Pictures from Pilgrim's Progress Vanity Fair Then I saw in my dream that when they got out of the wilderness they presently saw a town before them, and the name of the town is Vanity, and at the town there is a fair kept, called Vanity Fair. It is kept all the year long. It bears the name of Vanity Fair because the town where it is kept is lighter than vanity, and also because all there that is sold or that comes there is vanity. As it is the saying of the wise, all that comes is vanity. Ecclesiastes 11 verse 8. The happiest state of a Christian is the holiest state. If there is most heat nearest to the sun, so there is most happiness nearest to Christ. No Christian enjoys comfort when his eyes are fixed on vanity. I do not blame ungodly men for rushing to their pleasures. Let them have their fill. That is all they have to enjoy. But Christians must seek their delights in a higher sphere than the insipid frivolities of the world. Vain pursuits are dangerous to renewed souls. Now, as I said, the way to the celestial city lies just through this town, where this lusty fair is kept, and he that would go to the city and yet not go through this town must needs go out of the world. 1 Corinthians 5 verse 10. When weary of the strife and sin that meet you on every hand, consider that all saints have endured the same trial. They were not carried on beds of doubt to heaven, and you must not expect to travel more easily than they. They had to hazard their lives unto the death in the high places of the field. And you will not be crowned till you also have endured hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. Therefore, stand fast in the faith. Quit your like men. Be strong. Now these pilgrims, as I said, must needs go through this fair. Well, so they did. But behold, even as they entered into the fair, all the people in the fair were moved, and the town itself as it were in a hubbub about them. and that for several reasons. First, the pilgrims were clothed with such a kind of raiment as was diverse from the raiment of any that traded in that fair. The people therefore of the fair made a great gazing upon them. Some said they were fools. Some, they were bedlams, and some they were outlandish men. 1 Corinthians 4 verse 9. Secondly, as they wondered at their apparel, so did they likewise at their speech, for few could understand what they said. They naturally spoke the language of Canaan. But they that kept the fair were the men of this world, so that from one end of the fair to the other they seemed barbarians each to the others. If you follow Christ fully you will be sure to be called by some ill name or other. They will say how singular you are. If you become a true Christian you will soon be a marked man. They will say how odd he is. How singular she is! They will think that we try to make ourselves remarkable when in fact we are only conscientious. In our endeavoring to obey the will of God, they will say, why are you old-fashioned? You believe the same old things that they used to believe in Oliver Cromwell's day, those old Puritan doctrines. They laugh at our faith and assert that we have lost our liberty. This fair is no new erected business, but a thing of ancient standing. I will show you the original of it. Almost 5,000 years ago, there were pilgrims walking to the Celestial City, as these two honest persons are. In Piesobab, Apollyon and Legion, with their companions, perceiving by the path that the pilgrims made, did their way to the city lay through this town of vanity. They contrive here to set up a fair, a fair wherein shall be sold all sorts of vanity. and that it should last all the year long. Therefore it is fair are all such merchandise sold as houses, lands, trades, places, honors, preferments, titles, countries, kingdoms, lusts, pleasures, and delights of all sorts, as harlots, wives, husbands, children, masters, servants, lives, blood, bodies, souls, silver, gold, pearls, precious stones, and what not. There are different kinds of vanity, the cap and bells of the fool, the mirth of the world, the dance, the harp, and the cup of the dissolute. All these men know to be vanities. They wear upon their forefront their proper name and title. far more treacherous are those equally vain things, deceivers of this world, in the deceitfulness of riches. A man may follow vanity as truly in the counting-house as in the theatre, if he be spending his life in amassing wealth. He passes his days in a vain show. Unless we follow Christ and make our God the great object of life, we only differ in appearance from the most frivolous. It is the sweetness of sin that makes it the more dangerous. Satan never sells his poisons naked. He always kills them before he vends them to wear of pleasures. Many of them are innocent and healthful, but many are destructive. It is said that where the most beautiful cactus grow, there the most venomous serpents lurk. It is so with sin. Your fairest pleasures will harbor your grossest sins. Take care. Cleopatra's snake was introduced in a basket of flowers. Satan offers to the drunkard the sweetness of the intoxicating cup, gives to each of us the offer of our peculiar joy. He tickles us with pleasure, that he may lay hold of us. And, moreover, at this fair there are all times to be seen. Jugglings, cheats, games, plays, fools, apes, knaves and rogues, and that of every kind, here to be seen too, and that for nothing, thefts, murders, adulteries, false swears, and that of a blood-red color. Benny forever all thought of indulging the flesh if he would live in the power of your risen Lord. It were ill that a man who is alive in Christ should dwell in the corruption of sin. What do you seek? To living among the dead, said the angel to Magdalene. Should the living dwell in a sepulchre? Should divine life be immured in a tarnal house of fleshly lust? How can we partake of the cup of the Lord and yet drink the cup of Belial? Surely, believer, from open lusts and sins you are delivered. You also escape from the more secret and elusive lime twigs of the satanic fowler. Have you come forth from the lust of pride? Have you escaped from slothfulness? Have you clean escaped from carnal security? Are you seeking day by day to live above worldliness, the pride of life, and the ensnaring vice of avarice? Follow after holiness, it is a Christian's crown and glory. Thirdly, but that which did not a little amuse the merchandisers was that