Strange, that we can explain spiritually, what to take up the cross of Christ, to be crucified with Christ, means;--yet never ask what the Crucifixion itself signifies, but rest satisfied in the historic image. That one declaration of the Apostle, that by wilful sin we 'crucify the Son of God afresh', might have roused us to nobler thoughts. Ib. p. 52. And besides, say they, if we get into the way, what matters 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? The allegory is clearly defective, inasmuch as 'the way' represents two diverse meanings; 1. the outward profession of Christianity, and 2. the inward and spiritual grace. But it would be very difficult to mend it. 1830. In this instance (and it is, I believe, the only one in the work,) the allegory degenerates into a sort of pun, that is, in the two senses of the word 'way,' and thus supplies Formal and Hypocrite with an argument which Christian cannot fairly answer, or rather one to which Bunyan could not make his Christian return the proper answer without contradicting the allegoric image. For the obvious and only proper answer is: No! you are not in the same 'way' with me, though you are walking on the same 'road.' But it has a worse defect, namely, that it leaves the reader uncertain as to what the writer precisely meant, or wished to be understood, by the allegory. Did Bunyan refer to the Quakers as rejecting the outward Sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper? If so, it is the only unspiritual passage in the whole beautiful allegory, the only trait of sectarian narrow-mindedness, and, in Bunyan's own language, of legality. But I do not think that this was Bunyan's intention. I rather suppose that he refers to the Arminians and other Pelagians, who rely on the coincidence of their actions with the Gospel precepts for their salvation, whatever the ground or root of their conduct may be; who place, in short, the saving virtue in the stream, with little or no reference to the source. But it is the faith acting in our poor imperfect deeds that alone saves us; and even this faith is not ours, but the faith of the Son of God in us. 'I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.' Gal. ii. 20. Illustrate this by a simile. Labouring under chronic 'bronchitis', I am told to inhale chlorine as a specific remedy; but I can do this only by dissolving a saturated solution of the gas in warm water, and then breathing the vapour. Now what the aqueous vapour or steam is to the chlorine, that our deeds, our outward life, [Greek: bíos], is to faith. Ib. p. 55.