← catalogue

Works of John Bunyan — Complete

by John Bunyan · English · Gutenberg #6049 · 12,045,907 chars · public domain (US)

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Works of John Bunyan — Complete
    
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.

Title: Works of John Bunyan — Complete

Author: John Bunyan

Editor: George Offor


        
Release date: July 1, 2004 [eBook #6049]
                Most recently updated: May 11, 2022

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/6049

Credits: Charles Aldarondo


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WORKS OF JOHN BUNYAN — COMPLETE ***




THE WORKS OF JOHN BUNYAN

WITH AN

INTRODUCTION TO EACH TREATISE, NOTES,

AND A

SKETCH OF HIS LIFE, TIMES, AND CONTEMPORARIES.

VOLUME FIRST.

EXPERIMENTAL, DOCTRINAL, AND PRACTICAL.

EDITED BY

GEORGE OFFOR, ESQ.






MEMOIR OF JOHN BUNYAN

THE FIRST PERIOD.

THIS GREAT MAN DESCENDED FROM IGNOBLE PARENTS--BORN IN POVERTY--HIS
EDUCATION AND EVIL HABITS--FOLLOWS HIS FATHER'S BUSINESS AS A
BRAZIER--ENLISTS FOR A SOLDIER--RETURNS FROM THE WARS AND OBTAINS
AN AMIABLE, RELIGIOUS WIFE--HER DOWER.

'We have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of
the power may be of God, and not of us.'--2 Cor 4:7

'For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my
ways, saith the Lord.'--Isaiah 55:8.

'Though ye have lien among the pots, yet shall ye be as the
wings of a dove covered with silver, and her feathers with yellow
gold.'--Psalm 68:13.

When the Philistine giant, Goliath, mocked the host of Israel,
and challenged any of their stern warriors to single combat, what
human being could have imagined that the gigantic heathen would be
successfully met in the mortal struggle by a youth 'ruddy and of
a fair countenance?' who unarmed, except with a sling and a stone,
gave the carcases of the hosts of the Philistines to the fouls of
the air, and to the wild beasts of the earth.'

Who, upon seeing an infant born in a stable, and laid in a manger,
or beholding him when a youth working with his father as a carpenter,
could have conceived that he was the manifestation of the Deity
in human form, before whom every knee should bow, and every tongue
confess Him to be THE ETERNAL?

Father Michael, a Franciscan friar, on a journey to Ancona,
having lost his way, sought direction from a wretched lad keeping
hogs--deserted, forlorn, his back smarting with severe stripes,
and his eyes suffused with tears. The poor ragged boy not only went
cheerfully with him to point out his road, but besought the monk
to take him into his convent, volunteering to fulfill the most
degrading services, in the hope of procuring a little learning,
and escaping from 'those filthy hogs.' How incredulously would the
friar have listened to anyone who could have suggested that this
desolate, tattered, dirty boy, might and would fill a greater than
an imperial throne! Yet, eventually that swine-herd was clothed
in purple and fine linen, and, under the title of Pope Sixtus V.,
became one of those mighty magicians who are described in Rogers
Italy, as


   'Setting their feet upon the necks of kings,
    And through the worlds subduing, chaining down
    The free, immortal spirit--theirs a wondrous spell.' [1]


A woman that was 'a loose and ungodly wretch' hearing a tinker lad
most awfully cursing and swearing, protested to him that 'he swore
and cursed at that most fearful rate that it made her tremble to
hear him,' 'that he was the ungodliest fellow for swearing that
ever she heard in all her life,' and 'that he was able to spoil
all the youth in a whole town, if they came in his company.' This
blow at the young reprobate made that indelible impression which all
the sermons yet he had heard had failed to make. Satan, by one of
his own slaves, wounded a conscience which had resisted all the
overtures of mercy. The youth pondered her words in his heart;
they were good seed strangely sown, and their working formed one
of those mysterious steps which led the foul-mouthed blasphemer
to bitter repentance; who, when he had received mercy and pardon,
felt impelled to bless and magnify the Divine grace with shining,
burning thoughts and words. The poor profligate, swearing tinker
became transformed into the most ardent preacher of the love of
Christ--the well-trained author of The Jerusalem Sinner Saved, or
Good News to the Vilest of Men.

