Saturday, April 2, 2011

1985 May/June issue Part 2

How Annoyances May
Be Vanquished

In John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, Christian has a conversation with three women in the House Beautiful: Piety, Prudence, and Charity. He describes his journey and the reasons for it. Prudence questions him about temptation to dwell on the past. "Can you remember by what means you find your annoyances at times as if they were van-quished?" "Yes," says Christian, "when I think what I saw at the Cross, that will do it; and when I look upon my broidered coat,* that will do it, and when I look into the Roll* that I carry in my bosom, that will do it; and when my thoughts wax warm about whither I am going, that will do it." "And what is it makes you so desirous to go to Mount Zion?" "Why, there I hope to see Him alive that did hang dead on the Cross; and there I hope to be rid of all those things, that, to this day, are in me an annoyance to me; there they say there is no death, and there I shall dwell with such company as I like best. For, to tell you truth, I love Him, because I was by Him eased of my burden. And I am weary of my inward sickness; I would fain be where I shall die no more, and with the company that shall continually cry, Holy! holy! holy!"

*and tells of meeting Three Shining Ones at the foot of the Cross who give him a "broidered" coat (the righteousness of Christ) and a Roll (the Scriptures).

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