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tian, he beheld him with a disdainful countenance, and thus began to question with him.

APOL. Whence come you? and whither are you bound ? CHR. I am come from the City of Destruction, which is the place of all evil, and am going to the City of Zion.

Discourse betwixt Christian and Apollyon.

APOL. By this I perceive thou art one of my subjects, for all that country is mine, and I am the prince and god of it. How is it, then, that thou hast run away from thy king? Were it not that I hope thou mayest do me more service, I would strike thee now, at one blow, to the ground.

on,

"for

CHR. I was born, indeed, in your dominions, but your service was hard, and your wages such as a man could not live the wages of sin is death," Rom. vi. 23; therefore, when I was come to years, I did as other considerate persons do, look out, if, perhaps, I might mend myself.

Apollyon's flattery.

APOL. There is no prince that will thus lightly lose his subjects, neither will I as yet lose thee; but since thou complainest of thy service and wages, be content to go back: what our country will afford, I do here promise to give thee.

CHR. But I have let myself to another, even to the King of princes; and how can I, with fairness, go back with thee? APOL. Thou hast done in this, according to the proverb, Changed a bad for a worse;" but it is ordi

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service.

Apollyon undernary for those that have professed themselves values Christ's his servants, after a while to give him the slip, and return again to me.

well.

Do thou so too, and all shall be

CHR. I have given him my faith, and sworn my allegiance to him; how, then, can I go back from this, and not be hanged as a traitor?

APOL. Thou didst the same to me, and yet I

Apollyon pre

am willing to pass by all, if now thou wilt yet tends to be merciturn again and go back.

ful.

CHR. What I promised thee was in my nonage; and, be

are given him; of leviathan, the dragon, the lion, and the bear; to denote his strength, his pride, his rage, his courage, and his cruelty.

sides, I count the Prince under whose banner now I stand is able to absolve me; yea, and to pardon also what I did as to my compliance with thee; and besides, O thou destroying Apollyon! to speak truth, I like his service, his wages, his servants, his government, his company, and country, better than thine; and, therefore, leave off to persuade me further; I am his servant, and I will follow him.

Apollyon pleads

dissuade Christian

his way.

APOL. Consider, again, when thou art in cool blood, what thou art like to meet with in the way that thou the grievous ends goest. Thou knowest that, for the most part, of Christians, to his servants come to an ill end, because they from persisting in are transgressors against me and my ways. How many of them have been put to shameful deaths! and, besides, thou countest his service better than mine, whereas he never came yet from the place where he is to deliver any that served him out of their hands; but as for me, how many times, as all the world very well knows, have I delivered, either by power, or fraud, those that have faithfully served me, from him and his, though taken by them; and so I will deliver thee.

CHR. His forbearing at present to deliver them is on purpose to try their love, whether they will cleave to him to the end; and as for the ill end thou sayest they come to, that is most glorious in their account; for, for present deliverance, they do not much expect it, for they stay for their glory, and then they shall have it, when their Prince comes in his and the glory of the angels.

APOL. Thou hast already been unfaithful in thy service to him; and how dost thou think to receive wages of him?

CHR. Wherein, O Apollyon! have I been unfaithful to him?

Apollyon pleads Christian's infirm

ities against him.

APOL. Thou didst faint at first setting out, when thou wast almost choked in the Gulf of Despond; thou didst attempt wrong ways to be rid of thy burden, whereas thou shouldest have stayed till thy Prince had taken it off; thou didst sinfully sleep, and lose thy choice thing; thou wast, also, almost persuaded to go back, at the sight of the lions; and when thou talkest of thy journey,

and of what thou hast heard and seen, thou art inwardly desirous of vain-glory in all that thou sayest or doest.

CHR. All this is true, and much more which thou hast left

out; but the Prince whom I serve and honour is merciful, and ready to forgive; but, besides, these infirmities possessed me in thy country, for there I sucked them in; and I have groaned under them, been sorry for them, and have obtained pardon of my Prince.

APOL. Then Apollyon broke out into a grievous rage, saying, I am an enemy to this Prince; I hate his

Apollyon in a

person, his laws, and people; I am come out on rage falls upon purpose to withstand thee.

Christian.

CHR. Apollyon, beware what you do; for I am in the king's highway, the way of holiness; therefore take heed to yourself.

APOL. Then Apollyon straddled quite over the whole breadth of the way, and said, I am void of fear in this matter: prepare thyself to die; for I swear by my infernal den, that thou shalt go no further; here will I spill thy soul.

