, the same Reverend Two-\ntongues as has been mentioned above.  And our budding soldier followed\nthe example of his minister in that he never strove too long against wind\nor tide, or was ever to be seen on the same side of the street with\nReligion when she was banished from court or had lost her silver\nslippers.  The crest of the Anythings was a delicately poised weather-\ncock; and the motto engraved around the gyrating bird ran thus: 'Our\njudgment always jumps according to the occasion.'  As a military man,\nCaptain Anything is described in military books as a proper man, and a\nman of courage and skill--to appearance.  He and his company under him\nwere a sort of Swiss guard in Mansoul.  They held themselves open and\nready for any master.  They lived not so much by religion or by loyalty\nas by the fates of worldly fortune.  In his secret despatches Diabolus\nwas wont to address Captain Anything as My Darling; and be sure you\nrecruit your Switzers well, Diabolus would say; but when the real stress\nof the war came, even Diabolus cast Captain Anything off.  And thus it\ncame about that when both sides were against this despised creature he\nhad to throw down his arms and flee into a safe skulking place for his\nlife.\n\n1.  In that half-papist, half-atheistic country called France there is a\nclass of politicians known by the name of Opportunists.  They are a kind\nof public men that, we are thankful to say, are not known in Protestant\nand Evangelical England, but they may be pictured out and described to\nyou in this homely way: An Opportunist stands well out of the sparks of\nthe fire, and well in behind the stone wall, till the fanatics for\nliberty, equality, and fraternity have snatched the chestnuts out of the\nfire, and then the Opportunist steps out from his safe place and blandly\ndivides the well-roasted tid-bits among his family and his friends.  As\nlong as there is any jeopardy, the Jacobins are denounced and held up to\nopprobrium; but when the jeopardy and the risk are well past, the sober-\nminded, cautious, conservative, and responsible statesmen walk off with\nthe portfolios of place and privilege and pay under their honest arms.\nBut these are the unprincipled papists and infidels of a mushroom\nrepublic; and, thank God, such spurious patriotism, and such sham and\nselfish statesmanship, have not yet shown their miserable heads among\nfaithful, fearless, straightforward, and uncalculating Englishmen.  At\nthe same time, if ever that continental vice should attack our national\ncharacter, we have two well-known essays in our ethical and casuistical\nliterature that may with perfect safety be pitted against anything that\neither France or Italy has produced.  Even if they are but a master's\nirony, let all ambitious men keep _Of Cunning_ and _Of Wisdom for a Man's\nSelf_ under their pillow.  Let all young men who would toady a great man;\nlet all young ministers who would tune their pulpit to king, or court, or\nsociety; let all tradesmen and merchants who prefer their profits to\ntheir principles--if they have literature enough, let them soak their\nhonest minds in our great Chancellor's sage counsels; and he who promoted\nAnything and dubbed him his Darling, he will, no doubt, publish both a\npost and a title on his birthday for you also.\n\n2.  'What religion is he of?' asks Dean Swift.  'He is an Anythingarian,'\nis the answer, 'for he makes his self-interest the sole standard of his\nlife and doctrine.'  And Archbishop Leighton, a very different churchman\nfrom the bitter author of the _Polite Conversations_, is equally\ncontemptuous toward the self-seeker in divine things.  'Your boasted\npeaceableness often proceeds from a superficial temper; and, not seldom,\nfrom a supercilious disdain of whatever has no marketable use or value,\nand from your utter indifference to true religion.  Toleration is an herb\nof spontaneous growth in the soil of indifference.  Much of our union of\nminds proceeds from want of knowledge and from want of affection to\nreligion.  Many who boast of their church conformity, and that no one\nhears of their noise, may thank the ignorance of their minds for that\nkind of quietness.'  But by far the most powerful assault that ever was\nmade upon lukewarmness in religion and upon self-seeking in the Church\nwas delivered by Dante in the tremendous third canto of his _Inferno_:--\n\n         Various tongues,\n   Horrible languages, outcries of woe,\n   Accents of anger, voices deep and hoarse,\n   With hands together smote that swelled the sounds,\n   Made up a tumult that for ever whirls\n   Round through that air with solid darkness stain'd,\n   Like to the sand that in the whirlwind flies.\n   I then, with error yet encompass'd, cried,\n   'O master!  What is this I hear?  What race\n   Are these, who seem so overcome with woe?'\n   He then to me: 'This miserable fate\n   Suffer the wretched souls of those who lived\n   Without or praise or blame, with that ill band\n   Of angels mixed, who nor rebellious proved,\n   Nor yet were true to God, but for themselves\n   Were only.  Mercy and Justice scorn them both.\n   Speak not of them, but look and pass them by.'\n   Forthwith, I understood for certain this the tribe\n   Of those ill spirits both to God displeasing\n   And to His foes.  Those wretches who ne'er lived,\n   Went on in nakedness, and sorely stung\n   By wasps and hornets, which bedewed their cheeks\n   With blood, that mix'd with tears dropp'd to their feet,\n   And by disgustful worms was gathered there.\n\n3.  Now, we must all lay it continually and with uttermost humiliation to\nheart that we all have Captain Anything's opportunism, his self-interest,\nhis insincerity, his instability, and his secret deceitfulness in\nourselves.  That man knows little of himself who does not despise and\nhate himself for his secret self-seeking even in the service of God.  For,\nhow the love of praise will seduce and corrupt this man, and the love of\ngain that man!  How easy it is to flatter and adulate this man out of all\nhis former opinions and his deepest principles, and how an expected\nadvantage will make that other man forget now an old alliance and now a\ndeep antipathy!  How often the side we take even in the most momentous\nmatters is decided by the most unworthy motives and the most contemptible\nconsiderations!  Unstable as water, Reuben shall not excel.  Double-minded\nmen, we, like Jacob's first-born, are unstable in all our ways.  We have\nno anchor, or, what anchor we sometimes have soon slips.  We have no\nfixed pole-star by which to steer our life.  Any will-o'-the-wisp of\npleasure, or advantage, or praise will run us on the rocks.  The\nsearchers of Mansoul, after long search, at last lighted on Anything, and\nsoon made an end of him.  Seek him out in your own soul also.  Be you\nsure he is somewhere there.  He is skulking somewhere there.  And, having\nfound him, if you cannot on the spot make an end of him, keep your eye on\nhim, and never say that you are safe from him and his company as long as\nyou are in this soul-deceiving life.  And, that Anything will not be let\nenter the gates of the city you are set on seeking, that will go largely\nto make that sweet and clean and truthful city your very heaven to you.\n\n4.  'I am made all things to all men, and I please all men in all\nthings.'  One would almost think that was Captain Anything himself, in a\nfrank, cynical, and self-censorious moment.  But if you will look it up\nyou will see that it was a very different man.  The words are the words\nof Anything, but the heart behind the words is the heart of Paul.  And\nthis, again, teaches us that we should be like the Messiah in this also,\nnot to judge after the sight of our eyes, nor to reprove after the\nhearing of our ears.  Miserable Anything! outcast alike of heaven and\nhell!  But, O noble and blessed Apostle! the man, says Thomas Goodwin,\nwho shall be found seated next to Jesus Christ Himself in the kingdom of\nGod.  Happy Paul: happy even on this earth, since he could say, and in\nthe measure he could say with truth and with sincerity, such\nself-revelations as these: 'Unto the Jews I am become as a Jew that I\nmight gain the Jews; to them that are under the law, as under the law,\nthat I might gain them that are under the law.  To them that are without\nlaw, as without law, that I might gain them that are without law.  To the\nweak became I as weak, that I might gain the weak; I am made all things\nto all men, that I might by all means save some.  Giving none offence,\nneither to the Jews, nor to the Gentiles, nor to the Church of God.  Even\nas I please all men in all things, not seeking mine own profit, but the\nprofit of many, that they may be saved.'  Noble words, and inspiring to\nread.  Yes: but look within, and think what Paul must have passed\nthrough; think what he must have been put through before he,--a man of\nlike selfish passions as we are, a man of like selfish passions as\nAnything was,--could say all that.  Let his crosses and his thorns; his\nraptures up to the third heaven, and his body of death that he bore about\nwith him all his days; let his magnificent spiritual gifts, and his still\nmore magnificent spiritual graces tell how they all worked together to\nmake the chief of sinners out of the blameless Pharisee, and, at the same\ntime, Christ's own chosen vessel and the apostle of all the churches.\nBoasting about his patron apostle, St. Augustine says: 'Far be it from so\ngreat an apostle, a vessel elect of God, an organ of the Holy Ghost, to\nbe one man when he preached and another when he wrote; one man in private\nand another in public.  He was made all things to all men, not by the\ncraft of a deceiver, but from the affection of a sympathiser, succouring\nthe diverse diseases of souls with the diverse emotions of compassion; to\nthe little ones dispensing the lesser doctrines, not false ones, but the\nhigher mysteries to the perfect--all of them, however, true, harmonious,\nand divine.'  The exquisite irony of Socrates comes into my mind in this\nconnection, and will not be kept out of my mind.  By instinct as well as\nby art Socrates mixed up the profoundest seriousness with the humorous\naffectation of qualities of mind and even of character the exact opposite\nof what all who loved him knew to be the real Socrates.  'Intellectually,'\nsays Dr. Thomson, 'the acutest man of his age, Socrates represents\nhimself in all companies as the dullest person present.  Morally the\npurest, he affects to be the slave of passion and borrows the language\neven of the lewd to describe a love and a good-will far too exalted for\nthe comprehension of his contemporaries.  This irony of his disarmed\nridicule by anticipating it; it allayed jealousy and propitiated envy;\nand it possibly procured him admission into gay circles from which a more\nsolemn teacher would have been excluded.  But all the time it had for its\nbasis a real greatness of soul, a hearty and an unaffected disregard of\npublic opinion, a perfect disinterestedness, and an entire abnegation of\nself.  He made himself a fool in order that fools by his folly might be\nmade wise; he humbled himself to the level of those among whom his work\nlay that he might raise some few among them to his own level; he was all\nthings to all men, if by any means he might save some.  Till Alcibiades\nends the splendid eloge that Plato puts into his mouth with these words,\n\"All my master's vice and stupidity and worship of wealthy and great men\nis counterfeit.  It is all but the Silenus-mask which conceals the\nfeatures of the god within; for if you remove the covering, how shall I\ndescribe to you, my friends and boon companions, the excellence of the\nbeauty you will find within!  Whether any of you have seen Socrates in\nhis serious mood, when he has thrown aside the mask and disclosed the\ndivine features beneath it, is more than I know.  But I have seen them,\nand I can tell you that they seemed to me glorious and marvellous, and,\ntruly, godlike in their beauty.\"'\n\nWell, now, I gather out of all that this great lesson: that it is, to\nbegin with, a mere matter of temperament, or what William Law would call\na mere matter of complexion and sensibility, whether, to begin with, a\nman is hard, and dry, and narrow, and stiff, and proud, and scornful, and\ncruel; or again, whether he is soft and tender, broad and open, and full\nof sympathy and of the milk of human kindness.  At first, and to begin\nwith, there is neither praise nor blame as yet in the matter.  A man is\nhard just as a stone is hard; it is his nature.  Or he is soft as clay is\nsoft; it is again his nature.  But, inheriting such a nature, and his\ninherited nature beginning to appear, then is the time when the true man\nreally begins to be made.  The bad man dwells in contentment, and,\nindeed, by preference, at home in his own hard, proud, scornful,\nresentful heart; or, again, in his facile, fawning, tide-waiting, time-\nserving heart; and thus he chooses, accepts, and prefers his evil fate,\nand never seeks the help either of God or man to enable him to rise above\nit.  Paul was not, when we meet him first, the sweet, humble, affable,\nplacable, makeable man that he made himself and came to be after a\nlifetime of gospel-preaching and of adorning the gospel he preached.  And\nall the assistances and all the opportunities that came to Paul are still\ncoming to you and to me; till, whether naturally pliable and affectionate\nor the opposite, we at last shall come to the temperament, the\ncomplexion, and the exquisite sensibility of Paul himself.  Are you,\nthen, a hard, stiff, severe, censorious, proud, angry, scornful man?  Or\nare you a too-easy, too-facile man-pleaser and self-seeker, being all\nthings to all men that you may make use of all men?  Are you?  Then say\nso.  Confess it to be so.  Admit that you have found yourself out.  And\nreflect every day what you have got to do in life.  Consider what a new\nbirth you need and must have.  Number your days that are left you in\nwhich to make you a new heart, and a new nature, and a new character.\nConsider well how you are to set about that divine work.  You have a\nminister, and your minister is called a divine because by courtesy he is\nsupposed to understand that divine work, and to be engaged on it night\nand day in himself, and in season and out of season among his people.  He\nwill tell you how you are to make you a new heart.  Or, if he does not\nand cannot do that; if he preaches about everything but that to a people\nwho will listen to anything but that, then your soul is not in his hands\nbut in your own.  You may not be able to choose your minister, but you\ncan choose what books you are to buy, or borrow, and read.  And if there\nis not a minister within a hundred miles of you who knows his right hand\nfrom his left, then there are surely some booksellers who will advise you\nabout the classical books of the soul till you can order them for\nyourselves.  And thus, if it is your curse and your shame to be as\nspongy, and soapy, and oily, and slippery as Anything himself; if you\nchoose your church and your reading with any originality, sense, and\ninsight, you need not fear but that you will be let live till you die an\nhonest, upright, honourable, fearless gentleman: no timid friend to\nunfashionable truth, as you are to-night, but a man like Thomas Boston's\nEttrick elder, who lies waiting the last trump under a gravestone\nengraven with this legend: Here lies a man who had a brow for every good\ncause.  Only, if you would have that written and read on your headstone,\nyou have no time to lose.  If I were you I would not sit another Sabbath\nunder a minister whose preaching was not changing my nature, making my\nheart new, and transforming my character; no, not though the Queen\nherself sat in the same loft.  And I would leave the church even of my\nfathers, and become anything as far as churches go, if I could get a\nminister who held my face close and ever closer up to my own heart.  Nor\nwould I spend a shilling or an hour that I could help on any impertinent\nbook,--any book that did not powerfully help me in the one remaining\ninterest of my one remaining life: a new nature and a new heart.  No, not\nI.  No, not I any more.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X--CLIP-PROMISE\n\n\n   ' . . . the promise made of none effect.'--_Paul_\n\nToward the end of the thirteenth century Edward the First, the English\nJustinian, brought a select colony of artists from Italy to England and\ngave them a commission to execute their best coinage for the English\nMint.  Deft and skilful as those artists were, the work they turned out\nwas but rude and clumsy compared with some of the gold and silver and\ncopper coins of our day.  The Florentine artists took a sheet of gold or\nof silver and divided the sheet up with great scissors, and then they\nhammered the cut-out pieces as only a Florentine hammerman could hammer\nthem.  But, working with such tools, and working on such methods, those\ngoldsmiths and silversmiths, with all their art, found it impossible to\ngive an absolutely equal weight and worth to every piece of money that\nthey turned out.  For one thing, their cut and hammered coins had no\ncarved rims round their edges as all our gold and silver and even copper\ncoinage now has.  And, accordingly, the clever rogues of that day soon\ndiscovered that it was far easier for them to take up a pair of shears\nand to clip a sliver of silver off the rough rim of a shilling, or a\nshaving of gold off a sovereign, than it was to take of their coats and\nwork a hard day's work.  Till to clip the coin of the realm soon became\none of the easiest and most profitable kinds of crime.  In the time of\nElizabeth a great improvement was made in the way of coining the public\nmoney; but it was soon found that this had only made matters worse.  For\nnow, side by side with a pure and unimpaired and full-valued currency,\nand mingled up everywhere with it, there was the old, clipped, debased,\nand far too light gold and silver money; till troubles arose in\nconnection with the coinage and circulation of the country that can only\nbe told by Macaulay's extraordinarily graphic pen.  'It may well be\ndoubted,' Macaulay says, in the twenty-first chapter of his _History of\nEngland_, 'whether all the misery which has been inflicted on the English\nnation in a quarter of a century by bad Kings, bad Ministers, bad\nParliaments, and bad Judges was equal to the misery caused in a single\nyear by bad crowns and bad shillings.  Whether Whigs or Tories,\nProtestants or Papists were uppermost, the grazier drove his beasts to\nmarket, the grocer weighed out his currants, the draper measured out his\nbroadcloth, the hum of buyers and sellers was as loud as ever in the\ntowns; the cream overflowed the pails of Cheshire; the apple juice foamed\nin the presses of Herefordshire; the piles of crockery glowed in the\nfurnaces of the Trent, and the barrows of coal rolled fast along the\ntimber railways of the Tyne.  But when the great instrument of exchange\nbecame thoroughly deranged all trade and all industry were smitten as\nwith a palsy.  Nothing could be purchased without a dispute.  Over every\ncounter there was wrangling from morning to night.  The employer and his\nworkmen had a quarrel as regularly as Saturday night came round.  On a\nfair day or a market day the clamours, the disputes, the reproaches, the\ntaunts, the curses, were incessant.  No merchant would contract to\ndeliver goods without making some stipulation about the quality of the\ncoin in which he was to be paid.  The price of the necessaries of life,\nof shoes, of ale, of oatmeal, rose fast.  The bit of metal called a\nshilling the labourer found would not go so far as sixpence.  One day\nTonson sends forty brass shillings to Dryden, to say nothing of clipped\nmoney.  The great poet sends them all back and demands in their place\ngood guineas.  \"I expect,\" he says, \"good silver, not such as I had\nformerly.\"  Meanwhile, at every session of the Old Bailey the most\nterrible example of coiners and clippers was made.  Hurdles, with four,\nfive, six wretches convicted of counterfeiting or mutilating the money of\nthe realm, were dragged month after month up Holborn Hill.'  But I cannot\ncopy the whole chapter, wonderful as the writing is.  Suffice it to say\nthat before the clippers could be rooted out, and confidence restored\nbetween buyer and seller, the greatest statesmen, the greatest\nfinanciers, and the greatest philosophers were all at their wits' end.\nKings' speeches, cabinet councils, bills of Parliament, and showers of\npamphlets were all full in those days of the clipper and the coiner.  All\nJohn Locke's great intellect came short of grappling successfully with\nthe terrible crisis the clipper of the coin had brought upon England.\nCarry all that, then, over into the life of personal religion, after the\nmanner of our Lord's parables, and after the manner of the _Pilgrim's\nProgress_ and the _Holy War_, and you will see what an able and\nimpressive use John Bunyan will make of the shears of the coin-clippers\nof his day.  Macaulay has but made us ready to open and understand\nBunyan.  'After this, my Lord apprehended Clip-Promise.  Now, because he\nwas a notorious villain, for by his doings much of the king's coin was\nabused, therefore he was made a public example.  He was arraigned and\njudged to be set first in the pillory, then to be whipped by all the\nchildren and servants in Mansoul, and then to be hanged till he was dead.\nSome may wonder at the severity of this man's punishment, but those that\nare honest traders in Mansoul they are sensible of the great abuse that\none clipper of promises in little time may do in the town of Mansoul;\nand, truly, my judgment is that all those of his name and life should be\nserved out even as he.'\n\nThe grace of God is like a bullion mass of purest gold, and then Jesus\nChrist is the great ingot of that gold, and then Moses, and David, and\nIsaiah, and Hosea, and Paul, and Peter, and John are the inspired artists\nwho have commission to take both bullion and ingot, and out of them to\ncut, and beat, and smelt, and shape, and stamp, and superscribe the\npromises, and then to issue the promises to pass current in the market of\nsalvation like so many shekels, and pounds, and pence, and farthings, and\nmites, as the case may be.  And it was just these royal coins, imaged and\nsuperscribed so richly and so beautifully, that Clip-Promise so\nmutilated, abused, and debased, till for doing so he was hanged by the\nneck till he was dead.\n\n1.  The very house of Israel herself, the very Mint-house, Tower Hill,\nand Lombard Street of Israel herself, was full of false coiners and\nclippers of the promises; as full as ever England was at her very worst.\nIsrael clipped her Messianic promises and lived upon the clippings\ninstead of upon the coin.  Her coming Christ, and His salvation already\nbegun, were the true spiritual currency of Old Testament times; while\nround that central Image of her great promise there ran an outside rim of\nlesser promises that all took their true and their only value from Him\nwhose image and superscription stood within.  But those besotted and\ninfatuated men of Israel, instead of entering into and living by the\ngreat spiritual promises given to them in their Messiah, made lands, and\nhouses, and meat, and drink, all the Messiah they cared for.  Matthew\nHenry says that when we go to the merchant to buy goods, he gives us the\npaper and the pack-thread to the bargain.  Well, those children and fools\nin Israel actually threw away the goods and hoarded and boasted over the\npaper and the pack-thread.  Our old Scottish lawyers have made us\nfamiliar with the distinction in the church between _spiritualia_ and\n_temporalia_.  Well, the Jews let the _spiritualia_ go to those who cared\nto take such things, while they held fast to the _temporalia_.  And all\nthat went on till His disciples had the effrontery to clip and coin under\nour Lord's very eyes, and even to ask Him to hold the coin while they\nsharpened their shears.  'O faithless and perverse generation!  How long\nshall I be with you?  How long shall I suffer you?  Have I been so long\nwith you, and yet hast thou not known Me, Philip?  O fools, and slow of\nheart to believe all that the prophets have spoken!  And beginning at\nMoses and all the prophets He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the\nthings concerning Himself.'\n\n2.  But those who live in glass houses must take care not to throw\nstones.  And thus the greatest fool in Israel is safe from you and me.\nFor, like them, and just as if we had never read one word about them, we\nbend our hearts and our children's hearts to things seen and temporal,\nand then, after things seen and temporal have all cast us off, we begin\nto ask if there is any solace or sweetness for a cast-off heart in things\nunseen and eternal.  There are great gaps clipt out of our Bibles that\nnot God Himself can ever print or paste in again.  Look and see if half\nthe Book of Proverbs, for instance, with all its noble promises to a\ngodly youth, is not clipt clean out of your dismembered Bible.  That fine\nleaf also, 'My son, give Me thine heart,' is clean gone out of the twenty-\nthird chapter of the Proverbs years and years ago.  As is the best part\nof the noble Book of Daniel, and almost the whole of Second Timothy.\n'Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and meat and\ndrink, and wife and child shall be added unto you.'  Your suicidal shears\nhave cut that golden promise for ever out of your Sermon on the Mount.  So\nmuch so that if any or all of these temporal mercies ever come to you,\nthey will come of pure and undeserved mercy, for the time has long passed\nwhen you could plead any promise for them.  Still, there are two most\nexcellent uses left to which you can even yet put your mangled and\ndismembered Bible.  You can make a splendid use of its gaps and of its\ngashes, and of those waste places where great promises at one time stood.\nYou can make a grand use even of those gaps if you will descend into them\nand draw out of them humiliation and repentance, compunction, contrition,\nand resignation.  And this use also: When you are moved to take some man\nwho is still young into your confidence, ask him to let you see his Bible\nand then let him see yours, and point out to him the rents and wounds and\nwilderness places in yours.  And thus, by these two uses of a clipped-up\nand half-empty Bible, you may make gains that shall yet set you above\nthose whose Bibles of promises are still as fresh as when they came from\nGod's own hand.  And Samson said, I will now put forth a riddle unto you:\nOut of the eater came forth meat, and out of the strong came forth\nsweetness.\n\n3.  'Go out,' said the Lord of Mansoul, 'and apprehend Clip-Promise and\nbring him before me.'  And they did so.  'Go down to Edinburgh to-night,\nand go to the door of such and such a church, and, as he comes out arrest\nClip-the-Commandments, for he has heard My word all this day again but\nwill not do it.'  Where would you be by midnight if God rose up in anger\nand swore at this moment that your disobedient time should be no longer?\nYou would be speechless before such a charge, for the shears are in your\npocket at this moment with which you have clipped to pieces this Sabbath-\nday: shears red with the blood of the Fourth Commandment.  For, when did\nyou rise off your bed this resurrection morning?  And what did you do\nwhen you did rise?  What has your reading and your conversation been this\nwhole Lord's day?  How full your heart would have been of faith and love\nand holiness by this time of night had you not despised the Lord of the\nSabbath, and cast all His commandments and opportunities to you behind\nyour back?  What private exercise have you had all day with your Father\nwho sees in secret?  How often have you been on your knees, and where,\nand how long, and for what, and for whom?  What work of mercy have you\ndone to-day, or determined to do to-morrow?  And so with all the divine\ncommandments: Mosaic and Christian, legal and evangelical.  Such as: A\ntenth of all I have given to thee; a covenant with a wandering eye; a\nmouth once speaking evil, is it now well watched? not one vessel only,\nbut all the vessels of thy body sanctified till every thought and\nimagination is well under the obedience of Christ.  Lest His anger for\nall that begin to burn to-night, make your bed with Eli and Samuel in His\nsanctuary to-night, lest the avenger of the blood of the commandments\nleap out on you in your sleep!\n\n4.  The Old Serpent took with him the great shears of hell, and clipped\n'Thou shalt surely die' out of the second chapter of Genesis.  And the\nsame enemy of mankind will clip all the terror of the Lord out of your\nheart to-night again, if he can.  And he will do it in this way, if he\ncan.  He will have some one at the church door ready and waiting for you.\nAs soon as the blessing is pronounced, some one will take you by the arm\nand will entertain you with the talk you love, or that you once loved,\ntill you will be ashamed to confess that there is any terror or turning\nto God in your heart.  No!  Thou shalt not surely die, says the serpent\nstill.  Why, hast thou not trampled Sabbaths and sermons past counting\nunder thy feet?  What commandment, laid on body or soul, hast thou not\nbroken, and thou art still adding drunkenness to thirst, and God doth not\nknow!  'The woman said unto the serpent, We may not eat of it, neither\nmay we touch it, lest we die.  And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye\nshall not surely die.'\n\n5.  You must all have heard of Clito, who used to say that he desired no\nmore time for rising and dressing and saying his prayers than about a\nquarter of an hour.  Well, that was clipping the thing pretty close,\nwasn't it?  At the same time it must be admitted that a good deal of\nprayer may be got through in a quarter of an hour if you do not lose any\nmoment of it.  Especially in the first quarter of the day, if you are\nexpeditious enough to begin to pray before you even begin to dress.  And\nprayer is really a very strange experience.  There are things about\nprayer that no man has yet fully found out or told to any.  For one\nthing, once well began it grows upon a man in a most extraordinary and\nunheard-of way.  This same Clito for instance, some time after we find\nhim at his prayers before his eyes are open; and then he keeps all\nmorning making his bath, his soap, his towels, his brushes, and his\nclothes all one long artifice of prayer.  And that till there is not a\nsingle piece of his dressing-room furniture that is not ready to swear at\nthe last day that its master long before he died had become a man full of\nsecret prayer.  There is a fountain filled with blood! he exclaims, as he\nthrows himself into his bath; and Jeremiah second and twenty-second he\nuses regularly to repeat to himself half a dozen times a day as he washes\nthe smoke and dust of the city off his hands and face.  And then\nRevelation third and eighteenth till his toilet is completed.  Nay, this\nsame Clito has come to be such a devotee to that he had at one time been\nso expeditious with, that I have seen him forget himself on the street\nand think that his door was shut.  But there is really no use telling you\nall that about Clito.  For, till you try closet-prayer for yourself, all\nthat God or man can say to you on that subject will be water spilt on the\nground.  All we can say is, Try it.  Begin it.  Some desperate day try\nit.  Stop when you are on the way to the pond and try it.  Stop when you\nare fastening up the rope and try it.  When the poison is moving in the\ncup, stop, shut your door first.  Try God first.  See if He is still\nwaiting.  And, always after, when the steel shears of a too early, too\ncrowded, and far too exacting day are clipping you out of all time for\nprayer, then what should you do?  What do you do when you simply cannot\nget your proper fresh air and exercise everyday?  Do you not fall back on\nthe plasticity and pliability of nature and take your air and exercise in\nlarge parcels?  You take a ride into the country two or three times a\nweek.  Or, two afternoons a week you have ten miles alone if you cannot\nget a godly friend.  And then two or three times a year, if you can\nafford it, you climb an Alp or a Grampian every day for a week or a\nmonth; and, so gracious and so adaptable is human nature, that, what\nothers get daily, you get weekly, or monthly, or quarterly, or yearly.\nAnd, though a soul is not to be too much presumed upon, Clito came to\ntell his friends that his soul could on occasion take in prayer and\npraise enough for a week in a single morning or afternoon, and, almost,\nfor a whole year in a good holiday.  As Christ Himself did when He said:\nCome away apart into a desert place and rest a while; for there are so\nmany people coming and going here that we have no time so much as to eat.\n\n6.  But I see I must clip off my last point with you, which was to tell\nyou what you already know only too well, and that is, what terrible\nshears a bad conscience is armed with, and what havoc she makes at all\nages of a poor sinner's Bible.  But you can spare that head.  You can\npreach on that text to yourselves far better than all your ministers.\nOnly, take home with you these two lines I have clipped out of Fraser of\nBrea for you.  Nothing in man, he says to us, is to be a ground of\ndespair, since the whole ground of all our hope is in Christ alone.\nChrist's relation is always to men as they are sinners and not as they\nare righteous.  I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to\nrepentance.  'Tis with sinners, then, Christ has to do.  Nothing damns\nbut unbelief; and unbelief is just holding back from pressing God with\nthis promise, that Christ came to save sinners.  This is a faithful\nsaying, and worthy of all acceptation, and it is still to be found\nstanding in the most clipped-up Bible, that Christ Jesus came into the\nworld to save sinners; of whom I am chief.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI--STIFF MR. LOTH-TO-STOOP\n\n\n   'Thy neck is an iron sinew.'--_Jehovah to the house of Jacob_.\n\n   'King Zedekiah humbled not himself, but stiffened his neck.'--_The\n   Chronicles_.\n\n   'He humbled himself.'--_Paul on our Lord_.\n\nAll John Bunyan's Characters, Situations, and Episodes are collected into\nthis house to-night.  Obstinate and Pliable are here; Passion and\nPatience; Simple, Sloth, and Presumption; Madame Bubble and Mr. Worldly-\nwiseman; Talkative and By-ends; Deaf Mr. Prejudice is here also, and,\nsitting close beside him, stiff Mr. Loth-to-stoop; while good old Mr. Wet-\neyes and young Captain Self-denial are not wholly wanting.  It gives this\nhouse an immense and an ever-green interest to me to see character after\ncharacter coming trooping in, Sabbath evening after Sabbath evening, each\nman to see himself and his neighbour in John Bunyan's so truthful and so\nfearless glass.  But it stabs me to the heart with a mortal stab to see\nhow few of us out of this weekly congregation are any better men after\nall we come to see and to hear.  At the same time, such a constant\ndropping will surely in time wear away the hardest rock.  Let that so\nstiff old man, then, stiff old Mr. Loth-to-stoop, came forward and behold\nhis natural face in John Bunyan's glass again to-night.  'Lord, is it I?'\nwas a very good question, though put by a very bad man.  Let us, one and\nall, then, put the traitor's question to ourselves to-night.  Am I stiff\nold Loth-to-stoop?--let every man in this house say to himself all\nthrough this service, and then at home when reviewing the day, and then\nall to-morrow when to stoop will be so loathsome and so impossible to us\nall.\n\n1.  To begin, then, at the very bottom of this whole matter, take stiff\nold Loth-to-stoop as a guilty sinner in the sight of God.  Let us take\nthis stiff old man in this dreadful character to begin with, because it\nis in this deepest and most dreadful aspect of his nature and his\ncharacter that he is introduced to us in the _Holy War_.  And I shall\nstand aside and let John Bunyan himself describe Loth-to-stoop in the\nmatter of his justification before God.  'That is a great stoop for a\nsinner to have to take,' says our apostolic author in another classical\nplace, 'a too great stoop to have to suffer the total loss of all his own\nrighteousness, and, actually, to have to look to another for absolutely\neverything of that kind.  That is no easy matter for any man to do.  I\nassure you it stretches every vein in his heart before he will be brought\nto yield to that.  What! for a man to deny, reject, abhor, and throw away\nall his prayers, tears, alms, keeping of Sabbaths, hearing, reading, and\nall the rest, and to admit both himself and them to be abominable and\naccursed, and to be willing in the very midst of his sins to throw\nhimself wholly upon the righteousness and obedience of another man!  I\nsay to do that in deed and in truth is the biggest piece of the cross,\nand therefore it is that Paul calls it a suffering.  \"I have suffered the\nloss of all things that I might win Christ, and be found in Him, not\nhaving mine own righteousness.\"'  That is John Bunyan's characteristic\ncomment on stiff old Loth-to-stoop as a guilty sinner, with the offer of\na full forgiveness set before him.\n\n2.  And then our so truthful and so fertile author goes on to give us\nLoth-to-stoop as a half-saved sinner; a sinner, that is, trying to make\nhis own terms with God about his full salvation.  Through three most\npowerful pages we see stiff old Loth-to-stoop engaged in beating down\nGod's unalterable terms of salvation, and in bidding for his full\nsalvation upon his own reduced and easy terms.  It was the tremendous\nstoop of the Son of God from the throne of God to the cradle and the\ncarpenter's shop; and then, as if that were not enough, it was that other\ntremendous stoop of His down to the Garden and the Cross,--it was these\ntwo so tremendous stoops of Jesus Christ that made stiff old\nLoth-to-stoop's salvation even possible.  But, with all that, his true\nsalvation was not possible without stoop after stoop of his own; stoop\nafter stoop which, if not so tremendous as those of Christ, were yet\ntremendous enough, and too tremendous, for him.  Old Loth-to-stoop\ncarries on a long and a bold debate with Emmanuel in order to lessen the\nstoop that Emmanuel demands of him; and your own life and mine, my\nbrethren, at their deepest and at their closest to our own heart, are\nreally at bottom, like Loth-to-stoop's life, one long roup of salvation,\nin which God tries to get us up to His terms and in which we try to get\nHim down to our terms.  His terms are, that we shall sell absolutely all\nthat we have for the salvation of our souls; and our terms are, salvation\nor no salvation, to keep all that we have and to seek every day for more.\nGod absolutely demands that we shall stoop to the very dust every day,\ntill we become the poorest, the meanest, the most despicable, and the\nmost hopeless of men; whereas we meet that divine demand with the proud\nreply--Is Thy servant a dog?  It was with this offended mind that stiff\nold Loth-to-stoop at last left off from Emmanuel's presence; he would die\nrather than come down to such degrading terms.  And as Loth-to-stoop went\naway, Emmanuel looked after him, well remembering the terrible night when\nHe Himself was, not indeed like Loth-to-stoop, nor near like him, but\nwhen His own last stoop was so deep that it made Him cry out, Father,\nsave Me from this hour! and again, If it be possible let this so\ntremendous stoop pass from Me.  For a moment Emmanuel Himself was loth to\nstoop, but only for a moment.  For He soon rose from off His face in a\nbath of blood, saying, Not My will, but Thine be done!  When Thomas A\nKempis is negotiating with the Loth-to-stoops of his unevangelical day,\nwe hear him saying to them things like this: 'Jesus Christ was despised\nof men, forsaken of His friends and lovers, and in the midst of slanders.\nHe was willing, under His Father's will, to suffer and to be despised,\nand darest thou to complain of any man's usage of thee?  Christ, thy\nMaster, had enemies and back-biters, and dost thou expect to have all men\nto be thy friends and benefactors?  Whence shall thy patience attain her\npromised crown if no adversity befall thee?  Suffer thou with Jesus\nChrist, and for His sake, if thou wouldst reign with Him.  Set thyself,\ntherefore, to bear manfully the cross of thy Lord, who, out of love, was\ncrucified for thee.  Know for certain that thou must lead a daily dying\nlife.  And the more that thou diest to thyself all that the more shalt\nthou live unto God.'  With many such words as these did Thomas teach the\nsaints of his day to stoop to their daily cross; a daily cross then,\nwhich has now been for long to him and to them an everlasting crown.\n\n3.  And speaking of A Kempis, and having lately read some of his most\napposite chapters, such as that on the Holy Fathers and that on Obedience\nand Subjection, leads me on to look at Loth-to-stoop when he enters the\nsacred ministry, as he sometimes does.  When a half-converted,\nhalf-subdued, half-saved sinner gets himself called to the sacred\nministry his office will either greatly hasten on his salvation, or else\nit will greatly hinder and endanger it.  