[317] Hopeful, agreeably to his name, was not only preserved from terror, but enabled to encourage his trembling companion telling him the welcome news that "he felt the bottom, and it was good." Blessed experience! If Christ is our foundation, we have nothing to fear, even in the swellings of Jordan, for death itself cannot separate us from the love of Christ-(Burder).
[318] When you visit a sick or death bed, be sure that you take God's Word with you, in your heart and in your mouth. It is from that only that you may expect a blessing upon, and to the soul of, the sick or the dying; for it is by the Word of God faith came at the first; it is by that, faith is strengthened at the last; and Jesus is the sum and substance of the Scriptures-(Mason).
[319] Jesus Christ, He is indeed the Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, the beginning of our hope, and the end of our confidence. We begin and end the Christian pilgrimage with Him; and all our temptations and trials speak loudly, and fully confirm to us that truth of our Lord, "Without Me ye can do nothing" (John 15:5)-(Mason).
[320] The temporary distresses of dying believers often arise from bodily disease, which interrupt the free exercise of their intellectual powers. Of this Satan will be sure to take advantage, as far as he is permitted, and will suggest gloomy imaginations, not only to distress them, but to dishearten others by their example. Generally they who, for a time, have been most distressed, have at length died most triumphantly-(Scott).
[321] I cannot trust myself to read the account of Christian going up to the Celestial Gate, after his passage though the River of Death-(Arnold).
[322] Bunyan, in his Saint's Knowledge of Christ's Love, describes the feelings of the pilgrim, while clothed with mortality, looking up to the heights of Heaven. Christ could mount up-Elijah had a chariot of fire-Enoch was taken by God. But I, poor I, how shall I get thither? How often are considering thoughts wanting in professors! The question is happily solved in Christian and Hopeful's experience; they left all their mortal garments and burdens behind them in the river, and their free spirits for the first time felt the sweets of liberty in their perfection-(ED).
[323] I know that all who go to paradise, are conducted thither by these holy ones; but yet, for all that, such as die under the cloud, for unchristian walking with God, may meet with darkness on that day, and go heavily hence. But as for those who have been faithful to their God, they shall see before them, or from earth see glory-(Bunyan's Paul's Departure, vol. 1, p. 741).
[324] Ah, Christian! None can conceive or describe what it is to live in a state separate from a body of sin and death. Surely in some happy, highly-favoured moments, we have had a glimpse, a foretaste of this, and could realize it by faith. O for more and more of this, till we possess and enjoy it in all its fullness! If Jesus be so sweet to faith below, who can tell what He is in full fruition above? This we must die to know-(Mason).
[325] Bunyan has, with great beauty and probability, brought in the ministry of angels, and regions of the air, to be passed through in their company, rising, and still rising, higher and higher, before they come to that mighty mount on which He has placed the gates of the Celestial City. The angels receive His pilgrims as they come up from the River of Death, and form for them a bright, glittering, seraphic, loving convoy, whose conversation prepares them gradually for that exceeding and eternal weight of glory which is to be theirs as they enter in at the gate. Bunyan has thus, in this blissful passage from the river to the gate, done what no other devout writer, or dreamer, or speculator, that we are aware of, has ever done; he has filled what perhaps in most minds is a mere blank, a vacancy, or at most a bewilderment and mist of glory, with definite and beatific images, with natural thoughts, and with the sympathizing communion of gentle spirits, who form, as it were, an outer porch and perspective of glory, through which the soul passes into uncreated light. Bunyan has thrown a bridge, as it were, for the imagination, over the deep, sudden, open space of an untried spiritual existence; where it finds, ready to receive the soul that leaves the body, ministering spirits, sent forth to minister unto them who are to be heirs of salvation-(Cheever).
[326] Glory beyond all glory ever seen By waking sense, or by the dreaming soul! The appearance, instantaneously disclosed, Was of a mighty City-boldly say A wilderness of building, sinking far, And self-withdrawn into a wondrous depth, Far sinking into splendour without end! Fabric it seemed of diamond and of gold, With alabaster domes and silver spires, And blazing terrace upon terrace, high Uplifted: here, serene pavilions bright, In avenues disposed; there, towers begirt With battlements, that on their restless fronts Bore stars-illumination of all gems!—(Wordsworth).