This is called The Fearful End of Ignorance. And if you were here for the story of the man in the iron cage, this is the other subject that is the most solemn in Pilgrim's Progress. So because of that, I hope to read you something from the Holy War that's very comforting at the end to kind of balance things out. But as the story goes, I've called this A Fearful End of Ignorance. And so I want to take you back a little bit in Pilgrim's Progress because I never really covered who Ignorance was. I never went through this description because I wanted to keep it as a unit, as one character. And earlier in Pilgrim's Progress it said, As Ignorance drew near, Christian said to him, My friend, how are you doing? How is your relationship between God and your soul? Ignorance shrugged as he looked from hopeful to Christian. I have hope that it is well for now. My mind is always full of good ideas and beliefs to comfort me as I walk. What kind of good ideas and beliefs, Christian asked. Please tell us more. Ignorance stood a little straighter. Why, I think about God and heaven." Christian tapped his finger to his lips as if lost in thought for a moment, and then said, Well, so do the devils and souls damned to hell. Ignorance jutted his chin and held it higher. But I think of them and desire them. So do many who are never likely to reside there, Christian said. The soul of the slugger desires and has nothing. But I think about them and leave all that I have for them in order to obtain them ignorance countered. I doubt that very much." Christian's mouth pulled to one side. To leave all is much harder to do than many understand. Tell me, why or by what evidence you have been persuaded of as to leave all for God in heaven? My heart tells me so, Christian said. The wise man says he who trusts in his own heart is a fool. Proverbs 28, 26. Ignorance, lower lip curled in a pout. That saying speaks of an evil heart, but mine is not evil, it is good. But how can you prove that your heart is good? It comforts and assures me concerning my hope of reaching heaven." Ignorance punctuated his statement with a nod of his head. That may well be, but the heart can be deceitful, Christian said, for a man's heart may minister comfort with regard to his hope of something. even though he has no grounds to expect the fulfillment of that hope. But my heart and life are in agreement with one another and therefore my hope is well grounded. Christian asks, who told you that your heart and life are in harmony? Tiny frown lines gather between ignorance's brows. My heart tells me so. So, if you move forward in the narrative, and we discussed Christian and hopeful crossing the river of death, and they look back and they see ignorance, this is the end of that story. Now, while I was gazing upon all the things, I turned my head to look back and saw ignorance come up to the riverbank. He soon crossed over and without half the difficulty with which Christian and Hopeful had met. For it happened that in that place there was one vain Hope, a ferryman, who with his boat helped him over. So I watched as he ascended the hill to come up to the gate. Only he came alone, for not a single man came out to meet him with the least encouragement. When he came up to the gate, he looked up to the writing inscribed above the gate and began to knock, supposing that he should quickly be permitted entrance. But the men who peered over to the top of the gate asked, Where did you come from? And what is your desire? Thirty years ago, maybe thirty-one now, when I was first becoming familiar with the works of Jonathan Edwards, I came across this sermon called Sinners and Zion Tenderly Warned. And over the years, Because I've read this so much, I've thought, I have never seen a sermon that was so improperly idled. If anything, it should have been called Sinners in Zion Dreadfully Alarmed. And if you compare it with Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, in my estimation, it is far worse, because it is far longer. And as many times as I've narrated the sermon over the years, for a long time there were five parts, and I never did all five parts because it would wear you out, it was so solemn. So I skipped part three and four, but in this sermon, Jonathan Edwards is talking about sinners in Zion who are hypocrites in the communion of God's visible people. And he says there are two kinds of persons among God's professing people. The one, those who are truly godly. The other kind consist of sinners and Zion or hypocrites. With respect to the time when the wicked shall be thus surprised with fear, this is out of part two. And the only part I'm going to read, it is often so on a death bed. Many things pass in their lifetime which one would think might well strike terror into their souls as when they see others die, who are as young as they and of like condition and circumstances with themselves, whereby they may see how uncertain their lives are and how unsafe their souls. It may well surprise many sinners to consider how old they are grown and are yet in a Christless state. of their opportunity to get an interest in Christ is irrecoverably gone, and how little remains. Also, how much greater their disadvantages now are than they have been, but these things