THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS. The Jail. As I walked through the wilderness of this world, I lighted on a certain place where was a Den (a), and I laid me down in that place to sleep; and, as I slept, I dreamed a dream. I dreamed, and behold, I saw a man clothed with rags, standing in a certain place, with his face from his own house, a book in his land, and a great burden upon his back (Isa. lxiv. 6; Luke xiv. 33; Psa. xxxviii. 4); I looked, and saw him open the book, and read therein; and, as he read, he wept, and trembled; and, not being able longer to contain, he brake out with a lamentable cry (6), saying, 'What shall I do?' Acts ii. 37; xvi. 30, 31; Hab. ii. 1-2. His outcry. (a) The Den.- This was Bedford Jail, in which Bunyan was imprisoned for twelve years; where he wrote the first part of the Pilgrim's Progress. (b) The Awakening. The first view given us of the Pilgrim is when he is just awakened to a sense of his sins and danger. He is clothed with rags, for he has discovered that in the sight of a holy God all his own virtues and merits are worthless, Isa. lxiv. 6; Ezek. xxxiii. 12, 13; Tit. iii. 5. His face is turned from his own house, for he cannot be happy in his former life, and wishes to be saved if he knew how; he had been happy in ignorance of his condition, but it was not a happy ignorance, Rev. iii. 17, 18. A book is in his hand, the Holy Bible, whose first influence on a sinner is often alarming, Hos. vi. 5; Jer. xxiii. 29; Heb. iv. 12. In this plight, therefore, he went home and refrained himself as long as he could, that his wife and children should not perceive his distress (c); but he could not be silent long, because that his trouble increased. Wherefore at length he brake his mind to his wife and children; and thus he began to talk to them. O my dear wife, said he, and you the children of my bowels, I, your dear friend, am in myself undone by reason of a burden that lieth hard upon me; moreover, I am for certain informed that this our city will be The world. burned with tire from heaven; in which fearful overthrow, both myself, with thee my wife, and you my sweet babes, shall miserably come to ruin, except (the which yet I see not) some way of way of escape escape can be found, whereby we may be delivered. At this his relations were sore amazed; not for that they believed that what he had He knows no as yet. A great burden is on his back, the sense of his guilt and sin, Psa. xxxviii. 4; Psa. xxxi. 10. His lamentable cry, 'What shall I do?" expresses the anguish of his soul; the discovery of his sin makes him miserable, but it is the first step to happiness, Hos. xiv. 1-9. Few of those whose lives are imoral, and who are early converted, experience the same intensity of emotion as this Pilgrim on conviction of sin. Where, however, persons have been piously educated, and have been wicked in their outward conduct, their spiritual impressions are often violent, as severe frosts usually break up in tempests. Bunyan himself passed through all the anguish here described. A sermon he heard, he tells us, 'did benumb the sinews of my best delights, and did embitter my former pleasures to me;' and when at a game with some companions, he seemed to hear a voice saying, 'Wilt thou leave thy sins and go to heaven, or have thy sins and go to hell?' Colonel Gardiner writes, 'After the astonishing sight of my blessed Lord, the terrible condition in which I was, proceeded not so much from the terrors of the law, as from a sense of having been so ungrateful a monster to Him whom I thought I saw pierced for my transgressions.' It is of little consequence in what particular manner the convictions of sin are manifested, if they are genuine, and lead to true repentance. (c) His Distress-The Pilgrim is now described among his relations, he peing the only one under spiritual concern. He speaks worst of himself, 'I am undone by reason of a burden that lieth said to them was true, but because they thought that some frenzy distemper had got into his head; therefore, it drawing towards night, and they hoping that sleep might settle his brains, with all haste they got him to bed. But the night was as troublesome to him as the day; wherefore, instead of sleeping, he spent it in sighs and tears. So, when the morning was come, they would know how he did. He told them, Worse and worse: he also set to talking to them again; but they began to be hardened. They also thought to drive away his distemper by harsh and surly carriages to him: sometimes they would deride, sometimes they