He will either stoop down every\nday to deeper and ever deeper depths of humility, or he will tower up in\npride of office and in pride of heart past all hope of humility, and thus\nof salvation.  The holy ministry is a great nursing-house of pride as we\nsee in a long line of popes, and prelates, and priests, and other lords\nover God's heritage.  And our own Presbyterian polity, while it hands\ndown to us the simplicity, the unity, the brotherhood, and the humility\nof the apostolic age, at the same time leaves plenty of temptation and\nplenty of opportunity for the pride of the human heart.  Our preaching\nand pastoral office, when it is aright laid to our hearts, will always\nmake us the meekest and the humblest of men, even when we carry the most\nmagnificent of messages.  But when our own hearts are not right the very\nmagnificence of our message, and the very authority of our Master, become\nall so many subtle temptations to pride, pique, self-importance, and\nlothness-to-stoop.  With so much still to learn, how slow we ministers\nare to stoop to learn!  How still we stand, and even go back, when all\nother men are going forward!  How few of us have made the noble\nresolution of Jonathan Edwards: 'Resolved,' he wrote, 'that, as old men\nhave seldom any advantage of new discoveries because these are beside a\nway of thinking they have been long used to: resolved, therefore, if ever\nI live to years, that I shall be impartial to hear the reasons of all\npretended discoveries, and to receive them, if rational how long soever I\nhave been used to another way of thinking.'  Let all ministers, then,\nyoung and old, resolve to stoop with Jonathan Edwards, who shines, in his\nlife and in his works, like the cherubim with knowledge, and burns like\nthe seraphim with love.\n\nAnd then, when, not having so resolved, our thin vein of youthful\nknowledge and experience has been worked to the rock; when grey hairs are\nhere and there upon us, how slow we are to stoop to that!  How unwilling\nwe are to let it light on our hearts that our time is past; that we are\nno longer able to understand, or interest, or attract the young; and,\nbesides, that that is not all their blame, no, nor ours either, but\nsimply the order and method of Divine Providence.  How slow we are to see\nthat Divine Providence has other men standing ready to take up our work\nif we would only humbly lay it down;--how loth we are to stoop to see all\nthat!  How unwilling we are to make up our minds, we old and ageing\nministers, and to humble our hearts to accept an assistant or to submit\nto a colleague to stand alongside of us in our unaccomplished work!\n\n4.  In public life also, as we call it, what disasters to the state, to\nthe services, and to society, are constantly caused by this same Loth-to-\nstoop!  When he holds any public office; when he becomes the leader of a\nparty; when he is promoted to be an adviser of the Crown; when he is put\nat the head of a fleet of ships, or of an army of men, what untold evils\ndoes Loth-to-stoop bring both on himself and on the nation!  An old\nstatesman will have committed himself to some line of legislation or of\nadministration; a great captain will have committed himself to some\nmanoeuvre of a squadron or of a division, or to some plan of battle, and\nsome subordinate will have discovered the error his leader has made, and\nwill be bold to point it out to him.  But stiff old Loth-to-stoop has\ntaken his line and has passed his word.  His honour, as he holds it, is\ncommitted to this announced line of action; and, if the Crown itself\nshould perish before his policy, he will not stoop to change it.  How\noften you see that in great affairs as well as in small.  How seldom you\nsee a public man openly confessing that he has hitherto all along been\nwrong, and that he has at last and by others been set right.  Not once in\na generation.  But even that once redeems public life; it ennobles public\nlife; and it saves the nation and the sovereign who possess such a true\npatriot.  Consistency and courage, independence and dignity, are high-\nsounding words; but openness of mind, teachableness, diffidence, and\nhumility always go with true nobility as well as with ultimate success\nand lasting honour.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII--THAT VARLET ILL-PAUSE, THE DEVIL'S ORATOR\n\n\n   'I made haste and delayed not.'--_David_.\n\nJohn Bunyan shall himself introduce, describe, and characterise this\nvarlet, this devil's ally and accomplice, this ancient enemy of Mansoul,\nwhose name is Ill-pause.  Well, this same Ill-pause, says our author, was\nthe orator of Diabolus on all difficult occasions, nor took Diabolus any\nother one with him on difficult occasions, but just Ill-pause alone.  And\nalways when Diabolus had any special plot a-foot against Mansoul, and\nwhen the thing went as Diabolus would have it go, then would Ill-pause\nstand up, for he was Diabolus his orator.  When Mansoul was under siege\nof Emmanuel his four noble captains sent a message to the men of the town\nthat if they would only throw Ill-pause over the wall to them, that they\nmight reward him according to his works, then they would hold a parley\nwith the city; but if this varlet was to be let live in the city, then,\nwhy, the city must see to the consequences.  At which Diabolus, who was\nthere present, was loth to lose his orator, because, had the four\ncaptains once laid their fingers on Ill-pause, be sure his master had\nlost his orator.  And, then, in the last assault, we read that Ill-pause,\nthe orator that came along with Diabolus, he also received a grievous\nwound in the head, some say that his brain-pan was cracked.  This, at any\nrate, I have taken notice of, that never after this was he able to do\nthat mischief to Mansoul as he had done in times past.  And then there\nwas also at Eye-gate that Ill-pause of whom you have heard before.  The\nsame was he that was orator to Diabolus.  He did much mischief to the\ntown of Mansoul, till at last he fell by the hand of the Captain Good-\nhope.\n\n1.  Well, to begin with, this Ill-pause was a filthy Diabolonian varlet;\na treacherous and a villainous old varlet, the author of the _Holy War_\ncalls him.  Now, what is a varlet?  Well, a varlet is just a broken-down\nold valet.  A varlet is a valet who has come down, and down, and down,\nand down again in the world, till, from once having been the servant and\nthe trusty friend of the very best of masters, he has come to be the ally\nand accomplice of the very worst of masters.  His first name, the name of\nhis first office, still sticks to him, indeed; but, like himself, and\nwith himself, his name has become depraved and corrupted till you would\nnot know it.  A varlet, then, is just short and sharp for a scoundrel who\nis ready for anything; and the worse the thing is the more ready he is\nfor it.  There are riff-raff and refuse always about who are ready to\nvolunteer for any filibustering expedition; and that full as much for the\nsheer devilry of the enterprise as for any real profit it is to be to\nthemselves.  Wherever mischief is to be done, there your true varlet is\nsure to turn up.  Well, just such a land-shark was this Ill-pause, who\nwas such an ally and accomplice to Diabolus that he had need for no\nother.  What possible certificate in evil could exceed this--that the\ndevil took not any with him when he went out on his worst errand but this\nsame Ill-pause, who was his orator on all his most difficult occasions?\n\n2.  Ill-pause was a varlet, then, and he was also an orator.  Now, an\norator, as you know, is a great speaker.  An orator is a man who has the\nexcellent and influential gift of public speech.  And on great occasions\nin public life when people are to be instructed, and impressed, and\nmoved, and won over, then the great orator sets up his platform.\nQuintilian teaches us in his _Institutes_ that it is only a good man who\ncan be a really great orator.  What would that fine writer have said had\nhe lived to read the _Holy War_, and seen the most successful of all\norators that ever opened a mouth, and who was all the time a diabolical\nold varlet?  What would the author of _The Education of an Orator_ have\nsaid to that?  Diabolus did not on every occasion bring up his great\norator Ill-pause.  He did not always come up himself, and he did not\nalways send up Ill-pause.  It was only on difficult occasions that both\nDiabolus and his orator also came up.  You do not hear your great\npreachers every Sabbath.  They would not long remain great preachers, and\nyou would soon cease to pay any attention to them, if they were always in\nthe pulpit.  Neither do you have your great orators at every street\ncorner.  Their masters only build theatres for them when some great\noccasion arises in the land, and when the best wisdom must straightway be\nspoken to the people and in the best way.  Then you bring up Quintilian's\norator if you have him at your call.  As Diabolus has done from time to\ntime with his great and almost always successful orator Ill-pause.  On\ndifficult occasions he came himself on the scene and Ill-pause with him.\nOn such difficult occasions as in the Garden of Eden; as when Noah was\ntold to make haste and build an ark; as also when Abraham was told to\nmake haste and leave his father's house; when Jacob was bid remember and\npay the vow he had made when his trouble was upon him; as also when\nJoseph had to flee for what was better than life; and on that memorable\noccasion when David sent Joab out against Rabbah, but David tarried still\nat Jerusalem.  On all these essential, first-class, and difficult\noccasions the old serpent brought up Ill-pause.  As also when our Lord\nwas in the wilderness; when He set His face to go up to Jerusalem; when\nHe saw certain Greeks among them that came up to the passover; as also\nagain and again in the Garden.  As also on crucial occasions in your own\nlife.  As when you had been told not to eat, not to touch, and not even\nto look at the forbidden fruit, then Ill-pause, the devil's orator, came\nto you and said that it was a tree to be desired.  And, you shall not\nsurely die.  As also when you were moved to terror and to tears under a\nSabbath, or under a sermon, or at some death-bed, or on your own sick-\nbed--Ill-pause got you to put off till a more convenient season your\nadmitted need of repentance and reformation and peace with God.  On such\ndifficult occasions as these the devil took Ill-pause to help him with\nyou, and the result, from the devil's point of view, has justified his\nconfidence in his orator.  When Ill-pause gets his new honours paid him\nin hell; when there is a new joy in hell over another sinner that has not\nyet repented, your name will be heard sounding among the infernal cheers.\nJust think of your baptismal name and your pet name at home giving them\njoy to-night at their supper in hell!  And yet one would not at first\nsight think that such triumphs and such toasts, such medals, and clasps,\nand garters were to be won on earth or in hell just by saying such simple-\nsounding and such commonplace things as those are for which Ill-pause\nreceives his decorations.  'Take time,' he says.  'Yes,' he admits, 'but\nthere is no such hurry; to-morrow will do; next year will do; after you\nare old will do quite as well.  The darkness shall cover you, and your\nsin will not find you out.  Christ died for sin, and it is a faithful\nsaying that His blood will cleanse you later on from all this sin.'\nEveryday and well-known words, indeed, but a true orator is seen in\nnothing more than in this, that he can take up what everybody knows and\nsays, and put it so as to carry everybody captive.  One of Quintilian's\nown orators has said that a great speaker only gives back to his hearers\nin flood what they have already given to him in vapour.\n\n3.  'I was always pleased,' says Calvin, 'with that saying of Chrysostom,\n\"The foundation of our philosophy is humility\"; and yet more pleased with\nthat of Augustine: \"As,\" says he, \"the rhetorician being asked, What was\nthe first thing in the rules of eloquence? he answered, Pronunciation;\nwhat was the second? Pronunciation; what was the third? and still he\nanswered, Pronunciation.  So if you would ask me concerning the precepts\nof the Christian religion, I would answer, firstly, secondly, thirdly,\nand for ever, Humility.\"'  And when Ill-pause opened his elocutionary\nschool for the young orators of hell, he is reported to have said this to\nthem in his opening address, 'There are only three things in my school,'\nhe said; 'three rules, and no more to be called rules.  The first is\nDelay, the second is Delay, and the third is Delay.  Study the art of\ndelay, my sons; make all your studies to tell on how to make the fools\ndelay.  Only get those to whom your master sends you to delay, and you\nwill not need to envy me my laurels; you will soon have a shining crown\nof your own.  Get the father to delay teaching his little boy how to\npray.  Get him on any pretext you can invent to put off speaking in\nprivate to his son about his soul.  Get him to delegate all that to the\nminister.  And then by hook or by crook get that son as he grows up to\nput off the Lord's Supper.  And after that you will easily get him to put\noff purity and prayer till he is a married man and at the head of a\nhouse.  Only get the idea of a more convenient season well into their\nheads, and their game is up, and your spurs are won.  Take their arm in\nyours, as I used to do, at their church door, if you are posted there,\nand say to them as they come out that to-morrow will be time enough to\ngive what they had thought of giving while they were still in their pew\nand the minister or missionary was still in the pulpit.  Only, as you\nvalue your master's praises and the applause of all this place, keep\nthem, at any cost, from striking while the iron is hot.  Let them fill\ntheir hearts, and their mouths too, if it gives them any comfort, with\nthe best intentions; only, my scholars, remember that the beginning and\nmiddle and end of your office is by hook or by crook to secure delay.'\nAnd a great crop of young orators sprang up ready for their work under\nthat teaching and out of the persuasionary school of Ill-pause.  In fine,\nMansoul desired some time in which to prepare its answer.'\n\nThere are many men among ourselves who have been bedevilled out of their\nbest life, out of the salvation of their souls, and out of all that\nconstitutes and accompanies salvation now for many years.  And still\ntheir sin-deceived hearts are saying to them to-night, Take time!  For\nmany years, every new year, every birthday, and, for a long time, every\nCommunion-day, they were just about to be done with their besetting sin;\nand now all the years lie behind them, one long downward road all paved,\ndown to this Sabbath night, with the best intentions.  And, still, as if\nthat were not enough, that same varlet is squat at their ear.  Well, my\nvery miserable brother, you have long talked about the end of an old year\nand the beginning of a new year as being your set time for repentance and\nfor reformation.  Let all the weight of those so many remorseful years\nfall on your heart at the close of this year, and at last compel you to\ntake the step that should have been taken, oh! so many unhappy years ago!\nGo straight home then, to-night, shut your door, and, after so many\ndesecrated Sabbath nights, God will still meet you in your secret\nchamber.  As soon as you shut your door God will be with you, and you\nwill be with God.  With GOD!  Think of it, my brother, and the thing is\ndone.  With GOD!  And then tell Him all.  And if any one knocks at your\ndoor, say that there is Some One with you to-night, and that you cannot\ncome down.  And continue till you have told it all to God.  He knows it\nall already; but that is one of Ill-pause's sophistries still in your\nheart.  Tell your Father it all.  Tell Him how many years it is.  Tell\nHim all that you so well remember over all those wild, miserable, mad,\nremorseful years.  Tell Him that you have not had one really happy, one\nreally satisfied day all those years, and tell Him that you have spent\nall, and are now no longer a young man; youth and health and self-respect\nand self-command are all gone, till you are a shipwreck rather than a\nman.  And tell Him that if He will take you back that you are to-night at\nHis feet.\n\n4.  'We seldom overcome any one vice perfectly,' complains A Kempis.  And,\nagain, 'If only every new year we would root out but one vice.'  Well,\nnow, what do you say to that, my true and very brethren?  What do you say\nto that?  Here we are, by God's grace and long-suffering to usward, near\nthe end of another year, another vicious year; and why have we been borne\nwith through so many vicious years but that we should now cease from vice\nand begin to learn virtue?  Why are we here over Ill-pause this Sabbath\nnight?  Why, but that we should shake off that varlet liar before another\nnew year.  That is the whole reason why we have been spared to see this\nSabbath night.  God decreed it for us that we should have this text and\nthis discourse here to-night, and that is the reason why you and I have\nbeen so unaccountably spared so long.  Let us select one vice for the axe\nthen to-night, and give God in heaven the satisfaction of seeing that His\nlong-suffering with us has not been wholly in vain.  Let us lay the axe\nat one vice from this night.  And what one from among so many shall it\nbe?  What is the mockery of preaching if a preacher does not practise?\nAnd, accordingly, I have selected one vice out of my thicket for next\nyear.  Will you do the same?  The secret of the Lord is with them that\nfear Him.  Just make your selection and keep it to yourself, at least\ntill you are able this time next year to say to us--Come, all ye that\nfear God, and I will tell you what He hath done for my soul.  Yes, come\non, and from this day all your days on earth, and all the days of\neternity, you will thank God for John Bunyan and his _Holy War_ and his\nIll-pause.  Make your selection, then, for your new axe.  Attack some one\nsin at this so auspicious season.  Swear before God, and unknown to all\nmen--swear sure death, and that without any more delay, to that selected\nsin.  Never once, all your days, do that sin again.  Determine never once\nto do it again.  Determine that by prayer, by secret, and at the same\ntime outspoken, prayer on your knees.  Determine it by faith in the\ncleansing blood and renewing spirit of Jesus Christ.  Determine it by\nfear of instant death, and by sure hope of everlasting life.  Determine\nit by reasons, and motives, and arguments, and encouragements known to no-\none but yourself, and to be suspected by no human being.  Name the doomed\nsin.  Denounce it.  Execrate it.  Execute it.  Draw a line across your\nshort and uncertain life, and say to that besetting and presumptuous sin,\nHitherto, and no further!  Do not say you cannot do it.  You can if you\nonly will.  You can if you only choose.  And smiting down that one sin\nwill loosen and shake down the whole evil fabric of sin.  Breaking but\nthat one link will break the whole of Satan's snare and evil fetter.  Here\nis A Kempis's forest of vices out of which he hewed down one every year.\nRestless lust, outward senses, empty phantoms, always longing to get,\nalways sparing to give, careless as to talk, unwilling to sit silent,\neager for food, wakeful for news, weary of a good book, quick to anger,\neasy of offence at my neighbour, and too ready to judge him, too merry\nover prosperity, and too gloomy, fretful, and peevish in adversity; so\noften making good rules for my future life, and coming so little speed\nwith them all, and so on.  And, in facing even such a terrible thicket as\nthat, let not even an old man absolutely despair.  At forty, at sixty, at\nthreescore and ten, let not an old penitent despair.  Only take axe in\nhand and see if the sun does not stand still upon Gibeon, and the moon in\nthe valley of Ajalon till you have avenged yourself on your enemies.  And\nalways when you stop to wipe your brow, and to whet the edge of your axe,\nand to wet your lips with water, keep on saying things like those of\nanother great sinner deep in his thicket of vice, say this: O God, he\nsaid, Thou hast not cut off as a weaver my life, nor from day even to\nnight hast Thou made an end of me.  But Thou hast vouchsafed to me life\nand breath even to this hour from childhood, youth, and hitherto even\nunto old age.  He holdeth our soul in life, and suffereth not our feet to\nslide, rescuing me from perils, sicknesses, poverty, bondage, public\nshame, evil chances; keeping me from perishing in my sins, and waiting\npatiently for my full conversion.  Glory be to Thee, O Lord, glory to\nThee, for Thine incomprehensible and unimaginable goodness toward me of\nall sinners far and away the most unworthy.  The voices and the concert\nof voices of angels and men be to Thee; the concert of all thy saints in\nheaven and of all Thy creatures in heaven and on earth; and of me,\nbeneath their feet an unworthy and wretched sinner, Thy abject creature;\nmy praise also, now, in this day and hour, and every day till my last\nbreath, and till the end of this world, and then to all eternity, where\nthey cease not saying, To Him who loved us, Amen!\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIII--MR. PENNY-WISE-AND-POUND-FOOLISH, AND MR.\nGET-I'-THE-HUNDRED-AND-LOSE-I'-THE-SHIRE\n\n\n   'For, what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world,\n   and lose his own soul?'--_Our Lord_.\n\nThis whole world is the penny, and our own souls are the pound.  This\nwhole world is the hundred, while heaven itself is the shire.  And the\nquestion this evening is, Are we wise in the penny and foolish in the\npound?  And, are we getting in the hundred and losing in the shire?\n\n1.  Well, then, to begin at the beginning, we are already begun to be\npenny-wise and pound-foolish with our children when we are so particular\nwith them about their saying their little prayers night and morning,\nwhile all the time we are so inattentive and so indolent to explain to\nthem how they are to pray, what they are to pray for, and how they are to\nwait and how long they are to wait for the things they pray for.  Then,\nagain, we are penny-wise and pound-foolish with our children when we\ntrain them up into all the proprieties and etiquettes of family and\nsocial life, and at the same time pay so little attention to their inward\nlife of opening thought and quickening desire and awakening passion.  When\nwe are so eager also for our children to be great with great people,\nwithout much regard to the moral and religious character of those great\npeople, then again we are like a man who may be wise for a penny, but is\ncertainly a fool for a pound.  When we prefer the gay and the fashionable\nworld to the intellectual, the religious, and the philanthropical world\nfor our children, then we lose both the penny and the pound as well.\nAlmost as much as we do when we accept the penny of wealth and station\nand so-called connection for a son or a daughter, in room of the pound of\ncharacter, and intelligence, and personal religion.\n\nThen, again, even in our own religious life we are ourselves often and\nnotoriously wise in the penny and foolish in the pound.  As, for\ninstance, when we are so scrupulous and so conscientious about forms and\nceremonies, about times and places, and so on.  In short, the whole\nritual that has risen up around spiritual religion in all our churches,\nfrom that of the Pope himself out to that of George Fox--it is all the\npenny rather than the pound.  This rite and that ceremony; this habit and\nthat tradition; this ancient and long-established usage, as well as that\nnew departure and that threatened innovation;--it is all, at its best,\nalways the penny and never the pound.  Satan busied me about the lesser\nmatters of religion, says James Fraser of Brea, and made me neglect the\nmore substantial points.  He made me tithe to God my mint, and my anise\nand my cummin, and many other of my herbs, to my all but complete neglect\nof justice and mercy and faith and love.  Whether there are any of the\nthings that Brea would call mint and anise and cummin that are taking up\ntoo much of the time of our controversially-minded men in all our\nchurches, highland and lowland, to-day is a matter for humbling thought.\nLabour, my brethren, for yourselves, at any rate, to get yourselves into\nthat sane and sober habit of mind that instantly and instinctively puts\nall mint and all cummin of all kinds into the second place, and all the\nweightier matters, both of law and of gospel, into the first place.  I\nwasted myself on too nice points, laments Brea in his deep, honest, clear-\neyed autobiography.  I did not proportion my religious things aright.  The\nlaird of Brea does not say in as many words that he was wise in the penny\nand foolish in the pound, but that is exactly what he means.\n\nThen, again, the narrowness, the partiality, the sickliness, and the\nsqueamishness of our consciences,--all that makes us to be too often\npenny-wise and pound-foolish in our religious life.  A well-instructed,\nthoroughly wise, and well-balanced conscience is an immense blessing to\nthat man who has purchased such a conscience for himself.  There is an\nimmense and a criminal waste of conscience that goes on among some of our\nbest Christian people through the want of light and space, room, and\nbreadth, and balance in their consciences.  We are all pestered with\npeople every day who are full of all manner of childish scrupulosity and\nsickly squeamishness in their ill-nourished, ill-exercised consciences.\nAs long as a man's conscience is ignorant and weak and sickly it will, it\nmust, spend and waste itself on the pennyworths of religion and' morals\ninstead of the pounds.  It will occupy and torture itself with points and\npunctilios, jots and tittles, to the all but total oblivion, and to the\nall but complete neglect, of the substance and the essence of the\nChristian mind, the Christian heart, and the Christian character.  The\nwashing of hands, of cups, and of pots, was all the conscience that\nmultitudes had in our Lord's day; and multitudes in our day scatter and\nwaste their consciences on the same things.  A good man, an otherwise\ngood and admirable man, will absolutely ruin and destroy his conscience\nby points and scruples and traditions of men as fatally as another will\nby a life of debauchery.  Some old and decayed ecclesiastical rubric;\nsome absolutely indifferent form in public worship; some small\ncasuistical question about a creed or a catechism; some too nice point of\nconfessional interpretation; the mint and anise and cummin of such\nmatters will fill and inflame and poison a man's mind and heart and\nconscience for months and for years, to the total destruction of all that\nfor which churches and creeds exist; to the total suspense, if not the\ntotal and lasting destruction, of sobriety of mind, balance and breadth\nof judgment, humility, charity, and a hidden and a holy life.  The penny\nof a perverted, partial, and fanaticised conscience has swallowed up the\npound of instruction, and truth, and justice, and brotherly love.\n\n2.  'Nor is the man with the long name at all inferior to the other,'\nsaid Lucifer, in laying his infernal plot against the peace and\nprosperity of Mansoul.  Now, the man with the long name was just Mr. Get-\ni'-the-hundred-and-lose-i'-the-shire.  A hundred in the old county\ngeography of England was a political subdivision of a shire, in which\nfive score freemen lived with their freeborn families.  A county or a\nshire was described and enumerated by the poll-sheriff of that day as\ncontaining so many enfranchised hundreds; and the total number of\nhundreds made up the political unity of the shire.  To this day we still\nhear from time to time of the 'Chiltern Hundreds,' which is a division of\nBuckinghamshire that belongs, along with its political franchise, to the\nCrown, and which is utilised for Crown purposes at certain political\nemergencies.  This proverb, then, to get i' the hundred and lose i' the\nshire, is now quite plain to us.  You might canvass so as to get a\nhundred, several hundreds, many hundreds on your side, and yet you might\nlose when it came to counting up the whole shire.  You might possess\nyourself of a hundred or two and yet be poor compared with him who\npossessed the whole shire.  And then the proverb has been preserved out\nof the old political life of England, and has been moralised and\nspiritualised to us in the _Holy War_.  And thus after to-night we shall\nalways call this shrewd proverb to mind when we are tempted to take a\npart at the risk of the whole; to receive this world at the loss of the\nnext world; or, as our Lord has it, to gain the whole world and to lose\nour own soul.  Lot's choice of Sodom and Gomorrah, and Esau's purchase of\nthe mess of pottage in the Old Testament; and then Judas's thirty pieces\nof silver, and Ananias and Sapphira's part of the price in the New\nTestament, are all so many well-known instances of getting in the hundred\nand losing in the shire.  And not Esau's and Lot's only, but our own\nlives also have been full up to to-day of the same fatal transaction.\nThis house, as our Lord again has it, this farm, this merchandise, this\nshop, this office, this salary, this honour, this home--all this on the\none hand, and then our Lord Himself, His call, His cause, His Church,\nwith everlasting life in the other--when it is set down before us in\nblack and white in that way, the transaction, the proposal, the choice is\npreposterous, is insane, is absolutely impossible.  But preposterous,\ninsane, absolutely impossible, and all, there it is, in our own lives, in\nthe lives of our sons and daughters, and in the lives of multitudes of\nother men and other men's sons and daughters besides ours.  Every day you\nwill be taken in, and you will stand by and see other men taken in with\nthe present penny for the future pound: and with the poor pelting hundred\nunder your eye for the full, far-extending, and ever-enriching shire.\nLucifer is always abroad pressing on us in his malice the penny on the\nspot, for the pound which he keeps out of sight; he dazzles our eyes with\nthe gain of the hundred till we gnash our teeth at the loss of the shire.\n\n   'He hath in sooth good cause for endless grief,\n   Who, for the love of thing that lasteth not,\n   Despoils himself for ever of THAT LOVE.'\n\n3.  'What also if we join with those two another two of ours, Mr. Sweet-\nworld and Mr. Present-good, namely, for they are two men full of civility\nand cunning.  Let these engage in this business for us, and let Mansoul\nbe taken up with much business, and if possible with much pleasure, and\nthis is the way to get ground of them.  Let us but cumber and occupy and\namuse Mansoul sufficiently, and they will make their castle a warehouse\nfor goods instead of a garrison for men of war.'  This diabolical advice\nwas highly applauded all through hell till all the lesser devils, while\nsetting themselves to carry it out, gnashed their teeth with envy and\nmalice at Lucifer for having thought of this masterpiece and for having\nhad it received with such loud acclamation.  'Only get them,' so went on\nthat so able, so well-envied, and so well-hated devil, 'let us only get\nthose fribble sinners for a night at a time to forget their misery.  And\nit will not cost us much to do that.  Only let us offer them in one\nanother's houses a supper, a dance, a pipe, a newspaper full of their own\nshame, a tale full of their own folly, a silly song, and He who loved\nthem with an everlasting love will soon see of the travail of His soul in\nthem!'  Yes, my fellow-sinners, Lucifer and his infernal crew know us and\ndespise us and entrap us at very little trouble, till He who travailed\nfor us on the tree covers His face in heaven and weeps over us.  As long\nas we remember our misery, all the mind, and all the malice, and all the\nsleeplessness in hell cannot touch a hair of our head.  But when by any\nemissary and opportunity either from earth around us or from hell beneath\nus we for another night forget our misery, it is all over with us.  And\nyet, to tell the truth, we never can quite forget our misery.  We are too\nmiserable ever to forget our misery.  In the full steam of Lucifer's best-\nspread supper, amid the shouts of laughter and the clapping of hands, and\nall the outward appearance of a complete forgetfulness of our misery, yet\nit is not so.  It is far from being so.  Our misery is far too\ndeep-seated for all the devil's drugs.  Only, to give Lucifer his due, we\ndo sometimes, under him, so get out of touch with the true consolation\nfor our misery that, night after night, through cumber, through pursuit\nof pleasure, through the time being taken up with these and other like\nthings, we do so far forget our misery as to lie down without dealing\nwith it; but only to have it awaken us, and take our arm as its own for\nanother miserable day.  Yes; though never completely successful, yet this\nmasterpiece of hell is sufficiently successful for Satan's subtlest\npurposes; which are, not to make us forget our misery, but to make us put\nit away from us at the natural and proper hour for facing it and for\ndealing with it in the only proper and successful way.  But, wholly, any\nnight, or even partially for a few nights at a time, to forget our\nmisery--no, with all thy subtlety of intellect and with all thy\nhell-filled heart, O Lucifer, that is to us impossible!  Forget our\nmisery!  O devil of devils, no!  Bless God, that can never be with us!\nOur misery is too deep, too dreadful, too acute, too all-consuming ever\nto be forgotten by us even for an hour.  Our misery is too terrible for\nthee, with all thy overthrown intellect and all thy malice-filled heart,\never to understand!  Didst thou for one midnight hour taste it, and so\nunderstand it, then there would be the same hope for thee that, I bless\nGod, there still is for me!\n\nLet us bend all our strength and all our wit to this, went on Lucifer, to\nmake their castle a warehouse instead of a garrison.  Let us set\nourselves and all our allies, he explained to the duller-witted among the\ndevils, to make their hearts a shop,--some of them, you know, are\nshopkeepers; a bank,--some of them are bankers; a farm,--some of them are\nfarmers; a study,--some of them are students; a pulpit,--some of them\nlike to preach; a table,--some of them are gluttons; a drawing-room,--some\nof them are busybodies who forget their own misery in retailing other\npeople's misery from house to house.  Be wise as serpents, said the old\nserpent; attend, each several fallen angel of you, to his own special\ncharge.  Study your man.  Get to the bottom of your man.  Follow him\nabout; never let him out of your sight; be sure before you begin, be sure\nyou have the joint in his harness, the spot in his heel, the chink in his\nwall full in your eye.  I do not surely need to tell you not to scatter\nour snares for souls at random, he went on.  Give the minister his study\nBible, the student his classic, the merchant his ledger, the glutton his\nwell-dressed dish and his elect year of wine, the gossip her sweet\nsecret, and the flirt her fool.  Study them till they are all naked and\nopen to your sharp eyes.  Find out what best makes them forget even for\none night their misery and ply them with that.  If I ever see that soul I\nhave set thee over on his knees on account of his misery I shall fling\nthee on the spot into the bottomless pit.  And if any of you shall\nanywhere discover a man--and there are such men--a man who forgets his\nmisery through always thinking and speaking about it, only keep him in\nhis pulpit, and off his knees, and no man so safe for hell as he.  There\nare fools, and there are double-dyed fools, and that man is the chief of\nthem.  Give him his fill of sin and misery; let him luxuriate himself in\nsin and misery; only, keep him there, and I will not forget thy most\nexcellent service to me.\n\nMake all their hearts, so Lucifer summed up, as he dismissed his\nobsequious devils, make all their several hearts each a warehouse, a\nshop, a farm, a pulpit, a library, a nursery, a supper-table, a chamber\nof wantonness--let it be to each man just after his own heart.  Only,\nkeep--as you shall answer for it,--keep faith and hope and charity and\ninnocence and patience and especially prayerfulness out of their hearts.\nAnd when this my counsel is fulfilled, and when the pit closes over thy\ncharge, I shall pay thee thy wages, and promote thee to honour.  And\nbefore he was well done they were all at their posts.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIV--THE DEVIL'S LAST CARD\n\n\n   'Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light'--_Paul_.\n\nWodrow has an anecdote in his delightful _Analecta_ which shall introduce\nus into our subject to-night.  Mr. John Menzies was a very pious and\ndevoted pastor; he was a learned man also, and well seen in the Popish\nand in the Arminian controversies.  And to the end of his life he was\nmuch esteemed of the people of Aberdeen as a foremost preacher of the\ngospel.  And yet, 'Oh to have one more Sabbath in my pulpit!' he cried\nout on his death-bed.  'What would you then do?' asked some one who sat\nat his bedside.  'I would preach to my people on the tremendous\ndifficulty of salvation!' exclaimed the dying man.\n\n1.  Now, the first difficulty that stands in the way of our salvation is\nthe stupendous mass of guilt that has accumulated upon all of us.  Our\nguilt is so great that we dare not think of it.  It is too horrible to\nbelieve that we shall ever be called to account for one in a thousand of\nit.  It crushes our minds with a perfect stupor of horror, when for a\nmoment we try to imagine a day of judgment when we shall be judged for\nall the deeds that we have done in the body.  Heart-beat after\nheart-beat, breath after breath, hour after hour, day after day, year\nafter year, and all full of sin; all nothing but sin from our mother's\nwomb to our grave.  Sometimes one outstanding act of sin has quite\noverwhelmed us.  But before long that awful sin fell out of sight and out\nof mind.  Other sins of the same kind succeeded it.  Our sense of sin,\nour sense of guilt was soon extinguished by a life of sin, till, at the\npresent moment the accumulated and tremendous load of our sin and guilt\nis no more felt by us than we feel the tremendous load of the atmosphere.\nBut, all the time, does not our great guilt lie sealed down upon us?\nBecause we are too seared and too stupefied to feel it, is it therefore\nnot there?  Because we never think of it, does that prove that both God\nand man have forgiven and forgotten it?  Shall the Judge of all the earth\ndo right in the matter of all men's guilt but ours?  Does the apostle's\nwarning not hold in our case?--his awful warning that we shall all stand\nbefore the judgment-seat?  And is it only a strong figure of speech that\nthe books shall be opened till we shall cry to the mountains to fall on\nus and to the rocks to cover us?  Oh no! the truth is, the half has not\nbeen told us of the speechless stupefaction that shall fall on us when\nthe trumpet shall sound and when Alp upon Alp of aggravated guilt shall\nrise up high as heaven between us and our salvation.  Difficulty is not\nthe name for guilt like ours.  Impossibility is the better name we should\nalways know it by.\n\n2.  Another difficulty or impossibility to our salvation rises out of the\nawful corruption and pollution of our hearts.  But is there any use\nentering on that subject?  Is there one man in a hundred who even knows\nthe rudiments of the language I must now speak in?  Is there one man in a\nhundred in whose mind any idea arises, and in whose heart any emotion or\npassion is kindled, as I proceed to speak of corruption of nature and\npollution of heart?  I do not suppose it.  I do not presume upon it.  I\ndo not believe it.  That most miserable man who is let down of God's Holy\nSpirit into the pit of corruption that is in his own heart,--to him his\ncorruption, added to his guilt, causes a sadness that nothing in this\nworld can really relieve; it causes a deep and an increasing melancholy,\nsuch as the ninety and nine who need no repentance and feel no pollution\nknow nothing of.  All living men flee from the corruption of an unburied\ncorpse.  The living at once set about to bury their dead.  'I am a\nstranger and a sojourner among you,' said Abraham to the children of\nHeth; 'give me a possession of a burying-place among you that I may bury\nmy dead out of my sight.'  But Paul could find no grave in the whole\nworld in which to bury out of his sight the body of death to which he was\nchained fast; that body of sin and death which always makes the holiest\nof men the most wretched of men,--till the loathing and the disgust and\nthe misery that filled the apostle's heart are to be understood by but\none in a thousand even of the people of God.\n\n3.  And then, as if to make our salvation a very hyperbole of\nimpossibility, the all but almighty power of indwelling sin comes in.\nHave you ever tried to break loose from the old fetter of an evil habit?\nHave you ever said on a New Year's Day with Thomas A Kempis that this\nyear you would root that appetite,--naming it,--out of your body, and\nthat vice,--naming it,--out of your heart?  