be brief: one morning, as I did lie in my bed, I was, as at other
times, most fiercely assaulted with this temptation, to sell and part with
Christ; the wicked suggestion still running in my mind, Sell him, sell
him, sell him, sell him, sell him, as fast as a man could speak; against
which, also, in my mind, as at other times, I answered, No, no, not for
thousands, thousands, thousands, at least twenty times together; but at
last, after much striving, I felt this thought pass through my heart, Let
him go if he will; and I thought also, that I felt my heart freely consent
thereto. Oh, the diligence of Satan! Oh, the desperateness of man's
heart!
"Now was the battle won, and down fell I, as a bird that is shot from the
top of a tree, into great guilt, and fearful despair. Thus getting out of
my bed, I went moping into the field; but God knows with as heavy a
heart as mortal man, I think, could bear; where, for the space of two
hours, I was like a man bereft of life; and, as now, past all recovery,
and bound over to eternal punishment.
"And withal, that Scripture did seize upon my soul: 'Or profane person,
as Esau, who, for one morsel of meat, sold his birthright; for ye know,
how that afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was
rejected; for he found no place for repentance, though he sought it
carefully with tears."
For two years and a half, as he informs us, that awful scripture sounded
in his ears like the knell of a lost soul. He believed that he had
committed they unpardonable sin. His mental anguish 'was united with
bodily illness and suffering. His nervous system became fearfully
deranged; his limbs trembled; and he supposed this visible
tremulousness and agitation to be the mark of Cain. 'Troubled with pain
and distressing sensations in his chest, he began to fear that his breast-
bone would split open, and that he should perish like Judas Iscariot. He
feared that the tiles of the houses would fall upon him as he walked in
the streets. He was like his own Man in the Cage at the House of the
Interpreter, shut out from the promises, and looking forward to certain
judgment. "Methought," he says, "the very sun that shineth in heaven
did grudge to give me light." And still the dreadful words, "He found
no place for repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears,"
sounded in the depths of his soul. They were, he says, like fetters of
brass to his legs, and their continual clanking followed him for months.
Regarding himself elected and predestined for damnation, he thought
that all things worked for his damage and eternal overthrow, while all
things wrought for the best and to do good to the elect and called of
God unto salvation. God and all His universe had, he thought,
conspired against him; the green earth, the bright waters, the sky itself,
were written over with His irrevocable curse.
Well was it said by Bunyan's contemporary, the excellent Cudworth, in
his eloquent sermon before the Long Parliament, that "We are nowhere
commanded to pry into the secrets of God, but the wholesome advice
given us is this: 'To make our calling and election sure.' We have no
warrant from Scripture to peep into the hidden rolls of eternity, to spell
out our names among the stars." "Must we say that God sometimes, to
exercise His uncontrollable dominion, delights rather in plunging
wretched souls down into infernal night and everlasting darkness?
What, then, shall we make the God of the whole world? Nothing but a
cruel and dreadful Erinnys, with curled fiery snakes about His head,
and firebrands in His hand; thus governing the world! Surely, this will
make us either secretly think there is no God in the world, if He must
needs be such, or else to wish heartily there were none." It was thus at
times with Bunyan. He was tempted, in this season of despair, to
believe that there was no resurrection and no judgment.
One day, he tells us, a sudden rushing sound, as of wind or the wings of
angels, came to him through the window, wonderfully sweet and
pleasant; and it was as if a voice spoke to him from heaven words of
encouragement and hope, which, to use his language, commanded, for
the time, "a silence in his heart to all those tumultuous thoughts that did
use, like masterless hell-hounds, to roar and bellow and make a hideous
noise within him." About this time, also, some comforting passages of
Scripture were called to mind; but he remarks, that whenever he strove
to apply them to
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