The temptation to which we have alluded, took this strange and dreadful form—to sell and part with his Saviour, to exchange him for the things of this life—for anything. This horrid thought he could not shake out of his mind, day nor night, for many months together. It intermixed itself with every occupation, however sacred, or however trivial. “He could not eat his food, stoop for a pin, chop a stick, nor cast his eye to look on this or that, but still the temptation would come, ‘Sell Christ for this, sell Christ for that, sell him, sell him.’ Sometimes it would run in my thoughts not so little as a hundred times together, Sell him, sell him, sell him: Against which, I may say, for whole hours together, I have been forced to stand as continually leaning and forcing my spirit against it; lest haply, before I was aware, some wicked thought might arise in my heart that might consent thereto: and sometimes the tempter would make me believe I had consented to it; but then should I be as tortured on a rack for whole days together.”—“But, to be brief, one morning as I did lie in my bed, I was, as at other times, most fiercely assaulted with this temptation to sell and part with Christ—the wicked suggestion still running in my mind, Sell him, sell him, sell him, sell him, as fast as a man could speak, against which I also, as at other times, answered, No, no; not for thousands, thousands, thousands, at least twenty times together. But at last, after much striving, even until I was almost out of breath, I felt this thought pass through my heart, Let him go, if he will; and I thought also that I felt my heart freely consent thereto. Oh, the diligence of Satan! Oh, the desperateness of man’s heart! Now was the battle won, and down fell I, as a bird that is shot from the top of a tree, into great guilt and fearful despair. Thus getting out of my bed, I went moping into the field, but, God knows, with as heavy a heart as mortal man, I think, could bear. Where, for the space of two hours, I was like a man bereft of life, and as now past all recovery, and bound over to eternal punishment. And withal, that scripture did seize upon my soul, ‘O profane person, as Esau, who, for one morsel of meat, sold his birth-right; for ye know how that afterwards, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected; for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears.’ These words were to my soul like fetters of brass, in the continual sound of which I went for several months together.”
The anxious casuistry in which he sought relief, and the alternation of wistful hope and blank despair, in which for many a dismal day he was tossed to and fro, none but himself can properly describe. They are deeply affecting, and to some may prove instructive.
“Then began I, with sad and careful heart, to consider of the nature and largeness of my sin, and to search into the word of God, if in any place I could espy a word of promise, or any encouraging sentence by which I might take relief. Wherefore I began to consider that of Mark iii., ‘All manner of sins and blasphemies shall be forgiven unto the sons of men, wherewith soever they shall blaspheme:’ which place, methought, at a blush, did contain a large and glorious promise for the pardon of high offences. But considering the place more fully, I thought it was rather to be understood as relating more chiefly to those who had, while in a natural state, committed such things as there are mentioned; but not to me, who had not only received light and mercy, but that had, both after and also contrary to that, so slighted Christ as I had done. I feared, therefore, that this wicked sin of mine might be that sin unpardonable, of which he there thus speaketh, ‘But he that blasphemeth against the Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation.’
“And now was I both a burden and a terror to myself; nor did I ever so know as now what it was to be weary of my life and yet afraid to die. O how gladly would I have been anybody but myself! anything but a man! and in any condition but my own! for there was nothing did pass more frequently over my mind, than that it was impossible for me to be forgiven my transgression, and to be saved from wrath to come.”
He set himself to compare his sin with that of David and Peter, but saw that there were specialties in his guilt which made it far greater. The only case which he could compare to his own was that of Judas.
“About this time I did light on the dreadful story of that miserable mortal, Francis Spira. Every sentence in that book, every groan of that man, with all the rest of his actions in his dolors, as his tears, his prayers, his gnashing of teeth, his wringing of hands, his twisting, and languishing, and pining away, under the mighty hand of God that was upon him, was as knives and daggers to my soul; especially that sentence of his was frightful to me, ‘Man knows the beginning of sin, but who bounds the issues thereof!’ Then would the former sentence, as the conclusion of all, fall like a hot thunderbolt again upon my conscience, ‘For you know how, that afterwards, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected; for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears.’ Then should I be struck into a very great trembling, insomuch that at sometimes I could, for whole days together, feel my very body, as well as my mind, to shake and totter under the sense of this dreadful judgment of God.
“Now I should find my mind to flee from God as from the face of a dreadful judge; yet this was my torment, I could not escape his hand. ‘It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the hiving God.’ But blessed be his grace, that scripture in these flying fits would call as running after me,—‘I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, thy transgressions, and as a cloud thy sins; return unto me, for I have redeemed thee.’ This, I say, would come in upon my mind when I was fleeing from the face of God; for I did flee from his face, that is, my mind and spirit fled before him: by reason of his highness I could not endure. Then would that text cry, Return unto me; it would cry aloud, with a very great voice, Return unto me, for I have redeemed thee. Indeed this would make me make a little stop, and, as it were, look over my shoulder behind me, to see if I could discern that the God of grace did follow me with a pardon in his hand.