How often have the Saints of God been made a most unexpected blessing
to others. The good seed of Divine truth has been many times sown
by those who did not go out to sow, but who were profitably engaged
in cultivating their own graces, enjoying the communion of Saints,
and advancing their own personal happiness! Think of a few poor,
but pious happy women, sitting in the sun one beautiful summer's
day, before one of their cottages, probably each one with her
pillow on her lap, dexterously twisting the bobbins to make lace,
the profits of which helped to maintain their children. While
they are communing on the things of God, a traveling tinker draws
near, and, over-hearing their talk, takes up a position where
he might listen to their converse while he pursued his avocation.
Their words distil into his soul; they speak the language of Canaan;
they talk of holy enjoyments, the result of being born again,
acknowledging their miserable state by nature, and how freely and
undeservedly God had visited their hearts with pardoning mercy,
and supported them while suffering the assaults and suggestions
of Satan; how they had been borne up in every dark, cloudy, stormy
day; and how they contemned, slighted, and abhorred their own
righteousness as filthy and insufficient to do them any good. The
learned discourses our tinker had heard at church had casually
passed over his mind like evanescent clouds, and left little or no
lasting impression. But these poor women, 'methought they spake as
actually did make them speak; they speak with such pleasant as of
Scripture language, and with such appearance of grace in all they
said, that they were to me as if they had found a new world, as
if they were people that dwelt alone, and were not to be reckoned
among their neighbors' (Num 23:9).

O! how little did they imagine that their pious converse was to
be the means employed by the Holy Spirit in the conversion of that
poor tinker, and that, by their agency, he was to be transformed
into one of the brightest luminaries of heaven; who, when he had
entered into rest would leave his works to follow him as spiritual
thunder to pierce the hearts of the impenitent, and as heavenly
consolation to bind up the broken-hearted; liberating the prisoners
of Giant Despair, and directing the pilgrims to the Celestial City.
Thus were blessings in rich abundance showered down upon the church
by the instrumentality, in the first instance, of a woman that was
a sinner, but most eminently by the Christian converse of a few
poor but pious women.

This poverty-stricken, ragged tinker was the son of a working
mechanic at Elstow, near Bedford. So obscure was his origin that
even the Christian name of his father is yet unknown:[2] he was
born in 1628, a year memorable as that in which the Bill of Rights
was passed. Then began the struggle against arbitrary power, which
was overthrown in 1688, the year of Bunyan's death, by the accession
of William III. Of Bunyan's parents, his infancy, and childhood,
little is recorded. All that we know is from his own account, and
that principally contained in his doctrine of the Law and Grace,
and in his extraordinary development of his spiritual life, under
the title of Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners. His birth would
have shed a luster on the wealthiest mansion, and have imparted
additional grandeur to any lordly palace. Had royal or noble
gossips, and a splendid entertainment attended his christening,
it might have been pointed to with pride; but so obscure was his
birth, that it has not been discovered that he was christened at
all; while the fact of his new birth by the Holy Ghost is known
over the whole world to the vast extent that his writings have
been circulated. He entered this world in a labourer's cottage of
the humblest class, at the village of Elstow, about a mile from
Bedford.[3] His pedigree is thus narrated by himself:--'My descent
was of a low and inconsiderable generation, my father's house being
of that rank that is meanest and most despised of all the families
in the land.'[4] Bunyan alludes to this very pointedly in the preface
to A Few Sighs from Hell:--'I am thine, if thou be not ashamed to
own me, because of my low and contemptible descent in the world.'[5]
His poor and abject parentage was so notorious, that his pastor,
John Burton, apologized for it in his recommendation to The Gospel
Truths Opened:--'Be not offended because Christ holds forth the
glorious treasure of the gospel to thee in a poor earthen vessel,
by one who hath neither the greatness nor the wisdom of this world
to commend him to thee.'[6] And in his most admirable treatise, on
The Fear of God, Bunyan observes--'The poor Christian hath something
to answer them that reproach him for his ignoble pedigree, and
shortness of the glory of the wisdom of this world. True may that
man say I am taken out of the dunghill. I was born in a base and
low estate; but I fear God. This is the highest and most noble; he
hath the honour, the life, and glory that is lasting.'[7] In his
controversy with the Strict Baptists, he chides them for reviling
his ignoble pedigree:--'You closely disdain my person because of
my low descent among men, stigmatizing me as a person of THAT rank
that need not be heeded or attended unto.'[8] He inquired of his
father--'Whether we were of the Israelites or no? for, finding in
the Scripture that they were once the peculiar people of God, thought
I, if I were one of this race, my soul must needs be happy.'[9]
This somewhat justifies the conclusion that his father was a Gipsy
tinker, that occupation being then followed by the Gipsy tribe.
In the life of Bunyan appended to the forged third part of the
Pilgrim's Progress, his father is described as 'an honest poor
labouring man, who, like Adam unparadised, had all the world before
him to get his bread in; and was very careful and industrious to
maintain his family.'[10]

