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But to give you, in a few particulars, the manner of this man's dying.

1. Now he hath his fruitless fruits beleaguer him round his bed, together with all the bands and legions of his other wickedness. His own iniquities shall take the wicked himself, and he shall be holden with the cords of his sins.' Pr. v. 22.

2. Now some terrible discovery of God is made out unto him, to the perplexing and terrifying of his guilty conscience. 'God shall cast upon him, and not spare;' and he shall be afraid of that which is high.' Job xxvii. 22. Ec. xii. 5.

3. The dark entry he is to go through will be a sore amazement to him; for fears shall be in the way.' Ec. xii. 5. Yea, terrors will take hold on him, when he shall see the yawning jaws of death to gape upon him, and the doors of the shadow of death open to give him passage out of the world. Now, who will meet me in this dark entry? how shall I pass through this dark entry into another world?

4. For by reason of guilt, and a shaking conscience, his life will hang in continual doubt before him, and he shall be afraid day and night, and shall have no assurance of his life. De. xxviii. 66, 67.

5. Now also want will come up against him; he will come up like an armed man. This is a terrible army to him that is graceless in heart, and fruitless in life. This WANT will continually cry in thine ears, Here is a new birth wanting, a new heart, and a new spirit wanting; here is faith wanting; here is love and repentance wanting; here is the fear of God wanting, and a good conversation wanting: Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting.' Da. v. 27.

6. Together with these standeth by the companions of death, death and hell, death and devils, death and endless torment in the everlasting flames of devouring fire. When God cometh up unto the people he will invade them with his troops.'

Hab. iii. 16

But how will this man die? Can his heart now endure, or can his hands be strong? Eze. xxii. 14.

(1.) God, and Christ, and pity, have left him. Sin against light, against mercy, and the long-suffering of God, is come up against him; his hope and confidence now lie a-dying by him, and his conscience totters and shakes continually within him!

(2.) Death is at his work, cutting of him down, hewing both bark and heart, both body and soul asunder. The man groans, but death hears him not; he looks ghastly, carefully,dejectedly; he sighs, he sweats, he trembles, but death matters nothing.

(3.) Fearful cogitations haunt him, misgivings, direful apprehensions of God, terrify him. Now he hath time to think what the loss of heaven will be, and what the torments of hell will be: now he looks no way but he is frighted.

(4.) Now would he live, but may not; he would live, though it were but the life of a bed-rid man, but he must not. He that cuts him down sways him as the feller of wood sways the tottering tree; now this way, then that, at last a root breaks, a heart-string, an eye-string, sweeps asunder.

(5.) And now, could the soul be annihilated, or brought to nothing, how happy would it count itself, but it sees that may not be. Wherefore it is put to a wonderful strait; stay in the body it may not, go out of the body it dares not. Life is going, the blood settles in the flesh, and the lungs being no more able to draw breath through the nostrils, at last out goes the weary trembling soul, which is immediately seized by devils, who lay lurking in every hole in the chamber for that very purpose. His friends take care of the body, wrap it up in the sheet or coffin, but the soul is out of their thought and reach, going down to the chambers of death.

I had thought to have enlarged, but I forbear. God, who teaches man to profit, bless this brief and plain discourse to thy soul, who yet standest a professor in the land of the living, among the trees of his garden. Amen.

THE LIFE AND DEATH OF MR. BADMAN,

PRESENTED TO THE WORLD IN

A FAMILIAR DIALOGUE BETWEEN MR. WISEMAN AND MR. ATTENTIVE.

BY JOHN BUNYAN,

THE AUTHOR OF THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS.'

Printed by J. A. for Nath. Ponder, at the Peacock in the Poultry, near the Church, 1660.

ADVERTISEMENT BY THE EDITOR.

THE life of Badman is a very interesting description, a true and lively portraiture, of the demoralized classes of the trading community in the reign of King Charles II.; a subject which naturally led the author to use expressions familiar among such persons, but which are now either obsolete or considered as vulgar. In fact it is the only work proceeding from the prolific pen and fertile imagination of Bunyan, in which he uses terms that, in this delicate and refined age, may give offence. So, in the venerable translation of the holy oracles, there are some objectionable expressions, which, although formerly used in the politest company, now point to the age in which it was written. The same ideas or facts would now be expressed by terms which could not give offence; and every reader must feel great pleasure in the improvement of our language, as seen in the contrast between the two periods, and especially in the recollection that the facts might be stated with equal precision, and reflections made with equal force, in terms at which the most delicate mind could not be of fended.

