'One thing have I desired.' - David.
and well-beloved captain bore in his heart. Entertain patience, my
brethren. Practise patience, my brethren. Make your house at home a
daily school to you in which to learn patience. Be sure that you well
understand the times, the occasions, the opportunities, and the
invitations of patience, and take profit out of them; and thus both your
profit and that of others also will be great. Tribulation worketh
patience. Endure tribulation, then, for the sake of its so excellent work.
Nothing worketh patience like tribulation, and therefore it is that
tribulation so abounds in the lives of God's people. So much does
tribulation abound in the lives of God's people that they are actually
known in heaven and described there by their experience of
tribulation. 'These are they which came out of great tribulation, and
therefore are they before the throne.' These are they with the three
sharp arrows shot through and through their hearts of gold.
Chapter 18 - MR. DESIRES-AWAKE
'One thing have I desired.' - David.
Mr. Desires-awake dwelt in a very mean cottage in Mansoul.
There were two very mean cottages in Mansoul, and those two
cottages stood beside one another and leaned upon one another and
held one another up. Mr. Desires-awake dwelt in the one of those
cottages and Mr. Wet-eyes in the other. And those two mendicant men
were wont to meet together for secret prayer, when Mr. Desires-awake
would put a rope upon his head, while Mr. Wet-eyes would not be able
to speak for wringing his hands in tears all the time. Many a time did
those two meanest and most despised of men deliver that city,
according to the proverb of the Preacher: Wisdom is better than
strength, and the words of wisdom are to be heard in secret places,
where wisdom is far better than weapons of war. Why should I not do
all for them and the best I can? said Mr. Desires-awake when the men
of Mansoul came to him in their extremity. I will even venture my life
again for them at the pavilion of the Prince. And accordingly this mean
man put his rope upon his head, as was his wont, and went out to the
Prince's tent and asked the reformades if he might see their Master.
Then the Prince, coming to the place where the petitioner lay on the
ground, demanded what his name was and of what esteem he was in
Mansoul, and why he, of all the multitudes of Mansoul, was sent out to
His Royal tent on such an errand. Then said the man to the Prince
standing over him, he said: Oh let not my Lord be angry; and why
inquirest Thou after the name of such a dead dog as I am? Pass by, I
pray Thee, and take not notice of who I am, because there is, as Thou
very well knowest, so great a disproportion between Thee and me. For
my part, I am out of charity with myself; who, then, should be in love
with me? Yet live I would, and so would I that my townsmen should;
and because both they and myself are guilty of great transgressions,
therefore they have sent me, and I have come in their names to beg of
my Lord for mercy. Let it please Thee, therefore, to incline to mercy;
but ask not who Thy servant is. All this, and how Mr. Desires-awake
and Mr. Wet-eyes sped in their petition, is to be read at length in the
Holy History. And now let us take down the key that hangs in our
author's window and go to work with it on the sweet mystery of Mr.
Desires-awake.
Well, then, to begin with, this poor man's name need not delay us
long seeking it out. In shorter time, and with surer success than I
could give you the dictionary root of his name, if you will look within
you will all see the visual image of this poor man's name in your own
heart. For our hearts are all as full as they can hold of all kinds of
desires; some good and some bad, some asleep and some awake, some
alive and some dead, some raging like a hundred hungry lions, and
some satisfied as a sleeping child. Well, then, this mean man was
called Mr. Desires-awake, and what his desires were awake after and
set upon we have already seen in his head-dress and heard in his
prayer. His house, on the other hand, will not be so well known. For it
was less a house than a hut - a hut hidden away out of sight and back
behind Mr. Wet-eyes' hut. Mr. Desires-awake's cottage was so mean
and meagre that no one ever came to visit him unless it was his next-
door neighbour. They never left their cottages, those two poor men,
unless it was to see one another; or, strange to tell, unless it was to go
out at the city gate to see and to speak with their Prince. And at such
times their venturesomeness both astonished themselves and amused
their Prince. Sometimes he laughed to see them back at his door
again; but more often he wept to see and hear them; all which made
the guards of his pavilion to wonder who those two strange men
might be. And thus it was that if at any long interval of time any of the
men of the city desired to see Mr. Desires-awake, he was sure to be
found at the pavilion door of his Prince, or else in his neighbour's
cottage, or else at home in his own. From year's end to year's end you
might look in vain for either of those two poor men in the public
resorts of Mansoul. When all the town was abroad on holidays and
fair-days and feast-days, those two mean men were then closest at
home. And when the booths of the town were full of all kinds of wares
and merchandise, and all the greens in the town were full of games,
and plays, and cheats, and fools, and apes, and knaves, only those two
penniless men would abide shut up at home. At home; or else together
they would go to a market-stance set up by their Prince outside the
walls where one was stationed to stand and to cry: 'Ho! every one that
thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money.
Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread, and your
labour for that which satisfieth not? Incline your ear and come to me;
hear, and your soul shall live.' And sometimes the Prince would go out in person to meet the two men with nothing to pay, and would Himself
say to them, I counsel thee to buy of Me gold tried in the fire, and
white raiment, and anoint thine eyes with eye-salve, till the two men,
Mr. Desires-awake and Mr. Wet-eyes, would go home to their huts
laden with their Prince's free gifts and royal bounties.
But, with all that, Mr. Desires-awake never went out to his
Prince's pavilion till he had again put his rope upon his head. And,
however laden with royal presents he ever returned to his mean
cottage, he never laid aside his rope. He ate in his rope, he slept in his
rope, he visited his next-door neighbour in his rope, till the only
instruction he left behind him was to bury him in a ditch, and be sure
to put his rope upon his head. The men and the boys of the town
jeered at Mr. Desires-awake as he passed up their streets in his rope,
and the very mothers in Mansoul taught their children in arms to run
after him and to cry, Go up, thou roped head! Go up, thou roped head!
We be free men, the men of the town called after him; and we never
were in bondage to any man'. Out with him; out with him! He is beside
himself. Much repentance hath made him mad! But through all that
Mr. Desires-awake was as one that heard them not. For Mr. Desires-
awake was full of louder voices within. The voices within his bosom
quite drowned the babel around him. The voices within called him far
worse names than the streets of the city ever called him; till all he
could do was to draw his rope down upon his head and press on again
to the Prince's pavilion. You understand about that rope, my brethren,
do you not? Mr. Desires-awake's continual rope? In old days when a
guilty man came of his own accord to the judge to confess himself
deserving of death, he would put a rope upon his head. And that rope
as much as said to the judge and to all men - the miserable man as
good as said: This is my desert. This is the wages of my sin. I justify my
judge. I judge myself. I hereby do myself to death. And it was this that
so angered the happy holiday-makers of Mansoul. For they forgave
themselves. They justified themselves. They put a high price upon
themselves. Humiliation and sorrow for sin was not in all their
thoughts; and they hated and hunted back into his hut the humble
man whose gait and garb always reminded them of their past life and
of their latter end. But for all they could do, Mr. Desires-awake would
wear his rope. My soul chooseth strangling rather than sin, he would say. My sin hath found me out, he would say; I hate myself, he would
say, because of my sin. I condemn and denounce myself. I hang myself
up with this rope on the accursed tree. And thus it was that while
other men were crucifying their Prince afresh, Mr. Desires-awake was
crucifying himself with and after his Prince. And thus it was that while
the men and the women of the town so hated and so mocked Mr.
Desires-awake, his Prince so loved and so honoured him.
'Oh let not my Lord be angry; and why inquirest Thou after the
name of such a dead dog as I am?' said Desires-awake to his Prince.
'Behold, now, I have taken upon me to speak unto the Lord which am
but dust and ashes,' said Abraham. 'If I wash myself with snow water,
and make my hands never so clean, yet shalt thou plunge me into the
ditch, and mine own clothes shall abhor me,' said Job. 'My wounds
stink and are corrupt; my loins are filled with a loathsome disease,
and there is no soundness in my flesh,' said David. 'But we are all as an
unclean thing,' said Isaiah, 'and all our righteousnesses are as filthy
rags.' 'I am the chief of sinners,' said the apostle. 'Hold your peace; I
am a devil and not a man,' said Philip Neri to his sons. 'I am a sinner,
and worse than the chief of sinners, yea, a guilty devil,' said Samuel
Rutherford. 'I hated the light; I was a chief - the chief of sinners,' said
Oliver Cromwell. 'I was more loathsome in my own eyes than a toad,'
said John Bunyan. 'Sin and corruption would as naturally bubble out
of my heart as water would bubble out of a fountain. I could have
changed hearts with anybody. I thought none but the devil himself
could equal me for wickedness and pollution of mind.' 'O Despise me
not,' said Bishop Andrewes, 'an unclean worm, a dead dog, a putrid
corpse. The just falleth seven times a day; and I, an exceeding sinner,
seventy times seven. Me, O Lord, of sinners chief, chiefest, and
greatest.' And William Law, 'An unclean worm, a dead dog, a stinking
carcass. Drive, I beseech Thee, the serpent and the beast out of me. O
Lord, I detest and abhor myself for all these my sins, and for all my
abuse of Thine infinite mercy.' From all this, then, you will see that this
dead dog of ours with the rope upon his head was no strange sight at
Emmanuel's pavilion. And you and I shall still be in the same saintly
succession if we go continually with his words in our mouth, and with
his instrument in our hands and on our heads.
