make in that man's soul who never asked forgiveness, never went to Christ-what work will it make, when sin and conscience, long hidden, concealed, sleeping, are developed, roused up, and busy in the soul? Oh, if the fire that is thus kindled begins to be noticed first, not until the soul enters on the eternal world, then it will never go out! beware how you have conscience for an enemy.

O Conscience! who can stand before thy power?
Endure thy gripes and agonies one hour?
Stone, gout, strappado, racks, whatever is
Dreadful to sense, are only toys to this.
No pleasures, riches, honours, friends can tell
How to give ease in this :-'tis like to hell.

Call for the pleasant timbrel, lute, and harp:
Alas! the music howls! The pain's too sharp
For these to charm, divert, or lull asleep :

These cannot reach it; as the wound's too deep.
Let all the promises before it stand,

And set a Barnabas at its right hand;

These in themselves no comfort can afford,

'Tis Christ, and none but Christ, can speak the word.
There goes a power with his Majestic Voice,
To hush the raging storm, and charm its noise.
Who but would fear and love, and do his will,
Who bids such tempests of the soul be still!

So

FLAVEL.

LECTURE IX.

CHRISTIAN'S FIGHT WITH APOLLYON

IN THE VALLEY OF HUMILIATION.

Conversation with Discretion, Prudence, Piety, and Charity.-Blessedness of Christian Communion.-Too much sometimes anticipated.-Danger of making Church-membership salvation.-Preparation for the Christian Conflict.-Apollyon's assault upon Christian.-The fiery darts of the Wicked One.-Entering into temptation.-Christian's passage through this valley compared with the experience of Christiana, Mercy, and the children.-Pleasantness and grace of the Valley of Humiliation to a contented and submissive mind.

WE left Christian, delivered from his dangers, and relieved from his distresses for a season, at the Gate of the House Beautiful. But you will observe that the porter does not admit him at once, nor without inquiry. According to the rules of the house, Watchful, the porter, rings the bell and commends Christian to the interrogatories of a grave and beautiful damsel, called Discretion. A number of questions were put to him, and sincerely answered, and so much affectionate kindness and sympathy were manifested on the part of Discretion, that Christian had nothing to fear as to his reception. Then Discretion called for Prudence, Piety, and Charity, and after this conversation, they welcomed him into the household of Faith. There, during his delightful abode with its happy inmates, he was entertained, as the Lord of the way had provided that all pilgrims should be in his house, with the most cordial hospitality and love. He was instructed with much godly conversation, and with many edifying sights, and he was clad in a complete suit of armour, to prepare him against the dangers of the future way. On his part, he entertained the household as much as they did him, by the account he gave of his own experience thus far. Piety made him tell all that had happened in his pilgrimage from his first setting out to his arrival at the House Beautiful. Prudence asked him about his feelings now in reference to the land of his nativity, and the habits he used to be in at the City of Destruction.

And here Bunyan has left us in no doubt as to his own views in the exposition of the controverted passage in the seventh of Romans. He shows clearly that he regards the experience there recorded as a description of the conflict between good and evil still going forward in the Christian's soul. "Do you not," asked Piety, "still bear with you some of those things that you were conversant withal in the City of Destruction?" "Might I but choose mine own things," answered Christian, "I would choose never to think of those things more; but when I would do good, evil is present with me. Bunyan was too deeply experienced in the evils of the human heart, too severely had been disciplined with the fiery darts of the Wicked One, to suffer his Christian to make any pretence whatever to perfection. Too sadly did Christian find within himself the struggle between nature and grace, to suffer him to fall into any such dream or delusion. He made no pretence to have conquered all sin, or got superior to it; but his trust was in Christ; and his supreme desire was after holiness. "But do you not find sometimes," said Prudence, as if those things were vanquished, which at other times are your perplexity?" "Yes," said Christian, "but that is but seldom; but they are to me golden hours, in which such things happen to me." Prudence then asked him how it was, by what means he ever succeeded in vanquishing his enemies and getting free from the disturbers of his peace?

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Christian's answer is very beautiful. "When I think what I saw at the cross, that will do it; and when I look upon my broidered coat, that will do it; and when I look at my roll that I carry in my bosom, that will do it; and when my thoughts wax warm about whither I am going, that will do it." Ah yes, it is the cross, by which we conquer sin; it is the remembrance of Him who hung upon it. And he that hath this hope in him, purifieth himself as he is pure. And having these evidences and these promises, faith gets the better of inward corruptions, and overcomes also the world. Nor, lastly, is there any thing more powerful to give us the victory over sin, than a clear view of heavenly realities, warm thoughts about the heaven to which we are going, visions of Mount Zion above, and the innumerable company of angels, and Jesus the Mediator, the assurance that we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. There is no death there, nor sin, nor weariness, nor disorder; and the Christian is weary of his inward sickness, and would fain be where he shall sin no more, and with the company that shall continually cry, Holy, Holy, Holy!

