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IGNOR. Do you think that I am such a fool as to think God can see no further than I? or, that I would come to God in the best of my performances? CHR. Why, how dost thou think in this matter? IGNOR. Why, to be short, I think I must believe in Christ for justification. CHR. How! think thou must believe in Christ, when thou seest not thy need of Him!
IGNOR. You go so fast, I cannot keep pace with you. Do you go on before; I must stay a while behind. Then they said- Well, Ignorance, wilt thou yet foolish be, To slight good counsel, ten times given thee? And if thou yet refuse it, thou shalt know, Ere long, the evil of thy doing so. Remember, man, in time, stoop, do not fear; Good counsel taken well, saves: therefore hear.
Yea, thou also art ignorant of the true effects of saving faith in this righteousness of Christ, which is, to bow and win over the heart to God in Christ, to love His name, His Word, ways, and people, and not as thou ignorantly imaginest. HOPE. Ask him if ever he had Christ revealed to him from Heaven. IGNOR. What! you are a man for revelations!
IGNOR. That is your faith, but not mine; yet mine, I doubt not, is as good as yours, though I have not in my head so many whimsies as you. CHR. Give me leave to put in a word. Be awakened then, see thine own wretchedness, and fly to the Lord Jesus; and by His righteousness, which is the righteousness of God, for He Himself is God, thou shalt be delivered from condemnation.
Here, therefore, they met with a very brisk lad, that came out of that country; and his name was Ignorance. So Christian asked him from what parts he came, and whither he was going. IGNOR. Sir, I was born in the country that lieth off there, a little on the left hand, and I am going to the Celestial City. CHR. But how do you think to get in at the gate? for you may find some difficulty there.
Then Christian said to him, Come away, man, why do you stay so behind? IGNOR. I take my pleasure in walking alone, even more a great deal than in company, unless I like it the better. But, however, said he, come up, and let us talk away the time in this solitary place. Then, directing his speech to Ignorance, he said, Come, how do you? How stands it between God and your soul now?
'When I would do good, evil is present with me. How different is this to the self-righteous Ignorance, so vividly pictured in the Pilgrim's Progress: 'Ignor. I am always full of good motions that come into my mind, to comfort me as I walk. Chris. What good motions? pray tell us. Ignor. Why, I think of God and heaven. Chris. So do the devils and damned souls!
CHR. Yea, that is a good heart that hath good thoughts, and that is a good life that is according to God's commandments; but it is one thing, indeed, to have these, and another thing only to think so. IGNOR. Pray, what count you good thoughts, and a life according to God's commandments?
Now, when a man thus thinketh of his ways; I say, when he doth sensibly, and with heart humiliation, thus think, then hath he good thoughts of his own ways, because his thoughts now agree with the judgment of the Word of God. IGNOR. What are good thoughts concerning God?
CHR. There are good thoughts of divers kinds; some respecting ourselves, some God, some Christ, and some other thing. IGNOR. What be good thoughts respecting ourselves? CHR. Such as agree with the Word of God. IGNOR. When do our thoughts of ourselves agree with the Word of God? CHR. When we pass the same judgment upon ourselves which the Word passes.
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