Life and Death of Mr. Badman. John Bunyan

thereof is heavy upon it.

      Courteous Reader, I will treat thee now, even at the Door and Threshold of this house, but only with this Intelligence, that Mr. Badman lies dead within.  Be pleased therefore (if thy leisure will serve thee) to enter in, and behold the state in which he is laid, betwixt his Death-bed and the Grave.  He is not buried as yet, nor doth he stink, as is designed he shall, before he lies down in oblivion.

      Now as others have had their Funerals solemnized, according to their Greatness and Grandure in the world, so likewise Mr. Badman, (forasmuch as he deserveth not to go down to his grave with silence) has his Funeral state according to his deserts.

      Four things are usual at great mens Funerals, which we will take leave, and I hope without offence, to allude to, in the Funeral of Mr. Badman.

      First, They are sometimes, when dead, presented to their Friends, by their compleatly wrought Images, as lively as by cunning mens hands they can be; that the remembrance of them may be renewed to their survivors, the remembrance of them and their deeds: And this I have endeavoured to answer in my discourse of Mr. Badman; and therefore I have drawn him forth in his featours and actions from his Childhood to his Gray hairs.  Here therefore thou hast him lively set forth as in Cutts; both as to the minority, flower, and seniority of his Age, together with those actions of his life, that he was most capable of doing, in, and under those present circumstances of time, place, strength; and the opportunities that did attend him in these.

      Secondly, There is also usual at great mens Funerals, those Badges and Scutcheons of their honour, that they have received from their Ancestors, or have been thought worthy of for the deeds and exploits they have done in their life: And here Mr. Badman has his, but such as vary from all men of worth, but so much the more agreeing with the merit of his doings: They all have descended in state, he only as an abominable branch.  His deserts are the deserts of sin, and therefore the Scutcheons of honour that he has, are only that he died without Honour, and at his end became a fool.  Thou shalt not be joyned with them in burial.—The seed of evil doers shall never be renowned.

      The Funeral pomp therefore of Mr. Badman, is to wear upon his Hearse the Badges of a dishonourable and wicked life; since his bones are full of the sins of his Youth, which shall lye down, as Job sayes, in the dust with him: nor is it fit that any should be his Attendants, now at his death, but such as with him conspired against their own souls in their life; persons whose transgressions have made them infamous to all that have or shall know what they have done.

      Some notice therefore I have also here in this little discourse given the Reader, of them who were his Confederates in his life, and Attendants at his death; with a hint, either of some high Villany committed by them, as also of those Judgments that have overtaken and fallen upon them from the just and revenging hand of God.  All which are things either fully known by me, as being eye and ear-witness thereto, or that I have received from such hands, whose relation as to this, I am bound to believe.  And that the Reader may know them from other things and passages herein contained, I have pointed at them in the Margent, as with a finger thus: ☛

      Thirdly, The Funerals of persons of Quality have been solemnized with some suitable Sermon at the time and place of their Burial; but that I am not come to as yet, having got no further than to Mr. Badmans death: but for as much as he must be buried, after he hath stunk out his time before his beholders, I doubt not but some such that we read are appointed to be at the burial of Gog, will do this work in my stead; such as shall leave him neither skin nor bone above ground, but shall set a sign by it till the buriers have buried it in the Valley of Hamon-gog, Ezek. 39.

      Fourthly, At Funerals there does use to be Mourning and lamentation, but here also Mr. Badman differs from others; his Familiars cannot lament his departure, for they have not sence of his damnable state; they rather ring him, and sing him to Hell in the sleep of death, in which he goes thither.  Good men count him no loss to the world, his place can well be without him, his loss is only his own, and ’tis too late for him to recover that dammage or loss by a Sea of bloody tears, could he shed them.  Yea, God has said, he will laugh at his destruction, who then shall lament for him, saying, Ah! my brother.  He was but a stinking Weed in his life; nor was he better at all in his death: such may well be thrown over the wall without sorrow, when once God has plucked them up by the roots in his wrath.