After this, Charity in like manner conversed with Christian, and all the while they were at table their talk was only of the Lord of the hill, and all his grace and glory, and what he had done and suffered for them, and all his amazing endless love to poor pilgrims, and his tender care in building that house for them; and so they discoursed even till late at night, for how could they ever be wearied with such a theme! And how did Christian's heart burn within him as they spake of his Saviour's love, and suffering, and glory! It may remind us of the poet Cowper's exquisitely beautiful description of the conversation in the walk to Emmaus.

Ah, theirs was converse such as it behooves
Man to maintain, and such as God approves,
Christ and his character their only scope,
Their subject, and their object, and their hope.
The recollection, like a vein of ore,

The farther traced, enriched them still the more.
O days of heaven, and nights of equal praise,
Serene and peaceful as those heavenly days
When souls drawn upwards in communion sweet,
Enjoy the stillness of some close retreat,
Discourse, as if released and safe at home,
Of dangers past, and wonders yet to come,
And spread the sacred treasures of the breast
Upon the lap of covenanted rest!

This was a heavenly evening for Christian, a season of blessedness long to be remem bered, and to walk in the strength of it. They closed their hours of sacred converse with the sweetness of family prayer, and then betook themselves to rest; the Pilgrim they laid in a large upper chamber, whose window opened towards the sunrising; the name of the chamber was Peace, where he slept till break of day, and then he awoke and sang.

Now, after all this, can any be at a loss to understand the meaning of the House Beautiful, or that era in the life of the Pilgrim at which Christian had arrived? We think every one will see drawn in these symbols, with great beauty and delightfulness of colouring, the institution and ordinances of the visible church of Christ on earth; the fellowship and divinely blest communion, the mutual instruction and edification, the happiness, hopes, promises, foretastes, enjoyments, growth in grace, and preparation for usefulness, peculiar to this sacred heavenly kingdom, belonging to the body of Christ, and growing out of a right use of its precious privileges.

'Tis a sweet tie that binds

Our hearts in Christian love,
The fellowship of kindred minds
Is like to that above.

This was indeed to Christian something like the Mount of Transfiguration; it was good to be there. It was like the day after those six days when Jesus took Peter and James and John, and went up into a mountain alone, and was transfigured before them. Bunyan himself had found such a season, about the time when he united with the church of Christ in Bedford, and this glory and refreshing comfort continued with him many weeks, and his own feelings were like those of Peter. And Peter answered and said to Jesus, Master, It is good for us to be here; and let us make three tabernacles, one for thee, and

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one for Moses, and one for Elias. For he wist not what to say, for he was sore afraid. And there was a cloud overshadowed them, and a voice came out of the cloud, saying, This is my beloved Son, hear him." Then I saw," says Bunyan, 66 that Moses and Elias must both vanish, and leave Christ and his saints alone." Mount Zion also was set before Bunyan, and his heart wandered up and down as in a labyrinth of glory, through the shining mazes of that passage, "Ye are come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, to the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the first-born, which are written in heaven; to God, the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect; and to Jesus, the Mediator of the New Testament, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel." 66 Through this sentence," says Bunyan, "the Lord led me over and over again; first, to this word, and then to that; and showed me wonderful glory in every one of them. These words also have oft since that time been a great refreshment to my spirit." It was in the memory of such experience that Bunyan composed his description of Christian's entertainment in the House Beautiful.

It is not, indeed, always the case that pilgrims find their anticipations realized in entering that house. Sometimes, it may be, because they expected miracles from it, because they relied more upon it than upon Christ, because they expected from an ordinance what is only to be got from grace, or because they came to it without that discipline of spirit in prayer, and that previous lowly walk with God, and that dwelling at the foot of the cross, which is requisite. But you will observe that this house is put quite far on the way; it is obvious that Bunyan would not have his pilgrims enter the House Beautiful so soon as they get within the Wicket Gate; between the Wicket Gate and the House Beautiful, between the cross of Christ and the visible communion of saints, there was much experience, much instruction, much discipline, much difficulty, much grace. Infinitely less would Bunyan have put the visible church, the House Beautiful before the Wicket Gate, making church-membership the door of heaven, as some would do, to the destruction of multitudes of souls. Baptismal regeneration, and salvation by the Lord's supper, are two of the most unscriptural, ungodly, and pernicious figments, with which Satan ever succeeded in lulling men to security in their sins. Bunyan was so cautious of every thing like this, he had so much experience in his own heart of the dangerous, damning nature of a religion of forms, and he knew so well the wiles of Satan in that way, and the tendency of men, however warned and instructed, to rest in forms, that he almost went to the contrary extreme. He made one of his best pilgrims, as we shall see, go past the House Beautiful without stopping at it. You may be sure this was because in Bunyan's time there was such a hue and cry after the church, with its glory, and exclusive privileges and forms, its baptism, prayer-book, bench of bishops, and no salvation beyond. So he made his Martyr-Pilgrim belong to no visible church at all; nor could he more quietly and powerfully have rebuked and resisted the fatal error that to enter the House Beautiful is to save the soul, nor the wicked intolerance that would restrict salvation to membership and obedience in the Church of England.

