The Pilgrim’s Progress - John Bunyan (top 10 most read books in the world txt) 📗

case, went to them, if peradventure he might awake them, and cried, You are like them that sleep on the top of a mast, for the Dead Sea is under you⁠—a gulf that hath no bottom.118 Awake, therefore, and come away; be willing also, and I will help you off with your irons. He also told them, If he that “goeth about like a roaring lion” comes by, you will certainly become a prey to his teeth.119 With that they looked upon him, and began to reply in this sort: Simple said, “I see no danger;” Sloth said, “Yet a little more sleep;” and Presumption said, “Every fat120 must stand upon its own bottom; what is the answer else that I should give thee?” And so they lay down to sleep again, and Christian went on his way.

Yet was he troubled to think that men in that danger should so little esteem the kindness of him that so freely offered to help them, both by awakening of them, counseling of them, and proffering to help them off with their irons.121 And as he was troubled thereabout, he espied two men come tumbling over the wall, on the left hand of the narrow way; and they made up apace to him. The name of the one was Formalist, and the name of the other Hypocrisy. So, as I said, they drew up unto him, who thus entered with them into discourse.

Chr. Gentlemen, whence came you, and whither go you?

Form. and Hyp. We were born in the land of Vainglory, and are going for praise to Mount Sion.

Chr. Why came you not in at the gate, which standeth at the beginning of the way? Know you not that it is written, that he that cometh not in by the door, “but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber?”122

Form. and Hyp. They said, That to go to the gate for entrance was, by all their countrymen, counted too far about; and that, therefore, their usual way was to make a shortcut of it, and to climb over the wall, as they had done.

Chr. But will it not be counted a trespass against the Lord of the city whither we are bound, thus to violate His revealed will?

Form. and Hyp. They told him, that, as for that, he needed not to trouble his head thereabout; for what they did, they had custom for; and could produce, if need were, testimony that would witness it for more than a thousand years.

Chr. But, said Christian, will your practice stand a trial at law?

Form. and Hyp. They told him, That custom, it being of so long a standing as above a thousand years, would, doubtless, now be admitted as a thing legal by any impartial judge; and beside, said they, if we get into the way, what’s matter which way we get in? if we are in, we are in; thou art but in the way, who, as we perceive, came in at the gate; and we, are also in the way, that came tumbling over the wall; wherein, now, is thy condition better than ours?

Chr. I walk by the rule of my Master; you walk by the rude working of your fancies. You are counted thieves already, by the Lord of the way; therefore, I doubt you will not be found true men at the end of the way. You come in by yourselves, without His direction; and shall go out by yourselves, without His mercy.123

To this they made him but little answer; only they bid him look to himself. Then I saw that they went on every man in his way, without much conference one with another; save that these two men told Christian, that as to laws and ordinances, they doubted not but they should as conscientiously do them as he; therefore, said they, we see not wherein thou differest from us, but by the coat that is on thy back, which was, as we trow124 given thee by some of thy neighbours, to hide the shame of thy nakedness.

Chr. By laws and ordinances you will not be saved, since you came not in by the door.125 And as for this coat that is on my back, it was given me by the Lord of the place whither I go; and that, as you say, to cover my nakedness with. And I take it as a token of His kindness to me; for I had nothing but rags before. And, besides, thus I comfort myself as I go: Surely, think I, when I come to the gate of the city, the Lord thereof will know me for good, since I have His coat on my back⁠—a coat that He gave me in the day that He stripped me of my rags. I have, moreover, a mark in my forehead, of which, perhaps, you have taken no notice, which one of my Lord’s most intimate associates fixed there in the day that my burden fell off my shoulders. I will tell you, moreover, that I had then given me a roll, sealed, to comfort me by reading, as I go on the way; I was also bid to give it in at the Celestial Gate, in token of my certain going in after it; all which things, I doubt, you want, and want them because you came not in at the gate.

To these things they gave him no answer; only they looked upon each other, and laughed.126 Then I saw that they went on all, save that Christian kept before, who had no more talk but with himself, and that sometimes sighingly and sometimes comfortably;127 also he would be often reading in the roll that