The Holy War, Made by King Shaddai Upon Diabolus, for the Regaining of the Metropolis of the World; Or, The Losing and Taking Again of the Town of MansoulBunyan, John
ReligionChristian
The Holy War, Made by King Shaddai Upon Diabolus, for the Regaining of the Metropolis of the World; Or, The Losing and Taking Again of the Town of Mansoul
Bunyan, John
Christian fiction; Soul; Spiritual warfare -- Fiction
When Beelzebub had ended his oration, then Apollyon did begin. ‘My
opinion,’ said he, ‘concerning this matter, is, that we go on fair and
softly, not doing things in a hurry. Let our friends in Mansoul go on
still to pollute and defile it, by seeking to draw it yet more into sin
(for there is nothing like sin to devour Mansoul). If this be done, and
it takes effect, Mansoul, of itself, will leave off to watch, to
petition, or anything else that should tend to her security and safety;
for she will forget her Emmanuel, she will not desire his company, and
can she be gotten thus to live, her Prince will not come to her in haste.
Our trusty friend, Mr. Carnal-Security, with one of his tricks did drive
him out of the town; and why may not my Lord Covetousness, and my Lord
Lasciviousness, by what they may do, keep him out of the town? And this
I will tell you, (not because you know it not,) that two or three
Diabolonians, if entertained and countenanced by the town of Mansoul,
will do more to the keeping of Emmanuel from them, and towards making the
town of Mansoul your own, than can an army of a legion that should be
sent out from us to withstand him. Let, therefore, this first project
that our friends in Mansoul have set on foot, be strongly and diligently
carried on, with all cunning and craft imaginable; and let them send
continually, under one guise or another, more and other of their men to
play with the people of Mansoul; and then, perhaps, we shall not need to
be at the charge of making a war upon them; or if that must of necessity
be done, yet the more sinful they are, the more unable, to be sure, they
will be to resist us, and then the more easily we shall overcome them.
And besides, suppose (and that is the worst that can be supposed) that
Emmanuel should come to them again, why may not the same means, or the
like, drive him from them once more? Yea, why may he not, by their lapse
into that sin again, be driven from them for ever, for the sake of which
he was at the first driven from them for a season? And if this should
happen, then away go with him his rams, his slings, his captains, his
soldiers, and he leaveth Mansoul naked and bare. Yea, will not this
town, when she sees herself utterly forsaken of her Prince, of her own
accord open her gates again unto you, and make of you as in the days of
old? But this must be done by time, a few days will not effect so great
a work as this.’
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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