It is well to remark here that the House Beautiful stands beside the road; it does not cross it, so as to make the strait and narrow way run through it, so as that there is no possibility of continuing in that way without passing through it. This would have been to make a union with the visible church necessary to salvation; and the next step after this, and a very natural consequence of it, is that of making salvation an essential property of church-membership, that of making every member of the church a saved man; and the next step, and quite as natural, is that of making a particular church the only church, THE church, to the exclusion of all others; and the next step, and also very natural, is the excommunication of all dissenters, and the application of such penalties and persecutions as may benevolently operate to keep men from wandering, to the ruin of their souls, into conventicles; such penalties and persecutions as may, with loving force, and out of pure regard to the salvation of souls, and pure compassion to those who are wandering from their Holy Mother Church, compel them to come in, that there may be one visible fold and one Shepherd.

Now, had this been the case with the House Beautiful, there would have been guards posted, and prisons erected, all along the way, to arrest self-willed dissenters, and bring them back into the house, saying to them, You are not permitted to be on the way to heaven, unless you go through the house Beautiful. There you must pay tithes, for it costs the servants of the Lord of the way a great deal to keep up this Establishment, and

you, under pretence of being a dissenter and yet a Christian, are not to be suffered to pass without paying toll at this Establishment. This would be the House Shameful and not the House Beautiful. It would be the house of pride, ambition, arrogance, and persecution; and not the house of love. But, blessed be God, there is no such house on the way of our pilgrimage. They arrested John Bunyan and threw him into prison, because he chose not to enter that house but to worship with God's people among the Baptists.

The communion of saints was never more sweetly depicted, than in Christian's sojourning in the House Beautiful. But he staid not there for pleasure; that was not the end of his journey, nor the object of it; nor did he there, as in the Arbour, use for an indulgence to the flesh what was meant for the encouragement and refreshment of the spirit. He was up by day-break singing and praying, and then they had him into the study, to show him the rarities of the place; and the next day into the armoury, to show him all manner of warlike furniture, which the Lord of the way had provided for pilgrims, where also he was made to see ancient things, which, if Bunyan could be here to interpret, he would doubtless tell us were intended to symbolize that divine grace by which the servants of the Lord have done so many wonderful things,-that grace which, though to the world and the Goliahs in it, it looks as foolish as David's sling and pebble stones against a giant in full armour, is yet stronger than death, and shall overcome every thing; for "the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men." And the next day they showed him from the top of the house a far-off view of the Delectable Mountains, Immanuel's land, woods, vineyards, fruits, flowers, springs, and fountains, where from the mountain summits they told him he should see the gate of the Celestial City. Faith, said they to Christian, is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen; and the afflictions you meet with by the way will be but light things to you, if you keep the glories of heaven in your mind's eye, and the thoughts of what you are to meet with there warm in your heart.

I love, by faith, to take a view

Of brighter things in heaven;

Such prospects oft my strength renew

When here by tempests driven.

This view Christian could enjoy with increasing clearness, and found more and more the blessedness of it, the nearer he came to the Celestial City. For God, he could say,

For God has breathed upon a worm,

And given me from above,

Wings such as clothe an angel's form,
The wings of joy and love.

With these to Pisgah's top I fly,

And there delighted stand,

To view beneath a shining sky,

The spacious promised land.

The Lord of all the vast domain
Has promised it to me,

The length and breadth of all the plain,

As far as faith can see.

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So when they had had much pleasant and profitable discourse with him, as Christian was eager to go on, they would detain him no longer, but had him again into the armoury, where they clothed him from head to foot in the armour of righteousness on the right hand and on the left, sword, shield, helmet, breastplate, all prayer, and shoes that would not wear out, according to faithful Paul's directions: Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Wherefore, take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. Stand, therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness, and your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace; above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench the fiery darts of the Wicked One; and take the helmet of salvation, and thẹ