After resisting the temptation of the mine, there is rest and refreshment. And vulnerability. It is a strange spiritual dynamic that after spiritual ‘success’ we are peculiarly vulnerable to temptation. Our confidence can be found in our sense of progress, rather than in God. Christian, who by Lucre Hill was adamant that he wouldn’t set foot off the path, is here seduced to climb the style into By-Path Meadow. Anything that seems to make the Path of Pilgrimage a little easier! And it seems to … for a while. Just long enough to lure them far enough away from the Way.

We know the Pilgrims are in trouble as soon as they meet Vain-Confidence, a ‘vain-glorious fool’ who is introduced briefly before his fall (Prov.6:18). It only takes Christian and Hopeful till nightfall to realise they are waylaid. In a tender exchange we are shown the importance and means of maintaining fellowship: Christian’s quick repentance for leading them out of the Way, and Hopeful’s quick forgiveness. Equally quickly they resolve to go back, but the damage is done. ‘It was so dark, and the flood was so high, that in their going back they had like to have been drowned nine or ten times’. Giving up, they fall asleep, awaking the following morning to realise they are trespassers on the grounds of Giant Despair, and to be forced by him into the dungeons of Doubting Castle. That the giant’s wife is called Diffidence, belies Bunyan’s pastoral wisdom: Mistrust, lack of confidence, doubt of the ability of others (or Other).

We can struggle with this portrayal of Doubt, and its being equated with leaving the Path. It’s important to realise what Bunyan is in fact teaching here. Doubt is a complex spiritual and psychological condition. I’ve explored it in a number of short videos made early in Lockdown, which can be found here:

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=mie+vicar+doubt

But Bunyan isn’t trying to offer a full account of doubt, nor is he suggesting that all questioning of faith and experience is sinful. He has the far more modest goal of conveying the common experience that there is a kind of Doubt that follows our wandering from the Way. Such is often accompanied by Despair, feeling that there is no way out, or back; and such as are assailed by it are equally often condemned by Diffidence. This isn’t a lack of self-assurance, it is the far more dangerous experience of doubting God’s goodness and power. It is a lack of faith that is the issue here.

Hopeful’s lament is reminiscent of the Psalms, and also of the internal dialogue of any Pilgrim who has languished in Doubting Castle: ‘our present condition is dreadful, and death would be far more welcome to me than thus for ever to abide’. Dark words from one called Hopeful as Christian even contemplates suicide in the dungeon! Such might sound extreme, perhaps even a touch melodramatic, to any who have not endured such spiritual depression. But it is all Hopeful can do to remain, well, hopeful. The fact that he is able to do so is a colossal act of spiritual discipline. He reminds Christian of who God is, what God has commanded, and that they must resist Despair, as they have resisted other temptations and spiritual dangers they have faced. He calls them to patience in endurance (Rom.12:12). But the Pilgrims don’t find immediate relief. Hopeful’s discourse, for all its good, doesn’t provide them a way out, though it did ‘moderate the mind of his brother; so they continued together in the dark that day, in their sad and doleful condition’.

Bunyan’s portrait of spiritual depression is able to be so vivid, because he is drawing again on his own experience. In ‘Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners’ he recounts one such episode (Para.261):

At another time, though just before I was pretty well and savory in my spirit, yet suddenly there fell upon me a great cloud of darkness, which did so hide from me the things of God and Christ, that I was as if I had never seen or known them in my life; I was also so overrun in my soul, with a senseless, heartless frame of spirit, that I could not feel my soul to move or stir after grace and life by Christ; I was as if my loins were broken, or as if my hands and feet had been tied or bound with chains. At this time also I felt some weakness to seize 'upon' my outward man, which made still the other affliction the more heavy and uncomfortable 'to me.

It is a depressing state of affairs in which to leave the Pilgrims. But it remains a valuable lesson to realise the depth of misery into which sin may lead… and the depths to which grace may reach.

Going Further?

Do periods of ‘backsliding’ from Christ’s call on your life lead you to despair, doubt and diffidence? What would you say to someone who could leave the path of discipleship without feeling such angst?

If this part of Pilgrim’s Progress describes your own experience, either in the past, or the present, you may want to work these matters through more deeply. I would recommend Martyn Lloyd Jones’ book, Spiritual Depression as a good starting place.