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cry, O wretched man! So I went on my way up the hill.3

Now, when I had got about half the way up, I looked behind me, and saw one coming after me, swift as the wind: so he overtook me just about the place where the settle stands.

Just there, said Christian, did I sit down to rest me; but, being overcome with sleep, I there lost this Roll out of my bosom.

Faith. But, good brother, hear me out. So soon as the Man overtook me, he was but a word and a blow; for down he knocked me, and laid me for

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dead. But, when I was a little come to myself again, I asked him wherefore he served me so? He said, because of my secret inclining to Adam the First; and with that he struck me another deadly blow on

3 Rom. vii. 24.

the breast, and beat me down backward: so I lay at his foot as dead as before. When I came to myself again, I cried, have mercy; but he said, I know not how to shew mercy; and with that he knocked me down again. He had doubtless made an end of me, but that one came by, and bid him forbear.

Chr. Who was that that bid him forbear.

Faith. I did not know Him at first; but, as he went by, I perceived the holes in his hands and in his sides; then I concluded that He was our Lord.

Chr. That man that overtook you was THE THUNDER Moses. He spareth none, neither knoweth or moses. he how to shew mercy to those that transgress his Law.

Faith. I know it very well: it was not the first time that he has met with me. "Twas he that came to me when I dwelt securely at home, and that told me he would burn my house over my head, if I staid there.

Chr. But did you not see the House that stood there on the top of the hill, on the side of which Moses met you?

Faith. Yes, and the Lions too, before I came at it; but for the Lions, I think they were asleep, for it was about noon; and because I had so much of the day before me, I passed by the porter, and came down the hill.

Chr. He told me indeed that he saw you go by; but I wish that you had called at the house; for they would have shewed you so many rarities, that you would scarce have forgot them to the day of your death. But pray tell me, did you meet nobody in the Valley of Humility?

FAITHFUL ASSAULT

Faith. Yes, I met with one DisED BY DISCONTENT. content, who would willingly have persuaded me to go back again with him; his reason was, for that Valley was altogether without Honour. He told me, moreover, that to go there was to disoblige all my friends, as Pride, Arrogancy, Self-conceit, Worldly-glory, with others, who he knew, as he said, would be very much offended, if I made such a fool of myself as to wade through this valley.

Chr. Well, and how did you answer him? FAITHFUL'S ANSWER Faith. I told him, That although

TO DISCONTENT.

all these that he named might claim a kindred of me, and that rightly (for indeed they were my relations according to the flesh), yet, since I became a Pilgrim, they have disowned me, and I also have rejected them; and therefore they were to me now no more than if they had never been of my lineage. I told him, moreover, that, as to this Valley, he had quite misrepresented the thing; for," before honour is humility, and a haughty spirit before a fall.” Therefore, said I, I had rather go through this Valley to the honour that was so accounted by the wisest, than choose that which he esteemed most worthy of our affections.

Chr. Met you with nothing else in that valley?

HE IS ASSAULT

Faith. Yes, I met with Shame; but ED BY SHAME. of all the men that I met with on my pilgrimage, he, I think, bears the wrong name. The other would be said Nay after a little argumentation, and somewhat else; but this bold-faced Shame would never have done.

Chr. Why, what did he say to you?

Faith. What! why, he objected against religion itself; he said it was a pitiful, low, sneaking business for a man to mind religion: he said that a tender conscience was an unmanly thing; and that for a man to watch over his words and ways, so as to tie up himself from that hectoring liberty that the brave spirits of the times accustom themselves unto, would make him the ridicule of the times. He objected also, that but few of the mighty, rich, or wise, were ever of my opinion; nor any of them neither, before they were persuaded to be fools, and to be of a voluntary fondness to venture the loss of all, for nobody else knows what. He, moreover, objected the base and low estate and condition of those that were chiefly the Pilgrims of the times in which they lived; also their ignorance and want of understanding in all natural science. Yea, he did hold me to it at that rate also about a great many more things than here I relate; as, that it was a shame to sit whining and mourning under a sermon, and a shame to come sighing and groaning home; that it was a shame to ask my neighbour forgiveness for petty faults, or to make restitution where I have taken from any. He said also, that religion made a man grow strange to the great, because of a few vices (which he called by finer names), and made him own and respect the base, because of the same religious fraternity: and is not this, said he, a shame?

Chr. And what did you say to him?

Faith. Say! I could not tell what to say at first. Yea, he put me so to it, that my blood came up in my 41 Cor. i. 26. iii. 18. Phil. iii. 7. 9. John, vii. 48.

face even this Shame fetched it up, and had almost beat me quite off. But at last I began to consider, that that which is highly esteemed among men is had in abomination with God. And I thought, again, this Shame tells me what men are; but it tells me nothing what God, or the word of God, is. And I thought, moreover, that at the day of doom we shall not be doomed to death or life, according to the hectoring spirits of the world, but according to the wisdom and law of the Highest. Therefore, thought I, what God says is best, though all the men in the world are against it. Seeing, then, that God prefers his religion; seeing God prefers a tender conscience; seeing they that make themselves fools for the Kingdom of Heaven are wisest, and that the poor man that loveth Christ is richer than the greatest man in the world that hates him; Shame, depart, thou art an enemy to my salvation: shall I entertain thee against my sovereign Lord? how then shall I look him in the face at his coming 26 Should I now be ashamed of his ways and servants, how can I expect the blessing? But indeed this Shame was a bold villain; I could scarcely shake him out of my company; yea, he would be haunting of me, and continually whispering me in the ear, with some one or other of the infirmities that attend religion; but at last I told him, that it was but in vain to attempt further in this business; for those things that he disdained, in those did I see most glory; and so at last I got past this importunate one. And when I had shaken him off, then I began to sing,

5 Luke, xvi. 15. 6 Mark, viii. 38.

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