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
‘Thou seest, moreover, my Mansoul, how I have passed by thy backslidings,
and have healed thee. Indeed I was angry with thee, but I have turned
mine anger away from thee, because I loved thee still, and mine anger and
mine indignation is ceased in the destruction of thine enemies, O
Mansoul. Nor did thy goodness fetch me again unto thee, after that I for
thy transgressions have hid my face, and withdrawn my presence from thee.
The way of backsliding was thine, but the way and means of thy recovery
was mine. I invented the means of thy return; it was I that made an
hedge and a wall, when thou wast beginning to turn to things in which I
delighted not. It was I that made thy sweet bitter, thy day night, thy
smooth way thorny, and that also confounded all that sought thy
destruction. It was I that set Mr. Godly-Fear to work in Mansoul. It
was I that stirred up thy conscience and understanding, thy will and thy
affections, after thy great and woful decay. It was I that put life into
thee, O Mansoul, to seek me, that thou mightest find me, and in thy
finding find thine own health, happiness, and salvation. It was I that
fetched the second time the Diabolonians out of Mansoul; and it was I
that overcame them, and that destroyed them before thy face.
‘And now, my Mansoul, I am returned to thee in peace, and thy
transgressions against me are as if they had not been. Nor shall it be
with thee as in former days, but I will do better for thee than at thy
beginning.
For yet a little while, O my Mansoul, even after a few more times are
gone over thy head, I will (but be not thou troubled at what I say) take
down this famous town of Mansoul, stick and stone, to the ground. And I
will carry the stones thereof, and the timber thereof, and the walls
thereof, and the dust thereof, and the inhabitants thereof, 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 erected in the kingdom of 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 shalt thou, 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 ever could be,
shouldest thou live in Universe the space of a thousand years.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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