do not terrify them. As age increases, so does the hardness and stupidity of their hearts grow upon them. But when death comes, and the sinner is often filled with astonishment, it may be, when he is first taken sick, he has great hope that he shall recover. His men are ready to flatter themselves with hopes that things will be as a fain would have them. But when the distemper comes to prevail much upon him, and he sees that he is going into eternity, when he sees that all the medicines of physicians are in vain, that all the care and endeavors of friends are to no purpose, that nothing seems to help him, that his strength is gone, that his friends weep over him and look upon his cases desperate, when he sees by the countenance and behavior of the physician that he looks upon his cases past hope, and perhaps overhears a whispering in the room, wherein his friends signify one to another that they look upon it that he is struck, with death. Or wherein they tell one another that his extreme parts grow cold, that his countenance and manner of breathing and his pulse show death, and that he begins to be in a cold death-sweat. And when perhaps by and by someone thinks himself bound in duty and faithfulness to let him know the worst, and therefore comes and asks him whether or not he be sensible that he is dying, then how does fearfulness surprise the sinner in Zion? How does his heart melt with fear? This is a thing which he feared ever since he was taken sick. But till now he had hope that he should recover. The doctor did not speak, or if he despaired, he spoke of such and such medicines as being very proper, and he hoped that they would be effectual. And when these failed, he changed his medicines and applied something new. Then the sinner hoped that that would be effectual. Thus, although he constantly grew worse and worse, still he hoped to recover. At the same time, he cried to God to spare him, and made promises how he would live if God would spare him, and he hoped that God would hear him. He observed also that his friends, and perhaps a pastor, seemed to pray earnestly for him. He could not but hope that those prayers would be answered, that he should be restored. But now how does his heart sink and die within him? How does he look about with affrighted countenance? How quick is the motion of his eye through inward fear, and how quick and sudden are all his motions? What a frightful hurry does he seem to be in! How does everything look to him when he sees pale, grim death staring him in the face and a vast eternity within a few hours or minutes of him? And maybe he struggles for a little hope. He is loathe to believe what is told him. He tells his informers that he hopes that they are more affrighted than they need be. He hopes that those symptoms arise from some other cause. And like a poor drowning man, he catches at slender and brittle twigs, and clenches his hands about whatever he sees within his reach. But as death creeps more and more on him, he sees his twigs break. All his hopes of life fail and he sees he must die. Oh, there is nothing but death before him. He has been hoping but his hopes are all dashed. He sees this world and all that belongs to it are gone. Now come the thoughts of hell into his mind with amazement. How shall he go out of the world? He knows he has no interest in Christ. His sins stare him in the face. Oh, the dreadful gulf of eternity! He had been crying to God perhaps since he was sick to save him, and he had some hope, if it were his last sickness, that yet God would pity him and give him pardoning grace before he should die. He begged and pleaded, and he hoped that God would have pity on his poor soul. At the same time, he asks others to pray for him, and he had been looking day after day for some light to shine into his soul, but alas, now he is dying. And his friends ask him how death appears to him, whether any light appear, whether God has not given him some token of his favor, and he answers, no, with a poor, faltering, trembling voice. If able to speak at all, or if his friends ask a signal of hope, he can give none. Now death comes on him more and more, and he is just on the brink of eternity. Who can express the fear, the misgivings and hangings back, and the horrible fright and amazement of his soul? Some who in such circumstances have been able to speak have been known to cry out, O Eternity, Eternity! And some, O thousand worlds for an inch of time oh if they might but live a little while longer but it must not be go they must they feel the frame of nature dissolving and perceive the soul is just a going for sometimes the exercise of reason seems to hold to the last What in such a case is felt in the soul, in those last moments, when it is just breaking its bands with the body, about to fetch its leap on the edge of eternity in the very brink of hell, without any savior, or to leave testimony of divine mercy, I say what is sometimes felt by Christless souls in those moments, none can tell, nor is it within the compass of our conception." And I can assure you that's just a small portion of that sermon. But back to Pilgrim's Progress. When he, Ignorance, came up to the gate, he looked up to the writing inscribed above the gate and began to