Mizar.' Psa. xlii, 6. He remembered also the lion and the bear, when he went to fight with the giant of Gath. 1 Sam. xvii, 36, 37.

"It was Paul's accustomed manner, and that when tried for his life, even to open before his judges the manner of his conversion. He would think of that day, and that hour, in which he first did meet with grace; for he found it supported him. When God had brought the children of Israel out of the Red Sea, far into the wilderness, yet they must turn quite about thither again, to remember the drowning of their enemies there; (Num. xiv, 25;) for though they sang His praise before, they soon forgot his works. Psa. cvi, 12, 13.

"In this discourse of mine you may see much; much, I say, of the grace of God toward me. I thank God, I can count it much, for it was above my sins, and Satan's temptations too. I can remember my fears, and doubts, and sad months, with comfort; they are as the head of Goliah in my hand. There was nothing to David like Goliah's sword, even that sword that should have been sheathed in his bowels; for the very sight and remembrance of that did preach forth God's deliverance to him. O! the remembrance of my great sins, of my great temptations, and of my great fear of perishing for ever! they bring

afresh into my mind the remembrance of my great help, my great supports from heaven, and the great grace that God extended to such a wretch as I.

66

6

My dear children, call to mind the former days and years of ancient times: remember also your songs in the night, and commune with your own heart; say, in times of distress, Will the Lord cast off for ever? and will he be favourable no more? Is his mercy clean gone for ever? Doth his promise fail for evermore? Hath God forgotten to be gracious? Hath he in anger shut up his tender mercies? And I said, This is my infirmity; but I will remember the years of the right hand of the Most High. I will remember the works of the Lord; surely I will remember thy wonders of old. I will meditate also of all thy work, and talk of thy doings.' Psa. lxxvii, 5-12. Yea, look diligently, and leave no corner therein unsearched, for that treasure hid, even the treasure of your first and second experience of the grace of God toward you. Remember your terrors of conscience, and fears of death and hell: remember also your tears and prayers to God; yea, how you sighed under every hedge for mercy. Have you never a hill Mizar to remember? Have you forgot the close, the milk house, the stable, the barn, and the

like, where God did visit your souls?* Remember also the word-the word, I say, upon which the Lord hath caused you to hope. If you have sinned against light; if you are tempted to blaspheme; if you are drowned in despair; if you think God fights against you; or if heaven is hid from your eyes; remember it was thus with your father; but out of them all the Lord delivered me.'

6

"I could have enlarged much, in this my discourse, of my temptations and troubles for sin; as also of the merciful kindness and working of God with my soul. I could also have stepped into a style much higher than this in which I have here discoursed, and could have adorned all things more than here I have seemed to do, but I dare not God did not play in tempting of me; neither did I play when I sunk as into the bottomless pit, when the angels of hell caught hold upon me; wherefore I may not play in relating of them, but be plain and simple, and lay down the thing as it was: he that liketh it, let him receive it; and he that doth not, let him produce a better. Farewell.

"My dear children, the milk and honey are beyond this wilderness. God be merciful to

*He is here probably alluding to various places in which he had met with them for worship. See p. 150.

you,
and grant
to possess the land.

that you

be not slothful to go in

JOHN BUNYAN."

Such has been the popularity of "Grace Abounding," that when Mr. Ivimey wrote, (in 1809,) fifty editions of it had been published, and perhaps nearly as many more have been issued since that time. "The very extreme plainness of the work adds to its power. Never was the inward life of any being depicted with more vehement and burning language: it is an intensely vivid description of the workings of a mind of the keenest sensibility and most fervid imagination, convinced of its guilt, and fully awake to all the dread realities of eternity. In this work we behold not only the general discipline by which Bunyan attained that spiritual wisdom and experience exhibited in the Pilgrim's Progress, but there are particular passages of it in which we see the evident germs of that work of genius."—N. A. Review.

The Pilgrim's Progress was the crowning piece of Bunyan's prison labours. In the opening sentence he at once informs the reader where it was conceived and executed :-" As I walked through the wilderness of this world, I lighted on a certain place where was a den, and laid me down in that place to sleep; and, as I

slept, I dreamed a dream."

This "den," as

he tells us in the margin, was "the jail."

The composition of this work was probably one of his greatest enjoyments during his imprisonment. "It was the only one of his joys which he allowed neither stranger nor friend to intermeddle with. He kept it a fountain sealed,' from all his family and fellow-prisoners, until it was completed. Dunn, or Wheeler, or any other companion, might hear a page, or obtain a peep, of any of his other works, while they were planning or in progress; but the Pilgrim was for no eye nor ear but his own, until he awoke out of his dream.' He never once, during all that dream, talked in his sleep."" This fact we have never seen noticed by any writer but Mr. Philip, (from whom we have taken the preceding quotation,) although-Bunyan himself has strongly stated it in his preface, where he says,—

"Matter and manner too were all my own,

Nor was it unto any mortal known,

Till I had done it."

To the world he did not tell his dream till some years after his release; we will therefore postpone any further remarks upon it until we arrive at the period of its publication.