The Holy War by John Bunyan (best way to read an ebook txt) 📖

here? So I went up close, but very softly, to the side of the house to listen, thinking, as indeed it fell out, that there I might light upon some Diabolonian conventicle. So, as I said, I drew nearer and nearer; and when I was got up close to the wall, it was but a while before I perceived that there were outlandish men in the house; but I did well understand their speech, for I have been a traveller myself. Now, hearing such language in such a tottering cottage as this old gentleman dwelt in, I clapped mine ear to a hole in the window, and there heard them talk as followeth. This old Mr. Questioning asked these doubters what they were, whence they came, and what was their business in these parts; and they told him to all these questions, yet he did entertain them. He also asked what numbers there were of them; and they told him ten thousand men. He then asked them, why they made no more manly assault upon Mansoul; and they told him: so he called their general coward, for marching off when he should have fought for his prince. Further, this old Evil-Questioning wished, and I heard him wish, would all the ten thousand doubters were now in Mansoul, and himself at the head of them. He bid them also to take heed and lie quat; for if they were taken they must die, although they had heads of gold.’ Then said the court: ‘Mr. Evil-Questioning, here is now another witness against you, and his testimony is full: 1. He swears that you did receive these men into your house, and that you did nourish them there, though you knew that they were Diabolonians, and the King’s enemies. 2. He swears that you did wish ten thousand of them in Mansoul. 3. He swears that you did give them advice to be quat and close, lest they were taken by the King’s servants. All which manifesteth that thou art a Diabolonian; but hadst thou been a friend to the King, thou wouldst have apprehended them.’

Then said Evil-Questioning: ‘To the first of these I answer, The men that came into mine house were strangers, and I took them in; and is it now become a crime in Mansoul for a man to entertain strangers? That I did also nourish them is true; and why should my charity be blamed? As for the reason why I wished ten thousand of them in Mansoul, I never told it to the witnesses, nor to themselves. I might wish them to be taken, and so my wish might mean well to Mansoul, for aught that any yet knows. I did also bid them take heed that they fell not into the captains’ hands; but that might be because I am unwilling that any man should be slain, and not because I would have the King’s enemies as such escape.’

My Lord Mayor then replied: ‘That though it was a virtue to entertain strangers, yet it was treason to entertain the King’s enemies. And for what else thou hast said, thou dost by words but labour to evade and defer the execution of judgment. But could there be no more proved against thee but that thou art a Diabolonian, thou must for that die the death by the law; but to be a receiver, a nourisher, a countenancer, and a harbourer of others of them, yea, of outlandish Diabolonians, yea, of them that came from far on purpose to cut off and destroy our Mansoul—this must not be borne.’

Then said Evil-Questioning: ‘I see how the game will go: I must die for my name, and for my charity.’ And so he held his peace.

Then they called the outlandish doubters to the bar, and the first of them that was arraigned was the election doubter. So his indictment was read; and because he was an outlandish man, the substance of it was told him by an interpreter; namely, ‘That he was there charged with being an enemy of Emmanuel the Prince, a hater of the town of Mansoul, and an opposer of her most wholesome doctrine.’

Then the judge asked him if he would plead? but he said only this—

That he confessed that he was an election doubter, and that that was the religion that he had ever been brought up in. And said, moreover, ‘If I must die for my religion, I trow, I shall die a martyr, and so I care the less.’

Judge. Then it was replied: ‘To question election, is to overthrow a great doctrine of the gospel, namely, the omnisciency, and power, and will of God; to take away the liberty of God with his creature, to stumble the faith of the town of Mansoul, and to make salvation to depend upon works, and not upon grace. It also belied the word, and disquieted the minds of the men of Mansoul; therefore by the best of laws he must die.’

Then was the vocation doubter called, and set to the bar; and his indictment for substance was the same with the other, only he was particularly charged with denying the calling of Mansoul.

The judge asked him also what he had to say for himself?

So he replied: ‘That he never believed that there was any such thing as a distinct and powerful call of God to Mansoul; otherwise than by the general voice of the word, nor by that neither, otherwise than as it exhorted them to forbear evil, and to do that which is good, and in so doing a promise of happiness is annexed.’

Then said the judge: ‘Thou art a Diabolonian, and hast denied a great part of one of the most experimental truths of the Prince of the town of Mansoul; for he has called, and she has heard a most distinct and powerful call of her Emmanuel, by which she has been quickened, awakened, and possessed with heavenly grace to desire to have communion with her Prince, to serve him, and to do his will, and to look for her happiness merely of his good pleasure. And for thine abhorrence of this good doctrine, thou must die the death.’