Those who read the writings of Bunyan must feel continually reminded of his ardent attachment to his Saviour, and his intense love to the souls of sinners. He was as delicate in his expressions as any writer of his age, who addressed the openly vicious and profane-calling things by their most forcible and popular appellations. A wilful untruth is, with him, ‘a lie.' To show the wickedness and extreme folly of swearing, he gives the words and imprecations then commonly in use; but which, happily for us, we never hear, except among the most degraded classes of society. Swearing was formerly considered to be a habit of gentility; but now it betrays the blackguard, even when disguised in genteel attire. Those dangerous diseases which are so surely engendered by filth and uncleanness, he calls not by Latin but by their plain English names. In every case, the Editor has not ventured to make the slightest alteration; but has

reprinted the whole in the author's plain and powerful language.

The life of Badman forms a contrast to the Pilgrim's Progress, not a delightful pilgrimage to heaven, but, on the contrary, a wretched downward journey to the infernal realms. The author's object is to warn poor thoughtless sinners, not with smooth words, to which they would take no heed; but to thunder upon their consciences the peril of their souls, and the increasing wretchedness into which they were madly hurrying. He who is in imminent, but unseen danger, will bless the warning voice if it reach his ears, however rough and startling the sound may be.

The life of Badman was written in an age when profligacy, vice, and debauchery, marched like a desolating army through our land, headed by the king, and officered by his polluted courtiers; led on with all the pomp and splendour which royalty could display. The king and his ministers well knew that the most formidable enemies to tyranny, oppression, and misgovernment, were the piety and stern morality of the Puritans, Nonconformists, and the small classes of virtuous citizens of other denominations; and therefore every effort was made by allurements and intimidation to debauch and demoralize their minds. p. 592. Well does Bunyan say that wickedness like a flood is like to drown our English world. It has almost swallowed up all our youth, our middle age, old age, and all are almost carried away of this flood. It reels to and fro like a drunkard, it is like to fall and rise no more.' p. 593. It is the very haunts and walks of the infernal spirits.' 'England shakes and makes me totter for its transgressions.'

The gradations of a wicked man in that evil age, from his cradle to his grave, are graphically set before the reader; it is all drawn from reality, and not from efforts of imagination. Every example is a picture of some real occurrence, either within the view of the author, or from the narratives of credible witnesses. All the things that

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admirably drawn, as is its companion or counter-
part, when Badman, in his widower-hood, suffers
an infamous strumpet to inveigle him into a miser-
able marriage, as he so richly deserved.
death-bed scene of the pious broken-hearted Mrs.
Badman, is a masterpiece. In fact the whole is
a series of pictures drawn by a most admirable
artist, and calculated to warn and attract the sin-
ner from his downward course.

here I discourse of, have been acted upon the stage | our Lord's saying, 'with what measure ye mete of this world, even many times before mine eyes.' it shall be measured to you again.' Badman is represented as having had the very Bunyan's pictures, of which the life of Badman great advantage of pious parents, and a godly is a continued series, are admirably painted from master, but run riot in wickedness from his child-life. The extraordinary depths of hypocrisy, used hood. Lying and pilfering mark his early days; in gaining the affections of a pious wealthy young followed in after life by swearing, cheating, drunk-woman, and entrapping her into a marriage, are enness, hypocrisy, infidelity and atheism. His conscience became hardened to that awful extent, that he had no bands in his death. The career of wickedness has often been so pictured, as to encourage and cherish vice and profanity-to excite the unregenerate mind to ride post by other men's sins.'l Not so the life of Badman. The ugly, wretched, miserable consequences that assuredly follow a vicious career, are here displayed in biting words-alarming the conscience, and awfully warning the sinner of his destiny, unless happily he finds that repentance that needeth not to be repented of. No debauchee ever read the life of Badman to gratify or increase his thirst for sin. The tricks which in those days so generally accompanied trading, are unsparingly exposed; becoming bankrupt to make money, a species of robbery, which ought to be punished as felony; double weights, too heavy for buying, and light to sell by, overcharging those who take credit, and the taking advantage of the necessities of others, with the abuse of evil gains in debauchery, and its ensuing miseries, are all faithfully displayed.

