Extracts from Pilgrims Progress
FORMALIST AND HYPOCRISY
Extracts from ‘Pilgrim’s Progress’
by J. Bunyan
As he was troubled thereabout, he espied two men come tumbling over the wall on the left hand of the narrow way; and they made up apace to him. The name of the one was Formalist, and the lame of the other Hypocrisy. So, as I said, they drew up unto him, who thus entered with them into discourse.
CHRISTIAN. Gentlemen, whence came you, and whither go you?
FORMALIST and HYPOCRISY. We were born in the land of Vainglory, and are going to praise to Mount Zion.
CHRISTIAN. Why came you not in at the gate which standeth at the beginning of the way? Know ye not that it is written, that he that cometh not in by the door, ‘but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber’? (John 10.1).
FORMALIST and HYPOCRISY. They said, That to go to the gate for entrance was, by all their countrymen counted too far about; and that, therefore, their usual way was to make a short cut of it, and to climb over the wall, as they had done.
CHRISTIAN. But will it not be counted a trespass against the Lord of the city whither we are bound, thus to violate His revealed will?
FORMALIST and HYPOCRISY. They told him, That as for that, he needed not trouble his head thereabout; for what they did they had custom for, and could produce, if need were, testimony that could witness it, for more than a thousand years.
CHRISTIAN. But, said Christian, will it stand a trial at law?
FORMALIST and HYPOCRISY. They told him, That custom, it being of so long standing as above a thousand years, would doubtless now be admitted as a thing legal by an impartial judge. And besides, said they, if we get into the way, what matter is it 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?
CHRISTIAN. I walk by the rule of my Master; you are counted thieves already by the Lord of the way; therefore I doubt you will not be found true men at the end of the way. You came in by ‘ourselves without His direction, and shall go out by yourselves without His mercy.
To this they made him but little answer; only they bid him look to himself. Then I saw that they went on, every man in his way, without much conference one with another, save that these two men told Christian, that, as to laws and ordinances, they doubted not but that they should as conscientiously do them as he. Therefore, said they, we see not wherein thou differest from us, but by the coat that is on
thy back, which was, as we trow, given thee by some of thy neighbours to hide the shame of thy nakedness.
CHRISTIAN. By laws and ordinances you will not be saved (Gal. 2.16), since you came not in by the door. And as for this coat that is on my back, it was given me by the Lord of the place whither I go;
and that, as you say, to cover my nakedness with. And I take it as a token of His kindness to me, for I had nothing but rags before. And, besides, thus I comfort myself as I go: Surely, think I, when I come to the gate of the city, the Lord thereof will know me for good, since I have His coat on my back—a coat that He gave me freely in the day that He stripped me of my rags. I have, moreover, a mark in my forehead, of which, perhaps, you have taken no notice, which one of my Lord’s most intimate associates fixed there in the day that my burden fell off my shoulders. I will tell you, moreover, that I had then given me a roll sealed, to comfort me by reading as I go on the way; I was also bid to give it in at the Celestial Gate, in token of my certain going in after it: all which things I doubt you want, and want them because you came not in at the gate.
To these things they gave him no answer; only they looked upon each other and laughed. Then I saw that they went on all, save that Christian kept before, who had no more talk but with himself, and that sometimes sighingly, and sometimes comfortably; also he would be often reading in the roll that one of the Shining Ones gave him, by which he was refreshed.