Page:The Pilgrim's Progress, the Holy War, Grace Abounding Chunk1.djvu/134

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The Pilgrim's Progress.

that did it, and what he had lost; how he was wounded, and that he hardly escaped with life.

Hope. But it is a wonder that his necessity did not put him upon selling or Dawning some of his jewels, that he might have wherewithal to relieve himself in his journey.

Chr. Thou talkest like one upon whose head is the shell to this very day. For what should he pawn them? or to whom should he sell them? In all that country where he was robbed, his jewels were not accounted of; nor did he want that relief which could from thence be administered to him. Besides, had his jewels been missing at the gate of the Celestial City, he had (and that he knew well enough) been excluded from an inheritance there; and that would have been worse to him than the appearance and Villainy of ten thousand thieves.

Hope. Why art thou so tart, my brother? Esau sold his birth-right, and that for a mess of pottage (Heb. xii. 16); and that birthright Was his greatest jewel: and if he, why might not Little-faith do so too?

Chr. Esau did sell his birthright indeed, and so do many besides,and by so doing exclude themselves from the chief blessing, as also that caitiff did; but you must put a difference betwixt Esau and Little-faith, and also betwixt their estates. Esau's birthright was typical, but Little-faith's jewels were not so. Esau's belly was his god. but Little-faith's belly was not so. Esau's want lay in his fleshly appetite; Little-faith's did not so. Besides, Esau could see no further than to the fulfilling of his lusts: "For I am at the point to die" (said he), "and what good will this birth-right do the?" (Gen. xxv. 32.) But 'Little-faith, though it was his lot to have but a little faith, was by his little faith kept from such extravagances, and made to see and prize his jewels more than to sell them as Esau did his birthright. You read not anywhere that Esau had faith, no, not so much as a little; therefore no marvel if, where