'He brought me into his banqueting house.' - The Song.
Christ's sake, and for the sake of his own salvation, - he will never
repent it. No, he will never repent it.
Chapter 25 - A FEAST-DAY IN MANSOUL
'He brought me into his banqueting house.' - The Song.
Emmanuel's feast-day in the Holy War excels in beauty and in
eloquence everything I know in any other author on the Lord's
Supper. The Song of Solomon stands alone when we sing that song
mystically - that is to say, when we pour into it all the love of God to
His Church in Israel and all Israel's love to God, and then all our Lord's
love to us and all our love back again to Him in return. But outside of
Holy Scripture I know nothing to compare for beauty, and for
sweetness, and for quaintness, and for tenderness, and for rapture,
with John Bunyan's account of the feast that Prince Emmanuel made
for the town of Mansoul. With his very best pen John Bunyan tells us
how upon a time Emmanuel made a feast in Mansoul, and how the
townsfolk came to the castle to partake of His banquet, and how He
feasted them on all manner of outlandish food - food that grew not in
the fields of Mansoul; it was food that came down from heaven and
from His Father's house. They drank also of the water that was made
wine, and, altogether, they were very merry and at home with their
Prince. There was music also all the time at the table, and man did eat
angels' food, and had honey given him out of the rock. And then the
table was entertained with some curious and delightful riddles that
were made upon the King Himself, upon Emmanuel His Son, and upon
His wars and doings with Mansoul; till, altogether, the state of
transportation the people were in with their entertainment cannot be
told by the very best of pens. Nor did He, when they returned to their
places, send them empty away; for either they must have a ring, or a
gold chain, or a bracelet, or a white stone or something; so dear was
Mansoul to Him now, so lovely was Mansoul in His eyes. And, going
and coming to the feast, O how graciously, how lovingly, how
courteously, and how tenderly did this blessed Prince now carry it to
the town of Mansoul! In all the streets, gardens, orchards, and other
places where He came, to be sure the poor should have His blessing
and benediction; yea, He would kiss them; and if they were ill, He
would lay His hands on them and make them well. And was it not now
something amazing to behold that in that very place where Diabolus
had had his abode, the Prince of princes should now sit eating and
drinking with all His mighty captains, and men of war, and
trumpeters, and with the singing men and the singing women of His Father's court! Now did Mansoul's cup run over; now did her conduits
run sweet wine; now did she eat the finest of the wheat, and now
drink milk and honey out of the rock! Now she said, How great is His
goodness, for ever since I found favour in His eyes, how honourable
have I ever been!
Now, the beginning of it all was, and the best of it all was, that
Emmanuel Himself made the feast. Mansoul did not feast her
Deliverer; it was her Deliverer who feasted her. Mansoul, in good
sooth, had nothing that she had not first and last received, and it was
far more true and seemly and fit in every way that her Prince Himself
should in His own way and at His own expense seal and celebrate the
deliverance, the freedom, the life, the peace, and the joy of Mansoul.
And, besides, what had Mansoul to set before her Prince; or, for the
matter of that, before herself? Mansoul had nothing of herself.
Mansoul was not sufficient of herself for a single day. And how, then,
should she propose to feast a Prince? No, no! the thing was
impossible. It was Emmanuel's feast from first to last. Just as it was at
the Lord's table in this house this morning. You did not spread the
table this morning for your Lord. You did not make ready for your
Saviour and then invite Him in. He invited you. He said, This is My
Body broken for you, and This is My Blood shed for you; drink ye all of
it. And had any one challenged you at the fence door and asked you
how one who could not pay his own debts or provide himself a proper
meal even for a single day, could dare to sit down with such a
company at such a feast as that, you would have told him that he had
not seen half your hunger and your nakedness; but that it was just
your very hunger and nakedness and homelessness that had brought
you here; or, rather, it was all that that had moved the Master of the
feast to send for you and to compel you to come here. There was
nothing in your mind and in your mouth more all this day than just
that this is the Lord's Supper, and that He had sent for you and had
invited you, and had constrained and compelled you to come and
partake of it. It was the Lord's Table to-day, and it will be still and still
more His table on that great Communion-Day when all our earthly
communions shall be accomplished and consummated in heaven.
