Vanity Fair

The next meeting that Faithful and Christian have is with Evangelist. He asks how they have fared since their last meeting, and they tell of the difficulties that there have been in the way. Evangelist's response is classic: 'Right glad am I, said Evangelist, not that you have met with trials, but that you have been victors; and for that you have, notwithstanding many weaknesses, continued in this way to this very day' (81). Evangelist, however, also tells them that they are to expect many more such trials, for that is what is promised to pilgrims on their way to heaven. The greatest trial, indeed, lay just ahead.

The road to the celestial city took Christian and Faithful through Vanity, a town erected by Beelzebub, Apollyon and Legion. In that town they set up a fair, open all year round for selling 'all sorts of vanity', as 'houses, lands, trades, places, honours, preferments, titles, countries, kingdoms, lusts, pleasures, and delights of all sorts, as wives, husbands, children, masters, servants, lives, blood, bodies, souls, silver, gold, pearls, precious stones, and what not' (83). Bunyan describes the fair in terms that make it clear that everything in the world is available at this fair, at which, in addition to all the other commodities available there, 'the ware of Rome and her merchandise is greatly promoted' (84).

So although the pilgrims have left the City of Destruction behind, they have not escaped the temptations of sin and the flesh. As Barry Horner states, Vanity Fair is simply 'another manifestation of the City of Destruction' (Themes and Issues, p368). What is interesting is the fact that some of the things that Bunyan lists as being available in Vanity Fair are legitimate and worthwhile; but if they usurp the place that ought to belong to Christ, they are worthless.

The lesson is clear: the Christian is constantly surrounded by a culture and a mindset which is hostile to his ethos, worldview and motivating principles. All around us there are temptations against which we are called to fortify ourselves. In our modern world, Vanity Fair comes to us through a wide range of media, in the songs we sing, in the programmes we watch, in the images we see, in the websites we surf.

John Owen has a masterly treatment 'Of Temptation' in Volume VI of his writings. This is how he defines temptation: it is

Any thing, state, way or condition, that, upon any account whatever, hath a force or efficacy to seduce, to draw the mind and heart of a man from its obedience, which God requires of him, into any sin, in any degree of it whatever (VI, 96).

That is what Vanity Fair represents: the many ways in which Satan can draw us away from obedience to God. We are surrounded by such enticements each day. Bunyan reminds us in the text that we do not walk a path that the Saviour himself did not walk:

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 (84).

This is a reference to the fact that, as someone has said, God had one Son without sin, but no sons without temptation. Christ himself suffered, being tempted (Hebrews 2:18). This was a result of his taking the nature of his people and being made like them (2:17), it was the qualification which made him a fitting priest for his people (2:17), and it enables him to help those who are being tempted (2:18). Temptation does not require a person to be sinful; in the case of Jesus the tempter used the only point of contact he had -- the humanity of Christ -- to attack his Sonship: 'if you are the Son of God, make these stones bread' (Luke 4:3). The fact that Christ walked through Vanity Fair without buying any of the commodities on offer means that in our pilgrimage we know that our Saviour is sympathetic to our needs. He was 'tempted as we are, yet without sin' (Hebrews 4:15). Therefore we have the assurance that he sympathises with our weaknesses (4:15) and will hear us at his throne of grace (4:16).

However, Bunyan portrays the pilgrims as being conspicuous as they walked through the fair. They could not be ignored. Three things in particular drew the attention of the crowd to them.

First, their dress was different to anything sold in the fair. They stood out as being dressed differently, so that the people of the fair gazed long at them. Some thought they were fools, others that they were 'outlandish'.

Second, their speech was also different. Bunyan says of the pilgrims: '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' (84-5).

Third, as they passed through the fair, the pilgrims did not even wish to look on what was for sale. Bunyan says that if the tradesmen called on the pilgrims to buy anything, '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' (85).

These three things set the pilgrims apart from everything that was going on in the fair. They were distinctive in their dress, in their speech and in their interests. It is a sobering test of our own commitment to Christ in this fallen, sinful world, that we too should be different as Christians. We are called to be in the world, and we will have many things in common with non-Christians. We share homes, workplaces, leisure interests with them -- yet we are called not to share their lifestyle, their language or their vanities with them. We need to ask hard questions about the limits of our behaviour and the extent of our participation. For all that we are the light of the world and the salt of the earth, we are also the 'called out ones'. In commenting on this passage, Spurgeon says

An unholy Church! It is useless to the world, and of no esteem among men. It is an abomination, hell's laughter, heaven's abhorrence. The worst evils which have ever come upon the world have been brought upon her by an unholy Church. O Christian, the vows of the Lord are upon you. You are God's priest: act as such. You are God's king: reign over your lusts. You are God's chosen: do not associate with Belial. Heaven is your portion: live like a heavenly spirit. So shall you prove that you have true faith in Jesus, for there cannot be faith in the ehart unless there be holiness in the life:

Lord, I desire to live as one
Who bears a blood-bought name;
As one who fears but grieving thee,
And knows no other shame

(Pictures from Pilgrim's Progress, p170).

These are the standards which are to characterise the people of God. The supreme example is that of Jesus himself, who associated with all kinds and classes of people, yet never adopted their lifestyle. He was separate from sinners, yet never separated from them. He welcomed them into his company, yet showed by the life he led, the words he spoke, and the interests he had, that his treasure was in heaven.