knock, supposing that he should quickly be permitted entrance. But the men who peered over the top of the gate asked, Where do you come from? What is your desire? He answered, I have eaten and drank in your presence, and you have taught in our streets. Then they asked him for a certificate, so that they might go in and show it to the king, but ignorance fumbled in his breast pocket for it, but found none. The man tending the gate said, Don't you have one? Ignorance had no answer, not even a word. So the men of the gate told the king, but he would not come down to see him. Instead, he commanded the two shining ones who had conducted Christian and hopeful to the city to go out and take ignorance and to bind him hand and foot and take him away. From John Bunyan's sermon I mentioned this last week called The Barren Fig Tree, The Death of the Fruitless Professor. The death or cutting down of such men will be dreadful. Christ at last turns the barren fig tree over to the justice of God, shakes his hands of him and gives him up to the fire for the unprofitableness, and after that thou shalt cut it down. Two things are here to be considered first, the executioner. Thou the great, the dreadful, the eternal God. These words, therefore, as I have already said, signify that Christ, a mediator, through whom alone salvation comes, and by whom alone execution has been deferred, now gives up the soul, forbears to speak one syllable more for him, or to do the least act of grace further, to try for his recovery, but delivers him up to that fearful dispensation to fall into the hands of the living God. Hebrews 10 31. The second thing to be considered is the instrument by which this execution is done. and that is death, compared here to an axe. And for as much as a tree is not felled at one blow, therefore the strokes are here continued, till all the blows be struck at it that are requisite for its felling. For now cutting time and cutting work has come. Cutting must be his portion till he is cut down. After that thou shalt cut it down. Death, I say, is the axe which God often uses therewith to take the barren fig tree out of the vineyard, out of a profession, and also out of the world at once. But this axe is now new ground. It comes well edged to the roots of this barren fig tree. It has been wedded by sin, by the law, and by a formal profession, and therefore must and will make deep gashes, not only in the natural life, but in the heart and conscience also of this professor. The wages of sin is death, the sting of death is sin. Wherefore, death comes not to this man as he does to saints, muzzled or without his sting, but with open mouth and all his strength. Yea, he sends his firstborn, which is guilt, to devour his strength and to bring him to the king of terrors, Job 18, 13, and 14. Now he has his fruitless fruits beleaguer him round his bed, together with all the bands and legions of his other wickedness. His own iniquities shall take the wicked himself, and he shall be holden with the cords of his sins. Proverbs 5, 22. I had told you last week I was alerted to this sermon when Dr. Beeke years ago was just discovering the sermons of the Puritans and talked about how much this sermon affected him, so having the works of Bunyan, I looked it up, and just narrating the end of this, began to see what he was talking about. To continue, now some terrible discovery of God is made out to him, to the perplexing and terrifying of his guilty conscience. God shall cast upon him and not spare, and he shall be afraid of that which is high. Job 27.22, Ecclesiastes 12.5. Number 3. The dark entry he is to go through will be a sore amazement to him, for fear shall be in the way. Ecclesiastes 12.5. Yea, terrors will take hold on him when he shall see the yawning jaws of death, to gape upon him, and the doors of the shadow of death open, to give him passage out of the world. Now who will meet me in this dark entry? How shall I pass through this dark entry into another world? 4. For by reason of guilt and a shaken conscience his life will hang in continual doubt before him, and he shall be afraid day and night, and shall have no assurance of his life. Deuteronomy 28, 66, 67. 5. Now also, want will come up against him. He will come up like an armed man. This is a terrible army to him that is graceless in heart and fruitless in life. This want will continually cry in your ears. Here is a new birth that you lack, a new heart. And a new spirit that you lack. Here is faith that you lack. Here is love and repentance wanting. Here is a fear of God wanting and a good conversation wanting. Thou art weighed in the balances and art found wanting. Daniel 5 27. Number six. Together with these stands by death, hell, death and evils, death and endless torment, and the everlasting flames of devouring fire. When God comes up unto the people, he will invade them with his troops. Habakkuk 3.16. But how will this man die? Can his heart now endure? Or can his hands be strong? Ezekiel 22.14. God and Christ and pity have left him. Sin against light, against mercy, and the long-suffering of God has come up against him. His hope and confidence now lie a-dying by him, and his conscience totters and shakes continually within him. Death is at his work, cutting