The Pilgrims enter the Celestial City.

saints and angels walked. Then they came to the place where the Ancient of Days was sitting, whose garments were as white as snow, and the hair of his head was like pure wool; his throne was like the fiery flame, and his wheels as burning fire; a fiery stream issued and came out from before him, thousand thousands ministered unto him, and ten thou sand times ten thousand stood before him. Then they came to the gate of the City, and the pilgrims were bid to call there; which they did accordingly, and one looked over the gate, to whom the men in bright clothing said, These men are come from the Valley of Destruction; these men have gone through great tribulation for the love they bear to the King. And they spoke to the pilgrims to give in their certificates, which they did; and their certificates were presented to the King, who gave orders that the gates should be opened to the pilgrims. So they entered in, and just at the entrance one met them and said unto them, "Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; enter you into the joy of your Lord." Then a multitude of the heavenly host, with harps in their hands, met them, and sang a song which no man understood but themselves, and such as are thought worthy to be admitted into that blessed place.

So I awoke, and, behold, it was a dream.

END OF THE THIRD PART.

THE

LIFE AND DEATH

ог

MR. JOHN BUNYA N,

LATE MINISTER OF THE GOSPEL IN BEDFORD.

The righteous shall be had in everlasting remembrance, Psal. cxii. 6.

MR. JOHN BUNYAN was born at Elstow, in the county of Bedford, within a little mile of that town; of honest, but very poor parents; his original being so mean, that I know not in whom the words of the great apostle to the Gentiles, in the first chapter of his epistle to the Corinthians, were more fully exemplified than in Mr. John Bunyan. The words are these: "For you see your calling, brethren; how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called; but God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things that are mighty; and base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen ;-that no flesh might glory in his presence." And this he himself was ready upon all occasions to own, that God might have the glory of his own grace: for though his original and birth was but poor and despised, yet it pleased God to choose him, before many others, to be an instrument for the bringing of many souls unto God: and that the grace of God, which was given him, may be the more exceedingly magnified, we will give some brief account of what he was before the grace of God appeared to him.

I have already told you, that his parents were very mean, but that they took care to give him that learning which was

suitable to their condition, bringing him up to read and write; but so great was his natural depravity, and his proneness to all evil, that he quickly forgot both, being only wise to do evil; but to do or learn that which was good or praiseworthy, he had no heart or knowledge, addicting himself so much in his very childhood to cursing, swearing, lying, and blaspheming, that he had few equals in wickedness: insomuch that I remember I have heard him say, with grief of heart," he was a townswearer; that is to say, one that was taken notice of as a person that was notoriously wicked, by all the town where he lived: yet was not his conscience seared, but would often give him such twinges as made him very uneasy: being also often affrighted with dreams, and terrified with visions in the night; fearing lest for the sins he had committed in the day, he should be taken away by devils in the night, and by them be bound down with the chains of darkness to the judgment of the great day. And these fears were frequent with him, when he had hardly reached to the age of ten years. And these thoughts did not only attack him in the night-season, but sometimes also in the midst of his childish vanities, among his vain companions; and sometimes, in that condition, despair had taken so much hold on him, that he has wished, that either there had been no hell, or that himself had been a devil, supposing that the devils were only tormentors of others, but were not tormented themselves. And yet, when these thoughts had left him, he followed his sinful pleasures with all the eagerness imaginable; as if he had never had those dismal despairing thoughts. So that the whole course of his life, from his childhood till his marriage, was what the apostle describes in Ephes. ii. 2, 3, “" according to the course of this world, and the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience, being filled with all unrighteousness, and led captive by the devil at his will;" and, as he himself expresses it, the very ringleader of all the youth that kept him company, in all manner of vice and ungodliness.

But notwithstanding all this wickedness of his, God did not utterly leave him, but followed him sometimes with convictions, and sometimes with judgments, but yet such as had in them a

mixture of mercy at one time, he fell into a creek of the sea, and then hardly escaped drowning; and at another time he fell out of a boat into Bedford river; but there he also was preserved, though with great difficulty: but, alas! it was neither mercy nor judgment that could yet awaken him, for he had given up himself to the love of sin, and was fully resolved to go on, whatever rubs he met with in his way.

Yet God left not himself without a witness in his soul, often checking him in one way or another: as one day, being at Sly with his companions, a voice suddenly darted from heaven into his soul, saying, "Wilt thou leave thy sins, and go to heaven; or have thy sins, and go to hell?" This put him into such a consternation, that he immediately left his sport, and, looking up to heaven, thought he saw the Lord Jesus looking down upon him, as one hotly displeased with him, and threatening him with some grievous punishments for his ungodly practices.

But see the works of Satan! No sooner had this made some impression on his mind, but the devil suggested to him, that he had been a great and grievous sinner; and that it was now too late for him to look after heaven, for Christ would not forgive him, nor pardon his transgressions. And this is no other than the devil's usual practice; first, to draw sinners to commit all iniquity with greediness, and then to persuade them there is no hope of mercy left, that thereby the sinner may be prevailed with to go on in sin. And this was the effect that this suggestion had upon Mr. Bunyan; who, looking upon himself as one that had sinned beyond the reach of mercy, thought within himself, that he would take his fill of sin, it being the only pleasure he was ever like to have. And yet those pleasures of sin, through the wonderful operations of the Holy Spirit, were so often embittered to him, that he could take but little satisfaction in them; for " the labour of the natural man (or man before conversion) doth but weary him, because he knoweth not the way to the city of God," Eccles. x. 15.

Once, as he was going on in the full career of sin, and belching out oaths like the madman that Solomon speaks of, who scatters abroad firebrands, arrows, and death, he was re

proved severely by a woman who was a notorious sinner herself; who told him, "That he was the ugliest fellow for swearing that ever she heard in all her life; and that, by his doing thus, he was able to spoil all the youth in the town, if they came into his company." This reproof, coming from such a woman, whom he knew to be very wicked and ungodly, filled him with great shame; and wrought more with him than many that had been given him before, by those that were sober and godly; and made him wish that he had never known what it was to be a swearer; and even made him out of love with it, and from that time forward very much refrain from it. This puts me in mind of a story I have read in the life of holy Mr. Perkins, who in his younger years was as great a debauchee as any in the university of Cambridge, where he was brought up. He coming one time through the out-parts of the town, heard a woman say to her child that was froward and peevish, "Either hold your tongue, or I'll give you to drunken Perkins yonder." These words were so great a reproof to him, finding himself made a common by-word among people, that it made him resolve upon a reformation; and this, by God's gracious and alldispensing providence, was one great step towards his conversion.

But to return to Mr. Bunyan: God having a design of grace towards him, gave him frequent checks and interruptions in the midst of his strongest resolutions to go on in his sin: sometimes scaring him with dreams, and terrifying him with visions, in an extraordinary manner; verifying that of Elihu to Job, in the 33rd chapter of that book, and the 14th verse, and forward: "For God speaketh once, yea, twice, yet man perceiveth it not: in a dream, in a vision of the night; when deep sleep falleth upon men, in slumberings upon the bed: then he openeth the ears of men, and sealeth their instruction: that he may withdraw man from his purpose, and keep back his soul from the pit, and his life from perishing." For once he dreamed that he saw the face of the heavens, as it were, all on fire, and the firmament cracking and shivering with the noise of mighty thunders, and that an archangel flew in the midst of