Have you ever sworn at the\nCommunion table that you would watch and pray, and set a watch on your\nevil heart against that envy, and that revenge, and that ill-will, and\nthat distaste, dislike, and antipathy?  Then your minister will not need\nto come back from his death-bed to preach to you on the difficulty of\nsalvation.\n\n4.  And yet such is the grace of God, such is the work of Christ, and\nsuch is the power and the patience of the Holy Ghost that, if we had only\nan adequate ministry in our pulpits, and an assisting literature in our\nhomes, even this three-fold impossibility would be overcome and we would\nbe saved.  But if the ministry that is set over us is an ignorant,\nindolent, incompetent, self-deceived ministry; if our own chosen, set-up,\nand maintained minister is himself an uninstructed, unspiritual,\nunsanctified man; and if the books we buy and borrow and read are all\nsecular, unspiritual, superficial, ephemeral, silly, stupid, impertinent\nbooks, then the impossibility of our salvation is absolute, and we are as\ngood as in hell already with all our guilt and all our corruption for\never on our heads.  Now, that was the exact case of Mansoul in the\nallegory of the Holy War at one of the last and acutest stages of that\nwar.  Or, rather, that would have been her exact case had Diabolus got\nhis own deep, diabolical way with her.  For what did her ancient enemy do\nbut sound a parley till he had played his last card in these glozing and\ndeceitful words;--'I myself,' he had the face to say to Emmanuel, 'if\nThou wilt raise Thy siege and leave the town to me, I will, at my own\nproper cost and charge, set up and maintain a sufficient ministry,\nbesides lecturers, in Mansoul, who shall show to Mansoul that\ntransgression stands in the way of life; the ministers I shall set up\nshall also press the necessity of reformation according to Thy holy law.'\nAnd even now, with the two pulpits, God's and the devil's, and the two\npreachers, and the two pastors, in our own city,--how many of you see any\ndifference, or think that the one is any worse or any better than the\nother?  Or, indeed, that the ministry of the last card is not the better\nof the two to your interest and to your taste, to the state of your mind\nand to the need of your heart?  Let us proceed, then, to look at\nMansoul's two pulpits and her two lectureships as they stand portrayed on\nthe devil's last card and in Emmanuel's crowning commission; that is, if\nour eyes are sharp enough to see any difference.\n\n5.  The first thing, then, on the devil's last card was this, 'A\nsufficient ministry, besides lecturers, in Mansoul.'  Now, a sufficient\nministry has never been seen in the true Church of Christ since her\nministry began.  And yet she has had great ministers in her time.  After\nChrist Himself, Paul was the greatest and the best minister the Church of\nChrist has ever had.  But such was the transcendent greatness of his\noffice, such were its tremendous responsibilities, such were its\nmagnificent opportunities and its incessant demands, such were its\nceaseless calls to consecration, to cross-bearing, to crucifixion, to\nmore and more inwardness of holiness, and to higher and higher heights of\nheavenly-mindedness, that the apostle was fain to cry out continually,\nWho is sufficient for these things!  But so well did Paul learn that\ngospel which he preached to others that amid all his insufficiency he was\nable to hear his Master saying to him every day, My grace is sufficient\nfor thee, and, My strength is made perfect in thy weakness!  And to come\ndown to the truly Pauline succession of ministers in our own lands and in\nour own churches, what preachers and what pastors Christ gave to\nKidderminster, and to Bedford, and to Down and Connor, and to Sodor and\nMan, and to Anwoth, and to Ettrick, and to New England, and to St.\nAndrews, and places too many to mention.  With all its infirmity and all\nits inefficiency, what a truly heavenly power the pulpit is when it is\nfilled by a man of God who gives his whole mind and heart, his whole time\nand thought to it, and to the pastorate that lies around it.  His mind\nmay be small, and his heart may be full of corruption; his time may be\nfull of manifold interruptions, and his best study may yield but a poor\nresult; but if Heaven ever helps those who honestly help themselves, then\nthat is certainly the case in the Christian ministry.  Let the choicest\nof our children, then, be sought out and consecrated to that service; let\nour most gifted and most gracious-minded sons be sent to where they shall\nbe best prepared for the pulpit and the pastorate,--till by the blessing\nof her Head all the congregations and all the parishes, all the pulpits\nand all the lectureships in the Church, shall be one garden of the Lord.\nAnd then we shall escape that last curse of a ministry such as John\nBunyan saw all around him in the England of his day, and which, had he\nbeen alive in the England and Scotland of our day, he would have painted\nagain in colours we have neither the boldness nor the skill to mix nor to\nput on the canvas.  But let all ministers put it every day to themselves\nto what descent and succession they belong.  Let those even who believe\nthat they have within themselves the best seal and evidence attainable\nhere that they have been ordained of Emmanuel, let them all the more look\nwell every day and every Sabbath day how much of another master's\ndoctrine and discipline, motives, and manners still mixes up with their\nbest ministry.  And the surest seal that, with all our insufficiency, we\nare still the ministers of Christ will be set on us by this, that the\nharder we work and the more in secret we pray, the more and ever the more\nshall we discover and confess our shameful insufficiency, and the more\nshall we, till the day of our death, every day still begin our ministry\nof labour and of prayer anew.  Let us do that, for the devil, with all\nhis boldness and all his subtilty, never threw a card first or last like\nthat.\n\n6.  After offering a sufficient ministry to Mansoul, and that, too, at\nhis own proper cost and charge, Diabolus undertook also to see that the\nabsolute necessity of a reformation should be preached and pressed from\nthe pulpit he set up.  Now, reformation is all good and necessary, in its\nown time and place and order, but God sent His Son not to be a Reformer\nbut to be a Redeemer.  John came to preach reformation, but Jesus came to\npreach regeneration.  Except a man be born again, Jesus persistently\npreached to Nicodemus.  'Did it begin with regeneration?' was Dr.\nDuncan's reply when a sermon on sanctification was praised in his\nhearing.  And like so much else that the learned and profound Dr. John\nDuncan said on theology and philosophy, that question went at once to the\nroot of the matter.  For sanctification, that is to say, salvation, is no\nmere reformation of morals or refinement of manners.  It is a maxim in\nsound morals that the morality of the man must precede the morality of\nhis actions.  And much more is it the evangelical law of Jesus Christ.\nMake the tree good, our Lawgiver aphoristically said.  Reformation and\nsanctification differ, says Dr. Hodge, as clean clothes differ from a\nclean heart.  Now, Diabolus was all for clean clothes when he saw that\nMansoul was slipping out of his hands.  He would have all the drunkards\nto become moderate drinkers, if not total abstainers; and all the\nsensualists to become, if need be, ascetics; and all those who had sowed\nout their wild oats to settle down as heads of houses, and members, if\nnot ministers and elders, in his set-up church.  But we are too well\ntaught, surely; we have gone too long to another church than that which\nDiabolus ever sets up, to be satisfied with his superficial doctrine and\nhis skin-deep discipline.  We know, do we not, that we may do all that\nhis last card asks us to do, and yet be as far, ay, and far farther from\nsalvation than the heathen are who never heard the name.  A hundred\nScriptures tell us that; and our hearts know too much of their own plague\nand corruption ever now to be satisfied short of a full regeneration and\na complete sanctification.  'Create in me a clean heart and renew a right\nspirit within me.  The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit.  And the\nvery God of peace sanctify you wholly.  And I pray God your whole spirit\nand soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord\nJesus Christ.'  The last card has many Scriptures cunningly copied upon\nit; but not these.  Its pulpit orators handle many Scripture texts, but\nnever these.\n\n7.  Yes, the devil comes in even here with that so late, so subtle, and\nso contradicting card of his.  Where is it in this world that he does not\ncome in with some of his cards?  And he comes in here as a very angel of\nevangelical light.  He puts on the gown of Geneva here, and he ascends\nEmmanuel's own maintained pulpit here, and from that pulpit he preaches,\nand where he so preaches he preaches nothing else but the very highest\narticles of the Reformed faith.  Carnal-security was strong on assurance,\nno other man in Mansoul was so strong; and the devil will let us\npreachers be as strong and as often on election, and justification, and\nindefectible grace, and the perseverance of the saints as we and our\npeople like, if we but keep in season and out of season on these\ntranscendent subjects and keep off morals and manners, walk and\nconversation, conduct and character.  In Hooker's and Travers' day,\nThomas Fuller tells us, the Temple pulpit preached pure Canterbury in the\nmorning and pure Geneva in the afternoon.  And you will get the highest\nCalvinism off the last card in one pulpit, and the strictest and most\nurgent morality off the same card in another; but never, if the devil can\nhelp it, never both in one and the same pulpit; never both in one and the\nsame sermon; and never both in one and the same minister.  You have all\nheard of the difficulty the voyager had in steering between Scylla and\nCharybdis in the Latin adage.  Well, the true preacher's difficulty is\njust like that.  Indeed, it is beyond the wit of man, and it takes all\nthe wit of God, aright to unite the doctrine of our utter inability with\nthe companion doctrine of our strict responsibility; free grace with a\nfull reward; the cross of Christ once for all, with the saint's continual\ncrucifixion; the Saviour's blood with the sinner's; and atonement with\nattainment; in short, salvation without works with no salvation without\nworks.  Deft steersman as the devil is, he never yet took his ship clear\nthrough those Charybdic passages.\n\nOne thing there is that I must have preached continually in all my\npulpits and expounded and illustrated and enforced in all my\nlectureships, said Emmanuel, and that is, my new example and my new law\nof _motive_.  My own motives always made me in all I said and did to be\nwell-pleasing in My Father's eyes, and at any cost I must have preachers\nand lecturers set up in Mansoul who shall assist Me in making Mansoul as\nwell-pleasing in My Father's sight as I was Myself.\n\n   'For I am ware it is the seed of act\n   God holds appraising in His hollow palm,\n   Not act grown great thence as the world believes,\n   Leafage and branchage vulgar eyes admire.'\n\nMotives! gnashed Diabolus.  And he tore his last card into a thousand\nshreds and cast the shreds under his feet in his rage and exasperation.\nMotives!  New motives!  Truly Thou art the threatened Seed of the woman!\nTruly Thou art the threatened Son of God!--Let all our preachers, then,\npreach much on motive to their people.  The commonplace crowd of their\npeople will not all like that preaching any more than Diabolus did; but\ntheir best people will all afterwards rise up in their salvation and\nbless them for it.  On reformation also, let them every Sabbath preach,\nbut only on the reformation that rises out of a reformed motive, and that\nagain out of a reformed heart.  And if a reformed motive, a reformed\nheart, and a reformed life are found both by preacher and hearer to be\nimpossible; if all that only brings out the hopelessness of their\nsalvation by reason of the guilt and the pollution and power of sin; then\nall that will only be to them that same ever deeper entering of the law\ninto their hearts which led Paul to an ever deeper faith and trust in\nJesus Christ.  With a guilt, and a pollution, and a slavery to sin like\nours, salvation from sin would be absolutely impossible.  Absolutely\nimpossible, that is, but for our Saviour, Jesus Christ.  But with His\natoning blood and His Holy Spirit all things are possible--even our\nsalvation.\n\nLet us choose, then, a minister like Mr. John Menzies.  Let us read the\ngreat books that make salvation difficult.  Let us work out our own\nsalvation, day and night, with fear and trembling, and when Wisdom is\njustified in her children, we shall be found justified among them.  We\nshall be openly acknowledged and acquitted in the day of judgment, and\nmade perfectly blessed in the full enjoying of God to all eternity.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XV--MR. PRYWELL\n\n\n   'Search me, O God, and know my heart.'--_David_.\n\n   'Let a man examine himself.'--_Paul_.\n\n   'Look to yourselves.'--_John_.\n\n   'Know thyself.'--_Apollo_.\n\nThe year 1668 saw the publication of one of the deepest books in the\nwhole world, Dr. John Owen's _Remainders of Indwelling Sin in Believers_.\nThe heart-searching depth; the clear, fearless, humbling truth, the\nintense spirituality, and the massive and masculine strength of John\nOwen's book have all combined to make it one of the acknowledged\nmasterpieces of the great Puritan school.  Had John Owen's style been at\nall equal to his great learning, to the depth and the grasp of his mind,\nand to the lofty holiness of his life, John Owen would have stood in the\nvery foremost and selectest rank of apostolical and evangelical\ntheologians.  But in all his books Owen labours under the fatal drawback\nof a bad style.  A fine style, a style like that of Hooker, or Taylor, or\nBunyan, or Howe, or Leighton, or Law, is such a winning introduction to\ntheir works and such an abiding charm and spell.  The full title of Dr.\nOwen's great work runs thus: _The Nature, Power, Deceit, and Prevalency\nof the Remainders of Indwelling Sin in Believers_--a title that will tell\nall true students what awaits them when they have courage and enterprise\nenough to address themselves to this supreme and all-essential subject.\nFourteen years after the publication of Dr. Owen's epoch-making book,\nJohn Bunyan's _Holy War_ first saw the light.  Equal in scriptural and in\nexperimental depth, as also in their spiritual loftiness and intensity,\nthose two books are as different as any two books, written in the same\nlanguage, and written on the same subject, could by any possibility be.\nJohn Owen's book is the book of a great scholar who has read the Fathers\nand the Schoolmen and the Reformers till he knows them by heart, and till\nhe has been able to digest all that is true to Scripture and to\nexperience in them into his rich and ripe book.  A powerful reasoner, a\nsevere, bald, muscular writer, John Owen in all these respects stands at\nthe very opposite pole to that of John Bunyan.  The author of the _Holy\nWar_ had no learning, but he had a mind of immense natural sagacity,\ncombined with a habit of close and deep observation of human life, and\nespecially of religious life, and he had now a lifetime of most fruitful\nexperience as a Christian man and as a Christian minister behind him;\nand, all that, taken up into Bunyan's splendid imagination, enabled him\nto produce this extraordinarily able and impressive book.  A model of\nEnglish style as the _Holy War_ is, at the same time it does not attain\nat all to the rank of the _Pilgrim's Progress_; but then, to be second to\nthe _Pilgrim's Progress_ is reward and honour enough for any book.  Let\nall genuine students, then, who would know the best that has been written\non experimental religion, and who would preach to the deepest and\ndivinest experience of their best people, let them keep continually\nwithin their reach John Owen's _Temptation_, his _Mortification of Sin in\nBelievers_, his _Nature and Power of Indwelling Sin_, and John Bunyan's\n_Holy War made for the Regaining of the Metropolis of this World_.\n\nWell, then, as He who dwells on high would have it, there was one whose\nname was Mr. Prywell, a great lover of Mansoul.  And he, as his manner\nwas, did go listening up and down in Mansoul to see and hear, if at any\ntime he might, whether there was any design against it or no.  For he was\nalways a jealous man, and feared some mischief would befall it, either\nfrom within or from some power without.  Mr. Prywell was always a lover\nof Mansoul, a sober and a judicious man, a man that was no tattler, nor a\nraiser of false reports, but one that loves to look into the very bottom\nof matters, and talks nothing of news but by very solid arguments.  And\nthen, after our historian has told us some of the eminent services that\nMr. Prywell was able to perform both for the King and for the city, he\ngoes on to tell us how the captains determined that public thanks should\nbe given by the town of Mansoul to Mr. Prywell for his so diligent\nseeking of the welfare of the town; and, further, that, forasmuch as he\nwas so naturally inclined to seek their good, and also to undermine their\nfoes, they gave him the commission of Scoutmaster-general for the good of\nMansoul.  And Mr. Prywell managed his charge and the trust that Mansoul\nhad put into his hands with great conscience and good fidelity; for he\ngave himself wholly up to his employ, and that not only within the town,\nbut he also went outside of the town to pry, to see, and to hear.  Now,\nthat being so, it may interest and perhaps instruct you to-night to look\nfor a little at some of the features and at some of the feats of the\nScoutmaster-general of the Holy War, Mr. Prywell, of the town of Mansoul.\n\n1.  'Well, now, as He who dwells on high would have it, there was one\nwhose name was Mr. Prywell, a great lover of the town of Mansoul.'  In\nother words: self-observation, self-examination, strict, jealous,\nsleepless self-examination, is of God.  Our God who searches our hearts\nand tries our reins would have it so.  And if He does not have it so in\nus, our souls are not as our God would have them to be.  'Bunyan employs\n_pry_,' says Miss Peacock in her excellent notes, 'in a more favourable\nsense than it now bears.  As, for instance, it is said in another part of\nthis same book that the men of Mansoul were allowed to _pry_ into the\nwords of the Holy Ghost and to expound them to their best advantage.\nHonest anxiety for the welfare of his fellow-townsmen was Mr. Prywell's\nchief characteristic.  _Pry_ is another form of _peer_--to look narrowly,\nto look closely.'  And God, says John Bunyan, would have it so.\n\n2.  'A great lover of Mansoul,' 'always a lover of Mansoul'; again and\nagain that is testified concerning Mr. Prywell.  It was not love for the\nwork that led Mr. Prywell to give up his days and his nights as his\nhistory tells us he did.  Mr. Prywell ran himself into many dangerous\nsituations both within and without the city, and he lost himself far more\nfriends than he made by his devotion to his thankless task.  But\nnecessity was laid upon him.  And what held him up was the sure and\ncertain knowledge that his King would have that service at his hands.\nThat, and his love for the city, for the safety and the deliverance of\nthe city,--all that kept Mr. Prywell's heart fixed.  Am I therefore your\nenemy? he would say to some who would have had it otherwise than the King\nwould have it.  But it is a good thing to be zealously affected in a work\nlike mine, he would say, in self-defence and in self-encouragement.  And\nthen, though not many, there were always some in the city who said, Let\nhim smite me and it shall be a kindness; let him reprove me and it shall\nbe an excellent oil which shall not break my head.  It was in Mansoul\nwith Mr. Prywell as it was in Kidderminster with Richard Baxter, when\nsome of his people said to one another, 'We will take all things well\nfrom one that we know doth entirely love us.'   'Love them,' said\nAugustine, 'and then say anything you like to them.'  Now, that was Mr.\nPrywell's way.  He loved Mansoul, and then he said many things to her\nthat a false lover and a flatterer would never have dared to say.\n\n3.  Then, as the saying is, it goes without saying that 'Mr. Prywell was\nalways a jealous man.'  Great lovers are always jealous men, and Mr.\nPrywell showed himself to be a great lover by the great heat of his\njealousy also.  'Vigilant,' says the excellent editress again; 'cautious\nagainst dishonour, reasonably mistrustful--low Latin _zelosus_, full of\nzeal.  \"And he said, I have been very jealous for the Lord God of\nhosts.\"'  Now, it so happened that some of Mr. Prywell's most private and\nnot at all professional papers--papers evidently, and on the face of\nthem, connected with the state of the spy's own soul--came into my hands\nas good lot would have it just the other night.  The moth-eaten chest was\nfull of his old papers, but the pieces that took my heart most were, as\nit looked to me, actually gnashed through with his remorseful teeth, and\nsoaked and sodden past recognition with his sweat and his tears and his\nagonising hands.  But after some late hours over those remnants I managed\nto make some sense to myself out of them.  There are some parts of the\nparchments that pass me; but, if only to show you that this arch-spy's so\nvigilant jealousy was not all directed against other people's bad hearts\nand bad habits, I shall copy some lines out of the old box.  'Have I\npenitence?' he begins without any preface.  'Have I grief, shame, pain,\nhorror, weariness for my sin?  Do I pray and repent, if not seven times a\nday as David did, yet at least three times, as Daniel?  If not as\nSolomon, at length, yet shortly as the publican?  If not like Christ, the\nwhole night, at least for one hour?  If not on the ground and in ashes,\nat least not in my bed?  If not in sackcloth, at least not in purple and\nfine linen?  If not altogether freed from all, at least from immoderate\ndesires?  Do I give, if not as Zaccheus did, fourfold, as the law\ncommands, with the fifth part added?  If not as the rich, yet as the\nwidow?  If not the half, yet the thirtieth part?  If not above my power,\nyet up to my power?'  And then over the page there are some illegible\npencillings from old authors of his such as this from Augustine: 'A good\nman would rather know his own infirmity than the foundations of the earth\nor the heights of the heavens.'  And this from Cicero: 'There are many\nhiding-places and recesses in the mind.'  And this from Seneca: 'You must\nknow yourself before you can amend yourself.  An unknown sin grows worse\nand worse and is deprived of cure.'  And this from Cicero again: 'Cato\nexacted from himself an account of every day's business at night'; and\nalso Pythagoras,\n\n   'Nor let sweet sleep upon thine eyes descend\n   Till thou hast judged its deeds at each day's end.'\n\nAnd this from Seneca again: 'When the light is removed out of sight, and\nmy wife, who is by this time aware of my practice, is now silent, I pass\nthe whole of my day under examination, and I review my deeds and my\nwords.  I hide nothing from myself: I pass over nothing.'  And then in\nMr. Prywell's boldest and least trembling hand: 'O yes! many shall come\nfrom the east and the west and shall sit down with Abraham and Isaac and\nJacob in the kingdom of heaven, when many of the children of the kingdom\nshall be cast out.  O yes.'  Now, this 'O yes!' Miss Peacock tells us, is\nthe Anglicised form of a French word for our Lord's words, Take heed how\nye hear!\n\n4.  'A sober and a judicious man' it is said of Mr. Prywell also.  To a\ncertainty that.  It could not be otherwise than that.  For Mr. Prywell's\noffice, its discoveries and its experiences, would sober any man.  'I am\nsprung from a country,' says Abelard, 'of which the soil is light, and\nthe temper of the inhabitants is light.'  So was it with Mr. Prywell to\nbegin with.  But even Abelard was sobered in time, and so was Mr.\nPrywell.  Life sobered Abelard, and Mr. Prywell too; life's crooks and\nlife's crosses, life's duties and life's disappointments, especially Mr.\nPrywell.  'The more narrowly a man looks into himself,' says A Kempis,\n'the more he sorroweth.'  Not sober-mindedness alone comes to him who\nlooks narrowly into himself, but great sorrow of heart also.  And if you\nare not both sobered in your mind and full of an unquenchable sorrow in\nyour heart, O yes! attend to it, for you are not yet begun to be what God\nwould have you to be.  Dr. Newman, with all his mistakes and all his\nfaults, was a master in two things: his own heart and the English\nlanguage.  And in writing home to his mother a confidential letter from\ncollege on his birthday, he confides to her that he often 'shudders at\nhimself.'  'No,' he answered to his mother's fears and advices about food\nand air and exercise: 'No, I am neither nervous, nor in ill-health, nor\ndo I study too much.  I am neither melancholy, nor morose, nor austere,\nnor distant, nor reserved, nor sullen.  I am always cheerful, ready and\neager to join in any merriment.  I am not clouded with sadness, nor\nabsent in mind, nor deficient in action.  No; take me when I am most\nfoolish at home and extend mirth into childishness; yet all the time I am\nshuddering at myself.'  There spake the future author of the immortal\nsermons.  There spake a mind and a heart that have deepened the minds and\nthe hearts of Christian men more than any other influence of the century;\na mind and a heart, moreover, that will shine and beat in our best\nliterature and in our deepest devotion for centuries to come.  You must\nall know by this time another classical passage from the pen of another\nspiritual genius in the Church of England, that greatly gifted church.\nLet me repeat it to illustrate how sober-mindedness and great sorrow of\nheart always come to the best of men.  'Let any man consider that if the\nworld knew all that of him which he knows of himself; if they saw what\nvanity and what passions govern his inside, and what secret tempers sully\nand corrupt his best actions; and he would have no more pretence to be\nhonoured and admired for his goodness and wisdom than a rotten and\ndistempered body is to be loved and admired for its beauty and\ncomeliness.  And, perhaps, there are very few people in the world who\nwould not rather choose to die than to have all their secret follies, the\nerrors of their judgments, the vanity of their minds, the falseness of\ntheir pretences, the frequency of their vain and disorderly passions,\ntheir uneasinesses, hatreds, envies, and vexations made known to the\nworld.  And shall pride be entertained in a heart thus conscious of its\nown miserable behaviour?'  No wonder that Mr. Prywell was sober-minded!\nNo wonder that Dr. Newman shuddered at himself!  And no wonder that\nWilliam Law chose strangling and the pond rather than that any other man\nshould see what went on in his heart!\n\n5.  And as if all that were not enough, and more than enough, to commend\nMr. Prywell to us--to our trust, to our confidence, and to our\nimitation--his royal certificate continues, 'One that looks into the very\nbottom of matters, and talks nothing of news, but by very solid\narguments.'  The very bottom of matters--that is, the very bottom of his\nown and other men's hearts.  Mr. Prywell counts nothing else worth a wise\nman's looking at.  Let fools and children look at the painted and\ndeceitful surface of things, but let men, men of matters, and especially\nmen of divine matters, look only at their own and other men's hearts.  The\nvery bottom of all matters is there.  All wars, all policies, all\ndebates, all disputes, all good and all evil counsels, all the much weal\nand all the multitudinous woe of Mansoul--all have their bottom in the\nheart; in the heart of God, or in the heart of man, or in the heart of\nthe devil.  The heart is the root of absolutely every matter to Mr.\nPrywell.  He would not waste one hour of any day, or one watch of any\nnight, on anything else.  And it was this that made him both the\nextraordinarily successful scout he was, and the extraordinarily sober\nand thoughtful and judicious man he was.  O yes, my brethren, the bottom\nof matters, when you take to it, will work the same change in you.  'Two\nthings,' says one who had long looked at his own matters with Mr.\nPrywell's eyes--'two things, O Lord, I recognise in myself: nature, which\nThou hast made, and sin, which I have added.'  My brethren, that\nrecognition, that discovery in yourselves, when it comes to you, will\nsober you as it has sobered so many men before you: when it comes to you,\nthat is, about yourselves.  That discovery made in yourselves will make\nyou deep-thinking men.  It will make common men and unlearned men among\nyou to be philosophers and theologians and saints.  It will work in you a\nthoughtfulness, a seriousness, a depth, an awe, a holy fear, and a great\ndesire that will already have made you new creatures.  When, in examining\nyourselves and in characterising yourselves, you come on what some clear-\neyed men have come on in themselves, and what one of them has described\nas 'the diabolical animus of the human mind'--when you make that\ndiscovery in yourselves, that will sober you, that will humble you and\nfill you full of remorse and compunction.  And if in God's grace to you,\nthat were to begin to be wrought in you this week, there would be one, at\nany rate, eating of that bread next Lord's day, and drinking of that cup\nas God would have it.\n\n6.  'A man that is no tattler, nor raiser of false reports, and that\ntalks nothing of news, but by very solid arguments.'  Mr. Prywell was\nmore taken up with his own matters at home, far more than the greatest\nbusybodies are with other men's matters abroad.  His name, I fear, will\nstill sound somewhat ill in your ears, but I can assure you all the ill\nfor you lies in the sound.  Mr. Prywell would not hurt a hair of your\nhead: the truth is, he does not know whether there is a hair on your head\nor no.  This man's name comes to him and sticks to him, not because he\npries into your affairs, for he does not, and never did, but because he\nis so drawn down into his own.  Mr. Prywell has no eye for your windows\nand he has no ear for your doors.  If your servant is a leaky slave,\nPrywell, of all your neighbours, has no ear for his idle tales.  This man\nis no eavesdropper; your evil secrets have only a sobering and a\nsaddening and a silencing effect upon him.  Your house might be full of\nskeletons for anything he would ever discover or remember.  The beam in\nhis own eye is so big that he cannot see past it to speak about your\nsmall mote.  'The inward Christian,' says A Kempis, 'preferreth the care\nof himself before all other cares.  He that diligently attendeth to\nhimself can easily keep silence concerning other men.  If thou attendest\nunto God and unto thyself, thou wilt be but little moved with what thou\nseest abroad.'  At the same time, Mr. Prywell was no fool, and no coward,\nand no hoodwinked witness.  He could tell his tale, when it was demanded\nof him, with such truth, and with such punctuality, and on such ample\ngrounds, that a conviction of the truth instantly fell on all who heard\nhim.  'Sirs,' said those who heard him break silence, 'it is not\nirrational for us to believe it,' with such solid arguments and with such\nan absence of mere suspicion and of all idle tales did he speak.  On one\noccasion, on a mere 'inkling,' he woke up the guard; only, it was so true\nan inkling that it saved the city.  But I cannot follow Mr. Prywell any\nfurther to-night.  How he went up and down Mansoul listening; how he kept\nhis eyes and his ears both shut and open; what splendid services he\nperformed in the progress, and specially toward the end, of the war; how\nthe thanks of the city were voted to him; how he was made Scoutmaster-\ngeneral for the good of the town of Mansoul, and the great conscience and\ngood fidelity with which he managed that great trust--all that you will\nread for yourselves under this marginal index, 'The story of Mr.\nPrywell.'\n\nNow, my brethren, as the outcome of all that, we must all examine\nourselves as before God all this week.  We must wait on His word and on\nHis providences while they examine us all this week.  We must pry well\ninto ourselves all this week.  Come, let us compel ourselves to do it.\nLet us search and try our ways all this week as we shall give an account.\nLet us ask ourselves how many Communion tables we have sat at, and at how\nmany more we are likely to sit.  Let us ask why it is that we have got so\nlittle good out of all our Communions.  Let us ask who is to blame for\nthat, and where the blame lies.  Let us go to the bottom of matters with\nourselves, and compel ourselves to say just what it is that is the cause\nof God's controversy with us.  What vow, what solemn promise, made when\ntrouble was upon us, have we completely cast behind our back?  What about\nsecret prayer?  At what times, for what things, and for what people do we\nin secret pray?  What about secret sin?  What is its name, and what does\nit deserve, and what fruit are we already reaping out of it?  What is our\nbesetting sin, and what steps do we take, as God knows, to crucify it?  Do\nwe love money too much?  Do we love praise too much?  Do we love eating\nand drinking too much?  Does envy make our heart a very hell?  Let us\nname the man we envy, and let us keep our Communion eye upon him.  Let us\nmix his name with all the psalms and prayers and sermons of this\nCommunion season.  Or is it diabolical ill-will?  Or is it a wicked\ntongue against an unsuspecting friend?  Let us examine ourselves as Paul\ndid, as Prywell did, and as God would have us do it, and we shall\ndiscover things in ourselves so bad that if I were to put words on them\nto-night, you would stop your ears in horror and flee out of the church.\nLet a man see himself at least as others see him; and then he will be led\non from that to see himself as God sees him; and then he will judge\nhimself so severely as that he shall not need to be judged at the\nJudgment Day, and will condemn himself so sufficiently as that he shall\nnot be condemned with a condemned world at the last.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVI--YOUNG CAPTAIN SELF-DENIAL\n\n\n   'If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his\n   cross daily and follow Me.'--_Our Lord_.\n\n'Now the siege was long, and many a fierce attempt did the enemy make\nupon the town, and many a shrewd brush did some of the townsmen meet with\nfrom the enemy, especially Captain Self-denial, to whose care both Ear-\ngate and Eye-gate had been intrusted.  This Captain Self-denial was a\nyoung man, but stout, and a townsman in Mansoul.  This young captain,\ntherefore, being a hardy man, and a man of great courage to boot, and\nwilling to venture himself for the good of the town, he would now and\nthen sally out upon the enemy; but you must think this could not easily\nbe done, but he must meet with some sharp brushes himself, and, indeed,\nhe carried several of such marks on his face, yea, and some on some other\nparts of his body.'  Thus, Bunyan.  I shall now go on to-night to offer\nyou some annotations and some reflections on this short but excellent\nhistory of young Captain Self-denial.\n\n1.  Well, to begin with, this Captain Self-denial was still a young man.\n'And, now, it comes into my mind, said Goodman Gains after supper, I will\ntell you a story well worth the hearing, as I think.  There were two men\nonce upon a time that went on pilgrimage; the one began when he was young\nand the other began when he was old.  The young man had strong\ncorruptions to grapple with, whereas the old man's corruptions were\ndecayed with the decays of nature.  The young man trod his steps as even\nas did the old one, and was every way as light as he; who, now, or which\nof them, had their graces shining clearest, since both seemed to be\nalike?  Why, the young man's, doubtless, answered Mr. Honest.  For that\nwhich heads against the greatest opposition gives best demonstration that\nit is strongest.  A young man, therefore, has the advantage of the\nfairest discovery of a work of grace within him.  And thus they sat\ntalking till the break of day.'\n\nNow, I have taken up Captain Self-denial to-night because the young men\nand I are to begin a study to-night to which I was first attracted\nbecause it taught me lessons about myself, and about self-denial, and\nthus about both a young man's and an old man's deepest and most\npersistent corruptions--lessons such as I have never been taught in any\nother school.  In all my philosophical, theological, moral, and\nexperimental reading, so to describe it, I have never met with any school\nof authors for one moment to be compared with the great evangelical\nmystics, especially when they treat of self, self-love, self-denial, the\ndaily cross, and all suchlike lessons.  Take the great doctrinal and\nexperimental Puritans, such as John Owen, Thomas Goodwin, Richard Baxter,\nJohn Howe, and Jonathan Edwards, and add on to them the greatest and best\nmystics, such as Jacob Behmen, Thomas A Kempis, Francis Fenelon, Jeremy\nTaylor, Samuel Rutherford, Robert Leighton, and William Law, and you will\nhave the profoundest, the most complete, the most perfect, and, I will\nadd, the most fascinating and enthralling of spiritual teaching in all\nthe world.  And I will be bold enough to promise you that if you will but\njoin our Young Men's Class to-night, and will buy and read our mystical\nbooks, and will resolve to put in practice what you hear and read in the\nclass, I will promise you, I say, that by the end of our short session\nyou will not only be ten times more open and hospitably-minded men, but\nalso ten times more spiritually-minded men, ten times more Christ-like\nmen, and with your joy in Christ and His joy in you all but full.\n\n2.  The Captain Self-denial was a young man, and he was also a townsman\nin Mansoul.  Young Self-denial and one other were all of Emmanuel's\ncaptains who were townsmen in Mansoul.  All his other captains Emmanuel\nhad brought with him; but the Captains Self-denial and Experience were\nboth born and reared to their full manhood in that besieged city.  'A\ntownsman.'  How much there is for us all in that one word!  How much\ninstruction!  How much encouragement!  How much caution and correction!\nOur greatest grace; our most essential and indispensable grace; our most\nexperimental and evidential grace; that grace, indeed, without which all\nour other graces are but specious shows and painted surfaces of graces;\nthat grace into which our Lord here gathers up all our other graces;--that\ngreatest of graces cannot be imputed, imported, or introduced; it must be\nborn, bred, exercised, reared up to its full maturity, and sent forth to\nfight and to conquer, and all within the walls of its own native town; in\nshort, our self-denial must have its beginning and middle and end in our\nown heart.  Antinomians there were, as our Puritan fathers nicknamed all\nthose persons who glorified Christ by letting Him do all things for them,\nboth His own things and their things too, both their justification and\ntheir sanctification too.  And there are many good but ill-instructed men\namong ourselves who have just this taint of that old heresy cleaving to\nthem still--this taint, namely, that they are tempted to carry over the\nsuretyship and substitutionary work of Christ into such regions, and to\ncarry it to such lengths in those regions, as, practically, to make\nChrist to minister to their soft and sinful living, and to their excuse\nand indulgence of themselves.  I will put it squarely and plainly to some\nof my very best friends here to-night.  Is it not the case, now, that you\ndo not like this direction into which this text, and the truth of this\ntext, are now travelling?  Is it not so that you shift back in your seat\nfrom the approaching cross?  Is it not the very and actual fact that you\nhave secret ways of sin, secret habits of self-indulgence in your body\nand in your soul, in your mind and in your heart, secret sins that you\nmantle over with the robe of Christ's righteousness?  His spotless and\nimputed righteousness?  In your present temper you would have disliked\ndeeply the Sermon on the Mount had you heard it; and I see you shaking\nyour head over your Sabbath-day dinner at this text when it was first\nspoken.  Lay this down for a law, all my brethren,--a New Testament and a\nnever-to-be-abrogated law,--that the best and the safest religion for you\nis that way of religion that is hardest on your pride, on your\nself-importance, on your self-esteem, as well as on your purse and on\nyour belly.  You are not likely to err by practising too much of the\ncross.  You may very well have too much of the cross of Christ preached\nto you, and too little of your own.  Why! did not Christ die for me? you\nindignantly say.  Yes; so He did.  But only that you might die too.  He\nwas crucified, and so must you be crucified every day before one single\ndrop of His sin-atoning blood shall ever be wasted on You.  