III. Whether they had best shew their inclinations,

or the design of their coming to Mansoul, or no?
This also was answered in the negative, because of the weight that was in their former reasons, to wit, for that Mansoul were a strong people, a strong people in a strong town; whose wall and gates were impregnable (to say nothing of their castles), nor can they by any means be won but by their own consent. Besides, said Legion, (for he gave answer to this,) a discovery of our intentions may make them send to their King for aid ; and if that be done, I know what time of the day it will be with us : there- fore let us assault them in all pretended fairness, cover- T . *, . ing our intentions with all manner of
egion arises j.^ flatterjes? delusive words : feigning cissvnu a.ion things that will never be, and promising and era/ . ^^ ^ tjiem w]|£c|j tney shall never
find ; this is the way to win Mansoul, and to make them willingly open their gates to us ; yea, and desire us also to come in to them.
And the reason why I think that this project will do, is, because the people of Mansoul are now every one simple and innocent ; all honest and true ; nor do they as yet know what it is to be assaulted with fraud, guile, and hypocrisy. They are strangers to lying and dissembling lips; wherefore we cannot, if thus we be disguised, by them at all be discerned ; our lies shall go for true say- ings, and our dissimulation for upright dealings. What we promise them, they will in that believe us ; es- pecially if in all our lies and feigned words we pretend great love to them, and that our design is only thei'- ad- vantage and honor. Now there was not one bit of a reply against this, for it went as current down as doth the water
21
down a steep descent : wherefore they go to consider of the last proposal, which was,
IV* Whether they had not best to give out orders lo some of their company, to shoot some one or more of the principal of the townsmen ; if they judge that their cause might be promoted thereby ?
This was carried in the affirmative , and the man that was designed by this stratagem to be destroyed, was one Of C tita'j ' ^es^stance' otherwise called Captain
J . , Resistance, and a great man in Mansoul
Resistance. . . tf> . ^V» • r> ,
this Captain Resistance was; and a man
that the giant Diabolus, and his band, more feared, than they feared the whole town of Mansoul besides. Now who should be the actor to do the murder ; that was the next : and they appointed one Tisiphone, a fury of the lake, to do it.
Thus they having ended the council of war, rose up,
77 * It /•ana- essay£d to d° as they had determined :*
, iert °{ they marched towards Mansoul, but all in
l heir council. J . ., , 1 ...
a manner invisible, save only one ; nor did
he approach the town in his own likeness, but under the shape and in the body of the dragon.
So they drew up, and sat down before Ear-gate ; foE that was the place of hearing for all without the town, ~. . . as Eye-gate was the place of perception.
1(1 °hUS h ^°» as * sa^' he came u? w*tn h*s tram t0 marc esup, +^e gat_e, and laid his ambuscade for Captain tot fie town. Res;stance) within bowshot cf the town. This done, the giant ascended up close to the gate, and called to the town of Mansoul for audience. Nor took he any with him but one Ill-pause, who was his orator in all difficult matters. Now, as I said, he being come up to the gate (as the manner of those times was) sound-
* The enemies of our souls are, in this council, represented as full of all Bubtilty, agreeable to the scripture account ; for satan is called " the deceiver, who deceiveth the whole world ;" believers are said to be acquainted with " his devices," and are exhorted to " watch and pray, lest they enter into temptation/'
It was justly observed, " that none could enter the soul without its own consent." Satan may tempt but cannot force the soul to sin : but Ci every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed," James i. 4. We are therefore commanded . to resist the devil, that he may fly from us. To destroy this neces- sary resistance, therefore, must be a great point with the enemy.
22
ed his trumpet for audience ; at which the chief of the
rr,. 7 . - town of Mansoul, such as my Lord Inno- r/ie lords of , T im/u, u •» i * t i
n/r , / cent, my Lora will-be-will,* myLord-may-
, 1 or, Mr. Recorder,! aim Captain Resistance, came down to the wall, to see who was there, and what was the matter. And my Lord Will-be- will, when he looked over, and saw who stood at the gate, demanded what he was, and 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 ~. , 7 , oration, and said, » Gentlemen of the fa- mo us town of Mansoul, I am, as you may perceive, no far dweller Irom 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 faith- ful to myself and to you, I have somewhat of concern to impart unto you : wherefore grant me your audiene 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 en- ,, . slaved under." At this the town cf Mansoul
rf began to prick up its ears. " And what is it, engaged. pray ? w{iat }s it?>» thought they. And he said, " I have something to say to you concerning 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 Uiaooius s sua- • r r t
., V . neither true, nor yet for vour advantage.
Ulty made ufi * ft ^ ^ ^ . ^ ^ whcrewith hc
CJ Ul hath hitherto awed you, shall not come
to pass, though you do the thing he hath forbidden. But
* My Lord Will-be-iviU, signifies that power of the mind called the will, by which we determine for or against an action.
f The Recorder is Conscience. By this faculty we judge of lion as good or bad, according to the light we enjoy, wbi the law of nature only, or of the Written law, Rom. ii. 1.5. Con- science records our actions ; and in the great day of judgment, the book of conscience is one of those which shall be opened.
