'I made haste and delayed not.' - David.
small. How seldom you see a public man openly confessing that he has
hitherto all along been wrong, and that he has at last and by others
been set right. Not once in a generation. But even that once redeems
public life; it ennobles public life; and it saves the nation and the
sovereign who possess such a true patriot. Consistency and courage,
independence and dignity, are high-sounding words; but openness of
mind, teachableness, diffidence, and humility always go with true
nobility as well as with ultimate success and lasting honour.
Chapter 12 - THAT VARLET ILL-PAUSE, THE DEVIL'S ORATOR
'I made haste and delayed not.' - David.
John Bunyan shall himself introduce, describe, and characterise
this varlet, this devil's ally and accomplice, this ancient enemy of
Mansoul, whose name is Ill-pause. Well, this same Ill-pause, says our
author, was the orator of Diabolus on all difficult occasions, nor took
Diabolus any other one with him on difficult occasions, but just Ill-
pause alone. And always when Diabolus had any special plot a-foot
against Mansoul, and when the thing went as Diabolus would have it
go, then would Ill-pause stand up, for he was Diabolus his orator.
When Mansoul was under siege of Emmanuel his four noble captains
sent a message to the men of the town that if they would only throw
Ill-pause over the wall to them, that they might reward him according
to his works, then they would hold a parley with the city; but if this
varlet was to be let live in the city, then, why, the city must see to the
consequences. At which Diabolus, who was there present, was loth to
lose his orator, because, had the four captains once laid their fingers
on Ill-pause, be sure his master had lost his orator. And, then, in the
last assault, we read that Ill-pause, the orator that came along with
Diabolus, he also received a grievous wound in the head, some say
that his brain-pan was cracked. This, at any rate, I have taken notice of,
that never after this was he able to do that mischief to Mansoul as he
had done in times past. And then there was also at Eye-gate that Ill-
pause of whom you have heard before. The same was he that was
orator to Diabolus. He did much mischief to the town of Mansoul, till
at last he fell by the hand of the Captain Good-hope.
Well, to begin with, this Ill-pause was a filthy Diabolonian varlet;
a treacherous and a villainous old varlet, the author of the Holy War
calls him. Now, what is a varlet? Well, a varlet is just a broken-down
old valet. A varlet is a valet who has come down, and down, and down,
and down again in the world, till, from once having been the servant
and the trusty friend of the very best of masters, he has come to be the
ally and accomplice of the very worst of masters. His first name, the
name of his first office, still sticks to him, indeed; but, like himself, and
with himself, his name has become depraved and corrupted till you
would not know it. A varlet, then, is just short and sharp for a
scoundrel who is ready for anything; and the worse the thing is the
more ready he is for it. There are riff-raff and refuse always about who are ready to volunteer for any filibustering expedition; and that full as
much for the sheer devilry of the enterprise as for any real profit it is
to be to themselves. Wherever mischief is to be done, there your true
varlet is sure to turn up. Well, just such a land-shark was this Ill-pause,
who was such an ally and accomplice to Diabolus that he had need for
no other. What possible certificate in evil could exceed this - that the
devil took not any with him when he went out on his worst errand but
this same Ill-pause, who was his orator on all his most difficult
occasions?
Ill-pause was a varlet, then, and he was also an orator. Now, an
orator, as you know, is a great speaker. An orator is a man who has the
excellent and influential gift of public speech. And on great occasions
in public life when people are to be instructed, and impressed, and
moved, and won over, then the great orator sets up his platform.
Quintilian teaches us in his Institutes that it is only a good man who
can be a really great orator. What would that fine writer have said had
he lived to read the Holy War, and seen the most successful of all
orators that ever opened a mouth, and who was all the time a
diabolical old varlet? What would the author of The Education of an
Orator have said to that? Diabolus did not on every occasion bring up
his great orator Ill-pause. He did not always come up himself, and he
did not always send up Ill-pause. It was only on difficult occasions that
both Diabolus and his orator also came up. You do not hear your great
preachers every Sabbath. They would not long remain great
preachers, and you would soon cease to pay any attention to them, if
they were always in the pulpit. Neither do you have your great orators
at every street corner. Their masters only build theatres for them
when some great occasion arises in the land, and when the best
wisdom must straightway be spoken to the people and in the best way.