Happily for Bunyan, he was born in a neighbourhood in which it was
a disgrace to any parents not to have their children educated. With
gratitude he records, that 'it pleased God to put it into their
hearts to put me to school to learn both to read and to write.' In
the neighbourhood of his birthplace, a noble charity diffused the
blessings of lettered knowledge.[11] To this charity Bunyan was
for a short period indebted for the rudiments of education; but,
alas, evil associates made awful havoc of those slight unshapen
literary impressions which had been made upon a mind boisterous
and impatient of discipline. He says--'To my shame, I confess I
did soon lose that little I learned, and that almost utterly.'[12]
This fact will recur to the reader's recollection when he peruses
Israel's Hope Encouraged, in which, speaking of the all-important
doctrine of justification, he says--'It is with many that begin
with this doctrine as it is with boys that go to the Latin school;
they learn till they have learned the grounds of their grammar,
and then go home and forget all.'[13]

As soon as his strength enabled him, he devoted his whole soul and
body to licentiousness--'As for my own natural life, for the time
that I was without God in the world, it was indeed according to
the course of this world, and the spirit that now worketh in the
children of disobedience. It was my delight to be taken captive by
the devil at his will: being filled with all unrighteousness; that
from a child I had but few equals, both for cursing, swearing,
lying, and blaspheming the holy name of God.'[14]

It has been supposed, that in delineating the early career of
Badman, 'Bunyan drew the picture of his own boyhood.'[15] But the
difference is broadly given. Badman is the child of pious parents,
who gave him a 'good education' in every sense, both moral and
secular;[16] the very reverse of Bunyan's training. His associates
would enable him to draw the awful character and conduct of Badman,
as a terrible example to deter others from the downward road to
misery and perdition.

Bunyan's parents do not appear to have checked, or attempted to
counteract, his unbridled career of wickedness. He gives no hint
of the kind; but when he notices his wife's father, he adds that he
'was counted godly'; and in his beautiful nonsectarian catechism,
there is a very touching conclusion to his instructions to children
on their behaviour to their parents:--'The Lord, if it be his will,
convert our poor parents, that they, with us, may be the children
of God.'[17] These fervent expressions may refer to his own parents;
and, connecting them with other evidence, it appears that he was
not blessed with pious example. Upon one occasion, when severely
reproved for swearing, he says--'I wished, with all my heart, that
I might be a little child again, that my father might learn me to
speak without this wicked way of swearing.'[18] In his numerous
confessions, he never expresses pain at having, by his vicious
conduct, occasioned grief to his father or mother. From this
it may be inferred, that neither his father's example nor precept
had checked this wretched propensity to swearing, and that he owed
nothing to his parents for moral training; but, on the contrary,
they had connived at, and encouraged him in, a course of life which
made him a curse to the neighbourhood in which he lived.

