Bunyan Characters-3 [49]
too acute, too all-consuming ever to be forgotten by us even for an hour. Our misery is too terrible for thee, with all thy overthrown intellect and all thy malice- filled heart, ever to understand! Didst thou for one midnight hour taste it, and so understand it, then there would be the same hope for thee that, I bless God, there still is for me!
Let us bend all our strength and all our wit to this, went on Lucifer, to make their castle a warehouse instead of a garrison. Let us set ourselves and all our allies, he explained to the duller-witted among the devils, to make their hearts a shop,--some of them, you know, are shopkeepers; a bank,--some of them are bankers; a farm,--some of them are farmers; a study,--some of them are students; a pulpit,--some of them like to preach; a table,-- some of them are gluttons; a drawing-room,--some of them are busybodies who forget their own misery in retailing other people's misery from house to house. Be wise as serpents, said the old serpent; attend, each several fallen angel of you, to his own special charge. Study your man. Get to the bottom of your man. Follow him about; never let him out of your sight; be sure before you begin, be sure you have the joint in his harness, the spot in his heel, the chink in his wall full in your eye. I do not surely need to tell you not to scatter our snares for souls at random, he went on. Give the minister his study Bible, the student his classic, the merchant his ledger, the glutton his well-dressed dish and his elect year of wine, the gossip her sweet secret, and the flirt her fool. Study them till they are all naked and open to your sharp eyes. Find out what best makes them forget even for one night their misery and ply them with that. If I ever see that soul I have set thee over on his knees on account of his misery I shall fling thee on the spot into the bottomless pit. And if any of you shall anywhere discover a man--and there are such men--a man who forgets his misery through always thinking and speaking about it, only keep him in his pulpit, and off his knees, and no man so safe for hell as he. There are fools, and there are double-dyed fools, and that man is the chief of them. Give him his fill of sin and misery; let him luxuriate himself in sin and misery; only, keep him there, and I will not forget thy most excellent service to me.
Make all their hearts, so Lucifer summed up, as he dismissed his obsequious devils, make all their several hearts each a warehouse, a shop, a farm, a pulpit, a library, a nursery, a supper-table, a chamber of wantonness--let it be to each man just after his own heart. Only, keep--as you shall answer for it,--keep faith and hope and charity and innocence and patience and especially prayerfulness out of their hearts. And when this my counsel is fulfilled, and when the pit closes over thy charge, I shall pay thee thy wages, and promote thee to honour. And before he was well done they were all at their posts.
CHAPTER XIV--THE DEVIL'S LAST CARD
'Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light'--Paul.
Wodrow has an anecdote in his delightful Analecta which shall introduce us into our subject to-night. Mr. John Menzies was a very pious and devoted pastor; he was a learned man also, and well seen in the Popish and in the Arminian controversies. And to the end of his life he was much esteemed of the people of Aberdeen as a foremost preacher of the gospel. And yet, 'Oh to have one more Sabbath in my pulpit!' he cried out on his death-bed. 'What would you then do?' asked some one who sat at his bedside. 'I would preach to my people on the tremendous difficulty of salvation!' exclaimed the dying man.
1. Now, the first difficulty that stands in the way of our salvation is the stupendous mass of guilt that has accumulated upon all of us. Our guilt is so great that we dare not think of it. It is too horrible to believe that we shall ever be called to account for one in a thousand of it. It crushes our minds with a perfect stupor of horror, when for a moment we try to
Let us bend all our strength and all our wit to this, went on Lucifer, to make their castle a warehouse instead of a garrison. Let us set ourselves and all our allies, he explained to the duller-witted among the devils, to make their hearts a shop,--some of them, you know, are shopkeepers; a bank,--some of them are bankers; a farm,--some of them are farmers; a study,--some of them are students; a pulpit,--some of them like to preach; a table,-- some of them are gluttons; a drawing-room,--some of them are busybodies who forget their own misery in retailing other people's misery from house to house. Be wise as serpents, said the old serpent; attend, each several fallen angel of you, to his own special charge. Study your man. Get to the bottom of your man. Follow him about; never let him out of your sight; be sure before you begin, be sure you have the joint in his harness, the spot in his heel, the chink in his wall full in your eye. I do not surely need to tell you not to scatter our snares for souls at random, he went on. Give the minister his study Bible, the student his classic, the merchant his ledger, the glutton his well-dressed dish and his elect year of wine, the gossip her sweet secret, and the flirt her fool. Study them till they are all naked and open to your sharp eyes. Find out what best makes them forget even for one night their misery and ply them with that. If I ever see that soul I have set thee over on his knees on account of his misery I shall fling thee on the spot into the bottomless pit. And if any of you shall anywhere discover a man--and there are such men--a man who forgets his misery through always thinking and speaking about it, only keep him in his pulpit, and off his knees, and no man so safe for hell as he. There are fools, and there are double-dyed fools, and that man is the chief of them. Give him his fill of sin and misery; let him luxuriate himself in sin and misery; only, keep him there, and I will not forget thy most excellent service to me.
Make all their hearts, so Lucifer summed up, as he dismissed his obsequious devils, make all their several hearts each a warehouse, a shop, a farm, a pulpit, a library, a nursery, a supper-table, a chamber of wantonness--let it be to each man just after his own heart. Only, keep--as you shall answer for it,--keep faith and hope and charity and innocence and patience and especially prayerfulness out of their hearts. And when this my counsel is fulfilled, and when the pit closes over thy charge, I shall pay thee thy wages, and promote thee to honour. And before he was well done they were all at their posts.
CHAPTER XIV--THE DEVIL'S LAST CARD
'Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light'--Paul.
Wodrow has an anecdote in his delightful Analecta which shall introduce us into our subject to-night. Mr. John Menzies was a very pious and devoted pastor; he was a learned man also, and well seen in the Popish and in the Arminian controversies. And to the end of his life he was much esteemed of the people of Aberdeen as a foremost preacher of the gospel. And yet, 'Oh to have one more Sabbath in my pulpit!' he cried out on his death-bed. 'What would you then do?' asked some one who sat at his bedside. 'I would preach to my people on the tremendous difficulty of salvation!' exclaimed the dying man.
1. Now, the first difficulty that stands in the way of our salvation is the stupendous mass of guilt that has accumulated upon all of us. Our guilt is so great that we dare not think of it. It is too horrible to believe that we shall ever be called to account for one in a thousand of it. It crushes our minds with a perfect stupor of horror, when for a moment we try to