CHAPTER IX.

BUNYAN'S RELAPSES.

BUNYAN'S relapses in religion were neither slight nor short; but none of them were practical. Even when his heart lost all relish and desire for spiritual things, his conscience was all alive and quivering with the hatred of sin. He himself was struck with this strange anomaly in his character; and I point it out, to prove that a man may believe his "heart to be innately and wholly wicked," and yet hate and avoid sin, only the more on that very account;-just as a man who believes himself to be radically consumptive, may avoid stimulants.

When Bunyan reviewed this contrast between the hardness of his heart and the tenderness of his conscience, he used a comparison peculiarly his own; but which none of his Biographers have ventured to explain. "My hinder parts," he says, "were inward, all the while." He refers to the position of the twelve Oxen of brass, under the Molten Sea of the temple. "The sea was set above upon them, and all their hinder parts were inward." 2 Chron. iv. 4. Only their majestic front was seen under the lily-wreathed brim of the magnificent Laver. This emblem he explains and applies with great point, in his "Temple Spiritualized." Its application to himself he states thus in his "Grace abounding," "O, how gingerly (cautiously) did I then go, in all I did or said! I durst not take a pin, or stick though not so big as a straw: for my conscience now was

sore, and would start at every touch. I could not now tell how to speak my words, for fear I should misplace them. I found myself as in a miry bog, that shook if I did but stir." Such his conscience remained, even whilst the following relapses went on in his heart. "My heart would not be moved to mind that which was good. It began to be careless both of my soul and heaven, and to work at a rate it never did before. Now I evidently found, that lusts and corruptions put forth themselves within me, in wicked thoughts and desires which I did not regard (notice) before. My heart would now continually hang back, both to and in every duty; and was as a clog on the leg of a bird, to hinder it from flying. Nay, I thought,-now I grow worse and worse; now I am further off from conversion than ever I was before: wherefore I began to sink greatly, and began to entertain such discouragement in my heart as laid me low as hell. If I now should have burned at a stake, I could not believe that Christ had a love for me. Alas, I could neither hear Him, nor see Him, nor feel Him, nor savor any of His things. I was driven as with a tempest! My heart would be unclean, and the Canaanites would dwell in the land. All my sense and feeling were against me. I saw I had a heart that would sin, and that lay under a Law that would eondemn."

"Further, in these days, I would find my heart shut itself up against the Lord, and against his holy word. I have found my unbelief to set, as it were, the shoulder to the door, to keep Him out: and that too even,-when I have with many a bitter sigh cried, Good Lord, break it open. Lord, break these 'gates of brass,' and cut these bars of iron asunder.''

The only thing which operated as a check upon this alienation and alarm, was, a vague hope that he might, like Cyrus, be intended for some service in the cause of God: "that word would sometimes create in my heart a peaceable pause,-I

girded thee, though thou hast not known me.'" We thus find him again taking up with one of the very last Texts, which we should expect him to apply to himself at such a time. The application is not, however, so forced or far-fetched as it seems at first sight. It is, in fact, quite in keeping with the law of his associations: for he linked his ideas together by sounds or sensations. When he did pray at all now, it was that "the fears and aversions which, like gates of brass and bars of iron," shut up his heart against godliness, might be broken. This was the form which his prayers took; and being also the form of the promise made to Cyrus, he tried to class himself, so far, with Cyrus. Bunyan took, however, another view of these sad failings when he wrote the history of them: "These things,' he says, "have often made me think of the child, which the father brought to Christ; who, while he was yet coming to Him, was thrown down by the devil, and also so rent and torn by him, that he lay and wallowed, foaming.”

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His distress really came to this soon; although Satan had, perhaps, less to do with it than with some former and subsequent temptations of another kind. "My original and inward pollution," he exclaims, "that, that, was my plague and affliction;-that, I saw always putting itself forth within me at a dreadful rate; that, I had the guilt of to amazement. reason of that, I was more loathsome in mine own eyes than a toad; and I thought I was so in God's eyes too. Sin and corruption, I said, would as naturally bubble out of my heart, as water would bubble out of a fountain. I thought now, that every one had a better heart than I had. I could have changed hearts with any body. I thought none but the devil himself could equalize me for inward wickedness and pollution of mind."

There is extravagance in this, certainly: but there is also much sober truth in it. For although there were worse hearts

in Bedford, and anywhere, than Bunyan's, his heart was now both estranged and averse to meditative and devotional piety. "The root of the Matter" was in him: but it was overrun with the matted weeds of ignorance, fear, and suspicion. Even this is not all the truth concerning him, at this time. Like Jonah, he was "angry" with God, because the Gourds under which he wanted to screen his head, withered as fast as they had sprung up. He did not think the "wee bush" of a simple Promise 'better than nae bield;" but almost demanded that the stately Cedars of Calling and Election, should spring "up in a night" and shelter him for ever.

This is the real secret of Bunyan's hardness of heart: He could not get what he wanted, in his own way, nor at his own time; and therefore, he "charged God foolishly," and in no small bitterness as well as grief of spirit. "Sure, thought I," he exclaims, "I am forsaken of God; sure, I am given up to the devil, and to a reprobate mind. Now I was sorry that God had made me man; for I feared I was a reprobate. Yea, I thought it impossible that ever I should arrive to so much godliness of heart, as to thank God that he had made me a man. I counted myself alone, and above all men unblessed. The beasts, birds, fishes-I blessed their condition; for they had not a sinful nature, and were not obnoxious to the wrath of God. I could have rejoiced had my condition been as theirs. I counted manas unconverted-the most doleful of all creatures."

There is more than self-abasement, or even than self-condemnation, in this wild reasoning. It breathes much of pride and self-will also. I would not reprehend nor characterize it thus harshly, had it been but the occasional ebullition of his mind. Such dark and daring regrets may flash across the spirit for a moment, without proving much against its general temperament: but when they last and are indulged for years, they do prove that God is arraigned as well as dreaded. Now this temper did

last long. Bunyan himself says, "Thus I continued a long while, even for some years together." The misery he endured whilst indulging this wrong spirit, must not, therefore, be allowed to hide or soften its badness. It was proud and peevish, as well as despairing. He did all but curse the day of his birth.

This is a painful conclusion: but it is not a rash one; nor is there any reason to wonder, that Bunyan's heart became thus exasperated against God. The heart of any man is capable of all this, if he once give way to despair. The heart will then harden, just in proportion as it suffers. Besides, the very claims of Religion upon it, can exasperate its enmity against God, when they are looked at in all their length and breadth. Such a look of them, Bunyan had taken; and their "Law" not only wrought "wrath," but also, as in the case of Paul, "all manner of concupiscence." He saw what he ought to be in heart and spirit, and he did not like it. He was not unwilling to be moral; but he was averse to spirituality and heavenly-mindedness, when he found that they had to be cultivated by watchfulness and prayer, and to be maintained as duties even when hope was low and feeling languid. Thus it was not "false notions," of his own depravity, which "well nigh made him believe that his heart was hopelessly and incurably" depraved: but it was a clear sight and a deep sense of what his heart ought to be, that offended him at first, and afterwards exasperated him, when he found no way of prying into either the Ark of the divine purposes or the Lamb's book of life. Disappointments of this kind can mortify as well as alarm; harden as well as horrify the mind: and the man who can "observe the symptoms whilst in the paroxysms," will inevitably, and not unreasonably, fall in with God's opinion, even to the very letter, that "the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked." The Oracle adds the question, "Who can know it?" Bunyan knew