Page:The Pilgrim's Progress, the Holy War, Grace Abounding Chunk1.djvu/40

36 Dives, "In thy lifetime thou receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things; but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented." (Luke xvi. 19–31.)

Chr. Then I perceive it is not best to covet things that are now, but to wait for things to come later. You say truth: for the things that are seen are temporal, but the things that are not seen are eternal. (2 Cor. iv. 18.) But though this be so, yet since things present, and our ﬂeshly appetite, are such near neighbours one to another; and, again, because things to come and carnal sense are such strangers one to another; therefore it is that the first of these so suddenly fall into amity, and that distance is so continued between the second.

Then I saw in my dream that the Interpreter took Christian by the hand and led him into a place where was a fire burning. against a wall, and one standing by it, always casting much water upon it to quench it: yet did the fire burn higher and hotter.

Then said Christian, What means this?

The Interpreter answered, This is the work of grace that is wrought in the heart; he that casts water upon it to extinguish and put it out, is the devil: but in that thou seest the fire notwithstanding burn higher and hotter, thou shalt also see the reason of that. So he had him about to the backside of the wall, where he saw a man with a vessel of oil in his hand, of the which he did also continually cast (but secretly) into the fire,

Then said Christian, What, means this?

The Interpreter answered, This is Christ, who continually, with the oil of his grace, maintains the work already begun tin-the heart; by the means of which, notwithstanding what the devil can do, the souls of his people prove gracious still. And in that thou sawest that the man stood behind the wall to maintain the ﬁre; this is to teach thee, that it is hard for the tempted to see how this work of grace is maintained in the soul.