of him down, hewing both bark and heart, both body and soul asunder. The man groans, but death doesn't hear him. He looks ghastly, carefully, dejectedly. He sighs, he sweats, he trembles, but death matters nothing. Fearful cogitations haunt him, misgivings, direful apprehensions of God terrify him. Now he has time to think what the loss of heaven will be and what the torments of hell will be. Now he looks no way, but he is frightened. Now would he live, but he may not. He would live, though it were but the life of a bedridden man, but he must not. He that cuts him down, sways him as a feller of dry wood sways the tottering tree. Now this way, then that. At last a root breaks, a heart-string, an eye-string sweeps asunder. And now could the soul be annihilated or brought to nothing? How happy would it count itself, but it sees that it may not be. Wherefore it is put to a wonderful strait. Stay in the body it may not, go out of the body it dares not. Life is going, the blood settles in the flesh, and the lungs being no more able to draw breath through the nostrils. one goes, out goes a weary trembling soul which is immediately seized by devils who lay lurking in every hole in the chamber for that very purpose. His friends take care of the body, wrap it up in a sheet or coffin, but the soul is out of their thought and reach going down to the chambers of death." Pilgrim's progress that the two shining ones took him up, carried ignorance through the air to the door that I saw on the side of the hill and put him in there. I realized that there was a way to hell even from the gate of heaven as well from the city of destruction so I woke and behold it was a dream. James Rogers in his commentary says, a case of ignorance is designed to teach us that a man may die easy and yet be lost. This ignorance he will remember as one who never saw his sins in the need of Christ's righteousness but rested upon himself. Well, that man comes to die, our author says, one vain hope, a ferryman helped him over the river. Alas, how many are ferried over by this vain hope. So foolish and ignorant are men in the things of God that they live and die sustained by the false hope that they have done or can do something to merit God's favor in such a degree as to be eternally saved. This man comes boldly before his judge, but when asked for his certificate, finds that he has None. He tells the men by the gate that he is eaten and drunk in the presence of the king. But this will not do. And the king commands the shining ones to bind him hand and foot and cast him away. In his own estimation, this man thought he was near to heaven and yet was cast down to hell. What a disappointment was this! To imagine oneself safe and not become awakened until it is too late. To have the anticipations of heaven turned into the sorrow of hell. How sad. Samuel Davies. David Martin Lloyd-Jones called Samuel Davies, one of the early presidents of Princeton, the greatest preacher that America had ever produced. Remember, Whitfield came from England. But he died at the age of 36, and his sermons are so pungent. He's got a couple called The Judgment Day, and then the general resurrection. And in the resurrection of the dead, he says, all who are in the graves, all without exception, shall hear his voice. Now the voice of mercy calls, reason pleads, conscience warns, but multitudes will not hear. But this is a voice that shall, that must reach every one of the millions of mankind. And not one of them will be able to shut his ears. infants and giants, kings and subjects, all ranks, all ages of mankind shall hear the call. The living shall be changed and the dead rise at the sound. The dust that was once alive and formed a human body, whether it flies in the air, floats in the ocean, for vegetates on earth shall hear the new creating fiat. Whatever the fragments of the human frame, wherever they are scattered, this all-penetrating call shall reach and speak them into life. We may consider this voice as a summons. not only to dead bodies to rise, but to the souls that once animated them, to appear and be reunited to them, whether in heaven or hell. To the grave the call will be, Arise, you dead, and come to judgment, to heaven, You spirits of just men made perfect, descend to the world whence you originally came and assume your new-formed bodies. To hell, come forth and appear, you damned souls, you prisoners of darkness, and be again united to the bodies in which you once sinned, that in them you may now suffer. Thus will this summon spread through every corner of the universe, heaven, earth, Hell and all their inhabitants shall hear and obey. Devils as well as human sinners will tremble at the sound. For now they know they can plead no more as they once did. Do not torment us before the time, Matthew 8, 29, for the time has come. And they must mingle with the prisoners at the bar. Now when all who are in the graves hear this all-quickening voice, they shall come forth. Yes, fourth. Now I see, I hear the earth heaving, charnel houses rattling, tombs bursting, graves opening. Now the nations underground begin to stir. There is a noise and a shaking among the dry bones. The dust is all alive and in motion, and the globe breaks and trembles as with an