(Continued from page 218.)
DURING his spiritual pilgrimage Bunyan came across Martin Luther’s commentary on Galatians, a work that came warm from the heart of the great Reformer. As he read it he found Luther had his experience “so largely and profoundly handled, as if his book had been written” out of Bunyan’s heart. At this stage of the journey he says: “And now I found, as I thought, that I loved Christ dearly. Oh! methought my soul cleaved unto Him, my affections cleaved unto Him. I felt love to Him as hot as fire.” This happy experience was followed by a terrible temptation. The temptation took the form of a suggestion to sell the Lord whom he so dearly loved. “Sell Christ for this” was continually whispered in his ears only to be rejected by the harassed man with horror. He dreaded he would yield to the temptation some day. “This temptation,” he says, “did put me to such scares, lest I should at some times consent thereto, and be overcome therewith, that by the very force of my mind, in labouring to gainsay and resist this wickedness my very body also would be put into action or motion by way of pushing or thrusting with my hands or elbows still answering as fast as the Destroyer said, Sell Him; I will not, I will not, I will not; no, not for thousands, thousands, thousands of worlds. Thus reckoning lest I should, in the midst of these assaults, set too low a value on Him, even until I scarce well knew where I was, or how to be composed again.” At last the fateful hour arrived when, after much striving, he felt this thought pass through his heart: “Let Him go if He will.” Bunyan’s comment speaks for itself: “Oh, the diligence of Satan! Oh, the desperation of man’s heart! Now was the battle won, and down fell I as a bird that is shot from the top of a tree into great guilt and fearful despair.”
The passage in Hebrews referring to Esau selling his birthright became a stumbling-block to him. For two long and weary years nothing would abide with him but “damnation, and an expectation of damnation.” In the midst of this fiery trial such passages as: “The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth us from all sin” and “All manner of sins and blasphemies shall be forgiven unto the sons of men,” would cheer him, but then the words: “For ye know, how that afterwards, when he would have inherited the blessing, he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears” would break in and rob him of his comfort. He now began to search the Scripture to find if any ever committed such a great sin as he had committed. The cases of David, Peter, Judas were all passed in review, and he came to the conclusion that he came nearer to the sin of Judas than to those of David and Peter. He now began to compare his sin with Judas’s, and he thought if it should differ “but by the breadth of an hair” that his soul would be in a happy condition. As he pondered over Judas’s transgression he found that it was “committed with much deliberation” and intentionally, while his was in face of his prayers and strivings and “in a fearful hurry, on a sudden.” This gave him some relief for a time. Satan now suggested to him that there was no such thing as the Judgment, and even if there was, to believe otherwise would yield him ease for the present. But when such thoughts went through his heart Death and Judgment seemed as if they were “within a step.” “Methought,” he says, “the Judge stood at the door, I was as if it was come already.” He thought of the sins of David, Solomon, Manasseh, Peter, etc., but he staggered as he felt his sin was point blank against his Saviour. He longed to flee from the Judge, and in this connection he touchingly adds: “But blessed be His grace, that Scripture, in these flying fits, would call as running after me, I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, thy transgressions; and, as a cloud, thy sins: return unto me for I have redeemed thee.” While bemoaning his condition one day he heard as if someone addressed him: “Didst thou ever refuse to be justified by the blood of Christ?” and his heart answered groaningly, No. Then came the words with power: “See that ye refuse not Him that speaketh.” These words brought light and silenced the tumultuous thoughts which, like ‘masterless hell-hounds,’ roared and bellowed. Referring to the incident, he writes in “Grace Abounding”: “But as to my determining about this strange dispensation, what it was I know not; or from whence it came I know not. I have not yet, in twenty years’ time, been able to make a judgment of it.” When he thought of praying to God Satan suggested that he ought not to do so for prayer was not for the like of him who had rejected the Mediator; he suggested that though Christ pitied his case, yet as Bunyan had sinned so grievously Christ could do nothing for him. Tempest-tossed with these “most tormenting cogitations” he one day cried out in the agony of his spirit: “How can God comfort such a wretch as I?” He had no sooner uttered the words than, as if a voice said to him: “This sin is not unto death.” He felt as one raised out of a grave and cried out: “Lord, how couldest thou find out such a word as this?” He now felt that his sin was pardonable. He received great comfort from the words: “Then shall they be ashamed and confounded, and never open their mouth any more because of their shame, when I am pacified towards them for all that they have done, saith the Lord God.”
(To be continued.)