The Holy War – John Bunyan

Shaddai was raising of an army, to come to overthrow and utterly to destroy
this town of Mansoul, and this he did to forestal any tidings that might come
to their ears of their deliverance; for, thought he, if I first bruit[11] this, the
tidings that shall come after, will all be swallowed up of this; for what else
will Mansoul say, when they shall hear that they must be delivered, but that
the true meaning is, Shaddai intends to destroy them; wherefore, he
summons the whole town into the market-place, and there, with deceitful
tongue, thus he addresses himself unto them:--
'Gentlemen, and my very good friends, You are all, as you know, my
legal subjects, and men of the famous town of Mansoul; you know how,
from the first day that I have been with you until now, I have behaved myself
among you, and what liberty, and great privileges you have enjoyed under
my government, I hope to your honour, and mine, and also to your content
and delight. Now, my famous Mansoul, a noise of trouble there is abroad, of
trouble to the town of Mansoul, sorry I am thereof for your sakes. For I
received but now by the post from my Lord Lucifer--and he useth to have
good intelligence--that your old King Shaddai is raising of an army to come
against you, to destroy you root and branch:[12] and this, O Mansoul, is now
the cause that at this time I have called you together; namely, to advise what
in this juncture is best to be done; for my part, I am but one, and can with
ease shift for myself, did I list to seek my own ease, and to leave my
Mansoul in all the danger. But my heart is so firmly united to you, and so
unwilling am I to leave you, that I am willing to stand and fall with you, to
the utmost hazard that shall befall me.[13] What say you, O my Mansoul?
Will you now desert your old friend, or do you think of standing by me?'
Then as one man, with one mouth, they cried out together, 'Let him die the
death that will not.'
Then said Diabolus again, 'It is in vain for us to hope for quarter, for this
King knows not how to show it: true, perhaps, he at his first sitting down
before us will talk of, and pretend to, mercy, that thereby, with the more
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