Before the justices, allured by their arguments, and particularly by
the sophistry of their clerk, Mr. Cobb, and then dragged from a
beloved wife and from children to whom he was most fondly attached--all
these fiery trials might be avoided, if he would but 'sell Christ.'
A cold damp dungeon was to incarcerate his body for twelve tedious
years of the prime of his life, unless he would 'sell Christ.' His
ministering brother and friend, John Child, a Bedford man, who had
joined in recommending Bunyan's Vindication of Gospel Truths,[110]
fell under this temptation, and fearing temporal ruin and imprisonment
for life, conformed, and then fell into the most awful state of
despair, suffering such agonies of conscience, that, to get rid of
present trouble, he hurried himself into eternity. Probably Bunyan
alludes to this awful instance of fell despair in his Publican
and Pharisee: 'Sin, when appearing in its monstrous shape and hue,
frighteth all mortals out of their wits, away from God; and if he
stops them not, also out of the world.'[111] To arm Bunyan against
being overcome by a fear of the lions in the way to the house
Beautiful--against giving way, under persecution--he was visited
with terrors lest he should sell or part with Christ. During these
sad years he was not wholly sunk in despair, but had at times some
glimmerings of mercy. In comparing his supposed sin with that of
Judas, he was constrained to find a difference between a deliberate
intention to sell Christ and a sudden temptation.[112] Through
all these searchings of heart and inquiries at the Word, he became
fixed in the doctrine of the final perseverance of God's saints. 'O
what love, what care, what kindness and mercy did I now see mixing
itself with the most severe and dreadful of all God's ways to his
people; he never let them fall into sin unpardonable.' 'But these
thoughts added grief and horror to me; I thought that all things
wrought for my eternal overthrow.' So ready is the tender heart to