'The Prince to whom I went,' said Mr. Desires-awake, 'is such a
one for beauty and for glory that whoso sees Him must ever after both
love and fear Him. I, for my part,' he said, 'can do no less; but I know
not what the end will be of all these things.' What made Mr. Desires-
awake say that last thing was that when he was prostrate in his prayer
the Prince turned His head away, as if He was out of humour and out
of patience with His petitioner; while, all the time, the overcome
Prince was weeping with love and with pity for Desires-awake. Only
that poor man did not see that, and would not have believed that even
if he had seen it. 'I cannot tell what the end will be,' said Desires-
awake; 'but one thing I know, I shall never be able to cease from both
loving and fearing that Prince. I shall always love Him for His beauty
and fear Him for His glory.' Can you say anything like that, my
brethren? Have you been at His seat with sackcloth, and a rope, and
ashes, and tears, and prayers, like Abraham, and David, and Isaiah, and
Paul, and John Bunyan, and Bishop Andrewes? And, whatever may be
the end, do you say that henceforth and for ever you must both love
and fear that Prince? 'Though He slay me,' said Job, 'yet I shall both
love and trust Him.' Well, the Prince is the Prince, and He will take
both His own time and His own way of taking off your rope and
putting a chain of gold round your neck, and a new song in your
mouth, as He did to Job. There may be more weeping yet, both on your
side and on His before He does that; but He will do it, and He will not
delay an hour that He can help in doing it. Only, do you continue and
increase to love His beauty, and to fear His glory. And that of itself will
be reward and blessing enough to you. Nay, once you have seen both
His beauty and His glory, then to lie a dog under His table, and to beg
at His door with a rope on your head to all eternity would be a
glorious eternity to you. Samuel Rutherford said that to see Christ
through the keyhole once in a thousand years would be heaven
enough for him. Christ wept in heaven as Rutherford wrote that letter
in Aberdeen, and if you make Him weep in the same way He will soon
make you to laugh too. He will soon make you to laugh as Samuel
Rutherford and Mr. Desires-awake are laughing now. Only, my
brethren, answer this - Are your desires awakened indeed after Jesus
Christ? You know what a desire is. Your hearts are full to the brim of
desires. Well, is there one desire in a day in your heart for Christ? In
the multitude of your desires within you, what share and what
proportion go out and up to Christ? You know what beauty is. You
know and you love the beauty of a child, of a woman, of a man, of
nature, of art, and so on. Do you know, have you ever seen, the
ineffable beauty of Christ? Is there one saint of God here, - and He has
many saints here - is there one of you who can say with David in the
text, One thing do I desire? There should be many so desiring saints
here; for Christ's beauty is far better and far fairer, far more
captivating, far more enthralling, and far more satisfying to us than it
could be to David. Shall we call you Desires-awake, then, after this?
Can you say - do you say, One thing do I desire, and that is no thing and
no person, no created beauty and no earthly sweetness, but my one
desire is for God: to be His, and to be like Him, and to be for ever with
Him? Then, it shall soon all be. For, what you truly desire, - all that you
already are; and what you already are, - all that you shall soon
completely and for ever be. Whom have I in heaven but Thee? And
there is none upon earth that I desire beside Thee. My flesh and my
heart faileth; but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for
ever.
'As for me,' says the great-hearted, the hungry-hearted Psalmist, 'I
shall be satisfied, when I awake, with Thy likeness.' One would have
said that David had all that heart could desire even before he fell
asleep. For he had a throne, the throne of Israel, and a son, a son like
Solomon to sit upon it. A long life also, full to the brim of all kinds of
temporal and spiritual blessings. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget
not all His benefits; who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all
thy diseases; who redeemeth thy life from destruction; who crowneth
thee with loving-kindness and tender mercies; who satisfieth thy
mouth with good things, so that thy youth is renewed like the eagle's.
All that, and yet not satisfied! O David! David! surely Desires-awake is
thy new name! One of our own poets has said: -
'All thoughts, all passions, all delights,
Whatever stirs this mortal frame,