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
So, when they were come to the door of the Prince’s pavilion, they cast
themselves prostrate upon the place; then one went in and told his Lord
that the prisoners were come down. The Prince then ascended a throne of
state, and sent for the prisoners in; who, when they came, did tremble
before him, also they covered their faces with shame. Now, as they drew
near to the place where he sat, they threw themselves down before him.
Then said the Prince to the Captain Boanerges, ‘Bid the prisoners stand
upon their feet.’ Then they stood trembling before him, and he said,
‘Are you the men that heretofore were the servants of Shaddai?’ And they
said, ‘Yes, Lord, yes.’ Then said the Prince again, ‘Are you the men
that did suffer yourselves to be corrupted and defiled by that abominable
one, Diabolus?’ And they said, ‘We did more than suffer it, Lord; for we
chose it of our own mind.’ The Prince asked further, saying, ‘Could you
have been content that your slavery should have continued under his
tyranny as long as you had lived?’ Then said the prisoners, ‘Yes, Lord,
yes; for his ways were pleasing to our flesh, and we were grown aliens to
a better state.’—‘And did you,’ said he, ‘when I came up against this
town of Mansoul, heartily wish that I might not have the victory over
you?’—‘Yes, Lord, yes,’ said they. Then said the Prince, ‘And what
punishment is it, think you, that you deserve at my hand, for these and
other your high and mighty sins?’—And they said, ‘Both death and the
deep, Lord; for we have deserved no less.’ He asked again if they had
aught to say for themselves why the sentence, that they confessed that
they had deserved, should not be passed upon them? And they said, ‘We
can say nothing, Lord: thou art just, for we have sinned.’ Then said the
Prince, ‘And for what are those ropes on your heads?’ The prisoners
answered, ‘These ropes are to bind us withal to the place of execution,
if mercy be not pleasing in thy sight.’ So he further asked if all the
men in the town of Mansoul were in this confession, as they? And they
answered, ‘All the natives, Lord; but for the Diabolonians that came into
our town when the tyrant got possession of us, we can say nothing for
them.’
Then the Prince commanded that a herald should be called, and that he
should, in the midst and throughout the camp of Emmanuel, proclaim, and
that with sound of trumpet, that the Prince, the Son of Shaddai, had, in
his Father’s name, and for his Father’s glory, gotten a perfect conquest
and victory over Mansoul; and that the prisoners should follow him, and
say Amen. So, this was done as he had commanded. And presently the
music that was in the upper region sounded melodiously, the captains that
were in the camp shouted, and the soldiers did sing songs of triumph to
the Prince; the colours waved in the wind, and great joy was everywhere,
only it was wanting as yet in the hearts of the men of Mansoul.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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