wherefore he was come, and why he roused the town of Mansoul with so unusual a sound? Diabolus then, as if he had been a lamb, began his oration, and said, "Gentlemen of the famous town of Mansoul, I am, as you may perceive, no far dweller from you, but near, and one that is bound by the King to do you my homage, and what service I can; wherefore, that I may be faithful to myself and to you, I have somewhat of concern to impart unto you; wherefore.grant me your audience, and hear me patiently.And, first, I will assure you, it is not myself but you, not mine but your advantage that I seek by what I now do; as will full well be made manifest, by that I have opened my mind to you. For, Gentlemen, I am (to tell you the truth) come to shew you how you may obtain great and ample deliverance from a bondage that unawares to yourselves you are captivated and enslaved under." At this the town of Mansoul began to prick up it's ears. "And what is it, pray? what is it?" thought they. And he said, "I have something to say to you concerning your King, concerning his law, and also touching yourselves. Touching your King, I know he is great and potent: but yet, all that he has said to you is neither true, nor yet for your advantage.* 1. It is not true; for that wherewith he hath hitherto awed you, shall not come to pass, though you do the thing he hath forbidden. But if there was danger, what a slavery * Our Saviour's remark is here verified, that Satan is a liar, and the father of lies, John viii. 44. for, in the beginning of the temptation, he gives the God of truth the lie, by denying that his threatened punishment on disobedience would ensue: and artfully insinuated, that the prohibition was only intended to with-hold some real good from the soul. Alas! our too credulous ancestors were soon fatally convinced, that, by their transgression of the divine command, they had lost all temporal and spiritual good, and gained only evil, and eternal death. slavery it is to live always in fear of the greatest of punishments, for doing so small and trivial a thing as eating a little fruit is! 2. Touching his laws, this I say, further, they are both unreasonable, intricate, and intolerable. Unreasonable, as was hinted before, for that the punishment is not proportioned to the offence: there is a great difference and disproportion betwixt the life and an apple ; yet the one must go for the other, by the law of your Shaddai. But it is also intricate, in that he saith, first, you may eat of all; and yet, after, forbids the eating of one. And then, in the last place, it must needs be intolerable; forasmuch as that fruit, which you are forbidden to eat of (if you are forbidden any,) is that, and that alone, which is able, by your eating, to minister you a good as yet unknown by you. This is manifest by the very name of the tree, it is called the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil: and have you that knowledge as yet? No, no; nor can you conceive how good, how pleasant, and how much to be desired to make one wise, it is, so long as you stand by your King's commandment. Why should you be holden in ignorance and blindness? Why should you not be enlarged in knowledge and understanding? And now, O ye inhabitants of the famous town of Mansoul, to speak more particularly to yourselves, ye are not a free people :* ye are kept both in bondage and slavery, and that by a grievous *Thus the base and false reasoning of Satan infused pride and a desire of independence into the breast of Eve: whereas, on the contrary, the beneficent Creator, knowing that the transgression of his command could only impart the knowledge that they should thereby become the subjects of sin and misery, graciously warned them by the threatened penalty. Hence we see, and feel too, the dire effects of not implicitly obeying the precept issued by Goodness, itself, and the dreadful consequences of reasoning with the temptation. Reader, note well, that all the commands and threatenings of God, if duly attended to, will be found, in the end, to be tokens of love and kindness to thy too impatient and unstable soul. grievous threat, no reason being annexed, but, So I will have it, so it shall be. And is it not grievous to think on, that that very thing you are forbidden to do, might you but do it, would yield you both wisdom and honour for then your eyes will be opened, and you shall be as gods. Now, since this is thus, quoth he, can you be kept by any prince in more slavery, and in greater bondage, than you are under this day? You are made underlings, and are wrapt up in inconveniences, as I have well made appear: for what bondage greater than to be kept in blindness? Will not reason tell you, that it is better to have eyes, than to be without them? and that to be at liberty, is better than to be shut up in a dark and stinking cave?" And just now, while Diabolus was speaking these words to Mansoul, Tisiphone shot at captain