Then the grace doubter was called, and his indictment was read and he replied thereto: ‘That though he was of the land of doubting, his father was the offspring of a Pharisee, and lived in good fashion among his neighbours, and that he taught him to believe, and believe it I do, and will, that Mansoul shall never be saved freely by grace.’

Then said the judge: ‘Why, the law of the Prince is plain: 1.

Negatively, “not of works:” 2. Positively, “by grace you are saved.” And thy religion settleth in and upon the works of the flesh; for the works of the law are the works of the flesh.

Besides, in saying as thou hast done, thou hast robbed God of His glory, and given it to a sinful man; thou hast robbed Christ of the necessity of His undertaking, and the sufficiency thereof, and hast given both these to the works of the flesh. Thou hast despised the work of the Holy Ghost, and hast magnified the will of the flesh, and of the legal mind. Thou art a Diabolonian, the son of a Diabolonian; and for thy Diabolonian principles thou must die.’

The court then, having proceeded thus far with them, sent out the jury, who forthwith brought them in guilty of death. Then stood up the Recorder, and addressed himself to the prisoners: ‘You, the prisoners at the bar, you have been here indicted, and proved guilty of high crimes against Emmanuel our Prince, and against the welfare of the famous town of Mansoul, crimes for which you must be put to death, and die ye accordingly.’ So they were sentenced to the death of the cross. The place assigned them for execution, was that where Diabolus drew up his last army against Mansoul; save only that old Evil-Questioning was hanged at the top of Bad Street, just over against his own door.

When the town of Mansoul had thus far rid themselves of their enemies, and of the troublers of their peace, in the next place a strict commandment was given out, that yet my Lord Willbewill should, with Diligence his man, search for, and do his best to apprehend what town Diabolonians were yet left alive in Mansoul.

The names of several of them were, Mr. Fooling, Mr. Let-Good-Slip, Mr. Slavish-Fear, Mr. No-Love, Mr. Mistrust, Mr. Flesh, and Mr.

Sloth. It was also commanded, that he should apprehend Mr. Evil-Questioning’s children, that he left behind him, and that they should demolish his house. The children that he left behind him were these: Mr. Doubt, and he was his eldest son; the next to him was Legal-Life, Unbelief, Wrong-Thoughts-of-Christ, Clip-Promise, Carnal-Sense, Live-by-Feeling, Self-Love. All these he had by one wife, and her name was No-Hope; she was the kinswoman of old Incredulity, for he was her uncle; and when her father, old Dark, was dead, he took her and brought her up, and when she was marriageable, he gave her to this old Evil-Questioning to wife.

Now the Lord Willbewill did put into execution his commission, with great Diligence, his man. He took Fooling in the streets, and hanged him up in Want-wit-Alley, over against his own house. This Fooling was he that would have had the town of Mansoul deliver up Captain Credence into the hands of Diabolus, provided that then he would have withdrawn his force out of the town. He also took Mr.

Let-Good-Slip one day as he was busy in the market, and executed him according to law. Now there was an honest poor man in Mansoul, and his name was Mr. Meditation, one of no great account in the days of apostasy, but now of repute with the best of the town.

This man, therefore, they were willing to prefer. Now Mr. Let-Good-Slip had a great deal of wealth heretofore in Mansoul, and, at Emmanuel’s coming, it was sequestered to the use of the Prince: this, therefore, was now given to Mr. Meditation, to improve for the common good, and after him to his son, Mr. Think-Well; this Think-Well he had by Mrs. Piety his wife, and she was the daughter of Mr. Recorder.

After this, my lord apprehended Clip-Promise: now because he was a notorious villain, for by his doings much of the King’s coin was abused, therefore he was made a public example. He was arraigned and judged to be first set in the pillory, then to be whipped by all the children and servants in Mansoul, and then to be hanged till he was dead. Some may wonder at the severity of this man’s punishment; but those that are honest traders in Mansoul, are sensible of the great abuse that one clipper of promises in little time may do to the town of Mansoul. And truly my judgment is, that all those of his name and life should be served even as he.

He also apprehended Carnal-Sense, and put him in hold; but how it came about, I cannot tell, but he brake prison, and made his escape: yea, and the bold villain will not yet quit the town, but lurks in the Diabolonian dens a days, and haunts like a ghost honest men’s houses a nights. Wherefore, there was a proclamation set up in the marketplace in Mansoul, signifying that whosoever could discover Carnal-Sense, and apprehend him and slay him, should be admitted daily to the Prince’s table, and should be made keeper of the treasure of Mansoul. Many, therefore, did bend themselves to do this thing, but take him and slay him they could not, though often he was discovered.

But my lord took Mr. Wrong-Thoughts-of-Christ, and put him in prison, and he died there; though it was long