All that Mansoul did in connection with that great feast was to
prepare the place where Diabolus at one time had held his orgies and carried on his excesses. Her Prince, Emmanuel, did all the rest; but He
left it to Mansoul to make the banqueting-room ready. When our Lord
would keep His last passover with His disciples, He said to Peter and
John, Go into the city, and there shall meet you a man bearing a pitcher
of water, and he will show you a large upper room furnished and
prepared. There is some reason to believe that that happy man had
been expecting that message and had done his best to be ready for it.
And now he was putting the last touch to his preparations by filling
the water-pots of his house with fresh water; little thinking, happy
man, that as long as the world lasts that water will be holy water in all
men's eyes, and shall teach humility to all men's hearts. And, my
brethren, you know that all you did all last week against to-day was
just to prepare the room. For the room all last week and all this day
was your own heart, and not and never this house of stone and lime
made with men's hands. You swept the inner and upper room of your
own heart. You swept it and garnished its walls and its floors as much
as in you lay. He, whose the supper really was, told you that He would
bring with Him what was to be eaten and drunken to-day, while you
were to prepare the place. And, next to the very actual feast itself, and,
sometimes, not next to it but equal to it, and even before it and better
than it, were those busy household hours you spent, like the man with
the pitcher, making the room ready. In plain English, you had a
communion before the Communion as you prepared your hearts for
the Communion. I shall not intrude into your secret places and secret
seasons with Christ before His open reception of you today. But it is
sure and certain that, just as you in secret entertained Him in your
mother's house and in the chambers of her that bare you, just in that
measure did He say to you openly before all the watchmen that go
about the city and before all the daughters of Jerusalem, Eat, O
friends; drink, yea, drink abundantly, O beloved. Yes; do you not think
that the man with the pitcher had his reward? He had his own
thoughts as he furnished, till it was quite ready, his best upper room
and carried in those pitchers of water, and handed down to his
children in after days the perquisite-skin of the paschal lamb that had
been supped on by our Lord and His disciples in his honoured house
that night. Yes; was it not amazing to behold that in that very place
where sometimes Diabolus had his abode, and had entertained his Diabolonians, the Prince of princes should sit eating and drinking with
His friends? Was it not truly amazing?
Now, upon the feasting-day He feasted them with all manner of
outlandish food - food that grew not in all the fields of Mansoul; it was
food that came down with His Father's court. The fields of Mansoul
yielded their own proper fruits, and fruits that were not to be
despised. But they were not the proper fruits for that day, neither
could they be placed upon that table. They are good enough fruits for
their purpose, and as far as they go, and for so long as they last and
are in their season. But our souls are such that they outlive their own
best fruits; their hunger and their thirst outlast all that can be
harvested in from their own fields. And thus it is that He who made
Mansoul at first, and who has since redeemed her, has out of His own
great goodness provided food convenient for her. He knows with what
an outlandish life He has quickened Mansoul, and it is only the part of
a faithful Creator to provide for His creature her proper nourishment.
What is it? asked the children of Israel at one another when they saw a
small round thing, as small as hoarfrost, upon the ground. For they
wist not what it was. And Moses said, Gather of it every man according
to his eating, an omer for every man, according to the number of your
persons. And the house of Israel called the name thereof Manna, and
the taste of it was like wafers made with honey. He gave them of the
corn of heaven to eat, and man did eat in the wilderness angels' food.
Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead; but this is
the bread of which if any man eat he shall not die. And the bread that I
will give is My Flesh, which I will give for the life of the world. And so
outlandish, so supernatural, and so full of heavenly wonder and
heavenly mystery was that bread, that the Jews strove among
themselves over it, and could not understand it. But, by His goodness
and His truth to us this day, we have again, to our spiritual
nourishment and growth in grace, eaten the Flesh and drunk the
Blood of the Son of God; a meat that, as He who Himself is that meat
has said of it, is meat indeed and drink indeed - as, indeed, we have
the witness in ourselves this day that it is. They drank also of the
water that was made wine, and were very merry with Him all that day
at His table. And all their mirth was the high mirth of heaven; it was a
mirth and a gladness without sin, without satiety, and without
remorse.