Resistance, where he stood on the gate, and mortally wounded him in the head so that he, to the amazement of the townsmen, and the encouragement of Diabolus, fell down dead, quite over the wall. Now when captain Resistance was dead, (and he was the only man of war in the town,) poor Mansoul was wholly left naked of courage, nor had she now any heart to resist: but this was as the devil would have. Then stood forth that HE, Mr. Ill-pause, that Diabolus brought with him, who was his orator, and he addressed himself to speak to the town of Mansoul: the tenor of whose speech here follows: Mr. Ill-pause. Gentlemen, quoth he, it is my master's happiness, that he has this day a quiet and teachable auditory;* and it is hoped by us, that we shall Beware of that white and bewitching devil, flattery and hypocrisy to the sincere and unsuspecting sinner a greater enemy cannot exist: for by that means he is filled with pride, vain confidence, and a conceit of his own inherent righteousness, and is lost for ever. shall prevail with you not to cast off good advice: my master has a very great love for you; and although he very well knows that he runs the hazard of the anger of king Shaddai, yet love to you will make him do more than that. Nor doth there need that a word more should be spoken to confirm for truth what he hath said; there is not a word but carries with itself evidence in its bowels; the very name of the tree may put an end to all controversy in this matter. I therefore at this time shall only add this advice to you, under and by the leave of my lord (and with that he made Diabolus a very low congee :) consider his words; look on the tree, and the promising fruit thereof; remember also, that yet you know but little, and that this is the way to know more; and if your reason be not conquered to accept of such good counsel, you are not the men I took you to be. But when the townsfolk saw "that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eye, and a tree to be desired to make one wise," they did as old Illpause advised, they took and did eat thereof. Now this I should have told you before, that even then, when this Ill-pause was making this speech to the townsmen, my lord Innocency (whether by a shot from the camp of the giant, or from some qualm that suddenly took him, or whether by the stinking breath of that treacherous villain, old Ill-pause, for so I am most apt to think) sunk down in the place where he stood, nor could he be brought to life again.* Thus these two brave men died; brave men I call them, for they were the beauty and glory of Mansoul, so long as they lived therein: nor did there now remain any more a noble spirit in Mansoul; they all fell down and yielded obedience to Diabolus, * When disbelief of the truth of God's word took place in the human mind, there was an end of man's innocence and righteousness: guilt and condemnation supervened, with their attendant sin. The understanding and judgment became immediately darkened and depraved; wrong principles produced corrupt practices, and defiled the whole mass. D Diabolus, and became his slaves and vassals, as you shall hear. Now these being dead, what do the rest of the townsfolk, but as men that had found a fool's paradise, they presently, as afore was hinted, fell to prove the truth of the giant's words: and first, they did as Ill-pause had taught them, they looked, they considered, they were taken with the forbidden fruit, "they took thereof, and did eat;" and, having eaten, they became immediately drunken therewith; so they opened the gates, both Eargate and Eye gate, and let in Diabolus with all his bands, quite forgetting their good Shaddai, his law, and the judgment that he had annexed with solemn threatening to the breach thereof.* Diabolus, having now obtained entrance in at the gates of the town, marches up to the middle thereof, to make his conquest as sure as he could; and finding, by this time, the affections of the people warmly inclining to him, he, thinking it was best striking while the iron is hot, made this further deceivable speech un to * Thus fell man, by trangression, from being the servant and favourite of the ever-blessed God, into a state of wretchedness, and became the slave of his own lust: "O what a fall! a steep from high to low ! He look'd for comfort-but no gleam was there!" BROOKE. Thus lust is the offspring of sin, and sin begetteth death. By one sin, death entered into the world, with all its train of complicated miseries and woes; "Earth felt the wound; and nature, from her seat, That all was lost" MILTON. From the time that Adam sinned as a public person temporal and eternal ruin were entailed on him and his decendants: the corrupt root infected every part of the tree; the whole man became earthly, sensual, devilish; and, having degenerated into a state of opposition and enmity to God," the thoughts and imaginations of his heart were only evil continually," Gen. v. 50. |