Then you bring up Quintilian's orator if you have him at your call. As
Diabolus has done from time to time with his great and almost always
successful orator Ill-pause. On difficult occasions he came himself on
the scene and Ill-pause with him. On such difficult occasions as in the
Garden of Eden; as when Noah was told to make haste and build an
ark; as also when Abraham was told to make haste and leave his
father's house; when Jacob was bid remember and pay the vow he had
made when his trouble was upon him; as also when Joseph had to flee for what was better than life; and on that memorable occasion when
David sent Joab out against Rabbah, but David tarried still at
Jerusalem. On all these essential, first-class, and difficult occasions the
old serpent brought up Ill-pause. As also when our Lord was in the
wilderness; when He set His face to go up to Jerusalem; when He saw
certain Greeks among them that came up to the passover; as also
again and again in the Garden. As also on crucial occasions in your
own life. As when you had been told not to eat, not to touch, and not
even to look at the forbidden fruit, then Ill-pause, the devil's orator,
came to you and said that it was a tree to be desired. And, you shall
not surely die. As also when you were moved to terror and to tears
under a Sabbath, or under a sermon, or at some death-bed, or on your
own sick-bed - Ill-pause got you to put off till a more convenient
season your admitted need of repentance and reformation and peace
with God. On such difficult occasions as these the devil took Ill-pause
to help him with you, and the result, from the devil's point of view, has
justified his confidence in his orator. When Ill-pause gets his new
honours paid him in hell; when there is a new joy in hell over another
sinner that has not yet repented, your name will be heard sounding
among the infernal cheers. Just think of your baptismal name and your
pet name at home giving them joy to-night at their supper in hell! And
yet one would not at first sight think that such triumphs and such
toasts, such medals, and clasps, and garters were to be won on earth
or in hell just by saying such simple-sounding and such commonplace
things as those are for which Ill-pause receives his decorations. 'Take
time,' he says. 'Yes,' he admits, 'but there is no such hurry; to-morrow
will do; next year will do; after you are old will do quite as well. The
darkness shall cover you, and your sin will not find you out. Christ
died for sin, and it is a faithful saying that His blood will cleanse you
later on from all this sin.' Everyday and well-known words, indeed, but
a true orator is seen in nothing more than in this, that he can take up
what everybody knows and says, and put it so as to carry everybody
captive. One of Quintilian's own orators has said that a great speaker
only gives back to his hearers in flood what they have already given to
him in vapour.
'I was always pleased,' says Calvin, 'with that saying of
Chrysostom, "The foundation of our philosophy is humility"; and yet
more pleased with that of Augustine: "As," says he, "the rhetorician being asked, What was the first thing in the rules of eloquence? he
answered, Pronunciation; what was the second? Pronunciation; what
was the third? and still he answered, Pronunciation. So if you would
ask me concerning the precepts of the Christian religion, I would
answer, firstly, secondly, thirdly, and for ever, Humility."' And when Illpause opened his elocutionary school for the young orators of hell, he
is reported to have said this to them in his opening address, 'There are
only three things in my school,' he said; 'three rules, and no more to be
called rules. The first is Delay, the second is Delay, and the third is
Delay. Study the art of delay, my sons; make all your studies to tell on
how to make the fools delay. Only get those to whom your master
sends you to delay, and you will not need to envy me my laurels; you
will soon have a shining crown of your own. Get the father to delay
teaching his little boy how to pray. Get him on any pretext you can
invent to put off speaking in private to his son about his soul. Get him
to delegate all that to the minister. And then by hook or by crook get
that son as he grows up to put off the Lord's Supper. And after that you
will easily get him to put off purity and prayer till he is a married man
and at the head of a house. Only get the idea of a more convenient
season well into their heads, and their game is up, and your spurs are
won. Take their arm in yours, as I used to do, at their church door, if
you are posted there, and say to them as they come out that to-
morrow will be time enough to give what they had thought of giving
while they were still in their pew and the minister or missionary was
still in the pulpit. Only, as you value your master's praises and the
applause of all this place, keep them, at any cost, from striking while
the iron is hot. Let them fill their hearts, and their mouths too, if it
gives them any comfort, with the best intentions; only, my scholars,
remember that the beginning and middle and end of your office is by
hook or by crook to secure delay.'
And a great crop of young orators sprang up ready for their work
under that teaching and out of the persuasionary school of Ill-pause.
In fine, Mansoul desired some time in which to prepare its answer.'
There are many men among ourselves who have been bedevilled out
of their best life, out of the salvation of their souls, and out of all that constitutes and accompanies salvation now for many years. And still
their sin-deceived hearts are saying to them to-night, Take time! For
many years, every new year, every birthday, and, for a long time, every
Communion-day, they were just about to be done with their besetting
sin; and now all the years lie behind them, one long downward road
all paved, down to this Sabbath night, with the best intentions. And,
still, as if that were not enough, that same varlet is squat at their ear.
Well, my very miserable brother, you have long talked about the end of
an old year and the beginning of a new year as being your set time for
repentance and for reformation. Let all the weight of those so many
remorseful years fall on your heart at the close of this year, and at last
compel you to take the step that should have been taken, oh! so many
unhappy years ago! Go straight home then, to-night, shut your door,
and, after so many desecrated Sabbath nights, God will still meet you
in your secret chamber. As soon as you shut your door God will be
with you, and you will be with God. With GOD! Think of it, my brother,
and the thing is done. With GOD! And then tell Him all. And if any one
knocks at your door, say that there is Some One with you to-night, and
that you cannot come down. And continue till you have told it all to
God. He knows it all already; but that is one of Ill-pause's sophistries
still in your heart. Tell your Father it all. Tell Him how many years it is.