Be not\ndeceived: the cross is not mocked; for only as a man nails himself, body\nand soul, to the cross every day shall he ever be saved from sin and\ndeath and hell by means of it.  And, exactly as a man denies himself--no\nmore and no less--his appetites, his passions, his thoughts and words and\ndeeds, every day and every hour of every day, just so much shall He who\nsearches our hearts and sees us in secret, acknowledge us, both every day\nnow, and at the last day of all.\n\n3.  This same Captain Self-denial, his history goes on, was stout, he was\nan hardy man also, and a man of great courage.  Stout and hardy and of\ngreat courage at home, that is; in his own mind and heart, soul and body,\nthat is.  Young Captain Self-denial was a perfect hero at saying No! and\nat saying No! to himself.  It is a proverb that there is nothing so\ndifficult as to say that monosyllable.  And the proverb is Scripture\ntruth if you try to say No! to yourself.  It takes the very stoutest of\nhearts, the most noble, the most manly, the most soldierly, and the most\nsaintly of hearts to say No! to itself, and to keep on saying No! to\nitself to the bitter end of every trial and temptation and opportunity.  I\nremember reading long ago a page or two of a medical man's diary.  And in\nit he made a confession and an appeal I have never forgot; though, to my\nloss, I have not always acted upon it.  He said that for many years he\nhad never been entirely well.  He had constant headaches and depressions,\nand it was seldom that he was not to some extent out of sorts.  But, all\nthe time, he had a shrewd guess within himself as to what was the matter\nwith him.  He felt ashamed to confess it even to himself that he over-ate\nhimself every day at table; till, at last, summoning up all divine and\nhuman help, he determined that, however hungry he was, and however\nsavoury the dish was, and however excellent the wine was, he would never\neither ask for or accept a second helping.  And this was his testimony,\nthat from that stout and hardy day he grew better in health daily; 'my\nhead became clear, my eye bright, my complexion pure, my mind and\nfeelings were redeemed from all clouds and depressions.  And to-day I am\na younger man at fifty than I was at thirty.'  Now, if just saying No! to\nhimself and to the waiter at table did work such a new birth in a\nconfirmed gourmand of middle life, what would it not have wrought for him\nhad he carried his answer stoutly and courageously through all the other\nparts of his body and soul?--as perhaps he did.  Perhaps, having tasted\nthe sweet beginnings of salvation, he carried his short and sure regimen\nthrough.  If he has done so, let him give us his full autobiography.  What\na blessed, what a priceless book it would be!\n\n4.  Stout Captain Self-denial was commanded to begin his life as an\nofficer in Emmanuel's army by taking especial watch over Ear-gate and Eye-\ngate; and at our last accounts of our abstemious doctor he had only got\nthe length of Mouth-gate.  But having begun so well with those three\ngreat outposts of the soul, if those two trusty officers only held on,\nand played the man courageously enough, they would soon be promoted to\nstill more important, still more central, and, if more difficult and\ndangerous, then also much more honourable and remunerative posts.\nAppetite, deep and deadly as its evils are, is, after all, only an\noutwork of the soul; and the same sharp knife that the epicure and the\nsot in all their stages must put to their throat, that same knife must be\nmade to draw blood in all parts of their mind and their heart, in their\nwill and in their imagination, till a perfect chorus of self-denials\nrings like noblest martial music through all the gates, and streets, and\nfortresses, and strongholds, and very palaces and temples of the soul.  I\nshall here stand aside and let the greatest of the English mystics speak\nto you on this present point.  'When we speak of self-denial,' he says,\nin his _Christian Perfection_, 'we are apt to confine it to eating and\ndrinking: but we ought to consider that, though a strict temperance be\nnecessary in these things, yet that these are the easiest and the\nsmallest instances of self-denial.  Pride, vanity, self-love,\ncovetousness, envy, and other inclinations of the like nature call for a\nmore constant and a more watchful self-denial than the appetites of\nhunger and thirst.  And till we enter into this course of universal self-\ndenial we shall make no progress in real piety, but our lives will be a\nridiculous mixture of I know not what; sober and covetous, proud and\ndevout, temperate and vain, regular in our forms of devotion and\nirregular in all our passions, circumspect in little modes of behaviour\nand careless and negligent of tempers the most essential to piety.  And\nthus it will necessarily be with us till we lay the axe to the root of\nthe tree, till we deny and renounce the whole corruption of our nature,\nand resign ourselves up entirely to the Spirit of God, to think and speak\nand act by the wisdom and the purity of religion.'\n\n5.  Stout as Captain Self-denial was, and notable alarms and some brisk\nexecution as he did upon the enemy, yet he must meet with some brushes\nhimself; indeed, he carried several of the marks of such brushes on his\nface as well as on some other parts of his body.  If I had read in his\nhistory that Young Captain Self-denial had left his mark upon his\nenemies, I would have said, Well done, and I would have added that I\nalways expected as much.  But it is far more to my purpose to read that\nhe had not always got himself off without wounds that left lasting scars\nboth where they were seen of all, and where they were seen and felt only\nby Self-denial himself.  And not Self-denial only, but even Paul, in our\nflesh, and with like passions with us, had the same experience and has\nleft us the same record.  'I keep my body under': so our emasculated\nEnglish version makes us read it.  But the visual image in the masterly\noriginal Greek is not so mealy-mouthed.  I box and buffet myself day and\nnight, says Paul.  I play the truculent tyrant over a lewd and lazy\nslave.  I hit myself blinding blows on my tenderest part.  I am ashamed\nto look at myself in the glass, for all under my eyes I am black and\nblue.  If David, after the matter of Uriah, had done that to himself, and\neven more than that, we would not have wondered; we would have expected\nit, and we would have said, It is no more than we would have done\nourselves.  But that a spotless, gentle, noble soul like Paul should so\nhave mangled himself,--that quite dumfounders us.  If Paul, then, who,\ntouching the righteousness which is in the law, was blameless, had to\nhandle himself in that manner in order to keep himself blameless, shall\nany young man here hope to escape temptation without such blows at\nhimself as shall leave their mark on him all his days?  Nay, not only so,\nbut after Self-denial had thus exercised himself and subdued himself,\nstill his enemy sometimes got such an advantage over him as left him as\nhis history here describes him.  All which is surely full of the most\nexcellent heartening to all who read, in earnest and for an example, his\nfine history.\n\n6.  The last and crowning exploit of our matchless captain was to\ncapture, and execute, and quarter, and hang up on a gallows at the market-\ncross, the head and the hands and the feet of his oldest, most sworn, and\nmost deadly enemy, one Self-love.  So stout and so insufferable was our\ncaptain in the matter of Self-love that when it was proposed by some of\nhis many influential friends and high-in-place relations in the city that\nthe judgment of the court-martial on Self-love should be deferred, our\nstout soldier with the cuts on his face and in some other parts of his\nbody stood up, and said that the city and the army must make up their\nmind either to relieve him of his sword, hacked and broken off as it was,\nor else to execute the law upon Self-love on the spot.  I will lay down\nmy commission this very day, he said, with an extraordinary indignation.\nMany rich men in the city, and many men deep in the King's service,\nmuttered mutinous things when their near relative was hurried to the open\ncause-way, but by that time the soldiers of Self-denial's company had\nbrained Self-love with the butts of their muskets.  And it was the stand\nthat our captain made in the matter of Self-love that at last lifted the\nyoung soldier where many had felt he should have been lifted long ago.\nFrom that day he was made a lord, a military peer, and an adviser of the\ncrown and the crown officers in all the deepest counsels concerning\nMansoul.  Only, with the cloak and the coronet of Self-denial the present\nhistory all but comes to an end.  For, before the outcast remains of Self-\nlove had mouldered to their dust on the city gate, the King's chariot had\ndescended into the street, had ascended up to the palace at the head of\nthe street, and a new age of the city life had begun, the full history of\nwhich has yet to be told.\n\nRemain behind, then, and begin with us to-night, all you young men.  You\ncannot begin this lifelong study and this lifelong pursuit of self-denial\ntoo early.  For, even if you begin to read our books and to practise our\ndiscipline in your very boyhood, when you are old men and very saints of\nGod you will feel that your self-love is still so full of life and power,\nthat your self-denial has scarcely begun.  Ah, me! men: both old and\nyoung men.  Ah, me! what a life's task set us of God it is to make us a\nnew heart, to cleanse out an unclean heart, to lay in the dust a proud\nheart, and to keep a heart at all times, and in all places, and toward\nall people, with all diligence!  Who is sufficient for these things?\n\n'Now was Christian somewhat in a maze.  But at last, when every man\nstarted back for fear, Christian saw a man of a very stout countenance\ncome up to him that sat there with the inkhorn to write, saying, Set down\nmy name, sir!  At which there was a pleasant voice heard from those that\nwere within, even of those who walked upon the top of that place, saying,\n\n   \"Come in, come in:\n   Eternal glory thou shalt win.\"\n\nThen Christian smiled, and said: I think, verily, that I know the meaning\nof all this now.'\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVII--FIVE PICKT MEN\n\n\n   'I took wise men and known and made them captains.'--_Moses_.\n\nJohn Bunyan never lost his early love for a soldier's life any more than\nhe ever forgot the rare delights of his bell-ringing days.  John Bunyan,\nall his days, never saw a bell-rope that his fingers did not tingle, and\nhe never saw a soldier in uniform without instinctively shouldering his\nyouthful musket.  Bunyan was one of those rare men who are of imagination\nall compact; and consequently it is that all his books are full of the\nscenes, the occupations, and the experiences of his early days.  Not that\nhe says very much, in as many words, about what happened to him in the\ndays when he was a soldier; it is only once in all his many books that he\nsays that when he was a soldier such and such a thing happened to him.  At\nthe same time, all his books bear the impress of his early days upon\nthem; and as for this special book of Bunyan's now open before us, it is\nfull from board to board of the strife and the din of his early battles.\nThe _Holy War_ is just John Bunyan's soldierly life\nspiritualised--spiritualised and so worked up into this fine English\nClassic.\n\nWell, then, after Mansoul was taken and reduced, the victorious Prince\ndetermined so to occupy the town with His soldiers that it should never\nagain either be taken by force from without, or ever again revolt by\nweakness or by fear from within.  And with this view He chose out five of\nHis best captains--My five pickt men, He always called them--and placed\nthose five captains and their thousands under them in the strongholds of\nthe town.  On the margin of this page our versatile author speaks of that\nstep of Emmanuel's in the language of a philosopher, a moralist, and a\ndivine.  'Five graces,' he says, 'pickt out of an abundance of common\nvirtues.'  This summing-up sentence stands on his stiff and dry margin.\nBut in the rich and living flow of the text itself our author goes on\nwriting like the man of genius he is.  With all the warmth and colour and\ndramatic movement of which this whole book is full, this great writer\ngoes on to set those five choice captains of our salvation before us in a\nway that we shall never forget.\n\n1.  'The first was that famous captain, the noble Captain Credence.  His\nwere the red colours, and Mr. Promise bare them.  And for a scutcheon he\nhad the Holy Lamb and the golden shield; and he had ten thousand men at\nhis feet.'  Now, this same Captain Credence from first to last of the war\nalways led the van both within and around Mansoul.  In ordinary and\npeaceful days; in days of truce and parley; when the opposite armies were\nlaid up in their winter quarters, or were, for any cause, drawn off from\none another, some of the other captains might be more in evidence.  But\nin every exploit to be called an exploit; in every single enterprise of\ndanger; when any new position was to be taken up, or any forlorn hope was\nto be led, there, in the very van of labour and of danger, was sure to be\nseen Captain Credence with his blood-red colours in his own hand.  You\nunderstand your Bunyan by this time, my brethren?  Captain Credence, your\nlittle boy at school will tell you, is just the soldier-like faith of\nyour sanctification.  _Credo_, he will tell you, is 'I believe'; it is to\nhave faith in God and in the word of God.  You will borrow your Latin\nfrom your little boy, and then you will pay him back by telling him how\nCaptain Credence has always led the van in your soul.  You will tell him\nand show him what a wonderful writer on the things of the soul John\nBunyan is, till you make John Bunyan one of your son's choicest authors\nfor all his days.  You will do this if you will tell him how and when\nthis same Captain Credence with his crimson colours first led the van in\nyour salvation.  You will tell him this with more and more depth and more\nand more plainness as year after year he reads his _Holy War_, and better\nand better understands it, till he has had it all fulfilled in himself as\na pickt captain and good soldier of Jesus Christ.  You will tell him\nabout yourself, till, at this forlorn hope in his own life, and at that\nsounded advance, in some new providence and in some new duty; in this\ncommanded attack on an inwardly entrenched enemy, and in that resolute\nassault on some battlement of evil habit, he recollects his noble,\nconfiding, and loving father and plays the man again, and that all the\nmore if only for his father's sake.  Ask your son what he knows and what\nyou do not know, and then as long as his heart and his ear are open tell\nhim what you know and what you have by faith come through, and that will\nbe a priceless possession to him, especially when he is put in possession\nof it by you.\n\nWell on toward the end of the war, the Captain Credence had so acquitted\nhimself that he was summoned one day to the Prince's quarters, when the\nfollowing colloquy ensued: 'What hath my Lord to say to His servant?'  And\nthen, after a sign or two of favour, it was said to him: 'I have made\nthee lieutenant over all the forces in Mansoul; so that, from this day\nforward, all men in Mansoul shall be at thy word; and thou shalt be he\nthat shall lead in and that shall lead out Mansoul.  And at thy command\nshall all the rest of the captains be.'  My brethren, you will have the\nwhole key to all that in yourselves if this same war has gone this length\nin you.  Faith, your faith in God, and in the word of God, will, as this\ninward war goes on, not only lead the van in your heart and in your life,\nbut just because your faith so leads in all things, and is so fitted to\nlead in all things, it will at last be lifted up and set over your soul,\nand all the things of your soul, till nothing shall be done in any of the\nstreets, or gates, or walls thereof that faith in God and in His word\ndoes not first allow and admit.  And then, when it has come to that\nwithin you, that is the best mind, that is the safest, the happiest, and\nthe most heavenly mind that you can attain to in this present life; and\nwhen faith shall thus lead and rule over all things in thy soul, be thou\nalways ready, for thy speedy translation to a still better life is just\nat the door.\n\n2. 'The second was that famous captain, Good-hope.  His were the blue\ncolours.  His standard-bearer was Mr. Expectation, and for a scutcheon he\nhad three golden anchors; and he had ten thousand men at his feet.'  The\ntime was, my brethren, when all your hopes and mine were as yet anchored\nwithout the veil.  But all that is now changed.  We still hope, in a mild\nkind of way, for this thing and for that in this present life; but only\nin a mild kind of way.  It would not be right in us not to look forward,\nsay, from spring-time to summer, and from summer to harvest.  If the\nhusbandman had not hope in the former and in the latter rain he would not\nsow; and as it is with the husbandman so it is with us all: so ought it\nto be, and so it must be.  But we say God willing! all the time that we\nplot and plan and hope.  And we say God willing! no longer with a sigh,\nbut, now, always with a smile.  In His will is our tranquillity, we say,\nand we know that if it is not His will that this and that slightly\nanchored hope should be fulfilled, then that only means that all our\nhopes, to be called hopes, are soon to be realised.  Our green and salad\ndays in the matter of hope are for ever past.  If we had it all\nabsolutely secured to us that this world is still promising to its salad\ndupes, it would not come within a thousand miles of satisfying our\nhearts.  Whether the hopes of our hearts are to be fulfilled within the\nveil or no, that remains to be seen; but all the things without the veil\ntaken together do not any longer even pretend to promise a hope to hearts\nlike ours.  Our Forerunner has carried away our hearts with Him.  We have\nno heart left for any one but Him, or for anything without or within the\nveil that He is not and is not in.  And till that hope also has made us\nashamed,--till He and His promises have failed us like all the rest,--we\nare going to anchor our hearts on that, and on that only, which we\nbelieve is with Him within the veil.  If our Forerunner also disappoints\nus; if we enter where He is, only to find that He is not there; or that,\nthough there, He is not able to satisfy our hope in Him, and make us like\nHimself, then we shall be of all men the most miserable.  But not till\nthen.  No; not till then.  And thus it is that Captain Good-hope has his\nbillet in our heart; thus it is that his blue colours float over our\nhouse; and thus it is that his three golden anchors are blazing out in\nall their beauty on the best wall of our earthly house.\n\n3.  'The third was that valiant captain, the Captain Charity.  His\nstandard-bearer was Mr. Pitiful, and for his scutcheon he had three naked\norphans embraced in his bosom; and he also had ten thousand men at his\nfeet.'  O Charity!  O valiant and pitiful Charity!  Divine-natured and\nheavenly-minded Charity!  When wilt thou come and dwell in my heart?\nWhen, by thine indwelling, shall I be able to love my neighbour, and all\nmy neighbours, as myself?  When, in thy strength, shall I cease from\nrepining at my neighbour's good; and when shall I cease secretly\nrejoicing over his evil?  When shall I by thee renewing me, be made able\nto cease in everything from seeking first my own will and my own way; my\nown praise and my own glory?  When shall it be as much my new nature to\nlove my neighbour as it is now my old nature to hate him?  When shall I\ncease to be so soon angry, and hard, and bitter, and scornful, and\nunrelenting, and unforgiving?  When shall my neighbour's presence, his\nimage, and his name always call up only love and honour, good-will and\naffectionate delight?  When and where shall I, under thee, feel for the\nlast time any evil of any kind in my heart against my brother?  Oh! to\nsee the day when I shall suffer long and be kind!  When I shall never\nagain vaunt myself or be puffed up!  When I shall bear all things,\nbelieve all things, hope all things, endure all things!  O blessed,\nblessed Charity! with thy divine heart, with thy dove-like eyes, and with\nthy bosom full of pity, when wilt thou come into my sinful heart and\nbring all heaven in with thee!  O Charity! till thou so comest I shall\nwait for thee.  And, till thou comest, thy standard-bearer shall be my\ndoor porter, and thy scutcheon shall hang night and day at my door-post!\n\n4.  'The fourth captain was that gallant commander, the Captain Innocent.\nHis standard-bearer was Mr. Harmless; his were the white colours, and for\nhis scutcheon he had three golden doves.'  My brethren, how well it would\nhave been with us to-day if we had always lived innocently!  Had we only\nbeen innocent of that man's, and that man's, and that man's, and that\nman's hurt!  (Let us name all the men to ourselves.)  How many men have\nwe, first and last, hurt!  Some intentionally, and some unintentionally;\nsome deliberately, and some only by accident; some of malice, and some\nonly of misfortune; some innocently and unknowingly, and whom we never\nproperly hurt.  Some, also, by our mere existence; some by our best\nactions; some because we have helped and not hurt others; and some out of\nnothing else but the pure original devilry of their own evil hearts.  And\nthen, when we take all these men home to our hearts, what hearts all\nthese men give us!  Who, then, is the man here who has done to other men\nthe most hurt?  Who has caused or been the occasion of most hurt?  Let\nthat so unhappy man just think that the gallant commander, the Captain\nInnocent himself, with his white colours and with his golden doves, is\nstanding and knocking at your evil door.  O unhappy man!  By all the hurt\nand harm you have ever done--by all that you can never now undo--by those\nspotless colours that are still snow and not yet scarlet as they wave\nover you--by those three golden doves that are an emblem of the life that\nstill lies open before you, as well as an invitation to you to enter on\nthat life--why will you die of remorse and despair?  Open the door of\nyour heart and admit Captain Innocent.  He knows that of all hurtful men\non the face of the earth you are the most hurtful, but he is not on that\naccount afraid at you; indeed, it is on that account that he has come so\nnear to you.  By admitting him, by enlisting under him, by serving under\nhim, some of the most hurtful and injurious men that ever lived have\nlived after to be the most innocent and the most harmless of men, with\ntheir hands washed every day in innocency, and with three golden doves as\nthe scutcheon of their new nature and their Christian character.  Oh come\ninto my heart, Captain Innocent; there is room in my heart for thee!\n\n5.  'And then the fifth was that truly royal and well-beloved captain,\nthe Captain Patience.  His standard-bearer was Mr. Suffer-long, and for a\nscutcheon he had three arrows through a golden heart.'  Three arrows\nthrough a golden heart!  Most eloquent, most impressive, and most\ninstructive of emblems!  First, a heart of gold, and then that heart of\ngold pierced, and pierced, and then pierced again with arrow after arrow.\nPatience was the last of Emmanuel's pickt graces.  Captain Patience with\nhis pierced heart always brought up the rear when the army marched.  But\nwhen Captain Patience and Mr. Suffer-long did enter and take up their\nquarters in any house in Mansoul,--then was there no house more safe,\nmore protected, more peaceful, more quietly, sweetly, divinely happy than\njust that house where this loyal and well-beloved captain bore in his\nheart.  Entertain patience, my brethren.  Practise patience, my brethren.\nMake your house at home a daily school to you in which to learn patience.\nBe sure that you well understand the times, the occasions, the\nopportunities, and the invitations of patience, and take profit out of\nthem; and thus both your profit and that of others also will be great.\nTribulation worketh patience.  Endure tribulation, then, for the sake of\nits so excellent work.  Nothing worketh patience like tribulation, and\ntherefore it is that tribulation so abounds in the lives of God's people.\nSo much does tribulation abound in the lives of God's people that they\nare actually known in heaven and described there by their experience of\ntribulation.  'These are they which came out of great tribulation, and\ntherefore are they before the throne.'  These are they with the three\nsharp arrows shot through and through their hearts of gold.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVIII--MR. DESIRES-AWAKE\n\n\n   'One thing have I desired.'--_David_.\n\nMr. Desires-awake dwelt in a very mean cottage in Mansoul.  There were\ntwo very mean cottages in Mansoul, and those two cottages stood beside\none another and leaned upon one another and held one another up.  Mr.\nDesires-awake dwelt in the one of those cottages and Mr. Wet-eyes in the\nother.  And those two mendicant men were wont to meet together for secret\nprayer, when Mr. Desires-awake would put a rope upon his head, while Mr.\nWet-eyes would not be able to speak for wringing his hands in tears all\nthe time.  Many a time did those two meanest and most despised of men\ndeliver that city, according to the proverb of the Preacher: Wisdom is\nbetter than strength, and the words of wisdom are to be heard in secret\nplaces, where wisdom is far better than weapons of war.  Why should I not\ndo all for them and the best I can? said Mr. Desires-awake when the men\nof Mansoul came to him in their extremity.  I will even venture my life\nagain for them at the pavilion of the Prince.  And accordingly this mean\nman put his rope upon his head, as was his wont, and went out to the\nPrince's tent and asked the reformades if he might see their Master.  Then\nthe Prince, coming to the place where the petitioner lay on the ground,\ndemanded what his name was and of what esteem he was in Mansoul, and why\nhe, of all the multitudes of Mansoul, was sent out to His Royal tent on\nsuch an errand.  Then said the man to the Prince standing over him, he\nsaid: Oh let not my Lord be angry; and why inquirest Thou after the name\nof such a dead dog as I am?  Pass by, I pray Thee, and take not notice of\nwho I am, because there is, as Thou very well knowest, so great a\ndisproportion between Thee and me.  For my part, I am out of charity with\nmyself; who, then, should be in love with me?  Yet live I would, and so\nwould I that my townsmen should; and because both they and myself are\nguilty of great transgressions, therefore they have sent me, and I have\ncome in their names to beg of my Lord for mercy.  Let it please Thee,\ntherefore, to incline to mercy; but ask not who Thy servant is.  All\nthis, and how Mr. Desires-awake and Mr. Wet-eyes sped in their petition,\nis to be read at length in the Holy History.  And now let us take down\nthe key that hangs in our author's window and go to work with it on the\nsweet mystery of Mr. Desires-awake.\n\n1.  Well, then, to begin with, this poor man's name need not delay us\nlong seeking it out.  In shorter time, and with surer success than I\ncould give you the dictionary root of his name, if you will look within\nyou will all see the visual image of this poor man's name in your own\nheart.  For our hearts are all as full as they can hold of all kinds of\ndesires; some good and some bad, some asleep and some awake, some alive\nand some dead, some raging like a hundred hungry lions, and some\nsatisfied as a sleeping child.  Well, then, this mean man was called Mr.\nDesires-awake, and what his desires were awake after and set upon we have\nalready seen in his head-dress and heard in his prayer.  His house, on\nthe other hand, will not be so well known.  For it was less a house than\na hut--a hut hidden away out of sight and back behind Mr. Wet-eyes' hut.\nMr. Desires-awake's cottage was so mean and meagre that no one ever came\nto visit him unless it was his next-door neighbour.  They never left\ntheir cottages, those two poor men, unless it was to see one another; or,\nstrange to tell, unless it was to go out at the city gate to see and to\nspeak with their Prince.  And at such times their venturesomeness both\nastonished themselves and amused their Prince.  Sometimes he laughed to\nsee them back at his door again; but more often he wept to see and hear\nthem; all which made the guards of his pavilion to wonder who those two\nstrange men might be.  And thus it was that if at any long interval of\ntime any of the men of the city desired to see Mr. Desires-awake, he was\nsure to be found at the pavilion door of his Prince, or else in his\nneighbour's cottage, or else at home in his own.  From year's end to\nyear's end you might look in vain for either of those two poor men in the\npublic resorts of Mansoul.  When all the town was abroad on holidays and\nfair-days and feast-days, those two mean men were then closest at home.\nAnd when the booths of the town were full of all kinds of wares and\nmerchandise, and all the greens in the town were full of games, and\nplays, and cheats, and fools, and apes, and knaves, only those two\npenniless men would abide shut up at home.  At home; or else together\nthey would go to a market-stance set up by their Prince outside the walls\nwhere one was stationed to stand and to cry: 'Ho! every one that\nthirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money.  Wherefore\ndo ye spend money for that which is not bread, and your labour for that\nwhich satisfieth not?  Incline your ear and come to me; hear, and your\nsoul shall live.'  And sometimes the Prince would go out in person to\nmeet the two men with nothing to pay, and would Himself say to them, I\ncounsel thee to buy of Me gold tried in the fire, and white raiment, and\nanoint thine eyes with eye-salve, till the two men, Mr. Desires-awake and\nMr. Wet-eyes, would go home to their huts laden with their Prince's free\ngifts and royal bounties.\n\n2.  But, with all that, Mr. Desires-awake never went out to his Prince's\npavilion till he had again put his rope upon his head.  And, however\nladen with royal presents he ever returned to his mean cottage, he never\nlaid aside his rope.  He ate in his rope, he slept in his rope, he\nvisited his next-door neighbour in his rope, till the only instruction he\nleft behind him was to bury him in a ditch, and be sure to put his rope\nupon his head.  The men and the boys of the town jeered at Mr. Desires-\nawake as he passed up their streets in his rope, and the very mothers in\nMansoul taught their children in arms to run after him and to cry, Go up,\nthou roped head!  Go up, thou roped head!  We be free men, the men of the\ntown called after him; and we never were in bondage to any man'.  Out\nwith him; out with him!  He is beside himself.  Much repentance hath made\nhim mad!  But through all that Mr. Desires-awake was as one that heard\nthem not.  For Mr. Desires-awake was full of louder voices within.  The\nvoices within his bosom quite drowned the babel around him.  The voices\nwithin called him far worse names than the streets of the city ever\ncalled him; till all he could do was to draw his rope down upon his head\nand press on again to the Prince's pavilion.  You understand about that\nrope, my brethren, do you not?  Mr. Desires-awake's continual rope?  In\nold days when a guilty man came of his own accord to the judge to confess\nhimself deserving of death, he would put a rope upon his head.  And that\nrope as much as said to the judge and to all men--the miserable man as\ngood as said: This is my desert.  This is the wages of my sin.  I justify\nmy judge.  I judge myself.  I hereby do myself to death.  And it was this\nthat so angered the happy holiday-makers of Mansoul.  For they forgave\nthemselves.  They justified themselves.  They put a high price upon\nthemselves.  Humiliation and sorrow for sin was not in all their\nthoughts; and they hated and hunted back into his hut the humble man\nwhose gait and garb always reminded them of their past life and of their\nlatter end.  But for all they could do, Mr. Desires-awake would wear his\nrope.  My soul chooseth strangling rather than sin, he would say.  My sin\nhath found me out, he would say; I hate myself, he would say, because of\nmy sin.  I condemn and denounce myself.  I hang myself up with this rope\non the accursed tree.  And thus it was that while other men were\ncrucifying their Prince afresh, Mr. Desires-awake was crucifying himself\nwith and after his Prince.  And thus it was that while the men and the\nwomen of the town so hated and so mocked Mr. Desires-awake, his Prince so\nloved and so honoured him.\n\n3.  'Oh let not my Lord be angry; and why inquirest Thou after the name\nof such a dead dog as I am?' said Desires-awake to his Prince.  'Behold,\nnow, I have taken upon me to speak unto the Lord which am but dust and\nashes,' said Abraham.  'If I wash myself with snow water, and make my\nhands never so clean, yet shalt thou plunge me into the ditch, and mine\nown clothes shall abhor me,' said Job.  'My wounds stink and are corrupt;\nmy loins are filled with a loathsome disease, and there is no soundness\nin my flesh,' said David.  'But we are all as an unclean thing,' said\nIsaiah, 'and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags.'  'I am the\nchief of sinners,' said the apostle.  'Hold your peace; I am a devil and\nnot a man,' said Philip Neri to his sons.  'I am a sinner, and worse than\nthe chief of sinners, yea, a guilty devil,' said Samuel Rutherford.  'I\nhated the light; I was a chief--the chief of sinners,' said Oliver\nCromwell.  'I was more loathsome in my own eyes than a toad,' said John\nBunyan.  'Sin and corruption would as naturally bubble out of my heart as\nwater would bubble out of a fountain.  I could have changed hearts with\nanybody.  I thought none but the devil himself could equal me for\nwickedness and pollution of mind.'  'O Despise me not,' said Bishop\nAndrewes, 'an unclean worm, a dead dog, a putrid corpse.  The just\nfalleth seven times a day; and I, an exceeding sinner, seventy times\nseven.  Me, O Lord, of sinners chief, chiefest, and greatest.'  And\nWilliam Law, 'An unclean worm, a dead dog, a stinking carcass.  Drive, I\nbeseech Thee, the serpent and the beast out of me.  O Lord, I detest and\nabhor myself for all these my sins, and for all my abuse of Thine\ninfinite mercy.'  From all this, then, you will see that this dead dog of\nours with the rope upon his head was no strange sight at Emmanuel's\npavilion.  And you and I shall still be in the same saintly succession if\nwe go continually with his words in our mouth, and with his instrument in\nour hands and on our heads.\n\n4.  'The Prince to whom I went,' said Mr. Desires-awake, 'is such a one\nfor beauty and for glory that whoso sees Him must ever after both love\nand fear Him.  I, for my part,' he said, 'can do no less; but I know not\nwhat the end will be of all these things.'  What made Mr. Desires-awake\nsay that last thing was that when he was prostrate in his prayer the\nPrince turned His head away, as if He was out of humour and out of\npatience with His petitioner; while, all the time, the overcome Prince\nwas weeping with love and with pity for Desires-awake.  Only that poor\nman did not see that, and would not have believed that even if he had\nseen it.  'I cannot tell what the end will be,' said Desires-awake; 'but\none thing I know, I shall never be able to cease from both loving and\nfearing that Prince.  I shall always love Him for His beauty and fear Him\nfor His glory.'  Can you say anything like that, my brethren?  Have you\nbeen at His seat with sackcloth, and a rope, and ashes, and tears, and\nprayers, like Abraham, and David, and Isaiah, and Paul, and John Bunyan,\nand Bishop Andrewes?  And, whatever may be the end, do you say that\nhenceforth and for ever you must both love and fear that Prince?  'Though\nHe slay me,' said Job, 'yet I shall both love and trust Him.'  Well, the\nPrince is the Prince, and He will take both His own time and His own way\nof taking off your rope and putting a chain of gold round your neck, and\na new song in your mouth, as He did to Job.  There may be more weeping\nyet, both on your side and on His before He does that; but He will do it,\nand He will not delay an hour that He can help in doing it.  Only, do you\ncontinue and increase to love His beauty, and to fear His glory.  And\nthat of itself will be reward and blessing enough to you.  Nay, once you\nhave seen both His beauty and His glory, then to lie a dog under His\ntable, and to beg at His door with a rope on your head to all eternity\nwould be a glorious eternity to you.  Samuel Rutherford said that to see\nChrist through the keyhole once in a thousand years would be heaven\nenough for him.  Christ wept in heaven as Rutherford wrote that letter in\nAberdeen, and if you make Him weep in the same way He will soon make you\nto laugh too.  He will soon make you to laugh as Samuel Rutherford and\nMr. Desires-awake are laughing now.  Only, my brethren, answer this--Are\nyour desires awakened indeed after Jesus Christ?  You know what a desire\nis.  Your hearts are full to the brim of desires.  Well, is there one\ndesire in a day in your heart for Christ?  In the multitude of your\ndesires within you, what share and what proportion go out and up to\nChrist?  You know what beauty is.  You know and you love the beauty of a\nchild, of a woman, of a man, of nature, of art, and so on.  Do you know,\nhave you ever seen, the ineffable beauty of Christ?  Is there one saint\nof God here,--and He has many saints here--is there one of you who can\nsay with David in the text, One thing do I desire?  There should be many\nso desiring saints here; for Christ's beauty is far better and far\nfairer, far more captivating, far more enthralling, and far more\nsatisfying to us than it could be to David.  Shall we call you Desires-\nawake, then, after this?  Can you say--do you say, One thing do I desire,\nand that is no thing and no person, no created beauty and no earthly\nsweetness, but my one desire is for God: to be His, and to be like Him,\nand to be for ever with Him?  Then, it shall soon all be.  For, what you\ntruly desire,--all that you already are; and what you already are,--all\nthat you shall soon completely and for ever be.  Whom have I in heaven\nbut Thee?  And there is none upon earth that I desire beside Thee.  My\nflesh and my heart faileth; but God is the strength of my heart, and my\nportion for ever.\n\n'As for me,' says the great-hearted, the hungry-hearted Psalmist, 'I\nshall be satisfied, when I awake, with Thy likeness.'  One would have\nsaid that David had all that heart could desire even before he fell\nasleep.  For he had a throne, the throne of Israel, and a son, a son like\nSolomon to sit upon it.  A long life also, full to the brim of all kinds\nof temporal and spiritual blessings.  Bless the Lord, O my soul, and\nforget not all His benefits; who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who\nhealeth all thy diseases; who redeemeth thy life from destruction; who\ncrowneth thee with loving-kindness and tender mercies; who satisfieth thy\nmouth with good things, so that thy youth is renewed like the eagle's.\nAll that, and yet not satisfied!  O David! David! surely Desires-awake is\nthy new name!  One of our own poets has said:--\n\n   'All thoughts, all passions, all delights,\n      Whatever stirs this mortal frame,\n   All are but ministers of Love,\n      And feed His sacred flame.'\n\nNow, if that is true, as it is true, even of earthly and ephemeral love,\nhow much more true is it of the love that is in the immortal soul of man\nfor the everlasting God?  And what a blessed life that already is when\nall things that come to us--joy and sorrow, good and evil, nature and\ngrace, all thoughts, all passions, all delights--are all but so many\nministers to our soul's desire after God, after the Divine Likeness and\nfor the Beatific Vision.\n\n   'Oh!  Christ, He is the Fountain,\n      The deep sweet Well of Love!\n   The streams on earth I've tasted,\n      More deep I'll drink above;\n   There, to an ocean fulness,\n      His mercy doth expand;\n   And glory--glory dwelleth\n      In Emmanuel's land.'\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIX--MR. WET-EYES\n\n\n   'Oh that my head were waters!'--_Jeremiah_.\n\n   'Tears gain everything.'--_Teresa_.\n\nNow Mr. Desires-awake, when he saw that he must go on this errand,\nbesought that they would grant that Mr. Wet-eyes might go with him.  Now\nthis Mr. Wet-eyes was a near neighbour of Mr. Desires-awake, a poor man,\nand a man of a broken spirit, yet one that could speak well to a\npetition; so they granted that he should go with him.  Wherefore the two\nmen at once addressed themselves to their serious business.  Mr. Desires-\nawake put his rope upon his head, and Mr. Wet-eyes went with his hands\nwringing together.  Then said the Prince, And what is he that is become\nthy companion in this so weighty a matter?  So Mr. Desires-awake told\nEmmanuel that this was a poor neighbour of his, and one of his most\nintimate associates.  