Carnal physic would chide, and sometimes they would for a sick soul. quite neglect him. Wherefore he began to retire himself to his chamber, to pray for and pity them, and also to condole his own misery; he would also walk solitarily in the fields, sometimes reading, and sometimes praying: and thus for some days he spent his time. Now I saw, upon a time, when he was walking in the fields, that he was, as he was wont, reading in his book, and greatly distressed in his mind; and, as he read, he burst out, as he had done before, crying, 'What shall I do to be saved?' Acts xvi. 30, 31. I saw also that he looked this way and that way, as if he would run; yet he stood still, because, as I perceived, he could not tell which way to go. I looked nard upon me;' but under the figure of the destruction of the city by fire (2 Pet. iii. 10), tries to arouse his wife and children to a sense of their danger, 1 John ii. 15-17. They cannot understand his feelings, for nothing to the worldly mind is stranger than anxiety for the salvation of the soul. Had he lost money, or been sick, they could have deeply sympathised with him, but they are sore amazed he can be in such distress about his immortal soul, Matt. xvi. 26. They first endeavour to divert his mind from what they think gloomy thoughts, by kindness, and then to drive them away by harshness; but nothing can turn him from his purpose, for, whom God wounds God only can heal, Job v. 18. Their conduct sends him to prayer and the study of the Bible, the sure means of salvation, Isa. xxx. 19; Psa. xciv. 12. The spiritual character of his religious impressions is illustrated by his pitying and praying for his friends, instead of being alienated from them. then, and saw a man named Evangelist coming to him, who asked, Wherefore dost thou cry? (d) He answered, Sir, I perceive, by the book in my hand, that I am condemned to die, and after that to (d) Evangelist. - The Pilgrim's conversation with Evangelist represents him under the teaching of the Gospel. Hitherto, he had read little but the Law, which showed him his guilt, and the punishment he deserved, without revealing any means of pardon; but now he is taught that there is a way of life disclosed in Holy Scripture. By the Law is the knowledge of sin; therefore, when asked by Evangelist 'Wherefore dost thou cry?' he tells him he is unwilling to die, and unable to meet God in judgment. These views of his were right, and were the best preparation for receiving the Gospel; for the Gospel does not teach us that our sins are few and our punishment light; but that being great sinners there is salvation for us in Christ, 1 Tim. i. 13-16. It recognises the holiness of the law, and the justice of the sinner's punishment for violating it, Rom. v. 8. This is brought out here by Evangelist asking why he is not willing to die, and giving him a parchment, 'Flee from the wrath to come.' No one ever denounced more terrible judgments on sinners than Jesus the Saviour of sinpers, Matt. xxiv. 51; xxv. 30, 41. Evangelist points the pilgrim first to a Wicket-gate which he does not see, and then to a shining light which he thinks he sees, and toward which he runs. His inability to see the Wicket-gate represents his ignorance of the way of salvation by the free grace of God. The shining light is the Word of God, whose light is beginning to dawn on his soul. Few are able at once to discover the full sufficiency of Jesus as their Saviour, and only perceive some glimpses of His grace; but as a lark, which we hear singing far up in the sky, is invisible when we first look upwards, yet, as we continue to gaze, the eye becomes adapted to the distance, and we see it fluttering and soaring; so as we continue looking towards Christ, is He revealed to us in all His excellencies, Hos. vi. 3; John vii. 17. 'The mind of Colonel Gardiner,' writes his biographer, 'continued for more than three months in as extraordinary a situation as one can well imagine. He knew nothing of the joys arising from a sense of pardon; but on the contrary, with very short intervals of hope, took it for granted that he must in all probability quickly perish. Nevertheless, he had such a sense of the evil of sin, of the goodness of the Divine Being, and of the admirable tendency of the Christian revelation, that he resolved to spend the remainder of his life in as rational and useful a manner as he could; and to continue casting himself down at the feet of Divine mercy every day, and often in a day, if peradventure there might be hope of pardon,' Phil. iii. 13, 14; Psa. xxxi. 24. |