101. My Whole Soul Was Then In Every Word.

CI ‘My Whole Soul Was Then In Every Word.’

JOHN BUNYAN’S whole soul was then in every word of his prayers, he means to say. For there were no other words in all the world but the words of prayer that could receive and could contain John Bunyan’s whole soul. John Bunyan’s was a big soul, and by that time his whole big soul was swelling and heaving within him with his original sin, and with all manner of misery because of both his original and his actual sin. So much so that his heart would have burst and he would have died before his time had he not got some real outlet for his heaving and bursting heart in agonising prayer. But with all the outlet and all the relief his burdened heart could get even in his most outpoured prayer, there still remained in his mind and in his heart a whole world of what he describes as ‘irrepressible groanings.’

‘Oh,’ he exclaims, ‘how would my heart at such times put itself forth! I should cry with pangs after God that He would be merciful to me.’

Take some examples of how Bunyan would pour out his whole soul in every word of his concerning his sin and concerning his misery on account of his sin.

‘By these things my whole soul was now so turned that it lay like a horse-leech at the vein, still crying out, Give! give! it was so fixed on eternity.’ And again:

‘In those days I was never out of my Bible, still calling on God for the right way to heaven and eternal life.’ And again:

‘Now also I should pray wherever I was: whether at home or abroad: in the house or in the field: and should often, with lifting up of my soul, sing to God and to myself the fifty-first psalm.’ And again:

‘I went up and down, bemoaning my sad condition, and counting myself far worse than a thousand fools for spending so many years in sin as I had done, and I was still crying out, Oh that I had turned to God seven years ago! — Gold! could my salvation have been gotten for gold, what gold would I not have given for it! Had I possessed a whole world made of gold, it had all gone a thousand times over for this that my soul had been in a truly converted state.’ And again:

‘If now I had been burned at the stake, I could not believe that Christ could have any love for me. For, alas! I could neither see Him, nor feel Him, nor savour any of His good things. I was driven as with a tempest; my heart would be unclean.’ And again:

‘I was more loathsome in my own eyes than a toad. Sin and corruption would as naturally bubble out of my heart as water bubbles out of its fountain. I thought every one had a better heart than I had, and I could have exchanged hearts with any one. I thought none but the devil himself could equalise me for inward wickedness and pollution of mind.’

Now that is not so much rhetoric. That is not mere declamation. There is not one syllable of exaggeration in that. For that is the universal way that every truly awakened sinner feels and speaks about himself, if he is a man of sufficient mind and sufficient heart, and if both his mind and his heart are sufficiently broken.

Listen in the second place, to the way in which John Bunyan put his whole soul into every word of his concerning his Saviour. And mark here also the genuine reality and the intense sincerity of the man.

‘One day about ten or eleven o’clock, as I was walking under a hedge, full of sorrow and guilt God knows, suddenly this bolted in upon me — the blood of Christ remits all guilt. At this I made a stand in my spirit, and with that this word took hold of me — the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth us from all sin. Wherefore I felt my soul greatly to love and to pity Jesus Christ, and my bowels did yearn toward Him. For I saw that He was still my Friend, and one who did reward me good for evil. Till I felt so to Him that if I had had a thousand gallons of blood in my veins I could then freely have spilt it all at the feet of my Lord and Saviour. There was nothing now but Christ before my eyes. O, methought, Christ! Christ! Christ in His blood, Christ in His burial, and Christ in His resurrection. Christ in all His virtues, relations, offices, and operations. Now Christ was my all. All my wisdom, all my righteousness, all my sanctification, and all my redemption.’

Again, there is no idle word there and no rhetorical word and no overstated word.

See also how he puts his whole soul into some single and separate words of Holy Scripture. As for instance into the single word ‘able,’ in that Scripture — able to save to the uttermost.