And his name, said he, may it please your most\nexcellent Majesty, is Wet-eyes, of the town of Mansoul.  I know that\nthere are many of that name that are naught, said he; but I hope it will\nbe no offence to my Lord that I have brought my poor neighbour with me.\nThen Mr. Wet-eyes fell on his face to the ground, and made this apology\nfor his coming with his neighbour to his Lord:--\n\n'Oh, my Lord,' quoth he, 'what I am I know not myself, nor whether my\nname be feigned or true, especially when I begin to think what some have\nsaid, and that is that this name was given me because Mr. Repentance was\nmy father.  But good men have sometimes bad children, and the sincere do\nsometimes beget hypocrites.  My mother also called me by this name of\nmine from my cradle; but whether she said so because of the moistness of\nmy brain, or because of the softness of my heart, I cannot tell.  I see\ndirt in mine own tears, and filthiness in the bottom of my prayers.  But\nI pray Thee (and all this while the gentleman wept) that Thou wouldst not\nremember against us our transgressions, nor take offence at the\nunqualifiedness of Thy servants, but mercifully pass by the sin of\nMansoul, and refrain from the magnifying of Thy grace no longer.'  So at\nHis bidding they arose, and both stood trembling before Him.\n\n1.  'His name, may it please your Majesty, is Wet-eyes, of the town of\nMansoul.  I know, at the same time, that there are many of that name that\nare naught.'  Naught, that is, for this great enterprise now in hand.  And\nthus it was that Mr. Desires-awake in setting out for the Prince's\npavilion besought that Mr. Wet-eyes might go with him.  Mr. Desires-awake\nfelt keenly how much might turn on who his companion was that day, and\ntherefore he took Mr. Wet-eyes with him.  David would have made a most\nexcellent associate for Mr. Desires-awake that day.  'I am weary with my\ngroaning; all the night make I my bed to swim; I water my couch with my\ntears.'  And again, 'Rivers of waters run down mine eyes, because they\nkeep not Thy law.'  This, then, was the only manner of man that Mr.\nDesires-awake would stake his life alongside of that day.  'I have seen\nsome persons weep for the loss of sixpence,' said Mr. Desires-awake, 'or\nfor the breaking of a glass, or at some trifling accident.  And they\ncannot pretend to have their tears valued at a bigger rate than they will\nconfess their passion to be when they weep.  Some are vexed for the\ndirtying of their linen, or some such trifle, for which the least passion\nis too big an expense.  And thus it is that a man cannot tell his own\nheart simply by his tears, or the truth of his repentance by those short\ngusts of sorrow.'  Well, then, my brethren, tell me, Do you think that\nMr. Desires-awake would have taken you that day to the pavilion door?\nWould his head have been safe with you for his associate?  Your\nassociates see many gusts in your heart.  Do they ever see your eyes red\nbecause of your sin?  Did you ever weep so much as one good tear-drop for\npure sin?  One true tear: not because your sins have found you out, but\nfor secret sins that you know can never find you out in this world?  And,\nstill better, do you ever weep in secret places not for sin, but for\nsinfulness--which is a very different matter?  Do you ever weep to\nyourself and to God alone over your incurably wicked heart?  If not, then\nweep for that with all your might, night and day.  No mortal man has so\nmuch cause to weep as you have.  Go to God on the spot, on every spot,\nand say with Bishop Andrewes, who is both Mr. Desires-awake and Mr. Wet-\neyes in one, say with that deep man in his _Private Devotions_, say: 'I\nneed more grief, O God; I plainly need it.  I can sin much, but I cannot\ncorrespondingly repent.  O Lord, give me a molten heart.  Give me tears;\ngive me a fountain of tears.  Give me the grace of tears.  Drop down, ye\nheavens, and bedew the dryness of my heart.  Give me, O Lord, this saving\ngrace.  No grace of all the graces were more welcome to me.  If I may not\nwater my couch with my tears, nor wash Thy feet with my tears, at least\ngive me one or two little tears that Thou mayest put into Thy bottle and\nwrite in Thy book!'  If your heart is hard, and your eyes dry, make\nsomething like that your continual prayer.\n\n2.  'A poor-man,' said Mr. Desires-awake, about his associate.  'Mr. Wet-\neyes is a poor man, and a man of a broken spirit.'  'Let Oliver take\ncomfort in his dark sorrows and melancholies.  The quantity of sorrow he\nhas, does it not mean withal the quantity of sympathy he has, and the\nquantity of faculty and of victory he shall yet have?  Our sorrow is the\ninverted image of our nobleness.  The depth of our despair measures what\ncapability and height of claim we have to hope.  Black smoke, as of\nTophet, filling all your universe, it can yet by true heart-energy become\nflame, and the brilliancy of heaven.  Courage!'\n\n   'This is the angel of the earth,\n   And she is always weeping.'\n\n3.  'A poor man, and a man of a broken spirit, and yet one that can speak\nwell to a petition.'  Yes; and you will see how true that eulogy of Mr.\nWet-eyes is if you will run over in your mind the outstanding instances\nof successful petitioners in the Scriptures.  As you come down the Old\nand the New Testaments you will be astonished and encouraged to find how\nprevailing a fountain of tears always is with God.  David with his\nswimming bed; Jeremiah with his head waters; Mary Magdalene over His feet\nwith her welling eyes; Peter's bitter cry all his life long as often as\nhe heard a cock crow, and so on.  So on through a multitude whose names\nare written in heaven, and who went up to heaven all the way with\ninconsolable sorrow because of their sins.  They took words and turned to\nthe Lord; but,--better than the best words,--they took tears, or rather,\ntheir tears took them.  The best words, the words that the Holy Ghost\nHimself teacheth, if they are without tears, will avail nothing.  Even\ninspired words will not pass through; while, all the time, tears, mere\ntears, without words, are omnipotent with God.  Words weary Him, while\ntears overcome and command Him.  He inhabits the tears of Israel.\nTherefore, also, now, saith the Lord, turn ye unto Me with all your\nheart, and with weeping and with mourning.  And rend your heart, and not\nyour garments, and turn unto the Lord your God, for He is gracious and\nmerciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repenteth Him of the\nevil.  It is the same with ourselves.  Tears move us.  Tears melt us.  We\ncannot resist tears.  Even counterfeit tears, we cannot be sure that they\nare not true.  And that is the main reason why our Lord is so good at\nspeaking to a petition.  It is because His whole heart, and all the\nmoving passions of His heart, are in His intercessory office.  It is\nbecause He still remembers in the skies His tears, His agonies, and\ncries.  It is because He is entered into the holiest with His own tears\nas well as with His own blood.  And it is because He will remain and\nabide before the Father the Man of Sorrows till our last petition is\nanswered, and till God has wiped the last tear from our eyes.  When He\nwas in the coasts of Caesarea-Philippi, our Lord felt a great curiosity\nto find out who the people thereabouts took Him to be.  And it must have\ntouched His heart to be told that some men had insight enough to insist\nthat He was the prophet Jeremiah come back again to weep over Jerusalem.\nHe is Elias, said some.  No; He is John the Baptist risen from the dead,\nsaid others.  No, no; said some men who saw deeper than their neighbours.\nHis head is waters, and His eyes are a fountain of tears.  Do you not see\nthat He so often escapes into a lodge in the wilderness to weep for our\nsins?  No; He is neither John nor Elijah; He is Jeremiah come back again\nto weep over Jerusalem!  And even an apostle, looking back at the\nbeginning of our Lord's priesthood on earth, says that He was prepared\nfor His office by prayers and supplications, and with strong crying and\ntears.  From all that, then, let us learn and lay to heart that if we\nwould have one to speak well to our petitions, the Man of Sorrows is that\none.  And then, as His remembrancers on our behalf, let us engage all\nthose among our friends who have the same grace of tears.  But, above\nall, let us be men of tears ourselves.  For all the tears and all the\nintercessions of our great High Priest, and all the importunings of our\nbest friends to boot, will avail us nothing if our own eyes are dry.  Let\nus, then, turn back to Bishop Andrewes's prayer for the grace of tears,\nand offer it every night with him till our head, like his, is holy\nwaters, and till, like him, we get beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for\nmourning, and the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness.\n\n4.  'Clear as tears' is a Persian proverb when they would praise their\npurest spring water.  But Mr. Wet-eyes has from henceforth spoiled the\npoint of that proverb for us.  'I see,' he said, 'dirt in mine own tears,\nand filthiness in the bottom of my prayers.'  Mr. Wet-eyes is hopeless.\nMr. Wet-eyes is intolerable.  Mr. Wet-eyes would weary out the patience\nof a saint.  There is no satisfying or pacifying or ever pleasing this\nmorbose Mr. Wet-eyes.  The man is absolutely insufferable.  Why, prayers\nand tears that the most and best of God's people cannot attain to are\nspurned and spat upon by Mr. Wet-eyes.  The man is beside himself with\nhis tears.  For, tears that would console and assure us for a long season\nafter them, he will weep over them as we scarce weep over our worst sins.\nHis closet always turns all his comeliness to corruption.  He comes out\nof his closet after all night in it with his psalm-book wrung to pulp,\nand with all his righteousnesses torn to filthy rags; till all men escape\nMr. Wet-eyes' society--all men except Mr. Desires-awake.  I will go out\non your errand now, said Mr. Desires-awake, if you will send Mr. Wet-eyes\nwith me.  And thus the two twin sons of sorrow for sin and hunger after\nholiness went out arm in arm to the great pavilion together, Mr. Desires-\nawake with his rope upon his head, and Mr. Wet-eyes with his hands\nwringing together.  Thus they went to the Prince's pavilion.  I gave you\na specimen of one of Mr. Wet-eyes' prayers in the introduction to this\ndiscourse, and you did not discover much the matter with it, did you?  You\ndid not discover much filthiness in the bottom of that prayer, did you?  I\nam sure you did not.  Ah! but that is because you have not yet got Mr.\nWet-eyes' eyes.  When you get his eyes; when you turn and employ upon\nyourselves and upon your tears and upon your prayers his always-wet\neyes,--then you will begin to understand and love and take sides with\nthis inconsolable soul, and will choose his society rather than that of\nany other man--as often, at any rate, as you go out to the Prince's\npavilion door.\n\n5.  'Mr. Repentance was my father, but good men sometimes have bad\nchildren, and the most sincere do sometimes beget great hypocrites.  But,\nI pray Thee, take not offence at the unqualifiedness of Thy servant.'\nTake good note of that uncommon expression, 'unqualifiedness,' in Mr. Wet-\neyes' confession, all of you who are attending to what is being said.  Lay\n'unqualifiedness' to heart.  Learn how to qualify yourselves before you\nbegin to pray.  In his fine comment on the 137th Psalm, Matthew Henry\ndiscourses delightfully on what he calls 'deliberate tears.'  Look up\nthat raciest of commentators, and see what he there says about the\ndeliberate tears of the captives in Babylon.  It was the lack of\nsufficient deliberation in his tears that condemned and alarmed Mr. Wet-\neyes that day.  He felt now that he had not deliberated and qualified\nhimself properly before coming to the Prince's pavilion.  Do not take up\nyour time or your thoughts with mere curiosities, either in your Bible or\nin any other good book, says A Kempis.  Read such things rather as may\nyield compunction to your heart.  And again, give thyself to compunction,\nand thou shalt gain much devotion thereby.  Mr. Wet-eyes, good and true\nsoul, was afraid that he had not qualified himself enough by compunctious\nreading and self-recollection.  The sincere, he sobbed out, do often\nbeget hypocrites!  'Our hearts are so deceitful in the matter of\nrepentance,' says Jeremy Taylor, 'that the masters of the spiritual life\nare fain to invent suppletory arts and stratagems to secure the duty.'\nTake not offence at the lack of all such suppletory arts and stratagems\nin thy servant, said poor Wet-eyes.  All which would mean in the most of\nus: Take not offence at my rawness and ignorance in the spiritual life,\nand especially in the life of inward devotion.  Do not count up against\nme the names and the numbers and the prices of my poems, and plays, and\nnovels, and newspapers, and then the number of my devotional books.\nCompare not my outlay on my body and on this life with my outlay on my\nsoul and on the life to come.  Oh, take not mortal offence at the\nshameful and scandalous unqualifiedness of Thy miserable servant.  My\nfather and my mother read the books of the soul, but they have left\nbehind them a dry-eyed reprobate in me!  Say that to-night as you look\naround on the grievous famine of the suppletory arts and stratagems of\nrepentance and reformation in your heathenish bedroom.\n\nSpiritual preaching; real face to face, inward, verifiable, experimental,\nspiritual preaching; preaching to a heart in the agony of its\nsanctification; preaching to men whose whole life is given over to making\nthem a new heart--that kind of preaching is scarcely ever heard in our\nday.  There is great intellectual ability in the pulpit of our day, great\nscholarship, great eloquence, and great earnestness, but spiritual\npreaching, preaching to the spirit--'wet-eyed' preaching--is a lost art.\nAt the same time, if that living art is for the present overlaid and\nlost, the literature of a deeper spiritual day abides to us, and our\nspiritually-minded people are not confined to us, they are not dependent\non us.  Well, this is the Communion week with us yet once more.  Will you\nnot, then, make it the beginning of some of the suppletory arts and\nstratagems of the spiritual life with yourselves?  I cannot preach as I\nwould like on such subjects, but I can tell you who could, and who,\nthough dead, yet speak by their immortal books.  You have the wet-eyed\npsalms; but they are beyond the depth of most people.  Their meaning\nseems to us on the surface, and we all read and sing them, but let us not\ntherefore think that we understand them.  I cannot compel you to read the\nbooks, and to read little else but the books, that would in time, and by\nGod's blessing, lead you into the depths of the psalms; but I can wash my\nhands so far in making their names so many household words among my\npeople.  The _Way to Christ_, the _Imitation of Christ_, the _Theologia\nGermanica_, Tauler's _Sermons_, the _Mortification of Sin_, and\n_Indwelling Sin in Believers_, the _Saint's Rest_, the _Holy Living and\nDying_, the _Privata Sacra_, the _Private Devotions_, the _Serious Call_,\nthe _Christian Perfection_, the _Religious Affections_, and such like.\nAll that, and you still unqualified!  All that, and your eyes still dry!\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XX--MR. HUMBLE THE JURYMAN, AND MISS HUMBLE-MIND THE SERVANT-MAID\n\n\n   'Learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart.'--_Our Lord_.\n\n   'Be clothed with humility.'--_Peter_.\n\n   'God's chiefest saints are the least in their own eyes.'--_A Kempis_.\n\n   'Without humility all our other virtues are but vices.'--_Pascal_.\n\n   'Humility does not consist in having a worse opinion of ourselves than\n   we deserve.'--_Law_.\n\n   'Humility lies close upon the heart, and its tests are exceedingly\n   delicate and subtle.'--_Newman_.\n\nOur familiar English word 'humility' comes down to us from the Latin root\n_humus_, which means the earth or the ground.  Humility, therefore, is\nthat in the mind and in the heart of a man which is low down even to the\nvery earth.  A humble-minded man may not have learning enough to know the\netymology of the name which best describes his character, but the divine\nnature which is in him teaches him to look down, to walk meekly and\nsoftly, and to speak seldom, and always in love.  For humility, while it\ntakes its lowly name from earth, all the time has its true nature from\nheaven.  Humility is full of all meekness, modesty, submissiveness,\nteachableness, sense of inability, sense of unworthiness, sense of ill-\ndesert.  Till, with that new depth and new intensity that the Scriptures\nand religious experience have given to this word, as to so many other\nwords, humility, in the vocabulary of the spiritual life, has come to be\napplied to that low estimate of ourselves which we come to form and to\nentertain as we are more and more enlightened about God and about\nourselves; about the majesty, glory, holiness, beauty, and blessedness of\nthe divine nature, and about our own unspeakable evil, vileness, and\nmisery as sinners.  And, till humility has come to rank in Holy\nScripture, and in the lives and devotions of all God's saints, as at once\nthe deepest root and the ripest fruit of all the divine graces that enter\ninto, and, indeed, constitute the life of God in the heart of man.\nHumility, evangelical humility, sings Edwards in his superb and seraphic\npoem the _Religious Affections_,--evangelical humility is the sense that\nthe true Christian has of his own utter insufficiency, despicableness,\nand odiousness, a sense which is peculiar to the true saint.  But to\ncompensate the true saint for this sight and sense of himself, he has\nrevealed to him an accompanying sense of the absolutely transcendent\nbeauty of the divine nature and of all divine things; a sight and a sense\nthat quite overcome the heart and change to holiness all the dispositions\nand inclinations and affections of the heart.  The essence of evangelical\nhumility, says Edwards, consists in such humility as becomes a creature\nin himself exceeding sinful, but at the same time, under a dispensation\nof grace, and this is the greatest and most essential thing in all true\nreligion.\n\n1.  Well, then, our Mr. Humble was a juryman in Mansoul, and his name and\nhis nature eminently fitted him for his office.  I never was a juryman;\nbut, if I were, I feel sure I would come home from the court a far\nhumbler man than I went up to it.  I cannot imagine how a judge can\nremain a proud man, or an advocate, or a witness, or a juryman, or a\nspectator, or even a policeman.  I am never in a criminal court that I do\nnot tremble with terror all the time.  I say to myself all the\ntime,--there stands John Newton but for the preventing grace of God.  'I\nwill not sit as a judge to try General Boulanger, because I hate him,'\nsaid M. Renault in the French Senate.  Mr. Humble himself could not have\nmade a better speech to the bench than that when his name was called to\nbe sworn.  Let us all remember John Newton and M. Renault when we would\nbegin to write or to speak about any arrested, accused, found-out man.\nLet other men's arrests, humiliations, accusations, and sentences only\nmake us search well our own past, and that will make us ever humbler and\never humbler men ourselves; ever more penitent men, and ever more\nprayerful men.\n\n2.  And then Miss Humble-mind, his only daughter, was a servant-maid.\nThere is no office so humble but that a humble mind will not put on still\nmore humility in it.  What a lesson in humility, not Peter only got that\nnight in the upper room, but that happy servant-maid also who brought in\nthe bason and the towel.  Would she ever after that night grumble and\ngive up her place in a passion because she had been asked to do what was\nbeneath her to do?  Would she ever leave that house for any wages?  Would\nshe ever see that bason without kissing it?  Would that towel not be a\nholy thing ever after in her proud eyes?  How happy that house would ever\nafter that night be, not so much because the Lord's Supper had been\ninstituted in it, as because a servant was in it who had learned humility\nas she went about the house that night.  Let all our servants hold up\ntheir heads and magnify their office.  Their Master was once a servant,\nand He left us all, and all servants especially, an example that they\nshould follow in His steps.  Peter, whose feet were washed that night,\nnever forgot that night, and his warm heart always warmed to a servant\nwhen he saw her with her bason and her towels, till he gave her half a\nchapter to herself in his splendid First Epistle.  'Servants, be\nsubject,' he said, till his argument rose to a height above which not\neven Paul himself ever rose.  Servant-maids, you must all have your own\nhalf-chapter out of First Peter by heart.\n\n3.  But I have as many students of one kind or other here to-night as I\nhave maid-servants, and they will remember where a great student has said\nthat knowledge without love but puffeth a student up.  Now, the best\nknowledge for us all, and especially so for a student, is to know\nhimself: his own ignorance, his own foolishness, his blindness of mind,\nand, especially, his corruption of heart.  For that knowledge will both\nkeep him from being puffed up with what he already knows, and it will\nalso put him and keep him in the way of knowing more.  Self-knowledge\nwill increase humility, and all the past masters both of science and of\nreligion will tell him that humility is the certain note of the true\nstudent.  You who are students all know _The Advancement of Learning_,\njust as the servants sitting beside you all know the second chapter of\nFirst Peter.  Well, your master Verulam there tells you, and indeed on\nevery page of his, that it is only to a humble, waiting, childlike temper\nthat nature, like grace, will ever reveal up her secrets.  'There is\nsmall chance of truth at the goal when there is not a childlike humility\nat the starting-post.'  Well, then, all you students who would fain get\nto the goal of science, make the Church of Christ your starting-post.\nCome first and come continually to the Christian school to learn\nhumility, and then, as long as your talents, your years, and your\nopportunities hold out, both truth and goodness will open up to you at\nevery step.  Every step will be a goal, and at every goal a new step will\nopen up.  And God's smile and God's blessing, and all good men's love and\nhonour and applause will support and reward you in your race.  And,\nhumble-minded to the truth herself, be, at the same time, humble-minded\ntoward all who like yourself are seeking to know and to do the truth.  A\nlately deceased student of nature was a pattern to all students as long\nas he waited on truth in his laboratory; and even as long as he remained\nat his desk to tell the world what he and other students had discovered\nin their search.  But when any other student in his search after truth\nwas compelled to cross that hitherto so exemplary student, he immediately\nbecame as insolent as if he had been the greatest boor in the country.\nTill, as he spat out scorn at all who differed from him we always\nremembered this in A Kempis--'Surely, an humble husbandman that serveth\nGod is better than a proud philosopher that, neglecting himself,\nlaboureth to understand the course of the heavens.  It is great wisdom\nand perfection to esteem nothing of ourselves, and to think always well\nand highly of others.'  Students of arts, students of philosophy,\nstudents of law, students of medicine, and especially, students of\ndivinity, be humble men.  Labour in humility even more than in your\nspecial science.  Humility will advance you in your special science;\nwhile, all the time, and at the end of time, she will be more to you than\nall the other sciences taken together.  And since I have spoken of A\nKempis, take this motto for all your life out of A Kempis, as the great\nand good Fenelon did, and it will guide you to the goal: _Ama nescia et\npro nihilo reputari_.\n\n4.  But of all the men in the whole world it is ministers who should\nsimply, as Peter says, be clothed with humility, and that from head to\nfoot.  And, first as divinity students, and then as pastors and\npreachers, we who are ministers have advantages and opportunities in this\nrespect quite peculiar and private to ourselves.  For, while other\nstudents are spending their days and their nights on the ancient classics\nof Greece and Rome, the student who is to be a minister is buried in the\nPsalms, in the Gospels, and in the Epistles.  While the student of law is\ndeep in his commentaries and his cases, the student of divinity is deep\nin the study of experimental religion.  And while the medical student is\nfull of the diseases of animals and of men, the theological student is\nabsorbed in the holiness of the divine nature, and in the plague of the\nhuman heart, and, especially, he is drowned deeper every day in his own.\nAnd he who has begun a curriculum like that and is not already putting on\na humility beyond all other men had better lose no more time, but turn\nhimself at once to some other way of making his bread.  The word of God\nand his own heart,--yes; what a sure school of evangelical humility to\nevery evangelically-minded student is that!  And, then, after that, and\nall his days, his congregational communion-roll and his visiting-book.\nLet no minister who would be found of God clothed and canopied over with\nhumility ever lose sight of his communion-roll and pastoral visitation-\nbook.  I defy any minister to keep those records always open before him\nand yet remain a proud man, a self-respecting, self-satisfied,\nself-righteous man.  For, what secret histories of his own folly,\nneglect, rashness, offensiveness, hot-headedness, self-seeking,\nself-pleasing vanity, now puffed up over one man, now cast down and full\nof gloom over another, what self-flattery here, and what resentment and\nretaliation there; and so on, as only his own eyes and his Divine\nMaster's eye can read between every diary line.  What shame will cover\nthat minister as with a mantle when he thinks what the Christian ministry\nmight be made, and then takes home to himself what he has made it!  Let\nany minister shut himself in with his communion-roll and his visiting-\nbook before each returning communion season, and there will be one worthy\ncommunicant at least in the congregation: one who will have little\nappetite all that week for any other food but the broken Body and the\nshed Blood of his Redeemer.  But these are professional matters that the\noutside world has nothing to do with and would not understand.  Only, let\nall young men who would have evangelical humility absolutely secured and\nsealed to them,--let them come and be ministers.  Just as all young men\nwho would have any satisfaction in life, any sense of work well done and\nworthy of reward, any taste of a goal attained and an old age earned, let\nthem take to anything in all this world but the evangelical pulpit and\nits accompanying pastorate.\n\n5.  But humility is not a grace of the pulpit and the pastorate only.  It\nis not those who are separated by the Holy Ghost to study the word of God\nand their own hearts all their life long only, who are called to put on\nhumility.  All men are called to that grace.  There is no acceptance with\nGod for any man without that grace.  There is no approach to God for any\nman without it.  All salvation begins and ends in it.  Would you, then,\nfain possess it?  Would you, then, fain attain to it?  Then let there be\nno mystery and no mistake made about it.  Would any man here fain get\ndown to that deep valley where God's saints walk in the sweet shade and\nlie down in green pastures?  Well, I warrant him that just before him,\nand already under his eye, there is a flight of steps cut in the hill,\nwhich steps, if he will take them, will, step after step, take him also\ndown to that bottom.  The whole face of this steep and slippery world is\nsculptured deep with such submissive steps.  Indeed, when a man's eyes\nare once turned down to that valley, there is nothing to be seen anywhere\nin all this world but downward steps.  Look whichever way you will, there\ngleams out upon you yet another descending stair.  Look back at the way\nyou came up.  But take care lest the sight turns you dizzy.  Look at any\nspot you once crossed on your way up, and, lo! every foot-print of yours\nhas become a descending step.  You sink down as you look, broken down\nwith shame and with horror and with remorse.  There are people, some\nstill left in this world, and some gone to the other world, people whom\nyou dare not think of lest you should turn sick and lose hold and hope.\nThere are places you dare not visit: there are scenes you dare not\nrecall.  Lucifer himself would be a humble angel with his wings over his\nface if he had a past like yours, and would often enough return to look\nat it.  And, then, not the past only, but at this present moment there\nare people and things placed close beside you, and kept close beside you,\nand you close beside them, on divine purpose just to give you continual\noccasion and offered opportunity to practise humility.  They are kept\nclose beside you just on purpose to humiliate you, to cut out your\ndescending steps, to lend you their hand, and to say to you: Keep near\nus.  Only keep your eye on us, and we will see you down!  And then, if\nyou are resolute enough to look within, if you are able to keep your eye\non what goes on in your own heart like heart--beats, then, already, I\nknow where you are.  You are under all men's feet.  You are ashamed to\nlift up your eyes to meet other men's eyes.  You dare not take their\nhonest hands.  You could tell Edwards himself things about humiliation\nnow that would make his terribly searching and humbling book quite tame\nand tasteless.\n\nCome, then, O high-minded man, be sane, be wise.  If you were up on a\ngiddy height, and began to see that certain death was straight and soon\nbefore you, what would you do?  You know what you would do.  You would\nlook with all your eyes for such steps as would take you safest down to\nthe solid ground.  You would welcome any hand stretched out to help you.\nYou would be most attentive and most obedient and most thankful to any\none who would assure you that this is the right way down.  And you would\nkeep on saying to yourself--Once I were well down, no man shall see me up\nhere again.  Well, my brethren, humiliation, humility, is to be learned\njust in the same way, and it is to be learned in no other way.  He who\nwould be down must just come down.  That is all.  A step down, and\nanother step down, and another, and another, and already you are well\ndown.  A humble act done to-day, a humble word spoken to-morrow;\nhumiliation after humiliation accepted every day that you would at one\ntime have spurned from you with passion; and then your own vile, hateful,\nunbearable heart-all that is ordained of God to bring you down, down to\nthe dust; and this last, your own heart, will bring you down to the very\ndepths of hell.  And thus, after all your other opportunities and\nordinances of humility are embraced and exhausted, then the plunges, the\ndepths, the abysses of humility that God will open up in your own heart\nwill all work in you a meetness for heaven and a ripeness for its glory,\nthat shall for ever reward you for all that degradation and shame and\nself-despair which have been to you the sure way and the only way to\neverlasting life.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXI--MASTER THINK-WELL, THE LATE AND ONLY SON OF OLD MR.\nMEDITATION\n\n\n   'As he thinketh in his heart, so is he.'--_A Proverb_.\n\nIt was a truly delightful sight to see old Mr. Meditation and his only\nson, our little Think-well, out among the woods and hedgerows of a summer\nafternoon.  Little Think-well was the son of his father's old age.  That\ndry tree used to say to himself that if ever he was intrusted with a son\nof his own, he would make his son his most constant and his most\nconfidential companion all his days.  And so he did.  The eleventh of\nDeuteronomy had become a greater and greater text to that childless man\nas he passed the mid-time of his days.  'Therefore,' he used to say to\nhimself, as he walked abroad alone, and as other men passed him with\ntheir children at their side--'Therefore ye shall teach them to your\nchildren, speaking of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when\nthou walkest by the way, when thou liest down and when thou risest up.\nAnd thou shalt write them upon the doorposts of thine house and upon thy\ngates.'  And thus it was that, as the little lad grew up, there was no\nday of all the seven that he so much numbered and waited for as was that\nsacred day on which his father was free to take little Think-well by the\nhand and lead him out to talk to him.  'No,' said an Edinburgh boy to his\nmother the other day--'No, mother,' he said, 'I have no liking for these\nSunday papers with their poor stories and their pictures.  I am to read\nthe Bible stories and the Bible biographies first.'  He is not my boy.  I\nwish my boys were all like him.  'And Plutarch on week-days for such a\nboy,' I said to his mother.  How to keep a decent shred of the old\nsanctification on the modern Sabbath-day is the anxious inquiry of many\nfathers and mothers among us.  My friend with her manly-minded boy, and\nMr. Meditation with little Think-well had no trouble in that matter.\n\n         'And once I said,\n   As I remember, looking round upon those rocks\n   And hills on which we all of us were born,\n   That God who made the Great Book of the world\n   Would bless such piety;--\n   Never did worthier lads break English bread:\n   The finest Sunday that the autumn saw,\n   With all its mealy clusters of ripe nuts,\n   Could never keep those boys away from church,\n   Or tempt them to an hour of Sabbath breach,\n   Leonard and James!'\n\nThink-well and that mother's son.\n\nOld Mr. Meditation, the father, was sprung of a poor but honest and\nindustrious stock in the city.  He had not had many talents or\nopportunities to begin with, but he had made the very best of the two he\nhad.  And then, when the two estates of Mr. Fritter-day and Mr. Let-good-\nslip were sequestered to the crown, the advisers of the crown handed over\nthose two neglected estates to Mr. Meditation to improve them for the\ncommon good, and after him to his son, whose name we know.  The steps of\na good man are ordered of the Lord, and He delighteth in his way.  I have\nbeen young and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken,\nnor his seed begging bread.\n\nNow, this Think-well old Mr. Meditation had by Mrs. Piety, and she was\nthe daughter of the old Recorder.   'I am Thy servant,' said Mrs. Piety's\nson on occasion all his days--'I am Thy servant and the son of Thine\nhandmaid.'  And at that so dutiful acknowledgment of his a long\nprocession of the servants of God pass up before our eyes with their\nsainted mothers leaning on the arms of their great sons.  The Psalmist\nand his mother, the Baptist and his mother, our Lord and His mother, the\nauthor of the Fourth Gospel and his mother, Paul's son and successor in\nthe gospel and his mother and grandmother, the author of _The\nConfessions_ and his mother; and, in this noble connection, I always\nthink of Halyburton and his good mother.  And in this ennobling\nconnection you will all think of your own mother also, and before we go\nany further you will all say, I also, O Lord, am Thy servant and the son\nof Thine handmaid.  'Fathers and mothers handle children differently,'\nsays Jeremy Taylor.  And then that princely teacher of the Church of\nChrist Catholic goes on to tell us how Mrs. Piety handled her little\nThink-well which she had borne to Mr. Meditation.  After other things,\nshe said this every night before she took sleep to her tired eyelids,\nthis: 'Oh give me grace to bring him up.  Oh may I always instruct him\nwith diligence and meekness; govern him with prudence and holiness; lead\nhim in the paths of religion and justice; never provoking him to wrath,\nnever indulging him in folly, and never conniving at an unworthy action.\nOh sanctify him in his body, soul, and spirit.  Let all his thoughts be\npure and holy to the Searcher of hearts; let his words be true and\nprudent before men; and may he have the portion of the meek and the\nhumble in the world to come, and all through Jesus Christ our Lord!'  How\ncould a son get past a father and a mother like that?  Even if, for a\nseason, he had got past them, he would be sure to come back.  Only, their\nyoung Think-well never did get past his father and his mother.\n\nThere was not so much word of heredity in his day; but without so much of\nthe word young Think-well had the whole of the thing.  And as time went\non, and the child became more and more the father of the man, it was seen\nand spoken of by all the neighbours who knew the house, how that their\nonly child had inherited all his father's head, and all his mother's\nheart, and then that he had reverted to his maternal grandfather in his\nso keen and quick sense of right and wrong.  All which, under whatever\nname it was held, was a most excellent outfit for our young gentleman.\nHis old father, good natural head and all, had next to no book-learning.\nHe had only two or three books that he read a hundred times over till he\nhad them by heart.  And as he sighed over his unlettered lot he always\nconsoled himself with a saying he had once got out of one of his old\nbooks.  The saying of some great authority was to this effect, that 'an\nold and simple woman, if she loves Jesus, may be greater than our great\nbrother Bonaventure.'  He did not know who Bonaventure was, but he always\ngot a reproof again out of his name.  Think-well, to his father's immense\ndelight, was a very methodical little fellow, and his father and he had\norderly little secrets that they told to none.  Little secret plans as to\nwhat they were to read about, and think about, and pray about on certain\ndays of the week and at certain hours of the day and the night.  You must\nnot call the father an old pedant, for the fact is, it was the son who\nwas the pedant if there was one in that happy house.  The two intimate\nfriends had a word between them they called _agenda_.  And nobody but\nthemselves knew where they had borrowed that uncouth word, what language\nit was, or what it meant.  Only in the old man's tattered pocket-book\nthere were things like this found by his minister after his death.\nIndeed, in a museum of such relics this is still to be read under a glass\ncase, and in old Mr. Meditation's ramshackle hand: 'Monday, death;\nTuesday, judgment; Wednesday, heaven; Thursday, hell; Friday, my past\nlife back to my youth; Saturday, the passion of my Saviour; Lord's day,\ncreation, salvation, and my own.--M.'  And then, on an utterly illegible\npage, this: 'Jesus, Thy life and Thy words are a perpetual sermon to me.\nI meditate on Thee all the day.  Make my memory a vessel of election.  Let\nall my thoughts be plain, honest, pious, simple, prudent, and charitable,\ntill Thou art pleased to draw the curtain and let me see Thyself, O\nEternal Jesu!'  If I had time I could tell you more about Think-well's\nquaint old father.  But the above may be better than nothing about the\nrare old gentleman.\n\nA great authority has said--two great authorities have said in their\nenigmatic way, that a 'dry light is ever the best.'  That may be so in\nsome cases and to some uses, but nothing can be more sure than this, that\nthe light that little Think-well got from his father's head was\nexcellently drenched in his mother's heart.  The sweet moisture of his\nmother's heart mixed up beautifully with his father's drier head and made\na fine combination in their one boy as it turned out.  Her minister,\npreaching on one occasion on my text for to-night, had said--and she had\nsuch a memory for a sermon that she had never forgotten it, but had laid\nit up in her heart on the spot--'As the philosopher's stone,' the old-\nfashioned preacher had said, 'turns all metals into gold, as the bee\nsucks honey out of every flower, and as the good stomach sucks out some\nsweet and wholesome nourishment out of whatever it takes into itself, so\ndoth a holy heart, so far as sanctified, convert and digest all things\ninto spiritual and useful thoughts.  This you may see in Psalm cvii. 43.'\nAnd in her plain, silent, hidden, motherly way Mistress Piety adorned her\nold minister's doctrine of the holy heart that he was always preaching\nabout, till she shared her soft and holy heart with her son, as his\nfather had shared his clear and deep, if too unlearned, head.\n\nWe have one grandmother at least signalised in the Bible; but no\ngrandfather, so far as I remember.  But amends are made for that in the\n_Holy War_.  For Think-well would never have been the man he became had\nit not been for the old Recorder, his grandfather on his mother's side.\nSome superficial people said that there was too much severity in the old\nRecorder; but his grandson who knew him best, never said that.  He was\nthe best of men, his grandson used to stand up for him, and say, I shall\nnever forget the debt I owe him.  It was he who taught me first to make\nconscience of my thoughts.  