ass against the Lord of the
city, whither we are bound, thus to violate his revealed will?

They told him, that as for that, he needed not to trouble his head
thereabout: for what they did they had custom for, and could produce, if
need were, testimony that would witness it, for more than a thousand
years.

But, said Christian, will your practice stand a trial at law?

They told him, that custom, it being of so long standing as above a
thousand years, would, doubtless, now be admitted as a thing legal by an
impartial judge. And besides, said they, if we get into the way, what
matter is it which way we get in? If we are in, we are in: thou art but
in the way, who, as we perceive, came in at the gate: and we also are in
the way, that came tumbling over the wall: wherein now is thy condition
better than ours?

_Chr._ I walk by the rule of my Master: you walk by the rude working of
your fancies. You are counted thieves already by the Lord of the way:
therefore I doubt you will not be found true men at the end of the way.
You come in by yourselves, without his direction, and shall go out by
yourselves, without his mercy.

To this they made him but little answer; only they bid him look to
himself. Then I saw that they went on every man in his way, without much
conference one with another; save that these two men told Christian,
that as to laws and ordinances, they doubted not but that they should as
conscientiously do them as he. Therefore, said they, we see not wherein
thou differest from us, but by the coat that is on thy back, which was,
as we trow, given thee by some of thy neighbors, to hide the shame of
thy nakedness.

_Chr._ By laws and ordinances you will not be saved, since you came not
in by the door. And as for this coat that is on my back, it was given me
by the Lord of the place whither I go; and that, as you say, to cover my
nakedness with. And I take it as a token of his kindness to me; for I
had nothing but rags before. And, besides, thus I comfort myself as I
go. Surely, think I, when I come to the gate of the city, the Lord
thereof will know me for good, since I have his coat on my back; a coat
that he gave me freely in the day that he stripped me of my rags. I
have, moreover, a mark in my forehead, of which perhaps you have taken
no notice, which one of my lord's most intimate associates fixed there
in the day that my burden fell off my shoulders. I will tell you,
moreover, that I had then given me a