earthquake. While this vast army is working its way through and bursting into life, The ruins of human bodies are scattered far and wide and have passed through many unsurprising transformations. Multitudes have sunk in a watery grave and eaten up by the fish of the deep and transformed into a part of their flesh. Multitudes have been eaten by beasts and birds of prey and incorporated with them, and some have been devoured by their fellow men in the rage of a desperate hunger, or of unnatural cannibal appetite, and digested into a part of them. Multitudes have moldered into dust, and this dust has been blown about by the winds, washed away with water, or it is petrified into stone, or it has been burnt into brick to form dwellings. for their posterity. Or it has grown up in grain trees, plants, and other vegetables, which are the food of man and beast, and are transformed into their flesh and blood. But all through all these various transformation and changes, the omnipotent God knows how to collect, Distinguish and compound all those scattered and mingled seeds of our mortal bodies. Now at the sound of the trumpet they shall all be collected. Wherever they were scattered, all shall be properly sorted and united, however they were confused. Atom to its fellow atom, bone to its fellow bone. Then my brethren, your dust shall be reanimated and reorganized. After my body has decayed, yet in my body and my soul shall I see God. Job 19.26 So I told you I can't end on a note like that. It's too solemn, it's too hard, and thank God we don't have to be the subjects of it. So we may close early, but I need to encourage you, if you are familiar with the writings of John Bunyan, his other allegory, he had three as a matter of fact, the Holy War, the life and death of Mr. Badman in Pilgrim's Progress, And the Holy War has a main character called Mansoul. And there's all of these characters within Mansoul in a fight with the enemy of our souls called Diabolus to try to take over the city of Mansoul. But at the end of that book, the Prince Emmanuel comes to Mansoul to address its inhabitants. When the town of Mansoul has thus far rid themselves of so many of their enemies, and the troublers of their peace, the prince sent to them and appointed a day in which he would, at the marketplace, meet the whole people and there give them in charge concerning some further manners, that if they observed would tend to their further safety and comfort, and to the condemnation and destruction of their home-bred Diabolonians, Diabolonians are in dwelling sin. So the day appointed was come, and the townsmen met together. Emmanuel also came down in his chariot, and all his captains in their state attending him on the right hand and on the left. Then everyone was summoned to silence, and after some mutual courages of love, the prince began and thus proceeded. You, my mansoul, and the beloved of mine heart, many and great are the privileges that I have bestowed upon you. I have singled you out from all others and have chosen you to myself, not for your worthiness, but for mine own sake. I have also redeemed you, not only from the dread of my father's laws, but from the hand of Diabolus. the devil. This I have done because I loved you and because I have set my heart upon you to do you good. I have also that all things that might hinder your way to the pleasures of paradise might be taken out of the way, laid down for you, for your soul, a plenary satisfaction, and have brought you to myself, a price not of corruptible things as of silver and gold, but a price of blood, mine own blood, which I have freely spilled upon the ground to make you mine. So I have reconciled you, O my Mansoul, to my Father, and entrusted you in the mansion houses that are with my father in the royal city where things are. O my Mansoul, that eye has not seen nor has entered into the heart of man to conceive. Besides, O my Mansoul, you see what I have done and how I have taken you out of the hands of your enemies unto whom you had deeply revolted from your father and by whom you were content to be possessed and also to be destroyed. I came to you first by my law, then by my gospel. It reminds me of a phrase in Amazing Grace by John Newton. It was grace that taught my heart to fear, and grace my fears relieved. I came to you first by my law, then by my gospel, to awaken you and show you my glory. And you know what you were, what you said, what you did, and how many times you rebelled against my Father and me, yet I left you not, as you see this day, but came to you. I have borne your manners, I have waited upon you, and after all accepted of you. even of my mere grace and favor, and would not allow you to be lost, as you are most willingly to do and would have been. I also compassed you about and afflicted you on every side that I might make you weary of your ways and bring down your heart with molestation to a willingness to close with your good and happiness. And when I had gotten a complete conquest over you, I turned it to your advantage. You see also what a company of my father's host I have lodged within your borders, captains and rulers, soldiers and men of war, engines and excellent devices to subdue and bring down your foes. You know my meaning, old