# The Life and Death of Mr. Badman



## JM (Jan 16, 2008)

"Hence wicked men's hope is said to die, not before, but with them; they give up the ghost together. And thus did Mr. Badman. His sins and his hope went with him to the gate, but there his hope left him, because he died there; but his sins went in with him, to be a worm to gnaw him in conscience for ever and ever.

The opinion, therefore of the common people concerning this kind of dying is frivolous and vain; for Mr. Badman died like a lamb, or, as they call it, like a chrisom-child,[note] quietly and without fear. I speak not this with reference to the struggling of nature with death, but as to the struggling of the conscience with the judgment of God. I know that nature will struggle with death. I have seen a dog and sheep die hardly. And thus may a wicked man do, because there is an antipathy betwixt nature and death. But even while, even then, when death and nature are struggling for mastery, the soul, the conscience, may be as besotted, as benumbed, as senseless and ignorant of its miserable state, as the block or bed on which the sick lies. And thus they may die like a chrisom-child in show, but indeed like one who by the judgment of God is bound over to eternal damnation; and that also by the same judgment is kept from seeing what they are, and whither they are going, till they plunge down among the flames."

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Chrisom is a consecrated unguent, or oil, used in the baptism of infants in the Romish Church. It is prepared with great ceremony on Holy Thursday. A linen cloth anointed with this oil, called a chrisom cloth, is laid upon the baby's face. If it dies within a month after these ceremonies, it was called a chrisom child. These incantations and charms are supposed to have power to save its soul, and ease the pains of death. Bishop Jeremy Taylor mentions the phantasms that make a chrisom child to smile at death. Holy Dying, chap. i., sect. 2.—Ed.









> The name of John Bunyan is forever linked with the town of Bedford. Bunyan was born in 1628 just outside the village of Elstow, on the outskirts of modern Bedford. His precise birth site is unknown, though it seems likely he was born in a now lost cottage near two fields called \"Further Bunyans\" and \"Bunyans\". A plaque on the supposed site of the cottage was erected in 1951.
> 
> He was the son of a tinker, and may well have helped his father in that occupation during his youth. Bunyan reported on his own childhood that he loved to play \"tip-cat\", a form of rounders, on the village green in Elstow.
> 
> ...



Useful Links:

John Bunyan's Works Online
Timeline
DVD
C. H. Spurgeon on Bunyan
A sermon by Piper: Suffering and Service in the Life of John Bunyan
Pilgrims Progress, collectors edition
Complete Works in 3 vol.

Click image.




Peace,

j


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## MrMerlin777 (Jan 16, 2008)

Good post.

Thanks for posting it.


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