Call To Worship August 13 2017
Mr. Help, said, “It is not the pleasure of the King that this place should remain so bad (Isa. 35:3-4); his labourers, also, have, by the directions of his Majesty’s surveyors, been, for above these sixteen hundred years, employed about this patch of ground, if, perhaps, it might have been mended; yea, and to my knowledge, said he, here have been swallowed up at least twenty thousand cart-loads; yea, millions of wholesome instructions, that have, at all seasons, been brought from all places of the King’s dominions, and they that can tell, say, they are the best materials to make good ground of the place, if so be it might have been mended; but it is the Slough of Despond still; and so will be when they have done what they can…True, there are, by the direction of the Lawgiver, certain good and substantial steps, placed even through the very midst of this slough; but at such time as this place doth much spew out its filth, as it doth against change of weather, these steps are hardly seen; or if they be, men, through the dizziness of their heads, step besides, and then they are bemired to purpose, notwithstanding the steps be there; but the ground is good, when they are once got in at the gate (1Sa 12:23).” John Bunyan, Pilgrim’s Progress,
http://www.chapellibrary.org/files/8213/7643/3312/ppro.pdf