man, so. And they are my servants. and yours too, Mansoul. Yea, my design of possessing of you with them, and a natural tendency of each of them, is to defend, purge, strengthen, and sweeten you for myself, O Mansoul, and to make you meet for my Father's presence. Blessing and glory for you, my Mansoul, are created to be prepared unto these. You see, moreover, my Mansoul, how I have passed by your backslidings and have healed you. Indeed, I was angry with you, but I have turned mine anger away from you, because I loved you still, and mine anger and mine indignation has ceased in the destruction of your enemies. O Mansoul, nor did your goodness fetch me again to you. After that, I, for your transgressions, had hid my face and withdrawn my presence from you. The way of backsliding was yours, but the way and means of your recovery was mine. I invented the means of your return. It was I that made a hedge and a wall when you were beginning to turn to things in which I did not delight. It was I that made your sweet bitter, your day night, your smooth way thorny. And that also confounded all that sought your destruction. It was I that set Mr. Godly Fear to work in Mansoul. It was I that stirred up your conscience and understanding, your will and your affections, after your great and woeful decay. It was I that put life into you, O Mansoul, to seek me, that you might find me, and in your finding find your own health, happiness, and salvation. It was I that fetched a second time the Diabolonians out of Mansoul, and it was I that overcame them and that destroyed them before your face. And now, my Mansoul, I am returned to you in peace, and your transgressions against me are as if they had not been. Nor shall it be with you as in former days, but I will do better for you than at the beginning. For yet a little while, O my Mansoul, even after a few more times are gone over your head, I will. But be not troubled at what I say. Take down this famous town of Mansoul, stick and stone to the ground. And I will carry the stones of it, and the timber of it, and the walls of it, and the dust of it, and the inhabitants of it into mine own country, even into a kingdom of my Father, and will there set it up in such strength and glory as it never did see in the kingdom where now it is placed. I will even there set it up for my Father's habitation, for for that purpose it was at first constructed in the kingdom of the universe. And there will I make it a spectacle of wonder, a monument of mercy, and the admirer of its own mercy. There shall the natives of Mansoul see all that of which they have seen nothing here. There shall they be equal to those unto whom they have been inferior here. And there shall you, O my Mansoul, have such communion with me, with my father, and with your Lord Secretary, as it is not possible here to be enjoyed, nor even could be, should you live in universe a space of a thousand years. And there, O my Mansoul, you shall be afraid of murderers no more. of Diabolonians and their threats no more. There, there shall be no more plots, nor contrivances, nor designs against you. O my Mansoul, there you shall no more hear the evil tidings or the noise of the Diabolonian drum. There you shall not see the Diabolonian standard-bearers, nor yet behold Diabolus's standard. No Diabolonian mount shall be cast up against you there. Nor shall there the Diabolonian standard be set up to make you afraid. There you shall not need captains, engines, soldiers, and men of war. There you shall meet with no sorrow, no grief. Nor shall it be possible that any Diabolonian should again forever be able to creep into your skirts, burrow in your walls, or be seen again within your borders all the days of eternity. Life shall there last longer than here you were able to desire it should. and yet it shall always be sweet and new, nor shall any impediment attend it forever. There, O my Mansoul, you shall meet with many of those that have been like you and have been partakers of your sorrows, even such as have chosen and I have redeemed and set apart as you for my father's court and city royale. All they will be glad in you, and you, when you see them, shall be glad in your heart. There are things, O my Mansoul, even things of my Father providing and mine that never were seen since the beginning of the world, and they are laid up with my Father and sealed up among His treasures for you, till you shall come there to enjoy them. I told you before that I would remove my Mansoul and set it up elsewhere, and where I will set it, There are those that love you and those that rejoice in you now, but how much more when they shall see you exalted to honor? My Father will then send them for you to fetch you, and their bosoms are chariots to put you in, and you, O my man's soul, shall ride upon the wings of the wind. They will come to convey, conduct, and bring you to that when your eyes see more. That will be your desired haven. And thus, O my Mansoul, I have showed to you what shall be done to you hereafter, if you can hear, if you can understand. And I will tell you what at present must be your duty and practice until I come and fetch you to Myself, according as it is related in the Bible and the Scriptures of Truth. First, I