Jonathan Edwards.

2. 'Now Mr. God's-peace, the new Governor of Mansoul, was not a native
of the town; he came down with his Prince from the court above.' 'He was
not a native'--let that attribute of his be written in letters of gold on
every gate and door and wall within his jurisdiction. When you need the
governor and would seek him at any time or in any place in all the town
and cannot find him, recollect yourself where he came from: he may have
returned thither again. John Bunyan has couched his deepest instruction
to you in that single sentence in which he says, 'Mr. God's-peace was not
a native of the town.' John Bunyan has gathered up many gospel
Scriptures into that single allegorical sentence. He has made many old
and familiar passages fresh and full of life again in that one
metaphorical sentence. It is the work of genius to set forth the wont
and the well known in a clear, simple, and at the same time surprising,
light like that. There is a peace that is native and natural to the town
of Mansoul, and to understand that peace, its nature, its grounds, its
extent, and its range, is most important to the theologian and to the
saint. But to understand the peace of God, that supreme peace, the peace
that passeth all understanding,--that is the highest triumph of the
theologian and the highest wisdom of the saint. The prophets and the
psalmists of the Old Testament are all full of the peace that God gave to
His people Israel. My peace I give unto you, says our Lord also. Paul
also has taken up that peace that comes to us through the blood of
Christ, and has made it his grand message to us and to all sinful and sin-
disquieted men. And John Bunyan has shown how sure and true a successor
of the apostles of Christ he is, just in his portrait of this
sweet-natured gentleman who was not a native of Mansoul, but who came
from that same court from which Emmanuel Himself came. And it is just
this outlandishness of this sweet-natured gentleman; it is just this
heavenly origin and divine extraction of his that makes him sometimes and
in some things to surpass all earthly understanding. 'I am coming some
day soon,' said a divinity student to me the other Sabbath night, 'to
have you explain and clear up the atonement to me.' 'I shall be glad to
see you,' I said, 'but not on that errand.' No. Paul himself could not
do it. Paul said that the atonement and the peace of it passed all his
understanding. And John