Then stood forth Captain Conviction, and said, (his were the pale colours, and for a scutcheon he had the book of the law wide open, etc.,) ’Hear, O Mansoul!  Thou, O Mansoul, wast once famous for innocency, but now thou art degenerated into lies and deceit.  Thou hast heard what my brother, the Captain Boanerges, hath said; and it is your wisdom, and will be your happiness, to stoop to, and accept of conditions of peace and mercy when offered, specially when offered by one against whom thou hast rebelled, and one who is of power to tear thee in pieces, for so is Shaddai, our King; nor, when he is angry, can anything stand before him.  If you say you have not sinned, or acted rebellion against our King, the whole of your doings since the day that you cast off his service (and there was the beginning of your sin) will sufficiently testify against you.  What else means your hearkening to the tyrant, and your receiving him for your king?  What means else your rejecting of the laws of Shaddai, and your obeying of Diabolus?  Yea, what means this your taking up of arms against, and the shutting of your gates upon us, the faithful servants of your King?  Be ruled then, and accept of my brother’s invitation, and overstand not the time of mercy, but agree with thine adversary quickly.  Ah, Mansoul! suffer not thyself to be kept from mercy, and to be run into a thousand miseries, by the flattering wiles of Diabolus.  Perhaps that piece of deceit may attempt to make you believe that we seek our own profit in this our service, but know it is obedience to our King, and love to your happiness, that is the cause of this undertaking of ours.

’Again I say to thee, O Mansoul, consider if it be not amazing grace that Shaddai should so humble himself as he doth:  now he, by us, reasons with you, in a way of entreaty and sweet persuasions, that you would subject yourselves to him.  Has he that need of you that we are sure you have of him?  No, no; but he is merciful, and will not that Mansoul should die, but turn to him and live.’

Then stood forth Captain Judgment, whose were the red colours, and for a scutcheon he had the burning fiery furnace, and he said, ’O ye, the inhabitants of the town of Mansoul, that have lived so long in rebellion and acts of treason against the King Shaddai, know that we come not to-day to this place, in this manner, with our message of our own minds, or to revenge our own quarrel; it is the King, my Master, that hath sent us to reduce you to your obedience to him; the which if you refuse in a peaceable way to yield, we have commission to compel you thereto.  And never think of yourselves, nor yet suffer the tyrant Diabolus to persuade you to think, that our King, by his power, is not able to bring you down, and to lay you under his feet; for he is the former of all things, and if he touches the mountains, they smoke.  Nor will the gate of the King’s clemency stand always open; for the day that shall burn like an oven is before him; yea, it hasteth greatly, it slumbereth not.