The application of all that is surely self-evident.  For our way in a holy life is always closely fenced up.  It is far oftener a lonely way than otherwise.  And the steepness, sternness, and loneliness of our way are all aggravated by the remembrance of our past sins and follies.  They still, and more and more, lie upon our hearts a heart-crushing burden.  But if we, like Christian, know how to keep our back to our former house and our face to heaven, sooner or later we too shall surely come to the cross.  And then, either suddenly, or after a long agony, our burden also shall be taken off our back and shut down into Christ’s sepulchre.  And I saw it no more, says the dreamer.  He does not say that its owner saw it no more.  He was too wise and too true a dreamer to say that.

It will be remembered that the first time we saw this man, with whose progress to the Celestial City we are at present occupied, he was standing in a certain place clothed with rags and with a burden on his back.  After a long journey with him, we have just seen his burden taken off his back, and it is only after his burden is off and a Shining One has said to him, Thy sins be forgiven, that a second Shining One comes and strips him of his rags and clothes him with change of raiment.  Now, why, it may be asked, has Christian had to carry his burden so long, and why is he still kept so ragged and so miserable and he so far on in the pilgrim’s path?  Surely, it will be said, John Bunyan was dreaming indeed when he kept a truly converted man, a confessedly true and sincere Christian, so long in bonds and in rags.  Well, as to his rags:  filthy rags are only once spoken of in the Bible, and it is the prophet Isaiah, whose experience and whose language John Bunyan had so entirely by heart, who puts them on.  And that evangelist among the prophets not only calls his own and Israel’s sins filthy rags, but Isaiah is very bold, and calls their very righteousnesses by that opprobrious name.  Had that bold prophet said that all his and all his people’s unrighteousnesses were filthy rags, all Israel would have subscribed to that.  There was no man so brutish as not to admit that.  But as long as they had any sense of truth and any self-respect, multitudes of Isaiah’s first hearers and readers would resent what he so rudely said of their righteousnesses.  On the other hand, the prophet’s terrible discovery and comparison, just like our dreamer’s dramatic distribution of Christian experience, was, to a certainty, an immense consolation to many men in Israel in his day.  They gathered round Isaiah because, but for him and his evangelical ministry, they would have been alone in their despair.  To them Isaiah’s ministry was a house of refuge, and the prophet himself a veritable tower of strength.  They felt they were not alone so long as Isaiah dwelt in the same city with them.  And thus, whatever he might be to others, he was God’s very prophet to them as his daily prayers