“Once as I was walking to and fro in a good man’s shop, bemoaning of myself in my sad and doleful state, afflicting myself with self-abhorrence for this wicked and ungodly thought; lamenting also this hard hap of mine, for that I should commit so great a sin, greatly fearing I should not be pardoned; praying also in my heart, that if this sin of mine did differ from that against the Holy Ghost, the Lord would shew it me; and being now ready to sink with fear, suddenly there was as if there had rushed in at the window the noise of wind upon me, but very pleasant, and as if I heard a voice speaking,—‘Didst ever refuse to be justified by the blood of Christ?’ And withal my whole life of profession past was in a moment opened to me, wherein I was made to see that designedly I had not; so my heart answered groaningly, No. Then fell with power that word of God upon me, See that ye refuse not him that speaketh. This made a strange seizure upon my spirit: it brought light with it, and commanded a silence in my heart of all those tumultuous thoughts that before did rise, like masterless hell-hounds, to roar and bellow, and make a hideous noise within me. It shewed me also that Jesus Christ had yet a word of grace and mercy for me that he had not, as I feared, quite forsaken and cast off my soul: Yea, this was a kind of check for my proneness to desperation; a kind of threatening of me if I did not, notwithstanding my sins and the heinousness of them, venture my salvation upon the Son of God. But as to my determining about this strange dispensation, what it was, I know not. I have not yet in twenty years’ time been able to make a judgment of it. I thought then what here I should be loath to speak. But verily, that sudden rushing wind was as if an angel had come upon me; but both it and the salvation, I will leave until the day of judgment. Only this I say, it commanded a great calm in my soul. It persuaded me there might be hope; it shewed me, as I thought, what the sin unpardonable was, and that my soul had yet the blessed privilege to flee to Jesus Christ for mercy. But I say concerning this dispensation, I know not what yet to say unto it. I leave it to be thought on by men of sound judgment. I lay not the stress of my salvation thereupon, but upon the Lord Jesus in the promise; yet seeing I am here unfolding of my secret things, I thought it might not be altogether inexpedient to let this also shew itself, though I cannot now relate the matter as then I did experience it. This lasted in the savour thereof about three or four days, and then I began to mistrust and despair again.”
No solid peace can enter the soul except that which is brought by the Comforter. It is not the word read and heard, but the word revealed by the Spirit, which is saving and assuring. There is undoubtedly a divine operation on the mind wherever any special impression is produced by the truths of God; and whether that impression should be made with audible and visible manifestations accompanying it—as on the day of Pentecost—or should be so vivid as to convert a mental perception into a bodily sensation, as we are disposed to think was the case with some of the remarkable sights and heavenly voices which good men have recorded, is really of little moment. In Bunyan’s case, so warm was his imagination, that every clear perception was sure to be instantaneously sounding in his ear, or standing out a bright vision before his admiring eyes. This feature of his mental conformation has been noticed already; but this may be the proper place to allude to it again.
After the short breathing time we just noticed, Bunyan began to sink in the deep waters again. It was in vain that he asked the prayers of God’s people, and equally in vain that he imparted his grief to those who had passed through the same conflicts with the devil. One “ancient Christian,” to whom he stated his fear that he had committed the sin for which there is no forgiveness, thought so too. “Thus was I always sinking, whatever I did think or do. So one day I walked to a neighbouring town, and sat down upon a settle in the street, and fell into a very deep panic about the most fearful state my sin had brought me to; and after long musing, I lifted up my head; but methought I saw as if the sun that shineth in the heavens did grudge to give light; and as if the very stones in the street, and tiles upon the houses, did bend themselves against me: methought that they all combined together to banish me out of the world; I was abhorred of them, and unfit to dwell among them, or be partaker of their benefits, because I had sinned against the Saviour. Then breaking out in the bitterness of my soul, I said to my soul, with a grievous sigh, ‘How can God comfort such a wretch as I am?’ I had no sooner said it, but this returned upon me, as an echo doth answer a voice, ‘This sin is not unto death.’ At which I was as if raised out of the grave, and cried out again, ‘Lord, how couldst thou find out such a word as this?’ for I was filled with admiration at the fitness and at the unexpectedness of the sentence. The fitness of the word; the rightness of the timing of it; the power and sweetness and light and glory that came with it also, were marvellous to me to find. I was now for the time out of doubt as to that about which I was so much in doubt before. I seemed now to stand upon the same ground with other sinners, and to have as good right to the word and prayer as any of them.”