This misery was
aggravated by reading the fearful estate of Francis Spira, who had been
persuaded to return to a profession of Popery, and died in a state of awful
despair. 'This book' was to his troubled spirit like salt rubbed into a fresh
wound.
Bunyan now felt his
body and mind shaking and tottering under the sense of the dreadful judgment of
God; and he thought his sin—of a momentary and unwilling consent to giving up
Christ—was a greater sin than all the sins of David, Solomon, Manasseh, and
even than all the sins that had been committed by all God's redeemed ones. Was
there ever a man in the world so capable of describing the miseries of Doubting
Castle, or of the Slough of Despond, as poor John Bunyan?
He would have run
from God in utter desperation; 'but, blessed be his grace, that Scripture, in
these flying sins, would call, as running after me, "I have blotted out,
as a thick cloud, thy transgressions, and, as a cloud, thy sins: return unto
me, for I have redeemed thee"' (Isa 44:22). Still he was haunted by that
scripture, 'You know how that afterward when he would have inherited the
blessing, he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with
tears.'
Thus was he tossed
and buffeted, involved in cloudy darkness, with now and then a faint gleam of
hope to save him from despair. 'In all these,' he says, 'I was but as those
that justle against the rocks; more broken, scattered, and rent. Oh! the
unthought of imaginations, frights, fears, and terrors, that are affected by a
thorough application of guilt.' 'Methought I saw as if the sun that shineth in
the heavens did grudge to give light, and as if the very stones in the street,
and tiles upon the houses, did bend themselves against me. 'Here we find him in
that doleful valley, where Christian was surrounded by enemies that 'cared not
for his sword,' he put it up, and places his dependence upon the more
penetrating weapon, 'All Prayer.'
Depending upon this
last resource, he prayed, even when in this great darkness and distress. To
whom could he go? his case was beyond the power of men or angels. His refuge,
from a fear of having committed the unpardonable sin, was that he had never
refused to be justified by the blood of Christ, but ardently wished it; this,
in the midst of the storm, caused a temporary clam. At length, he was led to
look prayerfully upon those scriptures that had tormented him, and to examine
their scope and tendency, and then he 'found their visage changed, for they
looked not so grimly on him as before he thought they did.' Still, after
such a tempest, the sea did not at once become calm. Like one that had been
scared with fire, every voice was fire, fire; every little touch hurt his
tender conscience.
All this instructive
history is pictured by a few words in the Pilgrim's Progress. At the
Interpreter's house the pilgrim is shown 'a fire burning against a wall, and
one standing by it, always casting much water upon it, to quench it; yet did
the fire burn higher and hotter.' As Esau beat him down, Christ raised him again.
The threatening and the promise were like glittering swords clashing together,
but the promise must prevail.
His entire relief, at last, was sudden while meditating in the field upon the words, 'Thy
righteousness is in heaven.' Hence he drew the conclusion, that his
righteousness was in Christ, at God's right hand, ever before him, secure from
all the powers of sin and Satan. Now his chains fell off; he was loosed from
his affliction and irons; his temptation fled away. His present supply of grace
he compared to the cracked groats and fourpence half-pennies, which rich men
carry in their pockets, while their treasure is safe in their trunks at home,
as he was in the storehouse of heaven.
This dreary night of
awful conflict lasted more than two years; but when the day-spring from on high
visited him, the promises spangled in his eyes, and he broke out into a song,
'Praise ye the Lord. Praise God in his sanctuary: praise him in the firmament
of his power. Praise him for his mighty acts: praise him according to his
excellent greatness.'
Bunyan's opinion as
to the cause of this bitter suffering, was his want of watchfulness, his not
coming boldly to the throne of grace, and that he had tempted God. The
advantages he considered that he had gained by it were, that it confirmed his
knowledge of the existence of God so that he lost all his temptations to
unbelief, blasphemy, hardness of heart, Doubts as to the truth of the Word,
and certainty of the world to come, were gone forever.