But how are we to ensure that our witness and our profession remain distinctive? To be a Christian -- to live a kingdom life in a fallen world -- is more than refusing to do certain things. How can we encourage ourselves and others to be holy? Supremely, by remaining close to Christ through the Scriptures. By Christ's own admission, God's people are sanctified through the Truth of the Word of God (John 17:17). As Owen puts it, 'Gospel truth is the root on which Gospel holiness grows' (XVII, ??). So Bunyan, in his work A Holy Life the Beauty of Christianity, says, 'Be well acquainted with the Word, and with the general rules of holiness; to wit, with the moral law; the want of this is a cause of much unholiness of conversation' (Works, II, p539). Because of that link between Christ and the holiness of the church and of the individual believer, we must make what use we can of all the means that Christ has appointed within his church.

It is necessary to set this in the wider context of the Pilgrim's Progress. The story here is not of someone who enters into a high experience of perfection through Spirit-baptism or some other unique experience; it is of someone struggling against inward doubts and fears, feelings of inadequacy, anxieties about the way, as well as struggling against outward temptations almost constantly. That was the Puritan understanding of what Gospel holiness was all about. It is a lesson that we need to learn and reinforce in our own times.

There was, however, a cost to be paid for the pilgrims' avoidance of the fair. Their presence was so disconcerting that the men of the place took both pilgrims into custody for trial and examination, trumped up charges against them, and then put them into a cage where they became 'the objects of any man's sport, or malice, or revenge' (86). The lesson is clear: to live a Christlike, holy life, is to receive the world's scorning and mocking. We cannot expect men to admire us if the whole reason for our lives is to please Christ.

But the patience that the pilgrims endured under the trial was itself a testimony and a witness to those who watched them. Some were influenced for good by the quietness and silence of the pilgrims.

One of the things that fortified them in their need was to recall what Evangelist had said to them:

They called again to mind what they had heard from their faithful friend Evangelist, and were the more confirmed in their way and sufferings, by that he told them would happen to them. They also now comforted each other, that whose lot it was to suffer, even he should have the best of it; therefore each man secretly wished that he might have that preferment; but committing themselves to the all-wise disposal of Him that ruleth all things, with much content they abode in the condition in which they were, until they should be otherwise disposed of (86-7).

We read in the Book of Acts of what happened to the apostles who had been preaching the gospel:

When they had called in the apostles, they beat them and charged them not to speak in the name of Jesus, and let them go. Then they left the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonour for the name. And every day, in the temple and from house to house, they did not cease teaching and preaching Jesus as the Christ (Acts 5:40-42).

We would naturally do anything to avoid suffering. Yet the apostles rejoiced at the privilege Christ had bestowed upon them: that they should suffer for him and on behalf of his name. To have that spirit is truly to be blessed.

In Pilgrim's Progress, the upshot of the events in Vanity Fair was that the pilgrims were put to trial. The trial was presided over by Lord Hategood; the charge on which they were indicted was

That they were enemies to, and disturbers of their trade; that they had made commotions and divisions in the town, and had won a party to their own most dangerous opinions, in contempt of the law of their prince (87).

Three witnesses -- Envy, Superstition and Pickthank -- witnessed against them. Envy argued that Faithful had dishonoured the laws of the town of Vanity, Superstition said that he held troubling and pestilent views, and Pickthank said that he had spoken unworthy things against the governors of the town. Faithful's defence was that he had only kept to the Word of God. This was enough for the judge. He reminded the jury of the ancient laws of their towns, the Acts that had been passed of old which were pertinent to the case: an Act in the days of Pharaoh, another in the days of Nebuchadnezzar, and another in the days of Darius, all of which demanded that Faithful be put to death. The jury (Messrs. Blindman, No-good, Malice, Love-lust, Live-loose, Heady, High-min, Enmity, Liar, Cruelty, Hate-light and Implacable) condemned him to death.

Faithful was tortured, then martyred. Bunyan's description is as follows:

Now I saw that there stood behind the multitude, a chariot and a couple of horses, waiting for Faithful, who (so soon as his adversaries had despatched him), was taken up into it, and straightway was carried up through the clouds, with sound of trumpet, the nearest way to the Celestial Gate.

But as for Christian, he had some respite, and was remanded back to prison. So he there remained for a space; but he that overrules all things, having the power of their rage in his own hand, so wrought it about, that Christian for that time escaped them, and went his way: and as he went, he sang, saying,

Well, Faithful, thou hast faithfully professed
Unto thy Lord; with whom thou shalt be blessed,
When faithless ones, with all their vain delights,
Are crying out under their hellish plights.
Sing, Faithful, sing, and let thy name survive
For, though they killed thee, thou art yet alive. (91).

There is a cost for remaining faithful to Christ; but there is a reward for persevering in the road of holiness to the end. For Faithful, in Bunyan's presentation, there is the glorious transport into the celestial city, in a scene that recalls Elijah's ascension to Heaven in 2 Kings 2. The lesson of the Vanity Fair scene is that which John was commissioned to write to the church of Smyrna: 'Do not fear what you are about to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison, that you may be tested and for ten days you will have tribulation. Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life' (Revelation 2:10).

ŠIain D. Campbell 2004