GREAT-HEART DISCOURSES BY THE WAY. 221

though I have felt but little as yet, that, if the most burdened man in the world was
here, and did see and believe as I now do, it would make his heart merry and blithe.

Great. There is not only comfort and the ease of a burden brought to us by the
sight and consideration of these, but an endeared affection begot in us by it; for who
can, if he doth but once think that pardon comes, not only by promise, but thus, but
be affected with the way and means of his redemption, and so with the Man that hath
wrought it for him ?

Cur. True: methinks it makes my heart bleed, to think that He should bleed for
me. Oh, Thou loving One! Oh, Thou blessed One! Thou deservest to have me:
Thou hast bought me. Thou deservest to have me all: Thou hast paid for me ten
thousand times more than I am worth. No marvel that this made the water stand in
my husband’s eyes, and that it made him trudge so nimbly on. I am persuaded he
wished me with him; but, vile wretch that I was! I let him come all alone. Oh,
Mercy, that thy father and mother were here! yea, and Mrs. Timorous also! Nay,
I wish now with all my heart that here was Madam Wanton too. Surely, surely, their
hearts would be affected; nor could the fear of the one, nor the powerful lusts of the
other, prevail with them to go home again, and refuse to become good pilgrims.

Great. You speak now in the warmth of your affections: will it, think you, be
always thus with you? Besides, this is not communicated to every one, nor to every
one that did see your Jesus bleed. There were that stood by, and that saw the blood
run from His heart to the ground, and yet were so far off this, that instead of lament-
ing, they laughed at Him, and instead of becoming [His disciples, did harden their
hearts against him. So that all that you have, my daughters, you have by a peculiar
impression made by a divine contemplating upon what I have spoken to you.
Remember that ’t was told you, that the hen by her common call gives no meat to her
chickens. This you have, therefore, by a special grace.

Now, I saw still in my dream, that they went on till they were come to the place
that Simple, and Sloth, and Presumption lay and slept in, when Christian went by on
pilgrimage ; and, behold, they were hanged up in irons a little way off on the other side.

Mer. Then said Mercy to him that was their guide and conductor, “ What are
those three men? and for what are they hanged there?”

Great. These three men were men of very bad qualities: they had no mind to be
pilgrims themselves, and whomsoever they could they hindered. They were for sloth
and folly themselves; and whomsoever they could persuade with, they made so too,
and withal taught them to presume that they should do well at last. ‘They were asleep
when Christian went by; and, now you go by, they are hanged.