In comparison with the times of Bunyan, England has now become wonderfully reformed from those grosser pollutions which disgraced her name. Persons of riper age, whose reminiscences go back to the times of the slave trade, slavery, and war, will call to mind scenes of vice, brutality, open debauchery and profligacy, which, in these peaceful and prosperous times, would be instantly repressed and properly punished. Should peace be preserved, domestic, social, and national purity and happiness must increase with still greater and more delightful rapidity. Civilization and Christianity will triumph over despotism, vice, and false religions, and the time be hastened on, in which the divine art of rendering each other happy will engross the attention of all mankind. Much yet remains to be done for the conversion of the still numerous family connections of Mr. Badman; but the leaven of Christianity must, in spite of all opposition, eventually spread over the whole mass.

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Homely proverbs abound in this narrative, all of which are worthy of being treasured up in our memories. Is nothing so secret but it will be revealed? we are told that Hedges have eyes and pitchers have ears." They who encourage evil propensities are 'nurses to the devil's brats.' It is said of him who hurries on in a career of folly and sin, The devil rides him off his legs.' 'As the devil corrects vice,' refers to those who pretend to correct bad habits by means intended to promote them. The devil is a cunning schoolmaster.' Satan taking the wicked into his foul embraces is like to like, as the devil said to the collier.'

In the course of the narrative, a variety of awful cxamples of divine vengeance are introduced; some from that singular compilation, Clarke's Lookingglass for Saints and Sinners; others from Beard's Theatre of God's Judgments; and many that happened under the author's own immediate knowledge. The faithfulness of his extracts from books has been fully verified. The awful death of Dorothy Mately, of Ashover, in Derbyshire, mentioned in p. 604, I had an opportunity of testing, by the aid of my kind friend, Thomas Bateman, Esq., of Yolgrave. He sent me the following extract from the Ashover Register for 1660:- Dorothy Mately, supposed wife to John Flint of this parish, forswore herself; whereupon the ground opened, and she sunk over head, March 23, and being found dead, she was buried, March 25.' Thus fully confirming the facts, as stated by Bunyan. Solemn providences, intended, in the inscrutable wisdom of God, for wise purposes, must not be always called In two things the times have certainly improved. ⚫ divine judgments.' A ship is lost, and the good Bunyan describes all pawnbrokers' to have been with the bad, sink together; a missionary is mur-vile wretches,' and, in extortion, the women to be dered; a pious Malay is martyred; still no one can suppose that these are instances of divine vengeance. But when the atrocious bishop Bonner, in his old age, miserably perishes in prison, it reminds us of

1 Reynolds' preface to God's Revenge against Murder.

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worse than the men. p. 638. Happily for our days, good and even pious pawnbrokers may be found, who are honourable exceptions to Mr. Bunyan's sweeping rule; nor do our women in any respect

2 See note on p. 606.

FRONTISPIECE

appear to be greater extortioners than our men. The instructions, exhortations, and scriptural precepts and examples to enforce honest dealing, interspersed as reflections throughout this narrative, are invaluable, and will, I trust, prove beneficial to every reader.

I have taken the liberty of dividing this longcontinued dialogue into chapters, for the greater facility of reference, and as periods in the history, where the reader may conveniently rest in his progress through this deeply interesting narrative. GEO. OFFOR.

As a curious and interesting illustration of the form and manner in which the Life of Badman was first published, facsimiles of the five engravings that accompanied the first edition are given on this and the following page. These woodcuts are accurately copied from a fine set in the first edition, in the Editor's library. Very few of these rare volumes are found with the cuts, the reverse of each being blank. They are in the later copies, with letter-press on the reverse; excepting the folio editions, which have the five engraved on one copper-plate, the designs being reversed.-ED.

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To be a bad man must be bad,
To die a badman is most sad,

Would bad men would consider this,
Lest they fall short of lasting bliss.

You that do use to curse and swear,
God hears you, take heed, have a care.
This wretch the ground did swallow up,
Fear lest you drink the self-same cup.

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