Bunyan, John, 1628-1688 -- Criticism and interpretation
comment on stiff old Loth-to-stoop as a guilty sinner, with the offer of
a full forgiveness set before him.
2. And then our so truthful and so fertile author goes on to give us
Loth-to-stoop as a half-saved sinner; a sinner, that is, trying to make
his own terms with God about his full salvation. Through three most
powerful pages we see stiff old Loth-to-stoop engaged in beating down
God's unalterable terms of salvation, and in bidding for his full
salvation upon his own reduced and easy terms. It was the tremendous
stoop of the Son of God from the throne of God to the cradle and the
carpenter's shop; and then, as if that were not enough, it was that other
tremendous stoop of His down to the Garden and the Cross,--it was these
two so tremendous stoops of Jesus Christ that made stiff old
Loth-to-stoop's salvation even possible. But, with all that, his true
salvation was not possible without stoop after stoop of his own; stoop
after stoop which, if not so tremendous as those of Christ, were yet
tremendous enough, and too tremendous, for him. Old Loth-to-stoop
carries on a long and a bold debate with Emmanuel in order to lessen the
stoop that Emmanuel demands of him; and your own life and mine, my
brethren, at their deepest and at their closest to our own heart, are
really at bottom, like Loth-to-stoop's life, one long roup of salvation,
in which God tries to get us up to His terms and in which we try to get
Him down to our terms. His terms are, that we shall sell absolutely all
that we have for the salvation of our souls; and our terms are, salvation
or no salvation, to keep all that we have and to seek every day for more.
God absolutely demands that we shall stoop to the very dust every day,
till we become the poorest, the meanest, the most despicable, and the
most hopeless of men; whereas we meet that divine demand with the proud
reply--Is Thy servant a dog? It was with this offended mind that stiff
old Loth-to-stoop at last left off from Emmanuel's presence; he would die
rather than come down to such degrading terms. And as Loth-to-stoop went
away, Emmanuel looked after him, well remembering the terrible night when
He Himself was, not indeed like Loth-to-stoop, nor near like him, but
when His own last stoop was so deep that it made Him cry out, Father,
save Me from this hour! and again, If it be possible let this so
tremendous stoop pass from Me. For a moment Emmanuel Himself was loth to
stoop, but only for a moment. For He soon rose from off His face in a
bath of blood, saying, Not My will, but Thine be done! When Thomas A
Kempis is negotiating with the Loth-to-stoops of his unevangelical day,
we hear him saying to them things like this: 'Jesus Christ was despised
of men, forsaken of His friends and lovers, and in the midst of slanders.
He was willing, under His Father's will, to suffer and to be despised,
and darest thou to complain of any man's usage of thee? Christ, thy
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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