Indeed, as for my secret thoughts, I had\ntaken no notice of them till that summer afternoon walk home from church,\nwhen we sat down among the bushes and he showed me on the spot the way.\nAnd I can say to his memory that scarce for one waking hour have I any\nday forgotten the lesson.  The lesson how to make a conscience, as he\nsaid, of all my thoughts about myself and about all my neighbours.  Such,\nthen, were Think-well's more immediate ancestors, and such was the\ninheritance that they all taken together had left him.\n\nThink-well!  Think-well!  My brethren, what do you think, what do you\nsay, as you hear that fine name?  I will tell you what I think and say.\nIf I overcome, and have that white stone given to me, and in that stone a\nnew name written which no man shall know saving he that receiveth it; and\nif it were asked me here to-night what I would like my new name to be, I\nwould say on the spot, Let it be THINK-WELL!  Let my new name among the\nsaved and the sanctified before the throne be THINK-WELL!  As, O God, it\nwill be the bottomless pit to me, if I am forsaken of Thee for ever to my\nevil thoughts.  Send down and prevent it.  Stir up all Thy strength and\ngive commandment to prevent it.  Do Thou prevent it.  For, after I have\ndone all,--after I have made all my overt acts blameless, after I have\ntamed my tongue which no man can tame--all that only the more throws my\nthoughts into a very devil's garden, a thicket of hell, a secret swamp of\nsin to the uttermost.  How, then, am I ever to attain to that white stone\nand that shining name?  And that in a world of such truth that every\nman's name and title there shall be a strict and true and entirely\naccurate and adequate description and exposition of the very thoughts and\nintents and imaginations of his heart?  How shall I, how shall you, my\nbrethren, ever have 'Think-well' written on our forehead?--Well, with God\nall things are possible.  With God, with a much meditating mind, and a\ntrue and humble and tender heart, and a pure conscience, a conscience\nvoid of offence, working together with Him--He, with all these\ninheritances and all these environments working together with Him, will\nat last enable us, you and me, to lift up such a clear and transparent\nforehead.  But not without our constant working together.  We must\nourselves make head, and heart, and, especially, conscience of all our\nthoughts--for a long lifetime we must do that.  The _Ductor Dubitantium_\nhas a deep chapter on 'The Thinking Conscience.'  And what a reproof to\nmany of us lies in the mere name!  For how much evil-thinking and evil-\nspeaking we have all been guilty of through our unthinking conscience and\nthrough a zeal for God, but a zeal without knowledge.  Look back at the\nhistory of the Church and see; look back at your own history in the\nChurch and see.  Yes, make conscience of your thoughts: but let it first\nbe an instructed conscience, a thinking conscience, a conscience full of\nthe best and the clearest light.  And then let us also make ourselves a\nnew heart and a new spirit, as Ezekiel has it.  For our hearts are\ncontinually perverting and polluting and poisoning our thoughts.  That is\na fearful thing that is said about the men on whom the flood soon came.\nYou remember what is said about them, and in explanation and\njustification of the flood.  God saw, it is said, that every imagination\nof the thoughts of their hearts was evil, and only evil continually.\nFearful!  Far more fearful than ten floods!  O God, Thou seest us.  And\nThou seest all the imaginations of the thoughts of our hearts.  Oh give\nus all a mind and a heart and a conscience to think of nothing, to fear\nnothing, to watch and to pray about nothing compared with our thoughts.\n'As for my secret thoughts,' says the author of the _Holy War_ and the\ncreator of Master Think-well--'As for my secret thoughts, I paid no\nattention to them.  I never knew I had them.  I had no pain, or shame, or\nguilt, or horror, or despair on account of them till John Gifford took me\nand showed me the way.'  And then when John Bunyan, being the man of\ngenius he was,--as soon as he began to attend to his own secret thoughts,\nthen the first faint outline of this fine portrait of Think-well began to\nshine out on the screen of this great artist's imagination, and from that\nsanctified screen this fine portrait of Think-well and his family has\nshined into our hearts to-night.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXII--MR. GOD'S-PEACE, A GOODLY PERSON, AND A SWEET-NATURED\nGENTLEMAN\n\n\n   'Let the peace of God rule in your hearts,--the peace of God that\n   passeth all understanding.'--_Paul_.\n\nJohn Bunyan is always at his very best in allegory.  In some other\ndepartments of work John Bunyan has had many superiors; but when he lays\ndown his head on his hand and begins to dream, as we see him in some of\nthe old woodcuts, then he is alone; there is no one near him.  We have\nnot a few greater divines in pure divinity than John Bunyan.  We have\nsome far better expositors of Scripture than John Bunyan, and we have\nsome far better preachers.  John Bunyan at his best cannot open up a deep\nScripture like that prince of expositors, Thomas Goodwin.  John Bunyan in\nall his books has nothing to compare for intellectual strength and for\ntheological grasp with Goodwin's chapter on the peace of God, in his\nsixth book in _The Work of the Holy Ghost_.  John Bunyan cannot set forth\ndivine truth in an orderly method and in a built-up body like John Owen.\nHe cannot Platonize divine truth like his Puritan contemporary, John\nHowe.  He cannot soar high as heaven in the beauty and the sweetness of\ngospel holiness like Jonathan Edwards.  He has nothing of the\nphilosophical depth of Richard Hooker, and he has nothing of the vast\nlearning of Jeremy Taylor.  But when John Bunyan's mind and heart begin\nto work through his imagination, then--\n\n      'His language is not ours.\n   'Tis my belief God speaks; no tinker hath such powers.'\n\n1.  In the beginning of his chapter on 'Speaking peace,' Thomas Goodwin\ntells his reader that he is going to fully couch all his intendments\nunder a metaphor and an allegory.  But Goodwin's reader has read and re-\nread the great chapter, and has not yet discovered where the metaphor and\nthe allegory came in and where they went out.  But Bunyan does not need\nto advertise his reader that he is going to couch his teaching in his\nimagination.\n\n   'But having now my method by the end,\n   Still, as I pulled it came: and so I penned\n   It down; until at last it came to be\n   For length and breadth the bigness that you see.'\n\nThe Blessed Prince, he begins, did also ordain a new officer in the town,\nand a goodly person he was.  His name was Mr. God's-peace.  This man was\nset over my Lord Will-be-will, my Lord Mayor, Mr. Recorder, the\nsubordinate preacher, Mr. Mind, and over all the natives of the town of\nMansoul.  Himself was not a native of the town, but came with the Prince\nfrom the court above.  He was a great acquaintance of Captain Credence\nand Captain Good-hope; some say they were kin, and I am of that opinion\ntoo.  This man, as I said, was made governor of the town in general,\nespecially over the castle, and Captain Credence was to help him there.\nAnd I made great observation of it, that so long as all things went in\nthe town as this sweet-natured gentleman would have them go, the town was\nin a most happy condition.  Now there were no jars, no chiding, no\ninterferings, no unfaithful doings in all the town; every man in Mansoul\nkept close to his own employment.  The gentry, the officers, the\nsoldiers, and all in place, observed their order.  And as for the women\nand the children of the town, they followed their business joyfully.  They\nwould work and sing, work and sing, from morning till night; so that\nquite through the town of Mansoul now nothing was to be found but\nharmony, quietness, joy, and health.  And this lasted all the summer.  I\nshall step aside at this point and shall let Jonathan Edwards comment on\nthis sweet-natured gentleman and his heavenly name.  'God's peace has an\nexquisite sweetness,' says Edwards.  'It is exquisitely sweet because it\nhas so firm a foundation on the everlasting rock.  It is sweet also\nbecause it is so perfectly agreeable to reason.  It is sweet also because\nit riseth from holy and divine principles, which, as they are the virtue,\nso are they the proper happiness of man.  This peace is exquisitely sweet\nalso because of the greatness of the good that the saints enjoy, being no\nother than the infinite bounty and fulness of that God who is the\nFountain of all good.  It is sweet also because it shall be enjoyed to\nperfection hereafter.'  An enthusiastic student has counted up the number\nof times that this divine word 'sweetness' occurs in Edwards, and has\nproved that no other word of the kind occurs so often in the author of\n_True Virtue_ and _The Religious Affections_.  And I can well believe it;\nunless the 'beauty of holiness' runs it close.  Still, this sweet-natured\ngentleman will continue to live for us in his government and jurisdiction\nin Mansoul and in John Bunyan even more than in Jonathan Edwards.\n\n2.  'Now Mr. God's-peace, the new Governor of Mansoul, was not a native\nof the town; he came down with his Prince from the court above.'  'He was\nnot a native'--let that attribute of his be written in letters of gold on\nevery gate and door and wall within his jurisdiction.  When you need the\ngovernor and would seek him at any time or in any place in all the town\nand cannot find him, recollect yourself where he came from: he may have\nreturned thither again.  John Bunyan has couched his deepest instruction\nto you in that single sentence in which he says, 'Mr. God's-peace was not\na native of the town.'  John Bunyan has gathered up many gospel\nScriptures into that single allegorical sentence.  He has made many old\nand familiar passages fresh and full of life again in that one\nmetaphorical sentence.  It is the work of genius to set forth the wont\nand the well known in a clear, simple, and at the same time surprising,\nlight like that.  There is a peace that is native and natural to the town\nof Mansoul, and to understand that peace, its nature, its grounds, its\nextent, and its range, is most important to the theologian and to the\nsaint.  But to understand the peace of God, that supreme peace, the peace\nthat passeth all understanding,--that is the highest triumph of the\ntheologian and the highest wisdom of the saint.  The prophets and the\npsalmists of the Old Testament are all full of the peace that God gave to\nHis people Israel.  My peace I give unto you, says our Lord also.  Paul\nalso has taken up that peace that comes to us through the blood of\nChrist, and has made it his grand message to us and to all sinful and sin-\ndisquieted men.  And John Bunyan has shown how sure and true a successor\nof the apostles of Christ he is, just in his portrait of this\nsweet-natured gentleman who was not a native of Mansoul, but who came\nfrom that same court from which Emmanuel Himself came.  And it is just\nthis outlandishness of this sweet-natured gentleman; it is just this\nheavenly origin and divine extraction of his that makes him sometimes and\nin some things to surpass all earthly understanding.  'I am coming some\nday soon,' said a divinity student to me the other Sabbath night, 'to\nhave you explain and clear up the atonement to me.'  'I shall be glad to\nsee you,' I said, 'but not on that errand.'  No.  Paul himself could not\ndo it.  Paul said that the atonement and the peace of it passed all his\nunderstanding.  And John Bunyan says here that not the Prince only, but\nhis officer Mr. God's-peace also, was not native to the town of Mansoul,\nbut came straight down from heaven into that town--and what can the man\ndo who cometh after two kings like Paul and Bunyan?  I have not forgotten\nmy Edwards where he says that the exquisite sweetness of this peace is\nperfectly agreeable to reason.  As, indeed, so it is.  And yet, if reason\nwill have a clear and finished and all-round answer to all her\ndifficulties and objections and fault-findings, I fear she cannot have it\nhere.  The time may come when our reason also shall be so enlarged, and\nso sanctified, and so exalted, that she shall be able with all saints to\nsee the full mystery of that which in this present dispensation passeth\nall understanding.  But till then, only let God's peace enter our hearts\nwith God's Son, and then let our hearts say if that peace must not in\nsome high and deep way be according to the highest and the deepest\nreason, since its coming into our hearts has produced in our hearts and\nin our lives such reasonable, and right, and harmonious, and peaceful,\nand every way joyful results.\n\n3.  Governor God's-peace had not many in the town of Mansoul to whom he\ncould confide all his thoughts and with whom he could consult.  But there\nwere two officer friends of his stationed in the town with whom he was\nevery day in close correspondence, viz., the Captain Credence and the\nCaptain Good-hope.  Their so close intimacy will not be wondered at when\nit is known that those three officers had all come in together with\nEmmanuel the Conqueror.  Those three young captains had done splendid\nservice, each at the head of his own battalion, in the days of the\ninvasion and the conquest of Mansoul, and they had all had their present\ntitles, and privileges, and lands, and offices, patented to them on the\nstrength of their past services.  The Captain Credence had all along been\nthe confidential aide-de-camp and secretary of the Prince.  Indeed, the\nPrince never called Captain Credence a servant at all, but always a\nfriend.  The Prince had always conveyed his mind about all Mansoul's\nmatters first to Captain Credence, and then that confidential captain\nconveyed whatever specially concerned God's-peace and Good-hope to those\nexcellent and trusty soldiers.  Credence first told all matters to God's-\npeace and then the two soon talked over Good-hope to their mind and\nheart.  Some say that the three officers, Credence, God's-peace, and Good-\nhope, were kin, adds our historian, and I, he adds, am of that opinion\ntoo.  And to back up his opinion he takes an extract out of the Herald's\nCollege books which runs thus: 'Romans, fifteenth and thirteenth: Now,\nthe God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may\nabound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost.'  Some say the three\nofficers were of kin, and I am of that opinion too.\n\n4.  On account both of his eminent services and his great abilities, the\nPrince saw it good to set Mr. God's-peace over the whole town.  And thus\nit was that the governor's jurisdiction extended and held not only over\nthe people of the town, but also over all the magistrates and all the\nother officers of the town, such as my Lord Will-be-will, my Lord Mayor,\nMr. Recorder, Mr. Mind, and all.  It needed all the governor's authority\nand ability to keep his feet in his office over all the other rulers of\nthe town, but by far his greatest trouble always was with the Recorder.\nOld Mr. Conscience, the Town Recorder, had a very difficult post to hold\nand a very difficult part to play in that still so divided and still so\nunsettled town.  What with all those murderers and man-slayers, thieves\nand prostitutes, skulkers and secret rebels, on the one hand, and with\nGovernor God's-peace and his so unaccountable and so autocratic ways, on\nthe other hand, the Recorder's office was no sinecure.  All the\nmisdemeanours and malpractices of the town,--and they were happening\nevery day and every night,--were all reported to the Recorder; they were\nall, so to say, charged home upon the Recorder, and he was held\nresponsible for them all; till his office was a perfect laystall and\ncesspool of all the scum and corruption of the town.  And yet, in would\ncome Governor God's-peace, without either warning or explanation, and\nwould demand all the Recorder's papers, and proofs, and affidavits, and\nwhat not, it had cost him so much trouble to get collected and indorsed,\nand would burn them all before the Recorder's face, and to his utter\nconfusion, humiliation, and silence.  So autocratic, so despotic, so\nabsolute, and not-to-be-questioned was Governor God's-peace.  The\nRecorder could not understand it, and could barely submit to it; my Lord\nMayor could not understand it, and his clerk, Mr. Mind, would often\noppose it; but there it was: Mr. Governor God's-peace was set over them\nall.\n\n5.  But the thing that always in the long-run justified the governorship\nof Mr. God's-peace, and reconciled all the other officers to his\nsupremacy, was the way that the city settled down and prospered under his\nbenignant rule.  All the other officers admitted that, somehow, his\npromotion and power had been the salvation of Mansoul.  They all extolled\ntheir Prince's far-seeing wisdom in the selection, advancement, and\nabsolute seat of Mr. God's-peace.  And it would ill have become them to\nhave said anything else; for they had little else to do but bask in the\nsun and enjoy the honours and the emoluments of their respective offices\nas long as Governor God's-peace held sway, and had all things in the city\nto his own mind.  Now, it was on all hands admitted, as we read again\nwith renewed delight, that there were no jars, no chiding, no\ninterferings, no unfaithful doings in the town of Mansoul; but every man\nkept close to his own employment.  The gentry, the officers, the\nsoldiers, and all in place, observed their orders.  And as for the women\nand children, they all followed their business joyfully.  They would work\nand sing, work and sing, from morning till night, so that quite through\nthe town of Mansoul now nothing was to be found but harmony, quietness,\njoy, and health.  What more could be said of any governorship of any town\nthan that?  The Heavenly Court itself, out of which Governor God's-peace\nhad come down, was not better governed than that.  Harmony, quietness,\njoy, and health.  No; the New Jerusalem itself will not surpass that.\n'And this lasted all that summer.'\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXIII--THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH OF MANSOUL, AND MR. CONSCIENCE ONE\nOF HER PARISH MINISTERS\n\n\n   'The Highest Himself shall establish her.'--_David_.\n\nThe princes of this world establish churches sometimes out of piety and\nsometimes out of policy.  Sometimes their motive is the good of their\npeople and the glory of God, and sometimes their sole motive is to\nbuttress up their own Royal House, and to have a clergy around them on\nwhom they can count.  Prince Emmanuel had His motive, too, in setting up\nan establishment in Mansoul.  As thus: When this was over, the Prince\nsent again for the elders of the town and communed with them about the\nministry that He intended to establish in Mansoul.  Such a ministry as\nmight open to them and might instruct them in the things that did concern\ntheir present and their future state.  For, said He to them, of\nyourselves, unless you have teachers and guides, you will not be able to\nknow, and if you do not know, then you cannot do the will of My Father.\nAt this news, when the elders of Mansoul brought it to the people, the\nwhole town came running together, and all with one consent implored His\nMajesty that He would forthwith establish such a ministry among them as\nmight teach them both law and judgment, statute and commandment, so that\nthey might be documented in all good and wholesome things.  So He told\nthem that He would graciously grant their requests and would straightway\nestablish such a ministry among them.\n\nNow, I will not enter to-night on the abstract benefits of such an\nEstablishment.  I will rather take one of the ministers who was presented\nto one of the parishes of Mansoul, and shall thus let you see how that\nState Church worked out practically in one of its ministers at any rate.\nAnd the preacher and pastor I shall so take up was neither the best\nminister in the town nor the worst; but, while a long way subordinate to\nthe best, he was also by no means the least.  The Reverend Mr. Conscience\nwas our parish minister's name; his people sometimes called him The\nRecorder.\n\n1.  Well, then, to begin with, the Rev. Mr. Conscience was a native of\nthe same town in which his parish church now stood.  I am not going to\nchallenge the wisdom of the patron who appointed his protege to this\nparticular living; only, I have known very good ministers who never got\nover the misfortune of having been settled in the same town in which they\nhad been born and brought up.  Or, rather, their people never got over\nit.  One excellent minister, especially, I once knew, whose father had\nbeen a working man in the town, and his son had sometimes assisted his\nfather before he went to college, and even between his college sessions,\nand the people he afterwards came to teach could never get over that.  It\nwas not wise in my friend to accept that presentation in the\ncircumstances, as the event abundantly proved.  For, whenever he had to\ntake his stand in his pulpit or in his pastorate against any of their\nevil ways, his people defended themselves and retaliated on him by\nreminding him that they knew his father and his mother, and had not\nforgotten his own early days.  No doubt, in the case of Emmanuel and\nMansoul and its minister, there were counterbalancing considerations and\nadvantages both to minister and people; but it is not always so; and it\nwas not so in the case of my unfortunate friend.\n\nForasmuch, so ran the Prince's presentation paper, as he is a native of\nthe town of Mansoul, and thus has personal knowledge of all the laws and\ncustoms of the corporation, therefore he, the Prince, presented Mr.\nConscience.  That is to say, every man who is to be the minister of a\nparish should make his own heart and his own life his first parish.  His\nown vineyard should be his first knowledge and his first care.  And then\nout of that and after that he will be able to speak to his people, and to\ncorrect, and counsel, and take care of them.  In Thomas Boston's\n_Memoirs_ we continually come on entries like this: 'Preached on Ps.\nxlii. 5, and mostly on my own account.'  And, again, we read in the same\ninvaluable book for parish ministers, that its author did not wonder to\nhear that good had been done by last Sabbath's sermon, because he had\npreached it to himself and had got good to himself out of it before he\ntook it to the pulpit.  Boston kept his eye on himself in a way that the\nminister of Mansoul himself could not have excelled.  Till, not in his\npulpit work only, but in such conventional, commonplace, and monotonous\nexercises as his family worship, he so read the Scriptures and so sang\nthe psalms that his family worship was continually yielding him fruit as\nwell as his public ministry.  As our family worship and our public\nministry will do, too, when we have the eye and the heart and the\nconscience that Thomas Boston had.  'I went to hear a preacher,' said\nPascal, 'and I found a man in the pulpit.'  Well, the parish minister of\nMansoul was a man, and so was the parish minister of Ettrick.  And that\nwas the reason that the people of Simprin and Ettrick so often thought\nthat Boston had them in his eye.  Good pastor as he was, he could not\nhave everybody in his eye.  But he had himself in his eye, and that let\nhim into the hearts and the homes of all his people.  He was a true man,\nand thus a true minister.\n\n2.  Both Boston and the minister of Mansoul were well-read men also; so,\nindeed, in as many words, their fine biographies assure us.  But that is\njust another way of saying what has been said about those two ministers\nover and over again already.  William Law never was a parish minister.\nThe English Crown of that day would not trust him with a parish.  But\nwhat was the everlasting loss of some parish in England has become the\neverlasting gain of the whole Church of Christ.  Law's enforced seclusion\nfrom outward ministerial activity only set him the more free to that\ninward activity which has been such a blessing to so many, and to so many\nministers especially.  And as to this of every minister being well read,\nthat master in Israel says: 'Above all, let me tell you that the book of\nbooks to you is your own heart, in which are written and engraven the\ndeepest lessons of divine instruction.  Learn, therefore, to be deeply\nattentive to the presence of God in your own hearts, who is always\nspeaking, always instructing, always illuminating the heart that is\nattentive to Him.'  Jonathan Edwards called the poor parish minister of\nEttrick 'a truly great divine.'  But Law goes on to say, 'A great divine\nis but a cant expression unless it signifies a man greatly advanced in\nthe divine life.  A great divine is one whose own experience and example\nare a demonstration of the reality of all the graces and virtues of the\ngospel.  No divine has any more of the gospel in him than that which\nproves itself by the spirit, the actions, and the form of his life: the\nrest is but hypocrisy, not divinity.'  Let all our parish ministers,\nthen, give themselves to this kind of reading.  Let them all aim at a\ndoctor's degree in the divinity of their own hearts.\n\n3.  We are done at last, and we are done for ever, in Scotland, with\npatrons and with presenters; but I daresay our most Free Church people\nwould be quite willing to surrender their dear-bought franchise if the\nold plan could even yet be made to work in all their parishes as it\nworked in Mansoul.  For not only was the presented minister in this case\na well-read man; he was also, what the best of the Scottish people have\nalways loved and honoured, a man, as this history testifies, with a\ntongue as bravely hung as he had a head filled with judgment.  In\nScotland we like our minister to have a tongue bravely hung, even when\nthat is proved to our own despite.  When any minister, parish minister or\nother, is seen to tune his pulpit, our respect for him is gone.  The\nPresbyterian pulpit has been proverbially hard to tune, and it will be an\nill day when it becomes easy.  'Here lies a man who had a brow for every\ngood cause.'  So it was engraven over one of Boston's elders.  And so is\nit always: like priest, like people in the matter of the hang of the\nminister's tongue and in the boldness of the elder's brow.\n\n'Bravely hung' is an ancient and excellent expression which has several\nshades of meaning in Bunyan.  But in the present instance its meaning is\nmodified and fixed by judgment.  A bravely hung tongue; at the same time\nthe parish minister of Mansoul's tongue was not a loosely-hung tongue.  It\nwas not a blustering, headlong, scolding, untamed tongue.  The pulpit of\nMansoul was tuned with judgment.  He who filled that pulpit had a head\nfilled with judgment.  The ground of judgment is knowledge, and the\nminister of Mansoul was a man of knowledge.  It was his early and ever-\nincreasing knowledge of himself, and thus of other men; and then it was\nhis excellent judgment as to the use he was to make of that knowledge; it\nwas his sound knowledge what to say, when to say it, and how to say\nit,--it was all this that decided his Prince to make him the minister of\nMansoul.  How excellent and how rare a gift is judgment--judgment in\ncounsel, judgment in speech, and judgment in action!  'I am very little\nserviceable with reference to public management,' writes the parish\nminister of Ettrick, 'being exceedingly defective in ecclesiastical\nprudence; but the Lord has given me a pulpit gift, not unacceptable: and\nwho knows what He may do with me in that way?'  Who knows, indeed!  Now,\nthere are many parish ministers who have a not unacceptable pulpit gift,\nand yet who are not content with that, but are always burying that gift\nin the earth and running away from it to attempt a public management in\nwhich they are exceedingly and conspicuously defective.  Now, why do they\ndo that?  Is their pulpit and their parish not sphere and opportunity\nenough for them?  Mine is a small parish, said Boston, but then it is\nmine.  And a small parish may both rear and occupy a truly great divine.\nLet those ministers, then, who are defective in ecclesiastical prudence\nnot be too much cast down.  Ecclesiastical prudence is not in every case\nthe highest kind of prudence.  The presbytery, the synod, and the\nassembly are not any minister's first or best sphere.  Every minister's\nfirst and best sphere is his parish.  And the presbytery is not the end\nof the parish.  The parish, the pastorate, and the pulpit are the end of\nboth presbytery and synod and assembly.  As for the minister of Mansoul,\nhe was a well-read man, and also a man of courage to speak out the truth\nat every occasion, and he had a tongue as bravely hung as he had a head\nfilled with judgment.\n\n4.  But there was one thing about the parish pulpit of Mansoul that\nalways overpowered the people.  They could not always explain it even to\nthemselves what it was that sometimes so terrified them, and, sometimes,\nagain, so enthralled them.  They would say sometimes that their minister\nwas more than a mere man; that he was a prophet and a seer, and that his\nMaster seemed sometimes to stand and speak again in His servant.  And\n'seer' was not at all an inappropriate name for their minister, so far as\nI can collect out of some remains of his that I have seen and some\ntestimonies that I have heard.  There was something awful and overawing,\nsomething seer-like and supernatural, in the pulpit of Mansoul.  Sometimes\nthe iron chains in which the preacher climbed up into the pulpit, and in\nwhich he both prayed and preached, struck a chill to every heart; and\nsometimes the garment of salvation in which he shone carried all their\nhearts captive.  Some Sabbath mornings they saw it in his face and heard\nit in his voice that he had been on his bed in hell all last night; and\nthen, next Sabbath, those who came back saw him descending into his\npulpit from his throne in heaven.\n\n   'Yea, this man's brow, like to a title-page\n   Foretells the nature of a tragic volume.\n   Thou tremblest, and the whiteness in thy cheek\n   Is apter than thy tongue to tell thine errand.'\n\nIf you think that I am exaggerating and magnifying the parish pulpit of\nMansoul, take this out of the parish records for yourselves.  'And now,'\nyou will read in one place, 'it was a day gloomy and dark, a day of\nclouds and thick darkness with Mansoul.  Well, when the Sabbath-day was\ncome he took for his text that in the prophet Jonah, \"They that observe\nlying vanities forsake their own mercy.\"  And then there was such power\nand authority in that sermon, and such dejection seen in the countenances\nof the people that day that the like had seldom been heard or seen.  The\npeople, when the sermon was done, were scarce able to go to their homes,\nor to betake themselves to their employments the whole week after.  They\nwere so sermon-smitten that they knew not what to do.  For not only did\ntheir preacher show to Mansoul its sin, but he did tremble before them\nunder the sense of his own, still crying out as he preached, Unhappy man\nthat I am! that I, a preacher, should have lived so senselessly and so\nsottishly in my parish, and be one of the foremost in its transgressions!\nWith these things he also charged all the lords and gentry of Mansoul to\nthe almost distracting of them.'  It was Sabbaths like that that made the\npeople of Mansoul call their minister a seer.\n\n5.  And, then, there was another thing that I do not know how better to\ndescribe than by calling it the true catholicity, the true humility, and\nthe true hospitality of the man.  It is true he had no choice in the\nmatter, for in setting up a standing ministry in Mansoul Emmanuel had\ndone so with this reservation and addition.  We have His very words.  'Not\nthat you are to have your ministers alone,' He said.  'For my four\ncaptains, they can, if need be, and if they be required, not only\nprivately inform, but publicly preach both good and wholesome doctrine,\nthat, if heeded, will do thee good in the end.'  Which, again, reminds me\nof what Oliver Cromwell wrote to the Honourable Colonel Hacker at\nPeebles.  'These: I was not satisfied with your last speech to me about\nEmpson, that he was a better preacher than fighter--or words to that\neffect.  Truly, I think that he that prays and preaches best will fight\nbest.  I know nothing that will give like courage and confidence as the\nknowledge of God in Christ will.  I pray you to receive Captain Empson\nlovingly.'\n\n6.  The standing ministry in Mansoul was endowed also; but I cannot\nimagine what the court of teinds would make of the instrument of\nendowment.  As it has been handed down to us, that old ecclesiastical\ninstrument reads more like a lesson in the parish minister's class for\nthe study of Mysticism than a writing for a learned lord to adjudicate\nupon.  Here is the Order of Council: 'Therefore I, thy Prince, give thee,\nMy servant, leave and licence to go when thou wilt to My fountain, My\nconduit, and there to drink freely of the blood of My grape, for My\nconduit doth always run wine.  Thus doing, thou shalt drive from thine\nheart all foul, gross, and hurtful humours.  It will also lighten thine\neyes, and it will strengthen thy memory for the reception and the keeping\nof all that My Father's noble secretary will teach thee.'  Thus the\nPrince did put Mr. Conscience into the place and office of a minister to\nMansoul, and the chosen and presented man did thankfully accept thereof.\n\n(1)  Now, there are at least three lessons taught us here.  There is, to\nbegin with, a lesson to all those congregations who are about to choose a\nminister.  Let all those congregations, then, who have had devolved on\nthem the powers of the old patrons,--let them make their election on the\nsame principles that the Prince of Mansoul patronised.  Let them choose a\nprobationer who, young though he must be, has the making of a seer in\nhim.  Let them listen for the future seer in his most stammering prayers.\nSomewhere, even in one service, his conscience will make itself heard, if\nhe has a conscience.  Rather remain ten years vacant than call a minister\nwho has no conscience.  The parish minister of Mansoul sometimes seemed\nto be all conscience, and it was this that made his head so full of\njudgment, his tongue so full of a brave boldness, and his heart so full\nof holy love.  Your minister may be an anointed bishop, he may be a\ngowned and hooded doctor, he may be a king's chaplain, he may be the\nminister of the largest and the richest and the most learned parish in\nthe city, but, unless he strikes terror and pain into your conscience\nevery Sabbath, unless he makes you tremble every Sabbath under the eye\nand the hand of God, he is no true minister to you.  As Goodwin says, he\nis a wooden cannon.  As Leighton says, he is a mountebank for a minister.\n\n(2)  The second lesson is to all those who are politically enfranchised,\nand who hold a vote for a member of Parliament.  Now, crowds of\ncandidates and their canvassers will before long be at your door\nbesieging it and begging you for your vote for or against an Established\nchurch.  Well, before Parliament is dissolved, and the canvass commences,\nlook you well into your own heart and ask yourself whether or no the\nChurch of Christ has yet been established there.  Ask if Jesus Christ,\nthe Head of the Church, has yet set up His throne there, in your heart.\nAsk your conscience if His laws are recognised and obeyed there.  Ask\nalso if His blood has been sprinkled there, and since when.  And, if not,\nthen it needs no seer to tell you what sacrilege, what profanity it is\nfor you to touch the ark of God: to speak, or to vote, or to lift a\nfinger either for or against any church whatsoever.  Intrude your wilful\nignorance and your wicked passions anywhere else.  March up boldly and\nvote defiantly on questions of State that you never read a sober line\nabout, and are as ignorant about as you are of Hebrew; but beware of\ntouching by a thousand miles the things for which the Son of God laid\ndown His life.  Thrust yourself in, if you must, anywhere else, but do\nnot thrust yourself and your brutish stupidity and your fiendish tempers\ninto the things of the house of God.  Let all parish ministers take for\ntheir text that day 2 Samuel vi. 6, 7:--And when they came to Nachon's\nthreshing-floor, Uzzah put forth his hand to the ark of God, and took\nhold of it; for the oxen shook it.  And the anger of the Lord was kindled\nagainst Uzzah; and God smote him there for his error; and there he died\nby the ark of God.\n\n(3)  There is a third lesson here, but it is a lesson for ministers, and\nI shall take it home to myself.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXIV--A FAST-DAY IN MANSOUL\n\n\n   'Sanctify a fast, call a solemn assembly, gather the elders and all\n   the inhabitants of the land into the house of the Lord your\n   God.'--_Joel_.\n\nIn our soft and self-indulgent day the very word 'to fast' has become an\nout-of-date and an obsolete word.  We never have occasion to employ that\nword in the living language of the present day.  The men of the next\ngeneration will need to have it explained to them what the Fast-days of\ntheir fathers were: when they were instituted, how they were observed,\nand why they were abrogated and given up.  If your son should ever ask\nyou just what the Fast-days of your youth were like, you will do him a\ngreat service, and he may live to recover them, if you will answer him in\nthis way.  Show him how to take his Cruden and how to make a picture to\nhis opening mind of the Fast-days of Scripture.  And tell him plainly for\nwhat things in fathers and in sons those fasts were ordained of God.  And\nthen for the Fast-days of the Puritan period let him read aloud to you\nthis powerful passage in the _Holy War_.  Public preaching and public\nprayer entered largely into the fasting of the Prophetical and the\nPuritan periods; and John Bunyan, after Joel, has told us some things\nabout the Fast-day preaching of his day that it will be well for us, both\npreachers and people, to begin with, and to lay well to heart.\n\n1.  In the first place, the preaching of that Fast-day was 'pertinent'\nand to the point.  William Law, that divine writer for ministers, warns\nministers against going off upon Euroclydon and the shipwrecks of Paul\nwhen Christ's sheep are looking up to them for their proper food.  What,\nhe asks, is the nature, the direction, and the strength of that\nMediterranean wind to him who has come up to church under the plague of\nhis own heart and under the heavy hand of God?  You may be sure that\nBoanerges did not lecture that Fast-day forenoon in Mansoul on Acts\nxxvii. 14.  We would know that, even if we were not told what his text\nthat forenoon was.  His text that never-to-be-forgotten Fast-day forenoon\nwas in Luke xiii. 7--'Cut it down; why cumbereth it the ground?'  And a\nvery smart sermon he made upon the place.  First, he showed what was the\noccasion of the words, namely, because the fig-tree was barren.  Then he\nshowed what was contained in the sentence, to wit, repentance or utter\ndesolation.  He then showed also by whose authority this sentence was\npronounced.  And, lastly, he showed the reasons of the point, and then\nconcluded his sermon.  But he was very pertinent in the application,\ninsomuch that he made all the elders and all their people in Mansoul to\ntremble.  Sidney Smith says that whatever else a sermon may be or may not\nbe, it must be interesting if it is to do any good.  Now, pertinent\npreaching is always interesting preaching.  Nothing interests men like\nthemselves.  And pertinent preaching is just preaching to men about\nthemselves,--about their interests, their losses and their gains, their\nhopes and their fears, their trials and their tribulations.  Boanerges\ntook both his text and his treatment of his text from his Master, and we\nknow how pertinently The Master preached.  His preaching was with such\npertinence that the one half of His hearers went home saying, Never man\nspake like this man, while the other half gnashed at Him with their\nteeth.  Our Lord never lectured on Euroclydon.  He knew what was in man\nand He lectured and preached accordingly.  And if we wish to have praise\nof our best people, and of Him whose people they are, let us look into\nour own hearts and preach.  That will be pertinent to our people which is\nfirst pertinent to ourselves.  Weep yourself, said an old poet to a new\nbeginner; weep yourself if you would make me weep.  'For my own part,'\nsaid Thomas Shepard to some ministers from his death-bed, 'I never\npreached a sermon which, in the composing, did not cost me prayers, with\nstrong cries and tears.  I never preached a sermon from which I had not\nfirst got some good to my own soul.'\n\n   'His office and his name agree;\n   A shepherd that and Shepard he.'\n\nAnd many such entries as these occur in Thomas Boston's golden journal:\n'I preached in Ps. xlii. 5, and mostly on my own account.'  Again:\n'Meditating my sermon next day, I found advantage to my own soul, as also\nin delivering it on the Sabbath.'  And again: 'What good this preaching\nhas done to others I know not, yet I think myself will not the worse of\nit.'\n\n2.  The preaching of that Fast-day was with great authority also.  