23
if there was danger, what a slavery it is to live always in fear of the greatest of punishmcifts, for doing so small and trivial a thing as eating a little fruit id! 2. Touching his laws, this I say, further, they arc 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 dispropor- tion 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 saiih, first you may eat of all : and yet, after, forbids the eating of one. And then, in the last
False reasoning ),lace' U ,must, «* be ""plan* '
h Db'l iora-i much as that mm, which you are
forbidden to eat of (if you are forbidden any) is that, and that alone, which is able, by your eat- ing, to minister you a good as yet unknown by you. This is manifest by the very name of the tree, it is call- ed The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil : and have you that knowledge as yet ? No, no ; nor can you con- ceive how good, how pleasant, and how much to be de- sired to make one wise, it is, so long as you stand by your King's commandment. Why should you be hoiden in ignorance and blindness ? Why should you not be en- larged in knowledge and understanding ? And nov/, O ye inhabitants of the famous town of Mansoul, to speak more particularly to yourselves, ye are net a free people :
TT , . , ye are kept both in bondage and slavery,
He holds out J , '.. . '"I • .. ° . /J
- . ... and that by a grievous threat, no reason
aja se u y. 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 doit, would yield you both wisdom and honor ? 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 inconveniencies, as I have weil made appear : for what bondage greater, than to be kept in blindness ? WTill not reason tell you, that it is better to have eyes, than to be without them ? and that to be at liberty, is bet- ter than to be shut up in a dark and stinking cave ?"*
* This artful speech of Diabolus is founded upon the scriptural
24
And just now, while Diabolus was speaking these C it ' R worc^s to Mansoul, Tisiphone shot at Cap-
p am e- ta-r j^esistance where he stood on the e:ate, distance a lam* , , ,, i j i_« • i i »
1 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.t Now when Captain Resistance was dead (and
he was the only man of war in the town) poor Mansoul
was wholly left naked cf courage, nor had she now any
heart to resist: but this was as the devil would have it.
Then steed forth that lie, 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.
Ill-Pause. '; Gentlemen/' quoth he, "it is my mas-
, r ,,, . ter's happiness, that he has this day aqui-
1 ' et and teachable auditorv ; and it is hop-
, Weec/l t(l edby us, that we shall prevail with you the town of . \ ' . «. ii- \
n/r , J not to cast oft ^ood advice ; my master
has a very great love tor you ; and altho
he very well knows that he runs the hazard of the anger
of KingShaddai, 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 bdw-
els ; 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
account of the first temptation, Gen. iii. 1 — 4. " And the serpent said unto the woman, yea, hath God said, ye shall not eat," &c. In this passage the prohibition is represented as too strict, as in- tended to abridge their happiness, and that disobedience would be attended with no danger, but rather with great advantage. The devil, the lather of lies, finding this method, so successful, still persists in it. God says — Sinner, thou shalt die ; Satan says — thou shalt not die ; which of these ought we to believe j
f Resistance to the suggestions of Satan failed in our first moth- er. She parleyed with the temptation which she ought to have re- sisted and rejected with abhorrence. She paused ; and it was an ill-pause. There was no occasion to pause or ponder on what the devil had said, for he had given the lie to the God of truth. What- ever contradicts the word of God should be instantly resisted as diabolical.
25
Q congee) : consider his words ; look on
strong tempt. thc ^^ and {bc promising fruit lhere.
of ; remember also, that yet you know
but little, and 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
towns-folk saw that the tree was good for food, and that
it was pleasant to the eye, and a tree to be desired to
make onfTwise, they did as old Ill-pause advised, they
took and did eat thereof. Now this I should have told
you before, that even then, when this Ill-pause was mak-
nr-. r it ing this speech to the townsmen, my
My Lord Inno- T jt ^i«.uu . . r
y , , . Lord Innocency (whether by a shot from cency s death. , r v . . Jc
the camp ol the giant, or trom some
qualm that suddenly took him, or whether by the stink- ing 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 yield- ed obedience to Diabolus, and became his slaves and vas- sajs, as you shall hear.
Now these being dead, what do the rest of the towns-
m, . „ . folk, but as men that had found a fool's The town taken ,• „, „, r
, r». , , . paradise, they presently, as afore was
by Diabolus and f. . , F ,, . J r . v *i r a .7 , , hmteu, tell to prove the truth ot the gi-
ant'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 there-
* The very breath of temptation, received and entertained for a single moment, destroyed primitive innocence. When the lies of satan were admitted, unbelief entered, and innocence died. " Thou shalt surely die," said Jehovah. In a spiritual sense, man d; ' deed die immediately. He died spiritually ; he died to God. ' conceived, and brought forth sin, and sin when finished, brought forth death," Jam. i. 5. By this one fatal act of disobedience, the whole world was ruined. " By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin." " By one man's disobedience many were made sinners." " By the offence of one, judgment came upon all men to condemnation." Rom. v. 18, 19.
26
of, and did eat;"* and, having eaten, they became imme- diately drunken therewith ; so they opened the gates, both Ear-gate 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.
CHAP. II.
Diabolus takes possession of the Castle... .Mr. Understand' ing, the Lord Mayor, is deposed, and a Wall built be* fore his House to darken it. ...Mr. Conscience, the Re- corder's displaced... My Lord Will-be-will is appointed Governor.. ..The Image of Shaddai defaced. ...rf new Corporation chosen^ and Forts erected*
DIABOLUS, having now obtained entrance in at the gates of the town5marchesupto 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 unto them, saying, " Alas, my poor Mansoul ! I have done thee in- deed this service, as to promote thee to honor, and to greaten thy liberty ; but alas ! alas ! poor Mansoul, thou wantestnow one to defend thee ; for assure thyself, when Shaddai shall hear what is done, he will come ; for sor- ry will he be that thou hast broken his bonds, and cast his cords away from thee. What wilt thou do ? Wilt thou, after enlargement, suffer thy privileges to be invaded and taken away ? or what wilt thou resolve with thy- self?" Then they ail with one consent said to thisbram-
* Milton finely represents the fatal act : " So saying, her rash hand in evil hour " Forth reaching to the fruit, she pluck'd, she eat : " Earth felt the wound, and nature from her seat, *•' Sighing through all her works, gave signs of woe " That all was lost."