      Reader, If thou art of the race, linage, stock or fraternity of Mr. Badman, I tell thee before thou readest this Book, thou wilt neither brook the Author nor it, because he hath writ of Mr. Badman as he has.  For he that condemneth the wicked that die so, passeth also the sentence upon the wicked that live.  I therefore expect neither credit of, nor countenance from thee, for this Narration of thy kinsmans life.

      For thy old love to thy Friend, his wayes, doings, &c. will stir up in thee enmity rather, in thy very heart, against me.  I shall therefore incline to think of thee, that thou wilt rent, burn, or throw it away in contempt: yea and wish also, that for writing so notorious a truth, some mischief may befall me.  I look also to be loaded by thee with disdain, scorn and contempt; yea that thou shouldest railingly and vilifyingly say, I lye, and am a bespatterer of honest mens lives and deaths.  For Mr. Badman, when himself was alive, could not abide to be counted a Knave (though his actions told all that went by, that indeed he was such an one:) How then should his brethren, that survive him, and that tread in his very steps, approve of the sentence that by this Book is pronounced against him?  Will they not rather imitate Corah, Dathan, and Abiram’s friends, even rail at me for condemning him, as they did at Moses for doing execution?

      I know ’tis ill pudling in the Cockatrices den, and that they run hazards that hunt the Wild-Boar.  The man also that writeth Mr. Badmans life, had need to be fenced with a Coat of Mail, and with the Staffe of a Spear, for that his surviving friends will know what he doth: but I have adventured to do it, and to play, at this time, at the hole of these Asps; if they bite, they bite; if they sting, they sting.  Christ sends his Lambs in the midst of Wolves, not to do like them, but to suffer by them for bearing plain testimony against their bad deeds: But had one not need to walk with a Guard, and to have a Sentinel stand at ones door for this?  Verily, the flesh would be glad of such help; yea, a spiritual man, could he tell how to get it.  Acts 23.  But I am stript naked of these, and yet am commanded to be faithful in my servi[c]e for Christ.  Well then, I have spoken what I have spoken, and now come on me what will, Job 13. 13.  True, the Text sayes, Rebuke a scorner, and he will hate thee; and that, He that reproveth a wicked man, getteth himself a Blot and Shame; but what then?  Open rebuke is better than secret love; and he that receives it, shall find it so afterwards.

      So then, whether Mr. Badmans friends shall rage or laugh at what I have writ, I know that the better end of the staffe is mine.  My endeavour is to stop an hellish Course of Life, and to save a soul from death, (Jam. 5.) and if for so doing, I meet with envy from them, from whom in reason I should have thanks, I must remember the man in the dream, that cut his way through his armed enemies, and so got into the beauteous Palace; I must, I say, remember him, and do my self likewise.

      Yet four things I will propound to the consideration of Mr. Badmans friends, before I turn my back upon them.

      1.  Suppose that there be an Hell in very deed, not that I do question it, any more than I do whether there be a Sun to shine; but I suppose it for argument sake, with Mr. Badmans friends; I say, suppose there be an Hell, and that too, such an one as the Scripture speaks of, one at the remotest distance from God and Life eternall, one where the Worm of a guilty Conscience never dyes, and where the fire of the Wrath of God is not quenched.

      Suppose, I say, that there is such an Hell, prepared of God (as there is indeed) for the body and soul of the ungodly World after this life, to be tormented in: I say, do but with thy self suppose it, and then tell me, Is it not prepared for thee, thou being a wicked man?  Let thy conscience speak, I say, is it not prepared for thee, thou being an ungodly man?  And dost thou think, wast thou there now, that thou art able to wrestle with the Judgment of God?  Why then do the fallen Angers tremble there? thy hands cannot be strong, nor can thy heart endure, in that day when God shall deal with thee: Ezek. 22. 14.

      2.  Suppose that some one that is now a soul in Hell for sin, was permitted to come hither again to dwell; and that they had a grant also, that upon amendment of life, next time the dye, to change that place for Heaven