to get a proper name for
this terrible fellow who was next to Diabolus himself, cannot find a
proud enough name for him but just by giving him his own name, and then
doubling it. Add will to will, multiply will by will, and multiply it
again, and after you have done all you are no nearer to a proper name for
that apostate, who, for pride, and insolence, and headstrongness, in one
word, for wilfulness, is next to Diabolus himself. But as Willbewill, if
he is to be named and described at all, is best named and described by
his own naked name; so Bunyan is always best illustrated out of his own
works. And I turn accordingly to the _Heavenly Footman_ for an excellent
illustration of the wilfulness of the will both in a good man and in a
bad; as, thus: 'Your self-willed people, nobody knows what to do with
them. We use to say, He will have his own will, do all we can. If a man
be willing, then any argument shall be matter of encouragement; but if
unwilling, then any argument shall give discouragement. The saints of
old, they being willing and resolved for heaven, what could stop them?
Could fire and fagot, sword or halter, dungeons, whips, bears, bulls,
lions, cruel rackings, stonings, starvings, nakedness? So willing had
they been made in the day of His power. And see, on the other side, the
children of the devil, because they are not willing, how many shifts and
starting-holes they will have! I have married a wife; I have a farm; I
shall offend my landlord; I shall lose my trade; I shall be mocked and
scoffed at, and therefore I cannot come. But, alas! the thing is, they
are not willing. For, were they once soundly willing, these, and a
thousand things such as these, would hold them no faster than the cords
held Samson when he broke them like flax. I tell you the will is all.
The Lord give thee a will, then, and courage of heart.'

2. Let that, then, suffice for this man's name and nature, and let us
look at him now when his name and his nature have both become evil; that
is to say, when Willbewill has become Illwill. You can imagine; no, you
cannot imagine unless you already know, how evil, and how set upon evil,
Illwill was. His whole mind, we are told, now stood bending itself to
evil. Nay, so set was he now upon sheer evil that he would act it of his
own accord, and without any instigation at all from Diabolus. And that
went on till he was looked on in the city as next in wickedness to very
Diabolus him