Tell Him all that you so well remember over all those wild, miserable,
mad, remorseful years. Tell Him that you have not had one really
happy, one really satisfied day all those years, and tell Him that you
have spent all, and are now no longer a young man; youth and health
and self-respect and self-command are all gone, till you are a
shipwreck rather than a man. And tell Him that if He will take you
back that you are to-night at His feet.
'We seldom overcome any one vice perfectly,' complains A
Kempis. And, again, 'If only every new year we would root out but one
vice.' Well, now, what do you say to that, my true and very brethren?
What do you say to that? Here we are, by God's grace and long-
suffering to usward, near the end of another year, another vicious
year; and why have we been borne with through so many vicious
years but that we should now cease from vice and begin to learn
virtue? Why are we here over Ill-pause this Sabbath night? Why, but
that we should shake off that varlet liar before another new year. That is the whole reason why we have been spared to see this Sabbath
night. God decreed it for us that we should have this text and this
discourse here to-night, and that is the reason why you and I have
been so unaccountably spared so long. Let us select one vice for the
axe then to-night, and give God in heaven the satisfaction of seeing
that His long-suffering with us has not been wholly in vain. Let us lay
the axe at one vice from this night. And what one from among so many
shall it be? What is the mockery of preaching if a preacher does not
practise?
And, accordingly, I have selected one vice out of my thicket for
next year. Will you do the same? The secret of the Lord is with them
that fear Him. Just make your selection and keep it to yourself, at least
till you are able this time next year to say to us - Come, all ye that fear
God, and I will tell you what He hath done for my soul. Yes, come on,
and from this day all your days on earth, and all the days of eternity,
you will thank God for John Bunyan and his Holy War and his Ill-
pause. Make your selection, then, for your new axe. Attack some one
sin at this so auspicious season. Swear before God, and unknown to all
men - swear sure death, and that without any more delay, to that
selected sin. Never once, all your days, do that sin again. Determine
never once to do it again. Determine that by prayer, by secret, and at
the same time outspoken, prayer on your knees. Determine it by faith
in the cleansing blood and renewing spirit of Jesus Christ. Determine
it by fear of instant death, and by sure hope of everlasting life.
Determine it by reasons, and motives, and arguments, and
encouragements known to no-one but yourself, and to be suspected
by no human being. Name the doomed sin. Denounce it. Execrate it.
Execute it. Draw a line across your short and uncertain life, and say to
that besetting and presumptuous sin, Hitherto, and no further! Do not
say you cannot do it. You can if you only will. You can if you only
choose. And smiting down that one sin will loosen and shake down
the whole evil fabric of sin. Breaking but that one link will break the
whole of Satan's snare and evil fetter. Here is A Kempis's forest of
vices out of which he hewed down one every year. Restless lust,
outward senses, empty phantoms, always longing to get, always
sparing to give, careless as to talk, unwilling to sit silent, eager for
food, wakeful for news, weary of a good book, quick to anger, easy of offence at my neighbour, and too ready to judge him, too merry over
prosperity, and too gloomy, fretful, and peevish in adversity; so often
making good rules for my future life, and coming so little speed with
them all, and so on. And, in facing even such a terrible thicket as that,
let not even an old man absolutely despair. At forty, at sixty, at
threescore and ten, let not an old penitent despair. Only take axe in
hand and see if the sun does not stand still upon Gibeon, and the
moon in the valley of Ajalon till you have avenged yourself on your
enemies. And always when you stop to wipe your brow, and to whet
the edge of your axe, and to wet your lips with water, keep on saying
things like those of another great sinner deep in his thicket of vice, say
this: O God, he said, Thou hast not cut off as a weaver my life, nor from
day even to night hast Thou made an end of me. But Thou hast
vouchsafed to me life and breath even to this hour from childhood,
youth, and hitherto even unto old age. He holdeth our soul in life, and
suffereth not our feet to slide, rescuing me from perils, sicknesses,
poverty, bondage, public shame, evil chances; keeping me from
perishing in my sins, and waiting patiently for my full conversion.
Glory be to Thee, O Lord, glory to Thee, for Thine incomprehensible
and unimaginable goodness toward me of all sinners far and away the
most unworthy. The voices and the concert of voices of angels and
men be to Thee; the concert of all thy saints in heaven and of all Thy
creatures in heaven and on earth; and of me, beneath their feet an
unworthy and wretched sinner, Thy abject creature; my praise also,
now, in this day and hour, and every day till my last breath, and till the