And with that he threw a flaming dart at his breast; but

• This dialogue is thus illustrated by Bunyan [38 and 52]: "Satan is loath to part with a great sinner. What, my true servant, quoth he, my old servant, wilt thou forsake me now? Having so often sold thyself to me to work wickedness, wilt thou forsake me now? Thou horrible wretch, dost not know that thou hast sinned thyself beyond the reach of grace, and dost thou think to find mercy now? Art not thou a murderer, a thief, a harlot, a witch, a sinner of the greatest size, and dost thou look for mercy now? Dost thou think that Christ will foul his fingers with thee? It is enough to make angels blush, saith Satan, to see so vile a one knock at heaven's gates for mercy, and wilt thou be so abominably bold to do it? Thus Satan dealt with me, says the great sinner, when at first I came to Jesus Christ. And what did you reply? saith the tempted. Why, I granted the whole charge to be true, says the other. And what, did you despair, or how? No, saith he, I said I am Magdalene, I am Zaccheus, I am the thief, I am the harlot, I am the publican, I am the prodigal, and one of Christ's murderers—yea, worse than any of these; and yet God was so far off from rejecting of me, as I found afterwards, that there was music and dancing in his house for me, and for joy that I was come home unto him." When Satan charged Luther with a long list of crimes, he replied, This is all true; but write another line at the bottom, 66 The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin."

The devil is that great and dogged leviathan, that " spreadeth sharp-pointed things upon the mire." Job xl. 30. "For be the spreading nature of our corruptions never so broad, he will find sharp-pointed things enough to stick in the

Christian had a shield in his hand, with which he caught it, and so prevented the danger of that.

:

Christian

Then did Christian draw, for he saw it was time to bestir him and Apollyon as fast made at him, throwing darts as thick as hail; by the which, notwithstanding all that Christian could do to avoid it, Apollyon wounded him in wounded in his his head, his hand, and foot. This made Chrisunderstanding, tian give a little back; Apollyon, therefore, followed his work amain, and Christian again took courage, and resisted as manfully as he could. This sore combat lasted for above half a day, even till Christian was almost quite spent; for you must know that Christian, by reason of his wounds, must needs grow weaker and weaker.

faith, and conversation.

ground the Christian.

Then Apollyon, espying his opportunity, began to gather up Apollyon cast close to Christian, and wrestling with him, gave eth down to the him a dreadful fall; and with that Christian's sword flew out of his hand. Then said Apollyon, I am sure of thee now. And with that he had almost pressed him to death, so that Christian began to despair of life:" but as God would have it, while Apollyon was fetching of his last blow, thereby to make a full end of this good man, Christian nimbly stretched out his hand for his sword, and caught it, saying, "Rejoice not against me, O mine enemy: when I fall I shall arise," Micah vii. 8; and with that gave tory over Apol him a deadly thrust, which made him give back, as one that had received his mortal wound. Christian perceiving that, made at him again, saying, "Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us." Rom. viii. 37. And with that Apollyon spread forth his dragon's wings, and sped him away, that Christian for a season saw him no more. James iv. 7.

Christian's vic

lyon.

mire of them for our affliction; they are called fiery darts, and he has abundance of them with which he can and will sorely prick and wound our spirits." [54] Now fighting with angels, with infernals, all he can do now is to cry, groan, sweat, fear, fight, and gasp for life." [52]

""Is it not a wonder to see a poor creature, who in himself is weaker than the mouth, to stand against and overcome all devils, the world and all his corruptions; or, if he fall, is it not a wonder to see him, when devils and guilt are upon him, to rise again, walk with God,and persevere in faith and holiness." [21]

In this combat no man can imagine, unless he had seen and heard as I did, what yelling and hideous roaring A brief relation Apollyon made all the time of the fight-he of the combat by spake like a dragon; and, on the other side,

the spectator.

I never

what sighs and groans burst from Christian's heart. saw him all the while give so much as one pleasant look, till he perceived he had wounded Apollyon with his two-edged sword; then, indeed, he did smile, and look upward; but it was the dreadfulest sight that ever I saw."

A more unequal match can hardly be,—
Christian must fight an Angel; but you see,
The valiant man by handling Sword and Shield,
Doth make him, tho' a Dragon, quit the field.

So when the battle was over, Christian said, "I will here give thanks to him that delivered me out of the mouth of the lion, to him that did help me against Apollyon." And so he did, saying—

Great Beelzebub, the captain of this fiend,
Design'd my ruin; therefore to this end
He sent him harness'd out: and he with rage
That hellish was, did fiercely me engage.
But blessed Michael helped me, and 1,
By dint of sword, did quickly make him fly.
Therefore to him let me give lasting praise,
And thank and bless his holy name always.

Christian gives God thanks for deliverance.

Then there came to him a hand, with some of the leaves of the tree of life, the which Christian took, and applied to the wounds that he had received in the battle, and was healed

"The literal history of this conflict may be found in Grace Abounding, Nos. 131 -173, when he recovered his sword, and put his enemy to flight. He describes his agonies in the combat as if he was being racked on the wheel, and states that it lasted for about a year. Floods of blasphemies were poured in upon him, but he was saved from utter despair, because they were loathsome to him. Many of these hellish darts were tipped by Apollyon's malignant ingenuity, with sentences from Scripture; so that Bunyan thought the Bible was against him. One penetrated his soul with the awful words "no place for repentance;" and another with, "hath never forgiveness." The recovery of his sword was by a heavenly sugges tion that he did not "refuse him that speaketh:" new vigour was communicated.

G

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