There was music also all the while at the table, and the musicians
were not those of the country of Mansoul, but they were the masters
of song come down from the court of the King. 'I love the Lord,' they
sang in the supper room over the paschal lamb - 'I love the Lord
because He hath heard my voice and my supplication. Because He
hath inclined His ear unto me, therefore will I call upon Him as long as
I live. What shall I render to the Lord,' they challenged one another,
'for all His benefits towards me? I will take the cup of salvation, and
will call upon the name of the Lord.' 'Sometimes imagine,' says a great
devotional writer with a great imagination - 'Sometimes imagine that
you had been one of those that joined with our blessed Saviour as He
sang an hymn. Strive to imagine to yourself with what majesty He
looked. Fancy that you had stood by Him surrounded with His glory.
Think how your heart would have been inflamed, and what ecstasies
of joy you would have then felt when singing with the Son of God!
Think again and again with what joy and devotion you would have
then sung had this really been your happy state; and what a
punishment you would have thought it to have then been silent. And
let that teach you how to be affected with psalms and hymns of
thanksgiving.' Yes; and it is no imagination; it was our own experience
only this morning and afternoon to join in a music that was never
made in this world, but which was as outlandish as was the meat
which we ate while the music was being made.
'Bless, O my soul, the Lord thy God,
And not forgetful be
Of all His gracious benefits
He hath bestow'd on thee.
Who with abundance of good things
Doth satisfy thy mouth;
So that, ev'n as the eagle's age,
Renewed is thy youth.'
The 103rd Psalm was never made in this world. Musicians far other
than those native to Mansoul made for us our Lord's-Table Psalm.
And then, the riddles that were made upon the King Himself, and
upon Emmanuel His Son, and upon Emmanuel's wars and all His other
doings with Mansoul. And when Emmanuel would expound some of
those riddles Himself, oh! how they were lightened! They saw what
they never saw! They could not have thought that such rarities could
have been couched in so few and such ordinary words. Yea, they did
gather that the things themselves were a kind of portraiture, and that,
too, of Emmanuel Himself. This, they would say, this is the Lamb! this
is the Sacrifice! this is the Rock! this is the Door! and this is the Way!
with a great many other things. At Gaius's supper-table they sat up
over their riddles and nuts and sweetmeats till the sun was in the sky.
And it would be midnight and morning if I were to show you the
answers to the half of the riddles.
Take one, for an example, and let it be one of the best for the
communion-day. 'In one rare quality of the orator,' says Hugh Miller,
writing about his adored minister, Alexander Stewart of Cromarty, 'Mr.
Stewart stood alone. Pope refers in his satires to a strange power of
creating love and admiration by just "touching the brink of all we
hate." Now, into this perilous, but singularly elective department, Mr.
Stewart could enter with safety and at will. We heard him, scarce a
twelvemonth since, deliver a discourse of singular power on the sin-
offering as minutely described by the divine penman in Leviticus. He
described the slaughtered animal - foul with dust and blood, its throat
gashed across, its entrails laid open and steaming in its impurity to
the sun - a vile and horrid thing, which no one could look on without
disgust, nor touch without defilement. The picture appeared too vivid;
its introduction too little in accordance with a just taste. But this
pulpit-master knew what he was all the time doing. "And that," he said, as he pointed to the terrible picture, "that is SIN!" By one stroke the intended effect was produced, and the rising disgust and horror
transferred from the revolting, material image to the great moral evil.'
And, in like manner, This is the LAMB! we all said over the mystical
riddle of the bread and the wine this morning. This is the SACRIFICE!
This is the DOOR! This is EMMANUEL, GOD WITH US, and made sin
for us!
In one of his finest chapters, Thomas A Kempis tells us in what
way we are to communicate mystically: that is to say, how we are to
keep on communicating at all times, and in all places, without the intervention of the consecrated sacramental elements. And John
Bunyan, the sweetest and most spiritual of mystics, has all that, too, in
this same supreme passage. Every day was a feast-day now, he tells us.
So much so that when the elders and the townsmen did not come to
Emmanuel, He would send in much plenty of provisions to them. Yea,
such delicates would He send them, and therewith would so cover
their tables, that whosoever saw it confessed that the like could not be
seen in any other kingdom. That is to say, my fellow-communicants,