'Whatever you may do I must venture, even if the lions you speak of
should pull me to pieces. I, for one, shall never go back. To go back
is nothing but death; to go forward is fear of death and everlasting life
beyond it. I will yet go forward.' So Mistrust and Timorous ran down
the hill, and Christian went on his way. George Offor says, in his notes
on this passage, that civil despotism and ecclesiastical tyranny so
terrified many young converts in John Bunyan's day, that multitudes
turned back like Mistrust and Timorous; while at the same time, many like
Bunyan himself went forward and for a time fell into the lion's mouth.
Civil despotism and ecclesiastical tyranny do not stand in our way as
they stood in Bunyan's way--at least, not in the same shape: but every
age has its own lions, and every Christian man has his own lions that
neither civil despots nor ecclesiastical tyrants know anything about.
Now, who or what is the lion in your way? Who or what is it that fills
you with such timorousness and mistrust, that you are almost turning back
from the way to life altogether? The fiercest of all our lions is our
own sin.
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