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He predicteth what troubles they shall meet with in Vanity Fair, and encourageth them to steadfastness |
EVANGELIST. My sons, you have heard, in the words of the truth of the gospel, that you must, through many tribulations, enter into the kingdom of heaven. And, again, that in every city bonds and afflictions abide in you; and therefore you cannot expect that you should go long on your pilgrimage without them, in some sort or other. You have found something of the truth of these testimonies upon you already, and more will immediately follow; for now, as you see, you are almost out of this wilderness, and therefore you will soon come into a town that you will by and by see before you; and in that town you will be hardly beset with enemies, who will strain hard but they will kill you; and be you sure that one or both of you must seal the testimony which you hold, with blood; but be you faithful unto death, and the King will give you a crown of life. |
| He whose lot it will be there
to suffer, will have the better of his brother
[93]
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He that shall die there, although his death will be unnatural, and his pain perhaps great, he will yet have the better of his fellow; not only because he will be arrived at the Celestial City soonest, but because he will escape many miseries that the other will meet with in the rest of his journey. But when you are come to the town, and shall find fulfilled what I have here related, then remember your |
| *Eccl. 1; 2:11,17; 11:8; Isa. 11:17 | friend, and quit yourselves like men, and commit the keeping
of your souls to your God in well-doing, as unto a faithful Creator.
Then I saw in my dream, that when they were got out of the wilderness, they presently saw a town before them, and the name of that town is Vanity; and at the town there is a fair kept, called Vanity Fair: it is kept all the year long. It beareth the name of Vanity Fair because the town where it is kept is lighter than vanity; and, also because all that is there sold, or that cometh thither, is vanity. As is the saying of the wise, All that cometh is Vanity.* |
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The antiquity of this fair |
This Fair is no new-erected business, but a thing of ancient
standing; I will show you the original of it.
Almost five thousand years agone, there were pilgrims walking to the Celestial City, as these two honest persons are: and Beelzebub, Apollyon, and Legion, with their companions, perceiving by the path that the pilgrims made, that their way to the city lay through this Town of Vanity, they contrived here to set up a fair; a fair wherein, should be sold all sorts of vanity, and that it should last all the year long: therefore at this Fair are all such merchandise sold, as Houses, Lands, Trades, Places, Honours, Preferments, Titles, Countries, Kingdoms, Lusts, Pleasures, and Delights of all sorts, as Whores, Bawds, Wives, Husbands, Children, Masters, Servants, Lives, Blood, Bodies, Souls, Silver, Gold, Pearls, Precious Stones, and what not? And, moreover, at this fair there is at all times to be seen Jugglings, Cheats, Games, Plays, Fools, Apes, Knaves, and Rogues, and that of every kind. Here are to be seen, too, and that for nothing, Thefts, Murders, Adulteries, false-swearers, and that of a blood-red colour. |
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The streets of this fair [94] |
And as in other fairs of less moment, there are the several rows and streets, under their proper names, where such and such wares are vended; so here likewise you have the proper places, rows, streets, (viz. countries and kingdoms), where the wares of this fair are soonest to be found. Here is the Britain Row, the French Row, the Italian Row, the Spanish Row, the German Row, where several sorts of vanities are to be sold. But, as in other fairs, some one commodity is as the chief of all the fair, so the ware of Rome and her merchandise is greatly promoted in this fair; only our English nation, with some others, have taken a dislike thereat. |
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Christ went through this fair *1 Cor. 5:10 Christ bought nothing in this fair *Matt. 4:8, Luke 4:5-7
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Now, as I said, the way to the Celestial City lies just through this town where this lusty fair is kept; and he that will go to the city, and yet not go through this town, must needs go out of the world.* The Prince of princes himself, when here, went through this town to his own country, and that upon a fair day too; yea, and as I think, it was Beelzebub, the chief lord of this fair, that invited him to buy of his vanities; yea, would have made him lord of the fair, would he but have done him reverence as he went through the town.* Yea, because he was such a person of honour, Beelzebub had him from street to street, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a little time, that he might, if possible, allure the Blessed One to cheapen and buy some of his vanities; but he had no mind to the merchandise, and therefore left the town, without laying out so much as one farthing upon these vanities. This fair, therefore, is an ancient thing, of long standing, and a very great fair. |
| The pilgrims enter the fair
The fair in a hubbub about them |
Now these pilgrims, as I said, must needs go
through this fair.
Well, so they did: but, behold, even as they entered into the
fair, all the people in the fair were moved, and the town itself as it
were in a hubbub about them; and that for several reasons: for--
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| The first cause of the hubbub
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*1 Cor. 2:7-8 |
First, The pilgrims were clothed with such kind
of raiment as was diverse from the raiment
of any that traded in that fair. The people, therefore, of the fair, made a great gazing upon them: some said they were fools, some they were bedlams, and some they are Outlandishmen.* |
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Second cause of the hubbub |
Secondly, And as they wondered at their apparel, so they did likewise at their speech; for few could understand what they said; they naturally spoke the language of Canaan, but they that kept the fair were the men of this world; so that, from one end of the fair to the other, they seemed barbarians each to the other. |
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Third cause of the hubbub *Ps. 119:37,
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Thirdly, But that which did not a little amuse the merchandisers was, that these pilgrims set very light by all their wares; they cared not so much as to look upon them; and if they called upon them to buy, they would put their fingers in their ears, and cry, Turn away mine eyes from beholding Vanity, and look upwards, signifying that their trade and traffic was in Heaven. |
| Fourth cause of the hubbub
*Prov. 23:23 |
One chanced mockingly, beholding the carriage
of the men, to say unto them, What will ye buy? But they, looking
gravely upon him, answered, We buy the truth.*
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| They are mocked | At that there was an occasion taken to despise
the men the more; some mocking, some taunting, some speaking reproachfully,
and some calling upon others to smite them.
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| The fair in a hubbub | At last things came to a hubbub and great stir
in the fair, insomuch that all order was confounded. Now was word
presently brought to the great one of the fair, who quickly came down,
and deputed some of his most trusty friends to take these men into examination,
about whom the fair was almost overturned.
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| They are examined | So the men were brought to examination; and
they that sat upon them, asked them whence they came, whither they went,
and what they did there, in such an unusual garb?
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| They tell who they are, and whence
they came
*Heb. 11:13-16 [96] |
The men told them that they were pilgrims and strangers in the world,
and that they were going to their own country, which was the heavenly Jerusalem,*
and that they had given no occasion to the men of the town, nor
yet to the merchandisers, thus to abuse them, and to let them in their
journey, except it was for that, when one asked them what they would buy,
they said they would buy the truth.
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| They are not believed | But they that were appointed to examine them
did not believe them to be any other than bedlams and mad, or else such
as came to put all things into a confusion in the fair.
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| They are put in the cage | Therefore they took them and beat them, and
besmeared them with dirt, and then put them into the Cage, that they might
be made a spectacle to all the men of the Fair.
Behold Vanity Fair! the Pilgrims there
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