a fit account of himself, or as
worth a serious regard. Yet he will still hope that he will not be
wholly cast away, when after his sleep in death he wakes again.

Now, says Bunyan, there remained only the hinder part of the tempest.
Heavenly voices continued to encourage him. 'As I was passing in the
field,' he goes on, 'I heard the sentence, thy righteousness is in
heaven; and methought I saw, with the eyes of my soul, Jesus Christ
at God's right hand, there I say, as my righteousness, so that
wherever I was, or whatever I was doing, God could not say of me He
wants my righteousness, for that was just before Him. Now did my
chains fall off my legs indeed. I was loosed from my affliction and
irons; my temptations also fled away, so that from that time those
dreadful Scriptures of God left off to trouble me. Now went I home
rejoicing for the grace and love of God. Christ of God is made unto us
wisdom and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption. I now
lived very sweetly at peace with God through Christ. Oh! methought,
Christ, Christ! There was nothing but Christ before my eyes. I was not
now only looking upon this and the other benefits of Christ apart, as
of His blood, burial, and resurrection, but considered Him as a whole
Christ. All those graces that were now green in me were yet but like
those cracked groats and fourpence half-pennies which rich men carry
in their purses, while their gold is in their trunks at home. Oh! I
saw my gold was in my trunk at home in Christ my Lord and Saviour. The
Lord led me into the mystery of union with the Son of God, that I was
joined to Him, that I was flesh of His flesh. If He and I were one,
His righteousness was mine, His merits mine, His victory mine. Now I
could see myself in heaven and earth at once; in heaven by my Christ,
though on earth by my body and person. Christ was that common and
public person in whom the whole body of His elect are always to be
considered and reckoned. We fulfilled the law by Him, died by Him,
rose from the dead by Him, got the victory over sin and death, the
devil and hell by Him. I had cause to say, Praise ye the Lord. Praise
God in His sanctuary.'

CHAPTER IV.

CALL TO THE MINISTRY.

The Pilgrim falls into the hands of Giant Despair because he has
himself first strayed into Byepath Meadow. Bunyan found an explanation
of his last convulsion in an act of unbelief, of which, on looking
back, he perceived that he had been guilty