‘At last, when I was quite worn out, this word did sound suddenly in my ear — He is able! Methought that word able was spoken so loud to me; it seemed to be writ in such large letters to me; and it gave such a justle to my fear and doubt as I had never before experienced from any one word, no nor since. And it was the same with the single word “sufficient,” in Christ’s own words — My grace is sufficient for thee. One morning, when I was again at prayer, that piece of a sentence darted in upon me — My grace is sufficient. About a fortnight before, I was looking at this very passage, but got no comfort out of it, and that made me throw down my book in a pet. But now, this one word “sufficient” had its arms of grace so wide that it could not only enclose me, but many more besides me. And, one day as I was in a meeting of God’s people, these words also did with great power suddenly break in upon me: “For thee, for thee, My grace is sufficient for thee!” three times together. And O, methought, every word was a mighty word to me. These words were then, and they sometimes are still, far bigger than any other words to me.

‘And yet again: “I will in no wise cast out.” That word, “in no wise,” did most sweetly visit my soul. O the comfort that I had from that one word, “in no wise”! For it was as if He had said to me — By no means will I cast thee out. For no thing thou hast ever said or done will I cast thee out. O! what sweetness I got out of that!’ And then it is to that same noble and fruitful habit of mind and heart that we owe the Holy War and the Pilgrim’s Progress. Take the Pilgrim’s Progress. No man had ever poured his whole soul into that one Bible word a pilgrim, till God gifted and moved John Bunyan to do that. From the days of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, God’s people had all confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth; but none of them all, neither patriarch, nor prophet, nor psalmist, nor apostle, had ever put their whole mind and heart and experience and imagination and full assurance of faith into that word and that thing till John Bunyan arose. And thus it came about that the same high habit of mind and heart that made John Bunyan such an eminent saint, made him also such an eminent author; made him, indeed, one of the most eminent in some things of all our authors.

Now in all that there is a whole world of lessons; intellectual lessons for intellectual people, and spiritual lessons for spiritual people. And let us take first what God Himself says on this same matter: for God Himself both felt and spoke on this same matter long before He made Bunyan feel with Him and speak with Him.

‘For, thus saith the Lord, I know the thoughts that I think towards you, saith the Lord, and these are thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you an expected end. And ye shall seek Me and find Me, when ye seek for Me with all your heart.’ That is to say, in John Bunyan’s words, we shall always find God when we put our whole soul into every word of our prayers to God. And the thing stands to reason, and to our everyday experience, as well as to divine promise. For when we put our whole soul into our prayers, even to our fellow-men, they cannot long resist us. We carry men’s hearts captive to us as soon as we put our whole soul into our appealing words to them. When we are wholly moved and wholly melted ourselves we always move and melt other men. ‘Weep yourselves,’ said Horace to the young poets of his day, ‘and you will make me weep with you.’ And just look back at some of the Old Testament men and women who moved and melted God Himself. Abraham in his prayer for Sodom. Jacob in his prayer for himself at the Jabbok. Moses in his prayer for Israel on the mount. Hannah in her prayer for Samuel. And David continually in every prayer and in every psalm of his. David was the father indeed of all of us who put our whole soul into our every word toward God, John Bunyan especially came of the direct race and pure lineage of David. And they both showed their intellectual and their spiritual genius in nothing more than in the way they put their whole soul into every word they wrote. Let us all be like them in that. Let us all serve ourselves to be sons and heirs to their genius, and to their grace, and to their rich salvation.

I have often told you about Luther and his use of the personal pronouns. I have told you how he both reformed the church, and saved his own soul, by the way he made such believing use of the personal pronouns. He reformed the church, and he revolutionised the nation, far more by his powerful use of the personal pronouns than by his burning of the Pope’s bulls. ‘I, Martin Luther,’ he said continually in his confessions of sin, and in his prayers for pardon: ‘I, Martin Luther, the chief of sinners. Out of the depths, if ever there were depths, do I cry to Thee, O Lord’; putting his whole soul into every personal pronoun of his. I myself have a pastoral memory about that way of prayer which I will now take boldness to tell you for your good. I once tried Luther’s so personal way of prayer with a young man who was fast dying. His heart-broken father had come to me and had told me that his only son was on his unprepared death-bed. The fast-dying youth had been a prodigal son and his heart was now as hard as a stone. Day after day I did my very best with that sin-hardened youth, but with no result. Till one day I betook me to Luther’s personal way with him. I said to him, would he follow me in asking of God for himself, and by his own name, what I would now ask of God for myself, and by my own name. He was a courteous and a gentlemanly lad, and as soon as he fully understood what I said he answered me with his weak voice that he would. Forgetting him and every one else for the moment, I knelt down and prayed for myself by name just as Luther would have done. And as soon as I had risen from my knees the fast-dying lad raised himself up in his bed, and said:

‘I, James Wedderburn, pray also and say pardon, O God, the sins of my youth. Enter not into judgment with me. But wash Thou me, for Thou canst make me whiter than the snow.’ And then he lay down never again to rise. But if ever I stood by and saw a sinful soul born again it was in that room that day. And it was a sight to see his father’s radiant face that day and to this day as often as he speaks to me about his departed son. Try Luther’s personal way with yourselves and with others, on occasion. For there is a wonderful power and reality in it, as you will soon find to your happy surprise, and to your lasting blessedness.

You all know what a fossil is. You have all seen and handled and mused over the pathetic sight of a fossil. For a fossil is a hard and dead stone that was once a soft and a living thing. It is stone-dead now, but at one time it was a living creature; at one time it was as full of life and fruitfulness as any of its kind now living on the earth. But long ago the life died out of that living creature till in the lapse of time it was turned into absolute stone. Now just so has it been with many Scripture words, and Scripture doctrines, and Scripture experiences, and Scripture prayers, and Scripture praises, that were at one time all palpitating with life; all blossoming and blooming with holy beauty and with spiritual productiveness. All these things were at one time full of the most heavenly life in the minds and in the hearts and in the lives of the prophets and the psalmists and the apostles and the reformers; but they are now all but turned to stone in our degenerate hands. Now, I never heard of a fossil bone or a fossil branch being brought back to life by any art or science or quickening touch of any man. But believing and praying and praising men are working a far greater miracle than that every day. Take any petrified psalm of David, or any petrified epistle of Paul, or any petrified creed of the Fathers, or any petrified catechism of the Reformers, and put it into a living man’s mind and heart and life, and straightway it will soften and swell and bourgeon and bring forth fruit, as it did in the great days of old. Let but a Luther or a Bunyan arise, or any man of their faith and their life and their power, and this whole desert all around them will rejoice and will blossom as the rose. Now my brethren, the whole point to-night is this — Will you take your part henceforth in this great resurrection and reanimation of dead prayers and dead psalms and dead doctrines and dead creeds and dead catechisms and all the other dead ordinances in the public and private worship of God? If you do so, you will live to say with the prophet Ezekiel: So I prophesied as I was commanded, and the breath came upon them, and they lived, and stood upon their feet, an exceeding great army.

I will wind up with a few words taken out of Father John of the Greek Church.

‘When you are at your prayers,’ he says to us, ‘do not hurry on from one word to another. Stay with every word till you feel in yourself its full truth and power. Lay every single word well to heart, and strive hard to feel every word that you speak. Always when you kneel down keep this of Paul well before your mind, that it is better to say five words from the depth of your heart than ten thousand words with the tongue only. And when at any time you feel that your heart is not a heart at all, but a hard and a cold stone, then stop attempting to pray for a few minutes, and warm and melt your heart by thinking of your sinfulness and your misery and what you deserve at the hands of God and man. Set the four last things before your eyes; death, and judgment, and heaven, and hell, and then return as fast as you can to the throne of grace.’ So far Father John. Now, is it not beautiful; is it not full of instruction and of hope, to see how the Greek High Churchman and the Evangelical English Puritan so agree in pouring their whole soul into every word of their prayers? That is the true union of churches. That is the true communion of saints. Will you join with John Bunyan and Father John as they pour their whole soul into every word of their prayers? Be sure you do! And you also will live to write in your autobiography say: ‘My whole soul was then in every word.’