'There\nwas such power and authority in that sermon,' reports one who was\npresent, 'that the like had seldom been seen or heard.'  Authority also\nwas one of the well-remembered marks of our Lord's preaching.  And no\nwonder, considering who He was.  But His ministers, if they are indeed\nHis ministers, will be clothed by Him with something even of His supreme\nauthority.  'Conscience is an authority,' says one of the most\nauthoritative preachers that ever lived.  'The Bible is an authority;\nsuch is the Church; such is antiquity; such are the words of the wise;\nsuch are hereditary lessons; such are ethical truths; such are historical\nmemories; such are legal saws and state maxims; such are proverbs; such\nare sentiments, presages, and prepossessions.'  Now, the well-equipped\npreacher will from time to time plant his pulpit on all those kinds of\nauthority, as this kind is now pertinent and then that, and will, with\nsuch a variety and accumulation of authority, preach to his people.\nThomas Boston preached at a certain place with such pertinence and with\nsuch authority that it was complained of him by one of themselves that he\n'terrified even the godly.'  Let all our young preachers who would to old\nage continue to preach with interest, with pertinence, and with\nterrifying authority, among other things have by heart _The Memoirs of\nThomas Boston_, 'that truly great divine.'\n\n3.  A third thing, and, as some of the people who heard it said of it,\nthe best thing about that sermon was that--'He did not only show us our\nsin, but he did visibly tremble before us under the sense of his own.'\nNow I know this to be a great difficulty with some young ministers who\nhave got no help in it at the Divinity Hall.  Are they, they ask, to be\nthemselves in the pulpit?  How far may they be themselves, and how far\nmay they be not themselves?  How far are they to be seen to tremble\nbefore their people because of their own sins, and how far are they to\nbear themselves as if they had no sin?  Must they keep back the passions\nthat are tearing their own hearts, and fill the forenoon with Euroclydon\nand other suchlike sea-winds?  How far are they to be all gown and bands\nin the pulpit, and how far sackcloth and ashes?  One half of their people\nare like Pascal in this, that they like to see and hear a man in his\npulpit; but, then, the other half like only to see and hear a proper\npreacher.  'He did not only show the men of Mansoul their sin, but he did\ntremble before them under the sense of his own.  Still crying out as he\npreached to them, Unhappy man that I am! that I should have done so\nwicked a thing!  That I, a preacher, should be one of the first in the\ntransgression!'\n\nThis you will remember was the Fast-day.  And so truly had this preacher\nkept the Fast-day that the Communion-day was down upon him before he was\nready for it.  He was still deep among his sins when all his people were\nfast putting on their beautiful garments.  He was ready with the letter\nof his action-sermon, but he was not equal to the delivery of it.  His\ncolleague, accordingly, whose sense of sin was less acute that day, took\nthe public worship, while the Fast-day preacher still lay sick in his\ncloset at home and wrote thus on the ground: 'I am no more worthy to be\ncalled Thy son,' he wrote.  'Behold me here, Lord, a poor, miserable\nsinner, weary of myself, and afraid to look up to Thee.  Wilt Thou heal\nmy sores?  Wilt Thou take out the stains?  Wilt Thou deliver me from the\nshame?  Wilt Thou rescue me from this chain of sin?  Cut me not off in\nthe midst of my sins.  Let me have liberty once again to be among Thy\nredeemed ones, eating and drinking at Thy table.  But, O my God, to-day I\nam an unclean worm, a dead dog, a dead carcass, deservedly cast out from\nthe society of Thy saints.  But oh, suffer me so much as to look to the\nplace where Thy people meet and where Thine honour dwelleth.  Reject not\nthe sacrifice of a broken heart, but come and speak to me in my secret\nplace.  O God, let me never see such another day as this is.  Let me\nnever be again so full of guilt as to have to run away from Thy presence\nand to flee from before Thy people.'  He printed more than that, in blood\nand in tears, before God that Communion-morning, but that is enough for\nmy purpose.  Now, would you choose a dead dog like that to be your\nminister?  To baptize and admit your children and to marry them when they\ngrow up?  To mount your pulpits every Sabbath-day, and to come to your\nhouses every week-day?  Not, I feel sure, if you could help it!  Not if\nyou knew it!  Not if there was a minister of proper pulpit manners and a\nwell-ordered mind within a Sabbath-day's journey!  'Like priest like\npeople,' says Hosea.  'The congregation and the minister are one,' says\nDr. Parker.  'There are men we could not sit still and hear; they are not\nthe proper ministers for us.  There are other men we could hear always,\nbecause they are our kith and our kin from before the foundation of the\nworld.'  Happy the hearer who has hit on a minister like the minister of\nMansoul, and who has discovered in him his everlasting kith and kin.  And\nhappy the minister who, owning kith and kin with Boanerges, has two or\nthree or even one member in his congregation who likes his minister best\nwhen he likes himself worst.\n\nBut what about the fasting all this time?  Was it all preaching, and was\nthere no fasting?  Well, we do not know much about the fasting of the\nprophets and the apostles, but the Puritans sometimes made their people\nalmost forget about fasting, and about eating and drinking too, they so\ntook possession of their people with their incomparable preaching.  I\nread, for instance, in Calamy's _Life of John Howe_ that on the public\nFast-days, it was Howe's common way to begin about nine in the morning\nand to continue reading, preaching, and praying till about four in the\nafternoon.  Henry Rogers almost worships John Howe, but John Howe's Fast-\ndays pass his modern biographers patience; till, if you would see a\nnineteenth-century case made out against a seventeenth-century Fast-day,\nyou have only to turn to the author of _The Eclipse of Faith_ on the\nauthor of _Delighting in God_.  And, no doubt, when we get back our Fast-\ndays, we shall leave more of the time to reading pertinent books at home\nand to secret fasting and to secret prayer, and shall enjoin our\npreachers, while they are pertinent and authoritative in their sermons,\nnot to take up the whole day with their sermons even at their best.  And\nthen, as to fasting, discredited and discarded as it is in our day, there\nare yet some very good reasons for desiring its return and reinstatement\namong us.  Very good reasons, both for health and for holiness.  But it\nis only of the latter class of reasons that I would fain for a few words\nat present speak.  Well, then, let it be frankly said that there is\nnothing holy, nothing saintly, nothing at all meritorious in fasting from\nour proper food.  It is the motive alone that sanctifies the means.  It\nis the end alone that sanctifies the exercise.  If I fast to chastise\nmyself for my sin; if I fast to reduce the fuel of my sin; if I fast to\nkeep my flesh low; if I fast to make me more free for my best books, for\nmy most inward, spiritual, mystical books--for my Kempis, and my Behmen,\nand my Law, and my Leighton, and my Goodwin, and my Bunyan, and my\nRutherford, and my Jeremy Taylor, and my Shepard, and my Edwards, and\nsuchlike; if I fast for the ends of meditation and prayer; if I fast out\nof sympathy with my Bible, and my Saviour, and my latter end, and my\nFather's house in heaven--then, no doubt, my fasting will be acceptable\nwith God, as it will certainly be an immediate means of grace to my\nsinful soul.  These altars will sanctify many such gifts.  For, who that\nknows anything at all about himself, about his own soul, and about the\nhindrances and helps to its salvation from sin; who that ever read a page\nof Scripture properly, or spent half an hour in that life which is hidden\nin God--who of such will deny or doubt that fasting is superseded or\nneglected to the sure loss of the spiritual life, to the sensible\nlowering of the religious tone and temper, and to the increase both of\nthe lusts of the flesh and of the mind?  It may perhaps be that the\ninstitution of fasting as a church ordinance has been permitted to be set\naside in order to make it more than ever a part of each earnest man's own\nprivate life.  Perhaps it was in some ways full time that it should be\nagain said to us, 'Thou, when thou fastest, appear not unto men to fast.'\nAs also, 'Is not this the fast that I have chosen: to undo the heavy\nburdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke?\nIs it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the\noutcast to thy house?'  Let us believe that the form of the Fast-day has\nbeen removed out of the way that the spirit may return and fashion a new\nform for itself.  And in the belief that that is so, let us, while\nparting with our fathers' Fast-days with real regret--as with their\npertinent and pungent preaching--let us meantime lay in a stock of their\npertinent and pungent books, and set apart particular and peculiar\nseasons for their sin-subduing and grace-strengthening study.\n\nThe short is this.  The one real substance and true essence of all\nfasting is self-denial.  And we can never get past either the supreme and\nabsolute duty of that, or the daily and hourly call to that, as long as\nwe continue to read the New Testament, to live in this life, and to\nlisten to the voice of conscience, and to the voice of God speaking to us\nin the voice of conscience.  Without strict and constant self-denial, no\nman, whatever his experiences or his pretensions, is a disciple of Jesus\nChrist, and secret fasting is one of the first, the easiest, and the most\nelementary exercises of New Testament self-denial.  And, besides, the\nlusts of our flesh and the lusts of our minds are so linked and locked\nand riveted together that if one link is loosened, or broken, or even\nstruck at, the whole thrall is not yet thrown off indeed, but it is all\nshaken; it has all received a staggering blow.  So much is this the case\nthat one single act of self-denial in the region of the body will be felt\nfor freedom throughout the whole prison-house of the soul.  And a victory\nreally won over a sensual sin is already a challenge sounded to our most\nspiritual sin.  And it is this discovery that has given to fasting the\nplace it has held in all the original, resolute, and aggressive ages of\nthe Church.  With little or nothing in their Lord's literal teaching to\nmake His people fast, they have been so bent on their own spiritual\ndeliverance, and they have heard and read so much about the deliverances\nboth of body and of soul that have been attained by fasting and its\naccompaniments, that they have taken to it in their despair, and with\nresults that have filled them in some instances with rapture, and in all\ninstances with a good conscience and with a good hope.  You would wonder,\neven in these degenerate days,--you would be amazed could you be told how\nmany of your own best friends in their stealthy, smiling, head-anointing,\nhypocritical way deny themselves this and that sweetness, this and that\nfatness, this and that softness, and are thus attaining to a strength, a\ncourage, and a self-conquest that you are getting the benefit of in many\nways without your ever guessing the price at which it has all been\npurchased.  Now, would you yourself fain be found among those who are in\nthis way being made strong and victorious inwardly and spiritually?  Would\nyou?  Then wash your face and anoint your head; and, then, not denying it\nbefore others, deny it in secret to yourself--this and that sweet morsel,\nthis and that sweet meat, this and that glass of such divine wine.\nUnostentatiously, ungrudgingly, generous-heartedly, and not ascetically\nor morosely, day after day deny yourself even in little unthought-of\nthings, and one of the very noblest laws of your noblest life shall\nimmediately claim you as its own.  That stealthy and shamefaced act of\nself-denial for Christ's sake and for His cross's sake will lay the\nfoundation of a habit of self-denial; ere ever you are aware of what you\nare doing the habit will consolidate into a character; and what you begin\nlittle by little in the body will be made perfect in the soul; till what\nyou did, almost against His command and altogether without His example,\nyet because you did it for His sake and in His service, will have placed\nyou far up among those who have forsaken all, and themselves also, to\nfollow Jesus Christ, Son of Man and Son of God.  Only, let this always be\nadmitted, and never for a moment forgotten, that all this is said by\npermission and not of commandment.  Our Lord never fasted as we fast.  He\nhad no need.  And He never commanded His disciples to fast.  He left it\nto themselves to find out each man his own case and his own cure.  Let no\nman, therefore, take fasting in any of its degrees, or times, or\noccasions, on his conscience who does not first find it in his heart.  At\nthe same time this may be said with perfect safety, that he who finds it\nin his heart and then lays it on his conscience to deny himself anything,\ngreat or small, for Christ's sake, and for the sake of his own\nsalvation,--he will never repent it.  No, he will never repent it.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXV--A FEAST-DAY IN MANSOUL\n\n\n   'He brought me into his banqueting house.'--_The Song_.\n\nEmmanuel's feast-day in the Holy War excels in beauty and in eloquence\neverything I know in any other author on the Lord's Supper.  The Song of\nSolomon stands alone when we sing that song mystically--that is to say,\nwhen we pour into it all the love of God to His Church in Israel and all\nIsrael's love to God, and then all our Lord's love to us and all our love\nback again to Him in return.  But outside of Holy Scripture I know\nnothing to compare for beauty, and for sweetness, and for quaintness, and\nfor tenderness, and for rapture, with John Bunyan's account of the feast\nthat Prince Emmanuel made for the town of Mansoul.  With his very best\npen John Bunyan tells us how upon a time Emmanuel made a feast in\nMansoul, and how the townsfolk came to the castle to partake of His\nbanquet, and how He feasted them on all manner of outlandish food--food\nthat grew not in the fields of Mansoul; it was food that came down from\nheaven and from His Father's house.  They drank also of the water that\nwas made wine, and, altogether, they were very merry and at home with\ntheir Prince.  There was music also all the time at the table, and man\ndid eat angels' food, and had honey given him out of the rock.  And then\nthe table was entertained with some curious and delightful riddles that\nwere made upon the King Himself, upon Emmanuel His Son, and upon His wars\nand doings with Mansoul; till, altogether, the state of transportation\nthe people were in with their entertainment cannot be told by the very\nbest of pens.  Nor did He, when they returned to their places, send them\nempty away; for either they must have a ring, or a gold chain, or a\nbracelet, or a white stone or something; so dear was Mansoul to Him now,\nso lovely was Mansoul in His eyes.  And, going and coming to the feast, O\nhow graciously, how lovingly, how courteously, and how tenderly did this\nblessed Prince now carry it to the town of Mansoul!  In all the streets,\ngardens, orchards, and other places where He came, to be sure the poor\nshould have His blessing and benediction; yea, He would kiss them; and if\nthey were ill, He would lay His hands on them and make them well.  And\nwas it not now something amazing to behold that in that very place where\nDiabolus had had his abode, the Prince of princes should now sit eating\nand drinking with all His mighty captains, and men of war, and\ntrumpeters, and with the singing men and the singing women of His\nFather's court!  Now did Mansoul's cup run over; now did her conduits run\nsweet wine; now did she eat the finest of the wheat, and now drink milk\nand honey out of the rock!  Now she said, How great is His goodness, for\never since I found favour in His eyes, how honourable have I ever been!\n\n1.  Now, the beginning of it all was, and the best of it all was, that\nEmmanuel Himself made the feast.  Mansoul did not feast her Deliverer; it\nwas her Deliverer who feasted her.  Mansoul, in good sooth, had nothing\nthat she had not first and last received, and it was far more true and\nseemly and fit in every way that her Prince Himself should in His own way\nand at His own expense seal and celebrate the deliverance, the freedom,\nthe life, the peace, and the joy of Mansoul.  And, besides, what had\nMansoul to set before her Prince; or, for the matter of that, before\nherself?  Mansoul had nothing of herself.  Mansoul was not sufficient of\nherself for a single day.  And how, then, should she propose to feast a\nPrince?  No, no! the thing was impossible.  It was Emmanuel's feast from\nfirst to last.  Just as it was at the Lord's table in this house this\nmorning.  You did not spread the table this morning for your Lord.  You\ndid not make ready for your Saviour and then invite Him in.  He invited\nyou.  He said, This is My Body broken for you, and This is My Blood shed\nfor you; drink ye all of it.  And had any one challenged you at the fence\ndoor and asked you how one who could not pay his own debts or provide\nhimself a proper meal even for a single day, could dare to sit down with\nsuch a company at such a feast as that, you would have told him that he\nhad not seen half your hunger and your nakedness; but that it was just\nyour very hunger and nakedness and homelessness that had brought you\nhere; or, rather, it was all that that had moved the Master of the feast\nto send for you and to compel you to come here.  There was nothing in\nyour mind and in your mouth more all this day than just that this is the\nLord's Supper, and that He had sent for you and had invited you, and had\nconstrained and compelled you to come and partake of it.  It was the\nLord's Table to-day, and it will be still and still more His table on\nthat great Communion-Day when all our earthly communions shall be\naccomplished and consummated in heaven.\n\n2.  All that Mansoul did in connection with that great feast was to\nprepare the place where Diabolus at one time had held his orgies and\ncarried on his excesses.  Her Prince, Emmanuel, did all the rest; but He\nleft it to Mansoul to make the banqueting-room ready.  When our Lord\nwould keep His last passover with His disciples, He said to Peter and\nJohn, Go into the city, and there shall meet you a man bearing a pitcher\nof water, and he will show you a large upper room furnished and prepared.\nThere is some reason to believe that that happy man had been expecting\nthat message and had done his best to be ready for it.  And now he was\nputting the last touch to his preparations by filling the water-pots of\nhis house with fresh water; little thinking, happy man, that as long as\nthe world lasts that water will be holy water in all men's eyes, and\nshall teach humility to all men's hearts.  And, my brethren, you know\nthat all you did all last week against to-day was just to prepare the\nroom.  For the room all last week and all this day was your own heart,\nand not and never this house of stone and lime made with men's hands.  You\nswept the inner and upper room of your own heart.  You swept it and\ngarnished its walls and its floors as much as in you lay.  He, whose the\nsupper really was, told you that He would bring with Him what was to be\neaten and drunken to-day, while you were to prepare the place.  And, next\nto the very actual feast itself, and, sometimes, not next to it but equal\nto it, and even before it and better than it, were those busy household\nhours you spent, like the man with the pitcher, making the room ready.  In\nplain English, you had a communion before the Communion as you prepared\nyour hearts for the Communion.  I shall not intrude into your secret\nplaces and secret seasons with Christ before His open reception of you to-\nday.  But it is sure and certain that, just as you in secret entertained\nHim in your mother's house and in the chambers of her that bare you, just\nin that measure did He say to you openly before all the watchmen that go\nabout the city and before all the daughters of Jerusalem, Eat, O friends;\ndrink, yea, drink abundantly, O beloved.  Yes; do you not think that the\nman with the pitcher had his reward?  He had his own thoughts as he\nfurnished, till it was quite ready, his best upper room and carried in\nthose pitchers of water, and handed down to his children in after days\nthe perquisite-skin of the paschal lamb that had been supped on by our\nLord and His disciples in his honoured house that night.  Yes; was it not\namazing to behold that in that very place where sometimes Diabolus had\nhis abode, and had entertained his Diabolonians, the Prince of princes\nshould sit eating and drinking with His friends?  Was it not truly\namazing?\n\n3.  Now, upon the feasting-day He feasted them with all manner of\noutlandish food--food that grew not in all the fields of Mansoul; it was\nfood that came down with His Father's court.  The fields of Mansoul\nyielded their own proper fruits, and fruits that were not to be despised.\nBut they were not the proper fruits for that day, neither could they be\nplaced upon that table.  They are good enough fruits for their purpose,\nand as far as they go, and for so long as they last and are in their\nseason.  But our souls are such that they outlive their own best fruits;\ntheir hunger and their thirst outlast all that can be harvested in from\ntheir own fields.  And thus it is that He who made Mansoul at first, and\nwho has since redeemed her, has out of His own great goodness provided\nfood convenient for her.  He knows with what an outlandish life He has\nquickened Mansoul, and it is only the part of a faithful Creator to\nprovide for His creature her proper nourishment.  What is it? asked the\nchildren of Israel at one another when they saw a small round thing, as\nsmall as hoarfrost, upon the ground.  For they wist not what it was.  And\nMoses said, Gather of it every man according to his eating, an omer for\nevery man, according to the number of your persons.  And the house of\nIsrael called the name thereof Manna, and the taste of it was like wafers\nmade with honey.  He gave them of the corn of heaven to eat, and man did\neat in the wilderness angels' food.  Your fathers did eat manna in the\nwilderness, and are dead; but this is the bread of which if any man eat\nhe shall not die.  And the bread that I will give is My Flesh, which I\nwill give for the life of the world.  And so outlandish, so supernatural,\nand so full of heavenly wonder and heavenly mystery was that bread, that\nthe Jews strove among themselves over it, and could not understand it.\nBut, by His goodness and His truth to us this day, we have again, to our\nspiritual nourishment and growth in grace, eaten the Flesh and drunk the\nBlood of the Son of God; a meat that, as He who Himself is that meat has\nsaid of it, is meat indeed and drink indeed--as, indeed, we have the\nwitness in ourselves this day that it is.  They drank also of the water\nthat was made wine, and were very merry with Him all that day at His\ntable.  And all their mirth was the high mirth of heaven; it was a mirth\nand a gladness without sin, without satiety, and without remorse.\n\n4.  There was music also all the while at the table, and the musicians\nwere not those of the country of Mansoul, but they were the masters of\nsong come down from the court of the King.  'I love the Lord,' they sang\nin the supper room over the paschal lamb--'I love the Lord because He\nhath heard my voice and my supplication.  Because He hath inclined His\near unto me, therefore will I call upon Him as long as I live.  What\nshall I render to the Lord,' they challenged one another, 'for all His\nbenefits towards me?  I will take the cup of salvation, and will call\nupon the name of the Lord.'  'Sometimes imagine,' says a great devotional\nwriter with a great imagination--'Sometimes imagine that you had been one\nof those that joined with our blessed Saviour as He sang an hymn.  Strive\nto imagine to yourself with what majesty He looked.  Fancy that you had\nstood by Him surrounded with His glory.  Think how your heart would have\nbeen inflamed, and what ecstasies of joy you would have then felt when\nsinging with the Son of God!  Think again and again with what joy and\ndevotion you would have then sung had this really been your happy state;\nand what a punishment you would have thought it to have then been silent.\nAnd let that teach you how to be affected with psalms and hymns of\nthanksgiving.'  Yes; and it is no imagination; it was our own experience\nonly this morning and afternoon to join in a music that was never made in\nthis world, but which was as outlandish as was the meat which we ate\nwhile the music was being made.\n\n   'Bless, O my soul, the Lord thy God,\n      And not forgetful be\n   Of all His gracious benefits\n      He hath bestow'd on thee.\n\n   Who with abundance of good things\n      Doth satisfy thy mouth;\n   So that, ev'n as the eagle's age,\n      Renewed is thy youth.'\n\nThe 103rd Psalm was never made in this world.  Musicians far other than\nthose native to Mansoul made for us our Lord's-Table Psalm.\n\n5.  And then, the riddles that were made upon the King Himself, and upon\nEmmanuel His Son, and upon Emmanuel's wars and all His other doings with\nMansoul.  And when Emmanuel would expound some of those riddles Himself,\noh! how they were lightened!  They saw what they never saw!  They could\nnot have thought that such rarities could have been couched in so few and\nsuch ordinary words.  Yea, they did gather that the things themselves\nwere a kind of portraiture, and that, too, of Emmanuel Himself.  This,\nthey would say, this is the Lamb! this is the Sacrifice! this is the\nRock! this is the Door! and this is the Way! with a great many other\nthings.  At Gaius's supper-table they sat up over their riddles and nuts\nand sweetmeats till the sun was in the sky.  And it would be midnight and\nmorning if I were to show you the answers to the half of the riddles.\nTake one, for an example, and let it be one of the best for the communion-\nday.  'In one rare quality of the orator,' says Hugh Miller, writing\nabout his adored minister, Alexander Stewart of Cromarty, 'Mr. Stewart\nstood alone.  Pope refers in his satires to a strange power of creating\nlove and admiration by just \"touching the brink of all we hate.\"  Now,\ninto this perilous, but singularly elective department, Mr. Stewart could\nenter with safety and at will.  We heard him, scarce a twelvemonth since,\ndeliver a discourse of singular power on the sin-offering as minutely\ndescribed by the divine penman in Leviticus.  He described the\nslaughtered animal--foul with dust and blood, its throat gashed across,\nits entrails laid open and steaming in its impurity to the sun--a vile\nand horrid thing, which no one could look on without disgust, nor touch\nwithout defilement.  The picture appeared too vivid; its introduction too\nlittle in accordance with a just taste.  But this pulpit-master knew what\nhe was all the time doing.  \"And that,\" he said, as he pointed to the\nterrible picture, \"that is SIN!\"  By one stroke the intended effect was\nproduced, and the rising disgust and horror transferred from the\nrevolting, material image to the great moral evil.'  And, in like manner,\nThis is the LAMB! we all said over the mystical riddle of the bread and\nthe wine this morning.  This is the SACRIFICE!  This is the DOOR!  This\nis EMMANUEL, GOD WITH US, and made sin for us!\n\n6.  In one of his finest chapters, Thomas A Kempis tells us in what way\nwe are to communicate mystically: that is to say, how we are to keep on\ncommunicating at all times, and in all places, without the intervention\nof the consecrated sacramental elements.  And John Bunyan, the sweetest\nand most spiritual of mystics, has all that, too, in this same supreme\npassage.  Every day was a feast-day now, he tells us.  So much so that\nwhen the elders and the townsmen did not come to Emmanuel, He would send\nin much plenty of provisions to them.  Yea, such delicates would He send\nthem, and therewith would so cover their tables, that whosoever saw it\nconfessed that the like could not be seen in any other kingdom.  That is\nto say, my fellow-communicants, there is nothing that we experienced and\nenjoyed in this house this day that we may not experience and enjoy again\nto-morrow and every day in our own house at home.  All the mystics worth\nthe noble name will tell you that all true communicating is always\nperformed and experienced in the prepared heart, and never in any upper\nroom, or church, or chapel, or new heaven, or new earth.  The prepared\nheart of every worthy communicant is the true upper room; it is the true\nbanqueting chamber; it is the true and the only house of wine.  Our\nFather's House itself, with its supper-table covered with the new wine of\nthe Kingdom--the best of it all will still be within you.  Prepare\nyourselves within yourselves, then, O departing and dispersing\ncommunicants.  Prepare, and keep yourselves always prepared.  And as\noften as you so prepare yourselves your Prince will come to you every\nday, and will cat and drink with you, till He makes every day on earth a\nday of heaven already to you.  See if He will not; for, again and again,\nHe who keeps all His promises says that He will.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXVI--EMMANUEL'S LIVERY\n\n\n   'And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen,\n   clean and white; for the fine linen is the righteousness of\n   saints.'--_John_.\n\nThe Plantagenet kings of ancient England had white and scarlet for their\nlivery; white and green was the livery of the Tudors; the Stuarts wore\nred and yellow; while blue and scarlet colours adorn to-day the House of\nHanover.  And the Prince of the kings of the earth, He has his royal\ncolours also, and His servants have their badge of honour and their\nblazon also.  Then He commanded that those who waited upon Him should go\nand bring forth out of His treasury those white and glittering robes,\nthat I, He said, have provided and laid up in store for my Mansoul.  So\nthe white garments were fetched out of the treasury and laid forth to the\neyes of the people.  Moreover, it was granted to them that they should\ntake them and put them on, according, said He, to your size and your\nstature.  So the people were all put into white--into fine linen, clean\nand white.  Then said the Prince, This, O Mansoul, is My livery, and this\nis the badge by which Mine are known from the servants of others.  Yea,\nthis livery is that which I grant to all them that are Mine, and without\nwhich no man is permitted to see My face.  Wear this livery, therefore,\nfor My sake, and, also, if you would be known by the world to be Mine.\nBut now can you think how Mansoul shone!  For Mansoul was fair as the\nsun, clear as the moon, and terrible as an army with banners.\n\nWhite, then, and whiter than snow, is the very livery of heaven.  A\nhundred shining Scriptures could be quoted to establish that.  In the\nfirst year of Belshazzar, King of Babylon, Daniel had a dream, and\nvisions of his head came to Daniel upon his bed.  And, behold, the\nAncient of Days did sit, whose garment was white as snow, and the hair of\nhis head like the pure wool.  My beloved, sings the spouse in the Song,\nis white and ruddy, the chiefest among ten thousand, and altogether\nlovely.  Then, again, David in his penitence sings, Purge me with hyssop,\nand I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.  And what\nis it that sets Isaiah at the head of all the prophets?  What but this,\nthat he is the mouth-piece of such decrees in heaven as this: Though your\nsins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow; though they be red like\ncrimson, they shall be as wool.  The angel, also, who rolled away the\nstone from the door of the sepulchre was clothed in a long white garment.\nAnother evangelist says that his countenance was like lightning and his\nraiment white as snow, and for fear of him the keepers did quake, and\nbecame as dead men.  But before that we read that Jesus was transfigured\nbefore Peter and James and John on the Mount, and that His face did shine\nas the sun, and His raiment was white as the light.  And, then, the whole\nBook of Revelation is written with a pen dipped in heavenly light.  The\nwhole book is glistening with the whitest light till we cannot read it\nfor the brightness thereof.  And the multitude that no man can number all\ndisplay themselves before our eyes, clothed with white robes and with\npalms in their hands, so much so that we sink down under the greatness of\nthe glory, till One with His head and His hairs white like wool, as white\nas snow, lays His hand upon us, and says to us, Fear not, for, behold, I\nhave caused thine iniquity to pass from thee, and I will clothe thee with\nchange of raiment.\n\n   'I also saw Mansoul clad all in white,\n   And heard her Prince call her His heart's delight,\n   I saw Him put upon her chains of gold,\n   And rings and bracelets goodly to behold.\n   What shall I say?  I heard the people's cries,\n   And saw the Prince wipe tears from Mansoul's eyes,\n   I heard the groans and saw the joy of many;\n   Tell you of all, I neither will nor can I.\n   But by what here I say you well may see\n   That Mansoul's matchless wars no fable be.'\n\n'And to her it was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen,\nclean and white; for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints.'  We\nneed no exegesis of that beautiful Scripture beyond that exegesis which\nour own hearts supply.  And if we did need that shining text to be\nexplained to us, to whom could we better go for its explanation than just\nto John Bunyan?  Well, then, in our author's _No Way to Heaven but by\nJesus Christ_, he says: 'This fine linen, in my judgment, is the works of\ngodly men; their works that spring from faith.  But how came they clean?\nHow came they white?  Not simply because they were the works of faith.\nBut, mark, they washed their robes and made them white in the blood of\nthe Lamb.  And therefore they are before the throne of God.  Yea,\ntherefore it is that their good works stand in such a place.'  'Nor must\nwe think it strange,' says John Howe, in his _Blessedness of the\nRighteous_, 'that all the requisites to our salvation are not found\ntogether in one text of Scripture.  I conceive that imputed righteousness\nis not here meant, but that righteousness which is truly subjected in a\nchild of God and descriptive of him.  The righteousness of Him whom we\nadore as made sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God\nin Him, that righteousness has a much higher sphere peculiar and\nappropriate to itself.  Though this of which we now speak is necessary\nalso to be both had and understood.'  Emmanuel's livery, then, is the\nrighteousness of the saints.  Emmanuel puts that righteousness upon all\nHis saints; while, at the same time, they put it on themselves; they work\nit out for themselves, and for themselves they keep it clean.  They work\nit out, put it on, and keep it clean, and yet, all the time, it is not\nthey that do it, but it is Emmanuel that doeth it all in them.  The truth\nis, you must all become mystics before you will admit all the strange\ntruth that is told about Emmanuel's livery.  For both heaven and earth\nunite in this wonderful livery.  Nature and grace unite in it.  It is\nwoven by the gospel on the loom of the law--till, to tell you all that is\ntrue about it, I neither can nor will I.  Albert Bengel tells us that the\ncourt of heaven has its own jealous and scrupulous etiquette; and our\ncourt journalist and historian, John Bunyan, has supplied his favoured\nreaders with the very card of etiquette that was issued along with\nMansoul's coat of livery, and it is more than time that we had attended\nto that card.\n\n1.  The first item then in that etiquette-card ran in these set terms:\n'First, wear these white robes daily, day by day, lest you should at some\ntime appear to others as if you were none of Mine.--Signed, EMMANUEL.'\n\nNow, we put on anew every morning the garments that we are to wear every\nnew day.  We have certain pieces of clothing that we wear in the morning;\nwe have certain pieces that we wear when we are at our work; and, again,\nwe have certain other pieces that we put on when we go abroad in the\nafternoon; and, yet again, certain other pieces that we array ourselves\nin when we go out into society in the evening.  After a night in which\nMercy could not sleep for blessing and praising God, they all rose in the\nmorning with the sun; but the Interpreter would have them tarry a while,\nfor, said he, you must orderly go from hence.  Then said he to the\ndamsel, Take them, and have them into the garden to the bath.  Then\nInnocent the damsel took them, and had them into the garden, and brought\nthem to the bath.  Then they went in and washed, yea, they and the boys\nand all, and they came out of that bath, not only clean and sweet, but\nalso much enlivened and much strengthened in their joints.  So when they\ncame in they looked fairer a deal than when they went out.  Then said the\nInterpreter to the damsel that waited upon those women, Go into the\nvestry, and fetch out garments for these people.  So she went and fetched\nout white raiment and laid it down before him.  And then he commanded\nthem to put it on.  It was fine linen, white and clean.  Now, therefore,\nthey began to esteem each other better than themselves.  For, You are\nfairer than I am, said one; and, You are more comely than I am, said\nanother.  The children also stood amazed to see into what fashion they\nhad been brought.  William Law--I thank God, I think, every day I live\nfor that good day to me on which He introduced me to His gifted and\nsaintly servant--well, William Law used every morning after his bath in\nthe morning to put on his livery, piece by piece, in order, and with\nspecial prayer.  The first piece that he put on, and he put it on every\nnew morning next his heart to wear it all the day next his heart, was\ngratitude to God.  And it was a real, feeling, active, and operative\ngratitude that he so put on.  On each new morning as it came, that good\nman was full of new gratitude to God.  For the sun new from his Almighty\nMaker's hands he had gratitude.  For his house over his head he had\ngratitude.  For his Bible and his spiritual books he had gratitude.  For\nhis opportunities of reading and study, as also for ten o'clock in the\nmorning when the widows and orphans of King's Cliffe came to his window,\nand so on.  A grateful heart feeds itself to a still greater gratitude on\neverything that comes to it.  So it was with William Law, till he wakened\nthe maids in the rooms below with his psalms and his hymns as he went\ninto his vestry and put on his singing robes so early every morning.  And\nthen, after his morning hours of study and devotion, Law had a piece of\nlivery that he always put on and never came downstairs to breakfast\nwithout it.  Other men might put on other pieces; he always clothed\nhimself next to gratitude with humility.  Men differ, good men differ,\nand Emmanuel's livery-men differ in what they put on, at what time, and\nin what order.  But that was William Law's way.  You will learn more of\nhis way, and you will be helped to find out a like way for yourselves, if\nyou will become students of his incomparable books.  You will find how he\nput on charity, 1 Cor. thirteenth chapter; and then how, over all, he put\non the will of God; till, thus equipped and thus accoutred, he was able\nto say, as it has seldom been said since it was first said, 'I put on\nrighteousness, and it clothed me; my judgment was to me as a robe and as\na diadem.  The Almighty was then with me, and my children were about me.\nWhen I washed my steps with butter, and when the rock poured me out\nrivers of oil!'  So much for that livery-man of Emmanuel, the author of\nthe _Christian Perfection_ and the _Spirit of Love_.  As for the women's\nvestry in the Interpreter's House, Matthew Henry saw the thirty-first\nchapter of the Proverbs hung up on that vestry wall, and Christiana\nmaking her morning toilet before it with Mercy beside her.  Who would\nfind a virtuous woman, let him look before that looking-glass for her,\nand he will be sure to find her and her daughters and her daughters-in-\nlaw putting on their white raiment there.\n\n2.  'Secondly, keep your garments always white; for if they be soiled, it\nis a dishonour to Me.  I have a few names even in Sardis which have not\ndefiled their garments, and they shall walk with Me in white, for they\nare worthy.'  Even in Sardis, with every street and every house full of\nsoil and dishonour to the name of Christ, even in Sardis Emmanuel had\nsome of whom He could boast Himself.  Would you not immensely like at the\nlast day to be one of those some in Sardis?  Shall it not be splendid\nwhen Sardis comes up for judgment to be among those few names that\nEmmanuel shall then read out of His book, and when, at their few names,\ntwo or three men shall step out into the light in His livery?  