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
The doubters are such as have their name from their nature, as well as
from the land and kingdom where they are born: their nature is to put a
question upon every one of the truths of Emmanuel; and their country is
called the land of Doubting, and that land lieth off, and farthest remote
to the north, between the land of Darkness and that called the ‘valley of
the shadow of death.’ For though the land of Darkness, and that called
‘the valley of the shadow of death,’ be sometimes called as if they were
one and the self-same place, yet indeed they are two, lying but a little
way asunder, and the land of Doubting points in, and lieth between them.
This is the land of Doubting; and these that came with Diabolus to ruin
the town of Mansoul are the natives of that country.
The blood-men are a people that have their name derived from the
malignity of their nature, and from the fury that is in them to execute
it upon the town of Mansoul: their land lieth under the dog-star, and by
that they are governed as to their intellectuals. The name of their
country is the province of Loath-good: the remote parts of it are far
distant from the land of Doubting, yet they do both butt and bound upon
the hill called Hell-Gate Hill. These people are always in league with
the doubters, for they jointly do make question of the faith and fidelity
of the men of the town of Mansoul, and so are both alike qualified for
the service of their prince.
Now of these two countries did Diabolus, by the beating of his drum,
raise another army against the town of Mansoul, of five-and-twenty
thousand strong. There were ten thousand doubters, and fifteen thousand
blood-men, and they were put under several captains for the war; and old
Incredulity was again made general of the army.
As for the doubters, their captains were five of the seven that were
heads of the last Diabolonian army, and these are their names: Captain
Beelzebub, Captain Lucifer, Captain Apollyon, Captain Legion, and Captain
Cerberus; and the captains that they had before were some of them made
lieutenants, and some ensigns of the army.
But Diabolus did not count that, in this expedition of his, these
doubters would prove his principal men, for their manhood had been tried
before; also the Mansoulians had put them to the worst: only he did bring
them to multiply a number, and to help, if need was, at a pinch. But his
trust he put in his blood-men, for that they were all rugged villains,
and he knew that they had done feats heretofore.
As for the blood-men, they also were under command and the names of their
captains were, Captain Cain, Captain Nimrod, Captain Ishmael, Captain
Esau, Captain Saul, Captain Absalom, Captain Judas, and Captain Pope.
1. Captain Cain was over two bands, namely, the zealous and the angry
blood-men: his standard-bearer bare the red colours, and his scutcheon
was the murdering club.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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