Then read my fancies, they will stick like burs This book is wrote in fuch a dialect, Wou'dft thou divert thyself from melancholy? Wou'dft read thyself, and read thou know'st not what? JOHN BUNYAN. A S I walked through the wilderness of this world, I lighted on a certain place, where was a den*, and laid me down The Jail. in that place to fleep: and as I flept, I dreamed a dream. I dreamed, and behold, I saw a man cloathed with rags, ftanding in a certain place, with his face from his own house, a book in his hand, and a great burden upon his back. (Ifa. lxiv. 6. Luke xiv. 33. Pfal. xxxviii. 4. Heb. ii. 2. Acts xvi. 31.) I looked, and faw 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, faying, What shall I do? Acts ii. 37. *This World 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; but he could not be filent 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 (faid he) and you the "children of my bowels, I your dear friend am in "myself undone, by reafon of a burden that lieth "hard upon me: Moreover, I am certainly inform"ed, that this our city will be burn"ed with fire from heaven; in which "fearful overthrow, both myself, with thee my wife, " and you my fweet babes, shall miferably come to " ruin, except (the which yet I fee not) fome way "of escape may be found, whereby we may be de"livered." At this his relations were fore amazed; not for that they believed that what he said to them was true, but because they thought fome frenzy diftemper had got into his head; therefore it drawing towards night, and they hoping that sleep might fettle his brains, with all hafte they got him to bed: but the night was as troublesome to him as the day; wherefore, inftead of fleeping, he spent it in fighs and tears. So when the morning was come, they would know how he did; he told them worse and worfe; he alfo fet to talking to them again a Our author in his introduction evidently alludes to an awakened finner, under deep convictions of his utterly loft, undone and ruined state. He writes from experience. He clearly fhews that fin must be felt, as the ruin and disease of the foul, before the finner will ever be led to look out for help: the heart must be broken before God; the finner truly wounded for fin, and feelingly fenfible of his guilt, ere Jefus and his finished falvation will be defired. again, but they began to be hardened. They also thought to drive away his diftemper by harth and furly carriage to him: fometimes they would deride, fometimes they would chide, and fometimes they would quite neglect him. Wherefore he began to retire himself to his chamber, to pray for and pity them; and also to condole his own mifery: he would alfo walk folitary in the fields, fometimes reading and sometimes praying; and thus for fome days he spent his time. Now I faw, upon a time, when he was walking in the fields, that he was (as he was wont) reading in his book, and greatly diftreffed in his mind; and as he read, he burft out, as he had done before, crying, What shall I do to be faved? Acts xvi. 30,31. I faw alfo that he looked this way, and that way, as if he would run; yet he ftood ftill, because (as I perceived) he could not tell which way to go. I looked then, and saw a man named Evangelift coming to him, and asked, Wherefore doft thou cry? В 2 d He Perfecution from friends and relations is here implied; and, indeed, it is peculiar to the children of God. Carnal, unconverted friends and relations, frequently prove the feverest trials the believer meets with, and more especially under his first awakenings. As they are strangers to a godly forrow for fin themselves, fo they are naturally led, through their blindness and ftupidity, to form a wrong judgment respecting thofe, who are brought experimentally to know the full import of that paffage, The arrows of the Almighty are within me, Job vi. 4. What shall I do to be faved? is a question of eternal importance; and none but thofe, who are wounded for fin, and are made deeply fenfible of the vilenefs of their hearts, will ever be led, from a conviction of its neceffity, to ask the way of falvation. The difcourfe between Chriftian and Evangelif deferves to be noted. It plainly indicates the true ftate of a poor finner, under a fenfe of wrath and condemnation. He turns this way, and that way :- in fhort, it is natural to him, at firft, to look every way, but the only true and living way, the Lord He answered, Sir, I perceive by the book in my hand, that I am condemned to die, and after that to come to judgment; and I find that I am not willing to do the first, nor able to do the second, Heb. ix. 27. Job xvi. 21, 22. Ezek. xxii. 14. is Then faid Evangelift, Why not willing to die, fince this life is attended with fo many evils? The man answered, Because I fear that this burden that upon my back, will fink me lower than the grave, and I fhall fall into Tophet, Ifa. xxx. 33. And, Sir, if I be not fit to go to prison, I am not fit to go to judgment, and from thence to execution; and the thoughts of these things make me cry. Then faid Evangelift, if this be thy condition, Why standeft thou ftill? He answered, Because I know not whither to go. Then he gave him a parchment roll, and there was written within, Fly from the wrath to come, Matt. iii. 7. The man therefore read it, and looking upon Evangelift very carefully, faid, Whither muft I fly? Then faid Evangelift, pointing with his finger over a very wide field, Do you see yonder Wicket-gate? (Mat. Lord Jefus Chrift. The Spirit of God fixes upon his heart, a deep conviction of the exceeding finfulness of fin;-he fees himself evidently undone, and, as a tranfgreffor of God's righteous law, juftly expofed to its awful curfe. In this view, he writes bitter things against himself; he is distressed left the heavy and grievous burden of all his fins and iniquities fhould fink him down in everlafting ruin. In this deplorable condition, he is met by Evangelift, a preacher of the gofpel, (for fo the word imports), who compaffionately afks him the caufe of his diftrefs; and, when related, adminifters the advice which is fuited to chear him under the greatness of his fufferings. He is not only exhorted to fly from the wrath to come, but the only grand way, the only fure method of falvation is pointed out to him. The Wicket-gate, the path that leads to life, is narrow; that is, narrow as to the views and conceptions natural men form of it, and narrow as to the numbers who enter in, com pared |