Some of\nyou are in Sardis at this moment.  Some of you are in a city, or in a\nhouse in a city, where it is impossible to keep your garments clean.  And\nyet, no; nothing is impossible to Emmanuel and His true livery-men.  Even\nin that house where you are, Emmanuel will say over you, I have one there\nwho is thankful to My Father and to Me; thankful to singing every morning\nwhere there is little, as men see, to sing for.  There is one in that\nhouse humble, where humility itself would almost become high-minded.  And\nmeek, where Moses himself would have lost his temper.  And submissive,\nwhere rebelliousness would not have been without excuse.  Mark these few\nmen for Mine, says Emmanuel.  Mark them with the inkhorn for Mine.  For\nthey shall surely be Mine in that day, and they shall walk with Me in\nwhite, for they are worthy.\n\n3.  'Wherefore gird your garments well up from the ground.'  A\nwell-dressed man, a well-dressed woman, is a beautiful sight.  Not over-\ndressed; not dressed so as to call everybody's attention to their dress;\nbut dressed decorously, becomingly, tastefully.  Each several piece well\nfitted on, and all of a piece, till it all looks as if it had grown by\nnature itself upon the well-dressed wearer.  Be like him--be like her--so\nruns the third head of the etiquette-card.  Be not slovenly and\ndisorderly and unseemly in your livery.  Let not your livery be always\nfalling off, and catching on every bush and briar, and dropping into\nevery pool and ditch.  Hold yourselves in hand, the instruction goes on.\nBrace yourselves up.  Have your temper, your tongue, your eyes, your\nears, and all your members in control.  And then you will escape many a\nrent and many a rag; many a seam and many a patch; many a soil and many a\nstain.  And then also you will be found walking abroad in comeliness and\nat liberty, while others, less careful, are at home mending and washing\nand ironing because they went without a girdle when you girt up your\ngarments well off the ground.  Wherefore always gird well up the loins of\nyour mind.\n\n4.  'And, fourthly, lose not your robes, lest you walk naked and men see\nyour shame'; that is to say, the supreme shame of your soul.  For there\nis no other shame.  There is nothing else in body or soul to be ashamed\nabout.  There is a nakedness, indeed, that our children are taught to\ncover; but the Bible is a book for men.  And the only nakedness that the\nBible knows about or cares about is the nakedness of the soul.  It was\ntheir sudden soul-nakedness that chased Adam and Eve in among the trees\nof the garden.  And it is God's pity for soul-naked sinners that has made\nHim send His Son to cry to us: 'I counsel thee,' He cries, 'to buy of Me\ngold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; white raiment, that\nthou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not\nappear.  Behold!' He cries in absolute terror, 'Behold!  I come as a\nthief!  Blessed is he that walketh and keepeth his garments, lest he walk\nnaked, and they see his shame.'  Were your soul to be stripped naked to\nall its shame to-morrow; were all your past to be laid out absolutely\nnaked and bare, with all the utter nakedness of your inward life this\nday; were all your secret thoughts, and all your stealthy schemes, and\nall your mad imaginations, and all your detestable motives, and all your\nhatreds like hell, and all your follies like Bedlam to be laid naked--I\nsuppose the horror of it would make you cry to the rocks and the\nmountains to cover you this Sabbath night, or the weeds of the nearest\nsea to wrap you down into its depths.  It would be hell before the time\nto you if your soul were suddenly to be stripped absolutely bare of its\nragged body, and naked of all the thin integuments of time, and were for\na single day to stand naked to its everlasting shame.  And it is just\nbecause Jesus Christ sees all that as sure as the judgment-day coming to\nyou, that He stands here to-night and calls to you: I counsel thee!  I\ncounsel thee!  Before it be too late, I again counsel thee!\n\n5.  But the Prince Emmanuel is persuaded better things of all His livery-\nmen, though He thus speaks to them to put them on their guard.  Yes,\nsternly and severely and threateningly as He sometimes speaks, yet, in\nspite of Himself, His real grace always breaks through at the last.  And,\naccordingly, his fifth command runs thus: But, it runs, if you should\nsully them, if you should defile them, the which I am greatly unwilling\nthat you should, then speed you to that which is written in My law, that\nyet you may stand, and not fall before Me and before My throne.  Always\nknow this, that I have provided for thee an open fountain to wash thy\ngarments in.  Look, therefore, that you wash often in that fountain, and\ngo not for an hour in defiled garments.  Let not, therefore, My garments,\nyour garments, the garments that I gave thee be ever spotted by the\nflesh.  Keep thy garments always white, and let thy head lack no\nointment.--Signed in heaven, EMMANUEL.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXVII--MANSOUL'S MAGNA CHARTA\n\n\n   'A better covenant.'--_Paul_.\n\nMagna Charta is a name very dear to the hearts of the English people.\nFor, ever since that memorable day on which that noble instrument was\nextorted from King John at the point of the sword, England has been the\npioneer to all the other nations of the earth in personal freedom, in\npublic righteousness, in domestic stability, and in foreign influence and\nenterprise.  Runnymede is a red-letter spot, and 1215 is a red-letter\nyear, not only in the history of England, but in the history of the whole\nmodern world.  The keystone of all sound constitutional government was\nlaid at that place on that date, and by that great bridge not England\nonly, but after England the whole civilised world has passed over from\nages of bondage and oppression and injustice into a new world of personal\nliberty and security, public equity and good faith, loyalty and peace.\nAll that has since been obtained, whether on the battle-field or on the\nfloor of Parliament, has been little more than a confirmation of Magna\nCharta or an authoritative comment upon Magna Charta.  And if every\nsubsequent law were to be blotted out, yet in Magna Charta the\nfoundations would still remain of a great state and a free people.  'Here\ncommences,' says Macaulay, 'the history of the English nation.'\n\nNow, after the Prince of Peace had subjugated the rebellious city of\nMansoul, He promulgated a proclamation and appointed a day wherein He\nwould renew their Charter.  Yea, a day wherein he would renew and enlarge\ntheir Charter, mending several faults in it, so that the yoke of Mansoul\nmight be made yet more easy to bear.  And this He did without any desire\nof theirs, even of His own frankness and nobleness of mind.  So when He\nhad sent for and seen their old Charter, He laid it by and said, Now that\nwhich decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away.  An epitome,\ntherefore, of that new, and better, and more firm and steady Charter take\nas follows: I do grant of Mine own clemency, free, full, and everlasting\nforgiveness of all their wrongs, injuries, and offences done against My\nFather, against Me, against their neighbours and themselves.  I do give\nthem also My Testament, with all that is therein contained, for their\neverlasting comfort and consolation.  Thirdly, I do also give them a\nportion of the self-same grace and goodness that dwells in My Father's\nheart and Mine.  Fourthly, I do give, grant, and bestow upon them freely,\nthe world and all that is therein for their true good; yea, all the\nbenefits of life and death, of things present and things to come.  Free\nleave and full access also at all seasons to Me in My palace, there to\nmake known all their wants to Me; and I give them, moreover, a promise\nthat I shall hear and redress all their grievances.  To them and to their\nright seed after them, I hereby bestow all these grants, privileges, and\nroyal immunities.  All this is but a lean epitome of what was that day\nlaid down in letters of gold and engraven on their doors and their castle\ngates.  And what joy, what comfort, what consolation, think you, did now\npossess every heart in Mansoul!  The bells rang out, the minstrels\nplayed, the people danced, the captains shouted, the colours waved in the\nwind, and the silver trumpets sounded, till every enemy inside and\noutside of Mansoul was now glad to hide his head.\n\nOur constitutional authors and commentators are wont to take Magna Charta\nclause by clause, and word by word, and letter by letter.  They linger\nlovingly and proudly over every jot and tittle of that splendid\ninstrument.  And you will indulge me this Communion night of all nights\nof the year if I expatiate still more lovingly and proudly on that great\nCovenant which our Lord has sealed to us again to-day, and has written\nagain to-day on the walls of our hearts.  Moses made haste as soon as the\nold Charter was read over to him, and nothing shall delay us till we have\nfeasted our eyes, and our ears, and our hearts to-night on the contents\nof this our new and better covenant.\n\n1.  The first article of our Magna Charta is free, full, and everlasting\nforgiveness of all the wrongs, injuries, and offences we have ever done\nagainst God, against our Saviour, against our neighbour, and against\nourselves.  The English nobles extorted their Charter from their\ntyrannical king with their sword at his throat, and after he had signed\nit, he cast himself on the ground and gnawed sticks and stones in his\nfury, so mad was he at the men who had so humiliated him.  'They have set\nfour-and-twenty kings over my head,' he gnashed out.  How different was\nit with our Charter!  For when we were yet enemies it was already drawn\nout in our name.  And after we had been subdued it would never have\nentered our fearful hearts to ask for such an instrument.  And, even now,\nafter we have entered into its liberty, how slow we are to believe all\nthat is written in our great Charter, and read to us every day out of it.\nAnd who shall cast a stone at us for not easily believing all that is so\nwritten and read?  It is not so easy as you would think to believe in\nfree forgiveness for all the wrongs, injuries, and offences we have ever\ndone.  When you try to believe it about yourselves, you will find how\nhard it is to accept that covenant and always to keep your feet firm upon\nit.  That the forgiveness is absolutely free is its first great\ndifficulty.  If it had cost us all we could ever do or suffer, both in\nthis world and in the world to come, then we could have come to terms\nwith our Prince far more easily; but that our forgiveness should be\nabsolutely free, it is that that so staggers us.  When I was a little boy\nI was once wandering through the streets of a large city seeing the\nstrange sights.  I had even less Latin in my head that day than I had\nmoney in my pocket.  But I was hungry for knowledge and eager to see rare\nand wonderful things.  Over the door of a public institution, containing\na museum and other interesting things, I tried to read a Latin scroll.  I\ncould not make out the whole of the writing; I could only make out one\nword, and not even that, as the event soon showed.  The word was\n_gratia_, or some modification of _gratia_, with some still deeper words\nengraven round about it.  But on the strength of that one word I mounted\nthe steps and rang the bell, and asked the porter if I could see the\nmuseum.  He told me that the cost of admission was such and such.  Little\nas it was, it was too much for me, and I came down the steps feeling that\nthe Latin writing above the door had entirely deceived me.  It has not\nbeen the last time that my bad Latin has brought me to shame and\nconfusion of face.  But Latin, or Greek, or only English, or not even\nEnglish, there is no deception and no confusion here.  Forgiveness is\nreally of free grace.  It costs absolutely nothing, the door is open; or,\nif it is not open, then knock, and it shall be opened, without money and\nwithout price.\n\n'Free and full.'  I could imagine a free forgiveness which was not also\nfull.  I could imagine a charter that would have run somehow thus: Free\nforgiveness and full, up to a firmly fixed limit.  Free and full\nforgiveness for sins of ignorance and even of infirmity and frailty; for\nsmall sins and for great sins, too, up to a certain age of life and stage\nof guilt.  Free and full forgiveness up to a certain line, and then, that\nblack line of reprobation, as Samuel Rutherford says.  Indeed, it is no\nimagination.  I have felt oftener than once that I was at last across\nthat black line, and gone and lost for ever.  But no--\n\n   'While the lamp holds on to burn,\n   The greatest sinner may return.'\n\n'Free, full, and everlasting.'  Pope Innocent the Third came to the\nrescue of King John and issued a Papal bull revoking and annulling Magna\nCharta.  But neither king, nor pope, nor devil can revoke or annul our\nnew Covenant.  It is free, full, and everlasting.  If God be for us, who\ncan be against us?  Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?\nNeither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, shall\nbe able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our\nLord.\n\n2.  'Free, full, and everlasting forgiveness of all the wrongs, the\ninjuries, and the offences you have done against My Father, Me, your\nneighbours, and yourselves.'  Now, out of all that let us fix upon\nthis--the wrongs and the injuries we have done to our neighbours.  For,\nas Calvin says somewhere, though our sins against the first table of the\nlaw are our worst sins, yet our sins against the second table, that is,\nagainst our neighbours, are far better for beginning a scrutiny with.  So\nthey are.  For our wrongs against our neighbours, when they awaken within\nus at all, awaken with a terrible fury.  Our wrongs against our\nneighbours wound, and burden, and exasperate an awakened conscience in a\nfearful way.  We come afterwards to say, Against Thee, Thee only have I\nsinned!  But at the first beginning of our repentances it is the wrongs\nwe have done to our neighbours that drive us beside ourselves.  What\nneighbour of yours, then, have you so wronged?  Name him; name her.  You\navoid that name like poison, but it is not poison--it is life and peace.\nMore depends on your often recollecting and often pronouncing that\nhateful name than you would believe.  More depends upon it than your\nminister has ever told you.  And, then, in what did you so wrong him?\nName the wrong also.  Give it its Bible name, its newspaper name, its\nbrutal, vulgar, ill-mannered name.  Do not be too soft, do not be too\ncourtly with yourself.  Keep your own evil name ever before you.  When\nyou hear any other man outlawed and ostracised by that same name, say to\nyourself: Thou, sir, art the man!  Put out a secret and a painful skill\nupon yourself.  Have times and places and ways that nobody knows anything\nabout--not even those you have wronged; have times and places and ways\nthey would laugh to be told of, and would not believe it; times, I say,\nand places and ways for bringing all those old wrongs you once did ever\nand ever back to mind; as often back and as keen to your mind as they\ncome back to that other mind, which is still so full of the wrong.  Even\nif your victim has forgiven and forgotten you, never you forget him, and\nnever you forgive yourself when you again think of him.  Welcome back\nevery sudden and sharp recollection of your wrong-doing.  And make haste\nat every such sudden recollection and fall down on the spot in a deeper\ncompunction than ever before.  Do that as you would be a forgiven and\nfull-chartered soul.  For, free and full and everlasting as God's\nforgiveness is, you have no assurance that it is yours if you ever forget\nyour sin, or ever forgive yourself for having done it.  'Forgive\nyourself,' says Augustine, 'and God will condemn you.  But continually\narraign and condemn yourself, and God will forgive and acquit and justify\nyou.'\n\n3.  'I give also My holy law and testament, and all that therein is\ncontained, for their everlasting comfort and consolation.'  This is not\nthe manner of men, O my God.  Kind-hearted men comfort and console those\nwho have suffered injuries and wrongs at our hands, but the\nkindest-hearted of men harden their hearts and set their faces like a\nflint against us who have done the wrong.  All Syria sympathised with\nEsau for the loss of his birthright, but I do not read that any one came\nto whisper one kind word to Jacob on his hard pillow.  All the army\nmourned over Uriah, but all the time David's moisture was dried up like\nthe drought of summer, and not even Nathan came to the King till he could\nnot help coming.  All Jericho cried, Avenge us of our adversary!  But it\nwas Jesus who looked up and saw Zaccheus and said: Zaccheus, come down;\nmake haste and come down, for to-day I must abide at thy house.  'The\ninjuries they have done themselves also,' so runs the very first head of\nour forgiveness covenant.  Ah! yes; O my Lord, Thou knowest all things;\nThou knowest my heart.  Thou knowest that irremediably as I have injured\nother men, yet in injuring them I have injured myself much more.  And\nmuch as other men need restitution, reparation, and consolation on my\naccount, my God, Thou knowest that I need all that much more--ten\nthousand times more.  Oh, how my broken heart within me leaps up and\nthanks Thee for that Covenant.  Let me repeat it again to Thy praise:\n'Full, free, and everlasting forgiveness of all wrongs, injuries, and\noffences done by him against his neighbours and against himself.'  Who,\nwho is a God, O my God, who is a God like unto Thee!\n\n4.  'I do also give them a portion of the self-same grace and goodness\nthat dwells in My Father's heart and Mine.'  The self-same grace and\ngoodness, that is, that My Father and I have shown to them.  That is to\nsay, we shall be made both willing and able to grant to all those men who\nhave wronged us the very same charter of forgiveness that we have had\ngranted to us of God.  So that at all those times when we stand praying\nfor forgiveness we shall suspend that prayer till we have first forgiven\nall our enemies, and all who have at any time and in any way wronged or\ninjured us.  Even when we had the Communion cup at our lips to-day, you\nwould have seen us setting it down till we had first gone and been\nreconciled to our brother.  Yes, my brethren, you are His witnesses that\nHe has done it.  He has taken you into His covenant till He has made you\nboth able and willing, both willing and able, to grant and to bequeath to\nothers, all that free, full, and everlasting forgiveness and love that He\nhas bequeathed to you.  Till under the very last and supreme wrong that\nyour worst enemy can do to you and to yours, you are able and forward to\nsay: Father, forgive him, for he knows not what he has done.  Forgive me\nmy debts, you will say, as I forgive my debtors.  And always, as you\nagain say and do that, you will on the spot be made a partaker of the\nDivine Nature, according to the heavenly Charter, 'I do also give them a\nportion of the self-same grace and goodness that dwells in My Father's\nheart and in Mine.'\n\n5.  'I do also,' so Mansoul's Magna Charta travels on, 'I do also give,\ngrant, and bestow upon them freely the world and all that is therein for\ntheir good; yea, I grant them all the benefits of life and of death, and\nof things present and things to come.'  What a magnificent Charter is\nthat!  'All things are yours: whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the\nworld, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are\nyours.'  What a superb Charter!  Only, it is too high for us; we cannot\nattain to it.  Has any human being ever risen to anything like the full\nfaith, full assurance, and full victory of all that in this life?  No;\nthe thing is impossible!  Reason would fall off her throne.  The heart of\na man would break with too much joy if he tried to enter into the full\nbelief of all that.  No; it hath not entered into the heart of a still\nsinful man what God hath chartered to them whom He loves.  This world,\nand all that therein is, and then all the coming benefits of life and of\ndeath.  What benefits do believers receive from Christ at their death?  We\nall drank in the answer to that with our mother's milk, but what is\nbehind the words of that answer no mortal tongue can yet tell.  All are\nyours, and ye are Christ's, and Christ is God's.  Till, what joy, what\ncomfort, what consolation, think you, did now possess the hearts of the\nmen of Mansoul!  The bells rang, the minstrels played, the people danced,\nthe captains shouted, the colours waved in the wind, and the silver\ntrumpets sounded.\n\n6.  'And till the glory breaks suddenly upon you, and as long as you yet\nlive in this life of free grace I shall give and grant you leave and free\naccess to Me in My palace at all seasons, there to make known all your\nwants to Me; and I give you, moreover, a promise that I will hear and\nredress all your grievances.'  At all seasons; in season and out of\nseason.  There to make known all your wants to Me.  And all your\ngrievances.  All that still grieves and vexes you.  All your wrongs.  All\nyour injuries.  All that men can do to you.  Let them do their worst to\nyou.  My grace is sufficient for all your grievances.  My goodness in you\nshall make you more than a conqueror.  I undertake to give you before you\nhave asked for it a heart full of free, full, and everlasting forgiveness\nand forgetfulness of all that has begun to grieve you.  No word or deed,\nwritten or spoken, of any man shall be able to vex or grieve the spirit\nthat I shall put within you.  You will immediately avenge yourselves of\nyour adversaries.  You will instantly repay them all an hundredfold.  For,\nwhen thine enemy hungers, thou shalt feed him; when he is athirst, thou\nshalt give him drink.  For thou shalt not be overcome of evil, but thou\nshalt overcome evil with good.\n\n7.  'All these grants, privileges, and immunities I bestow upon thee;\nupon thee, I say, and upon thy right seed after thee.'  O Almighty God,\nour Heavenly Father, give us such a seed!  Give us a seed right with\nThee!  Smite us and our house with everlasting barrenness rather than\nthat our seed should not be right with Thee.  O God, give us our\nchildren.  Give us our children.  A second time, and by a far better\nbirth, give us our children to be beside us in Thy holy Covenant.  For it\nhad been better we had never been born; it had been better we had never\nbeen betrothed; it had been better we had sat all our days solitary\nunless all our children are to be right with Thee.  Let the day perish,\nand the night wherein it was said, There is a man-child conceived.  Let\nthat day be darkness; let not God regard it from above; neither let the\nlight shine upon it, unless all our house is yet to be right with God.  O\nmy son Absalom!  My son, my son Absalom!  Would God I had died for thee,\nO Absalom, my son, my son!  But thou, O God, art Thyself a Father, and\nthus hast in Thyself a Father's heart.  Hear us, then, for our children,\nO our Father, for such of our children as are not yet right with Thee!  In\nseason and out of season; we shall not go up into our bed; we shall not\ngive sleep to our eyes nor slumber to our eyelids till we and all our\nseed are right with Thee.  And then how we and all our saved seed beside\nus shall praise Thee and bless Thee above all the families on earth or in\nheaven, and shall say: Unto Him who loved us and washed us from our sins\nin His own blood, and hath bestowed upon us a free, full, and everlasting\nforgiveness, and hath made us partakers of His Divine Nature, to Him be\nour love and praise and service to all eternity.  Amen and Amen!\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXVIII--EMMANUEL'S LAST CHARGE TO MANSOUL: CONCERNING THE\nREMAINDERS OF SIN IN THE REGENERATE\n\n\n   'Hold fast till I come.'--_Our Lord_.\n\nThere are many fine things in Emmanuel's last charge to Mansoul, but by\nfar the best thing is the answer that He Himself there supplies to this\ndeep and difficult question,--to this question, namely, Why original sin\nis still left to rage in the truly regenerate?  Why does our Lord not\nwholly extirpate sin in our regeneration?  What can His reason be for\nleaving their original sin to dwell in His best saints till the day of\ntheir death?  For, to use His own sad words about sin in His last charge,\nnothing hurts us but sin.  Nothing defiles and debases us but sin.  Why,\nthen, does He not take our sin clean out of us at once?  He could speak\nthe word of complete deliverance if He only would.  Why, then, does He\nnot speak that word?  That has been a mystery and a grief to all God's\nsaints ever since sanctification began to be.  And the great interest and\nthe great value of Emmanuel's last charge to Mansoul stands in this, that\nHe here tells us, if not all, then at least some of His reasons for the\npolicy He pursues with us in our sanctification.  Dost thou know, He\nasks, as He stands on His chariot steps, surrounded with His captains on\nthe right hand and the left--Dost thou know why I at first did, and do\nstill, suffer sin to live and dwell and harbour in thy heart?  And then,\nafter an _O yes_! for silence, the Prince began and thus proceeded:\n\n1.  Dost thou ask at Me why I and My Father have seen it good to allow\nthe dregs of thy sinfulness still to corrupt and to rot in thine heart?\nDost thou ask why, amid so much in thee that is regenerate, there is\nstill so much more that is unregenerate?  Why, while thou art, without\ncontroversy, under grace, indwelling sin still so festers and so breaks\nout in thee?  Dost thou ask that?  Then, attend, and before I go away to\ncome again I will try to tell thee, if, indeed, thou art able and willing\nto bear it.  Well, then, be silent while I tell thee that I have left all\nthat of thy original sin in thee to tempt thee, to try thee, to humble\nthee, and to thrust, day and night, upon thee, what is still in thine\nheart.  To humble thee, take knowledge, take warning, and take\nforethought.  To make thee humble, and to keep thee humble.  To hide\npride from thee, and to lay thee all thy days on earth in the dust of\ndeath.  I tell thee this day that in all thy past life I have ordered and\nadministered all My providences toward thee to humble thee and to prove\nthee, and to make thee dust and ashes in thine own eyes.  And I go away\nto carry on from heaven this same intention of My Father's and Mine\ntoward thee.  We shall try thee as silver is tried.  We shall sift thee\nas wheat is sifted.  We shall search thee as Jerusalem is searched with\nlighted candles.  I tell thee the truth, I shall bend from heaven all My\npower which My Father has given Me, and all My wisdom, and all My love,\nand all My grace.  What to do, dost thou think?  What to do but to make\nthee to know and to acknowledge the plague of thine own heart.  The\ndeceitfulness, that is, the depth of wickedness, and the abominableness,\npast all words, of thine own heart.  I do not ascend to My Father, with\nall things in My hand, to make thy seat soft, and thy cup sweet, and thy\nname great, and thy seed multiplied.  I have far other predestinations\nbefore Me for thee.  I have loved thee with an everlasting love, and it\nis to everlasting life that I am leading thee.  And thou must let Me lead\nthee through fire and through water if I am to lead thee to heaven at\nlast.  I shall have to utterly kill all self-love out of thy heart, and\nto plant all humility in its place.  Many and dreadful discoveries shall\nI have to make to thee of thy profane and inhuman self-love and\nselfishness.  Words will fail thee to confess all thy selfishness in thy\nmost penitent prayer.  Thy towering pride of heart also, and thy so\ncontemptible vanity.  As for thy vanity, I shall so overrule it that\ndouble-minded men about thee shall make thee and thy vanity their sport,\ntheir jest, and their prey.  And I shall not leave thee, nor discharge\nMyself of My work within thee, till I see thee loathing thyself and\nhating thyself and gnashing thy teeth at thyself for thy envy of thy\nbrother, thy envy concerning his house, his wife and his man-servant, and\nhis maid-servant, and his ox, and his ass, and everything that is his.\nThou shalt find something in thee that shall allow thee to see thine\nenemy prosper, but not thy friend.  Something that shall keep thee from\nthy sleep because of his talents, his name, his income, and his place\nwhich I have given him above thee, beside thee, and always in thy sight.\nIt will be something also that shall make his sickness, his decay, his\ndefamation, and his death sweet to thee, and his prosperity and return to\nlife bitter to thee.  Thou shalt have to confess something in\nthyself--whatever its nature and whatever its name--something that shall\nmake thee miserable at good news, and glad and enlarged and full of life\nat evil tidings.  It will be something also that shall give a long life\nin thy evil heart to anger, and to resentment, and to retaliation, and to\nrevenge.  For after years and years thou shalt still have it in thine\nheart to hate and to hurt that man and his house, because long ago he\nleft thy side, thy booth in the market, thy party in the state, and thy\nchurch in religion.  As I live, swore Emmanuel, standing up on the step\nof His ascending chariot, I shall show thee thyself.  I shall show thee\nwhat an unclean heart is and a wicked.  I shall teach to thee what all\ntrue saints shudder at when they are let see the plague of their own\nhearts.  I shall show thee, as I live, how full of pride, and hate, and\nenvy, and ill-will a regenerate heart can be; and how a true-born man of\nGod may still love evil and hate good; may still rejoice in iniquity and\npine under the truth.  I shall show thee, also, what thou wilt not as yet\nbelieve, how thy best friend cannot trust his good name with thee; such a\nsweet morsel to thee shall be the mote in his eye and the spot on his\npraise.  Yes, I shall show thee that I did not die on the cross for\nnothing when I died for thee; when I went out to Calvary a shame and a\nspitting, an outcast and a curse for thee!  Thou shalt yet arise up and\nfall down in thy sin and shalt justify all my thorns, and nails, and\nspears, and the last drop of My blood for thee!  Yea, thou shalt remember\nall the way which the Lord thy God led thee these forty years in the\nwilderness, to humble thee, and to prove thee, and to know what was in\nthine heart, and whether thou wouldest keep His commandments or no.\n\n2.  It is also, the still tarrying Prince proceeded--it is also to keep\nthee wakeful and to make thee watchful.  Now, what conceivable estate\ncould any man be put into even by his Maker and Redeemer more calculated\nto call forth wakefulness and watchfulness than to have one half of his\nheart new and the other half old?  To have one half of his heart\ngarrisoned by the captains of Emmanuel, and the other half still full of\nthe spies and the scouts and the emissaries of hell?  Nay, to have the\ngreat bulk of his heart still full of sin and but a small part of his\nheart here and there under grace and truth?  Here is material for\nfightings without and fears within with a vengeance!  If it somehow suits\nand answers God's deep purposes with His people to teach them\nwatchfulness in this life, then here is a field for watchfulness, a field\nof divine depth and scope and opportunity.  There used to be a divinity\nquestion set in the schools in these terms: Where, in the regenerate,\nhath sin its lodging-place?  For that sin does still lodge in the\nregenerate is too abundantly evident both from Scripture and from\nexperience.  But where it so lodges is the question.  The Dominican\nmonks, and some others, were of opinion that original sin is to be found\nonly in the inferior part of the soul, but not in the mind or the will.\nWhich, I suppose, we shall soon find contrary both to Scripture and\nreason and experience.  Old Andrew Gray speaks feelingly and no less\ntruly concerning the heart, when he says, 'I think,' he says, 'that if\nall the saints since Adam's day, and who shall be to the end of the\nworld, had but one deceitful heart to guide they would misguide it.'  What\na plot of God, then, it is to seat grace, a little saving grace, in the\nmidst of such a sea of corruption as a human heart is, and then to set a\nsinful man to watch over that spark and to keep the boiling pollutions of\nhis own heart from extinguishing that spark!  Well may Paul exclaim: Yea,\nwhat carefulness it calls forth in us; yea, what indignation; yea, what\nfear; yea, what vehement desire; yea, what zeal; yea, what revenge!  And,\nknowing to what He has left our hearts, well may Emmanuel say to us from\nHis ascending steps, 'Watch ye, therefore; and what I say unto you, I say\nunto all, Watch!'\n\n3.  It is to keep thee watchful and to teach thee war also, the Prince\nwent on.  Bishop Butler is about the last author that we would think of\ngoing to for light on any deep and intricate question in the evangelical\nand experimental life.  But Butler is so deeply seen into much of the\nheart of man, as also into many of the ways of God, that even here he has\nsomething to say to the point.  'It is vain to object,' he says in his\nsober and sobering way, 'that all this trouble and danger might have been\nsaved us by our being made at once the creatures and the characters which\nwe were to be.  For we experience that what we are to be is to be the\neffect of what we shall do.  And that the conduct of nature is not to\nsave us trouble and danger, but to make us capable of going through\ntrouble and danger, and to put it upon us to do it.'  The Apostle Peter\nhas the same teaching in a passage too little attended to, in which he\ntells us that we are set here to work out our own salvation, and that our\nsalvation will just be what, with fear and trembling, or, as Butler says,\nwith trouble and danger, we work out.  No man, let all men understand, is\nto have his salvation thrust upon him.  No man need expect to waken up at\nthe end of an idle, indifferent, inattentive life and find his salvation\nsuperinduced upon all that.  No man shall wear the crown of everlasting\nlife who has not for himself won it.  As every man soweth to the Spirit\nso also shall he reap.  As a soldier warreth, so shall he hear it said to\nhim, Well done.  And as a sinner keeps his heart with all diligence, and\nholds it fast till his King comes, so shall he hear it said to him, Thou\nhast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many\nthings.  If thy sins, then, are left in thee to teach thee war, O poor\nsaint of God, then take to thee the whole armour of God; thou knowest the\npieces of it, and where the armoury is, and, having done all, stand!\n\n4.  And dost thou know, O Mansoul, that it is all to try thy love also?\nNow, how, just how, do the remainders of sin in the regenerate try their\nlove?  Why, surely, in this way.  If we really loved sin at the deepest\nbottom of our hearts, and only loved holiness on the surface, would we\nnot in our deepest hearts close with sin, give ourselves up to it, and\nmake no stand at all against it?  Would we not in our deepest and most\nsecret hearts welcome it, and embrace it, look out for it with desire and\ndelight, and part with it with regret?  But if, as a matter of fact, we\nat our deepest and most hidden heart turn from sin, flee from it, fight\nagainst it, rejoice when we are rid of it, and have horror at the return\nof it,--what better proof than that could Christ and His angels have that\nat bottom we are His and not the devil's?  And that grace, at bottom, has\nour hearts, and not sin; heaven, and not hell?  The apostle's protesting\ncry is our cry also; we also delight in the law of God after our most\ninward man.  For, after our saddest surprises into sin, after its worst\noutbreaks and overthrows, such all the time were our reluctances,\nrecalcitrations, and resistances, that, swept away as we were, yet all\nthe time, and after it was again over, it was with some good conscience\nthat we said to Christ that He knew all things, and that He knew that we\nloved Him.\n\n   'O benefit of ill! now I find true\n      That better is by evil still made better;\n   And ruined love, when it is built anew,\n      Grows fairer than at first, more strong, far greater,\n   So I return rebuked to my content,\n      And gain by ill thrice more than I have spent.'\n\nYes; it is a sure and certain proof how truly we love our dearest friend,\nthat, after all our envy and ill-will, yet it is as true as that God is\nin heaven that, all the time, maugre the devil of self that remains in\nour heart,--after he has done his worst--we would still pluck out our\neyes for our friend and shed our blood.  I have no better proof to myself\nof the depth and the divineness of my love to my friend than just this,\nthat I still love him and love him more tenderly and loyally, after\nhaving so treacherously hurt him.  And my heavenly friends and my earthly\nfriends, if they will still have me, must both be content to go into the\nsame bundle both of my remaining enmity and my increasing love; my\nremainders of sin, and my slow growth in regeneration.  So when they had\ndined, Jesus saith to Simon Peter, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou Me\nmore than these?  He saith unto Him, Yea, Lord; Thou knowest that I love\nThee.  He saith unto him again the second time, Simon, son of Jonas,\nlovest thou Me?  He saith unto Him, Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love\nThee.  He saith unto him the third time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou\nMe?  Peter was grieved because He said unto him the third time, Lovest\nthou Me?  And he said unto Him, Lord, Thou knowest all things; Thou\nknowest that I love Thee!\n\n5.  And, to sum up all--more than your humility, more than your\nwatchfulness, more than your prayerfulness, more than to teach you war,\nand more than to try your love, the dregs and remainders of sin have been\nleft in your regenerate heart to exalt and to extol the grace of God.  In\nEmmanuel's very words, it has all been to make you a monument of God's\nmercy.  I put it to yourselves, then, ye people of God: does that not\nsatisfy you for a reason, and for an explanation, and for a justification\nof all your shame and pain, and of all your bondage and misery and\nwretchedness since you knew the Lord?  Is there not a heart in you that\nsays, Yes! it was worth all my corruption and pollution and misery to\nhelp to manifest forth and to magnify the glory of the grace of God?  You\nseize on Emmanuel's word that you are a monument of mercy.  Somehow that\nword pleases and reposes you.  Yes, that is what out of all these post-\nregeneration years you are.  You would have been a monument to God's\nmercy had you, like the thief on the cross, been glorified on the same\nday on which you were first justified.  But it will neither be the day of\nyour justification nor the day of your glorification that will make you\nthe greatest of all the monuments that shall ever be raised to the praise\nof God's grace; it will be the days of your sanctification that will do\nthat.  Paul was a blasphemer and a persecutor and injurious at his\nconversion, but he had to be a lifetime in grace and an apostle above all\nthe twelve before he became the chiefest of sinners and the most wretched\nof saints.  And though your first forgiveness was, no doubt, a great\nproof of the grace of God, yet it was nothing, nothing at all, to your\nforgiveness to-day.  You had no words for the wonder and the praise of\nyour forgiveness to-day.  You just took to your lips the cup of salvation\nand let that silent action speak aloud your monumental praise.  You were\na sinner at your regeneration, else you would not have been regenerated.\nBut you were not then the chief of sinners.  But now.  Ah, now!  Those\nwords, the chief of sinners, were but idle words in Paul's mouth.  He did\nnot know what he was saying.  For, what has horrified and offended other\nmen when it has been spoken with bated breath to them about envy, and\nhate, and malice, and revenge, and suchlike remainders of hell, all that\nhas been a breath of life and hope to you.  It has been to you as when\nChristian, in the Valley of the Shadow of Death, heard a voice in the\ndarkness which proved to him that there was another sinner at the mouth\nof hell besides himself.  There is no text that comes oftener to your\nmind than this, that whoso hateth his brother is a murderer; and,\ncommunicant as you are, you feel and you know and you are sure that there\nare many men lying in lime waiting the day of judgment to whom it would\nbe more tolerable than for you were it not that you are to be at that day\nthe highest monument in heaven or earth to the redeeming, pardoning, and\nsaving grace of God.  Yes, this is the name that shall be written on you;\nthis is the name that shall be read on you of all who shall see you in\nheaven; this name that Emmanuel pronounced over Mansoul that day from His\nascending chariot-steps, a very Spectacle of wonder, and a very Monument\nof the mercy and the grace of God.","title":"Bunyan Characters (3rd Series)","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":83693}