these pilgrims sat very light by all their wares. They did not care so much as to look upon them, and if they called upon them to buy, they would put their fingers in their ears and cry, turn away mine eyes from beholding vanity. and look upwards signifying that their trade and traffic was in heaven. One chance mockingly. beholding the carriage of the men to say to them, What will you buy? But they, looking gravely upon him, said, We buy the truth. The common religion of the day is a mingle-mingle of Christ and Belial. If God be God, serve Him. If Baal be God, serve Him. There can be no alliance between the two. Jehovah and Baal can never be friends. You cannot serve God and Mammon. No man can serve two masters. All attempts at compromise and manners of truth and purity are founded on falsehood. May God save us from such hateful double-mindedness. You must have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them. Walk worthy of your high calling and dignity. Remember, O Christian, that you are a son of the King of Kings. Therefore keep yourself unspotted from the world. Do not soil the fingers which are soon to sweep celestial strings. Let not those eyes become the windows of lust which are soon to see the King in his beauty. Let not those feet be defiled in my replaces which are soon to walk the golden streets. Let not those hearts be filled with pride and bitterness which are here long to be filled with heaven and to overflow with ecstatic joy. At that there was an occasion taken to despise them in the moor, some mocking, some taunting, some speaking reproachfully. and some calling upon the others to smite them. And lot of things came to a hubbub, and great stirring affair, and so much at all order was confounded. Now was the word presently brought to the great one of the fair, who quickly came down and deputed some of his most trusty friends to take those men into examination. about whom the affair was almost overturned. So the men were brought to examination, and they sat upon the mass whence they came, where they went, and what did they do there in such an unusual garb. The men told them that they were pilgrims and strangers in the world, and that they were going to their own country, which was a heavenly Jerusalem. and that they had given no occasion to the men of the town, nor yet to the merchandisers, thus to abuse them, and to let them in their journey except it was for that when one asked them what they would buy they said they would buy the truth. But they that were appointed to examine them did not believe them to be any other than bedlams and mad. Hell such as came to put all things into a confusion and affair. Therefore they took them and beat them, and besmirched them with dirt, and then put them into a cage, that it might be made a spectacle to all the men of the fair. There, therefore, they lay for some time, and were made the objects of any man's sport, or malice, or revenge, to great one of the fair laughing still at all that befell them. Pilgrims travel a suspected person through vanity fair. Not only are we under surveillance, but there are more spies than we reckon. The espionage is everywhere, at home and abroad. If we fall into the enemy's hands, we may sooner expect generosity from a wolf, or mercy from a fiend, than anything like patience with our infirmities from men who spice their infidelity towards God with scandals against His people. Live a godly, gracious life and you will not escape persecution. You may be happily circumstanced so as to live amongst earnest Christians, and so escape persecution. But take the average Christian man, and he will have a hard time of it. If he is faithful, the ungodly will revile those who are true to the Lord Jesus. Christians are ridiculed in the workshop. deer pointed out in the street, and an opprobrious name is hooted at them. Persecution acts as a winnowing fan, and those who are light as chaff are driven away by its blast. But those who are true corn remain, and are purified. Careless of man's esteem, the truly God-fearing man holds on his way and fears the Lord forever. Let us hear the conclusion of the whole mantra. My longing is that the churches may be more holy. I grieve to see so much of a worldly conformity. How often wealth leads men astray. How many Christians follow the fashion of this wicked world. Alas, with all my preaching, many wander and try to be members of the Church and citizens of the world, too. We have among us avowed lovers of Christ, who act too much like lovers of pleasure. It is a shameful thing for a professor of Christianity to be found in the music halls, saloons, and places of revelry, where you cannot go without your morals being polluted. For you neither can open your eyes nor your ears without knowing at once that you are in the purlays of Satan. I charge you by the living God, if you cannot keep good company and avoid the circle of dissipation, do not profess to be followers of Christ, for he bids you come out from among them and be separate. If you can find pleasure in lewd society and lascivious songs, what right have you to mingle with a fellowship of saints or to join in the singing of psalms? Keep the best company. Be much with those who are much with God. Let them be your choice companions who have made Christ their choicest companion. Let Christ's love be your love. With whom shall believers be but with other believers. Our English proverb says birds of a feather flock together. To see a saint and a sinner associate is to see the living and the dead keeping house together. It is better to be with Lazarus in rags than with dives in robes. Dwell where God dwells. Make those your companions on earth who will be your companions in heaven. An unholy church? It is useless to the world. and of no esteem among men. It is an abomination. Hell's laughter. Heaven's abhorrence. The worst evils which have ever come upon the world have been brought upon by an unholy church. O Christian, the vows of the Lord are upon you. You are God's priest. Act as such. You are God's king. Reign over your lusts. You are God's chosen. Do not associate with Belial. Heaven is your portion. Live like a heavenly spirit. So shall you prove that you have true faith in Jesus, for there cannot be faith in the heart unless there be holiness in the life. Lord, I desire to live as one who bears a blood-bought name, as one who fears but grieving you, and knows no other shame.