charge you that you do not hereafter keep more. I charge you that you hereafter keep more white and clean your libraries, which I give you, before my last withdrawing from you. Do what I say, for this will be your wisdom. They are in themselves fine linen, but you must keep them white and clean. This will be your wisdom, your honor, and will be greatly for my glory. When your garments are white, the world will count you mine. Also, when your garments are white, then I am delighted in your ways, for then your goings to and fro will be like a flash of lightning, and those that are present must take notice of. Also, their eyes will be made to dazzle at this. Deck yourself, therefore, according to my bidding, and make yourself by my law straight steps for your feet, till shall your king greatly desire your beauty, for he is your Lord, and worship Thou Him, now that you may keep them as I bid thee I have as I've afforded tell you provided for you an open fountain to wash your garments in. Look therefore, that you wash often in my fountain, and go not in defiled garments. For as it is my dishonor and my disgrace, so will be your discomfort when you shall walk in filthy garments. Let not therefore my garment Your garments, the garments I gave you, be defiled or spotted by the flesh. Keep your garments always white and let your head lack no ointment. My Mansoul, I have oftentimes delivered you from the designs, plots, attempts, and conspiracies of Diabolus. And for all this I ask you nothing but that you render not to me evil for my good, but that you bear in mind my love and the continuation of my kindness to my beloved Mansoul, so as to provoke you to walk in your measure according to the benefit bestowed on you. Of all the sacrifices were bound with cords to the horns of the altar. Consider what is said to you, O my blessed Mansoul. O my Mansoul, I have lived. I have died. I live and will die no more for you. I live that you may not die. Because I live, you shall live also. I reconciled you to my Father by the blood of my cross, and being reconciled, you shall live through me. I will pray for you. I will fight for you. I will yet do you good. Nothing can hurt you but sin. Nothing can grieve me but sin. Nothing can make you base before your foes but sin. Take heed of sin, my Mansoul. O do thou know why I at first and do still allow Diabolonians to dwell within your walls? O Mansoul, it is to keep you awakening, to try your love, to make you watchful, and to cause you yet to prize my noble captains or soldiers in my mercy. It is also that yet you may be made to remember what a deplorable condition you were once in. I mean, not some, but all did dwell, not in your walls, but in your castle, and in your stronghood. O Mansoul, and I'll finish with this, O my Mansoul, should I slay all them that are within you? Many there would be without that would bring you into bondage. For were all these within you cut off, those without would find you sleeping, and then, as in a moment, they would swallow up thy man's soul. I therefore left them in you, not to do you hurt, to which they yet will, if you hearken to them and serve them, but to do you good, to which they must, if you watch and fight against them. Know therefore that whatever they shall tempt you to, my design is that they should drive you, not further off from me, but nearer to my Father, to teach you war, to make petitioning desirable to you, and to make you little in your own eyes. Hearken diligently to this, my Mansoul. Show me then your love, my Mansoul. And let not those that are within your walls take your affections off from him that has redeemed your soul. Yea, let the sight of a Diabolonian heighten your love to me. I came once and twice and thrice to save you from the poison of those arrows that would have wrought your death. Stand for me, your friend, my Mansoul, against the Diabolonians, and I will stand for you before my Father in all his court. Love me against temptation, and I will love you notwithstanding your infirmities. O my Mansoul, remember what my captains, my soldiers, and my ninjins have done for you. They have fought for you, they have suffered for you, they have borne much at your hands to do you good. O Mansoul, had you not had them to help you, Diabolus had certainly made a hand of you. Nourish them, therefore, my Mansoul. When you do well, they will be well. When you do ill, they will be ill and sick and weak. Make not my captains sick, O Mansoul, for if they be sick, you cannot be well. If they be weak, you cannot be strong. If they be faint, you cannot be stout and valiant for your king, O Mansoul. Nor must you think always to live by sense. You must live upon my word. You must believe, O my Mansoul, what I am from you, that I love you and bear you upon mine heart forever. Remember therefore, O Mansoul, that you are beloved of me, as I have therefore taught you to watch. to fight, to pray, and to make war against my foes. So now I command you to believe that my love is constant to you, O Mansoul. How have I set my heart, my love upon you? Watch. Behold, I lay no other burden upon you than what you have already. Hold fast till I come." In the last words of Pilgrim's Progress, it says, and then I awoke. And it was a dream.