In the midst of all this violent depravity, the Holy Spirit began
the work of regeneration in his soul--a long, a solemn, yea, an
awful work--which was to fit this poor debauched youth for purity
of conduct--for communion with heaven--for wondrous usefulness as
a minister of the gospel--for patient endurance of sufferings for
righteousness' sake--for the writing of works which promise to be
a blessing to the Church in all ages--for his support during his
passage through the black river which has no bridge--to shine all
bright and glorious, as a star in the firmament of heaven. 'Wonders
of grace to God belong.'

During the period of his open profligacy, his conscience was ill
at ease; at times the clanking of Satan's slavish chains in which
he was hurrying to destruction, distracted him. The stern reality
of a future state clouded and embittered many of those moments
employed in gratifying his baser passions. The face of the eventful
times in which he lived was rapidly changing; the trammels were
loosened, which, with atrocious penalties, had fettered all free
inquiry into religious truth. Puritanism began to walk upright; and
as the restraints imposed upon Divine truths were taken off, in the
same proportion restraints were imposed upon impiety, profaneness,
and debauchery. A ringleader in all wickedness would not long
continue without reproof, either personally, or as seen in the holy
conduct of others. Bunyan very properly attributed to a gracious
God, those checks of conscience which he so strongly felt even while
he was apparently dead in trespasses and sins. 'The Lord, even in
my childhood, did scare and affright me with fearful dreams, and did
terrify me with dreadful visions.'[19] 'I often wished that there
had been no hell, or that I had been a devil to torment others.'
A common childish but demoniac idea. His mind was as 'the troubled
sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt.'
'A while after, these terrible dreams did leave me; and with more
greediness, according to the strength of nature, I did let loose
the reins of my lusts, and delighted in all transgression against
the law of God.' 'I was the very ringleader of all the youth that
kept me company, into ALL MANNER of vice and ungodliness.'[20]

Dr. Southey and others have attempted to whiten this blackamore, but
the veil that they throw over him is so transparent that it cannot
deceive those who are in the least degree spiritually enlightened.
He alleges that Bunyan, in his mad career of vice and folly, 'was
never so given over to a reprobate mind,'[21] as to be wholly
free from compunctions of conscience. This is the case with every
depraved character; but he goes further, when he asserts that
'Bunyan's heart never was hardened.'[22] This is directly opposed
to his description of himself:--'I found within me a great desire
to take my fill of sin, still studying what sin was yet to be
committed; and I made as much haste as I could to fill my belly
with its delicates, lest I should die before I had my desire.' He
thus solemnly adds, 'In these things, I protest before God, I lie
not, neither do I feign this sort of speech; these were really,
strongly, and with all my heart, my desires; the good Lord, whose
mercy is unsearchable, forgive me my transgressions.' The whole
of his career, from childhood to manhood, was, 'According to the
course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the
air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience'
(Eph 2:2).

These reminiscences are alluded to in the prologue of the Holy
War:--


   'When Mansoul trampled upon things Divine,
    And wallowed in filth as doth a swine,
    Then I was there, and did rejoice to see
    Diabolus and Mansoul so agree.'


The Laureate had read this, and yet considers it the language of
a heart that 'never was hardened.' He says that 'the wickedness
of the tinker has been greatly overcharged, and it is taking the
language of self-accusation too literally to pronounce of John
Bunyan, that he was at any time depraved. The worst of what he was
in his worst days is to be expressed in a single word, the full
meaning of which no circumlocution can convey; and which, though
it may hardly be deemed presentable in serious composition, I shall
use, as Bunyan himself (no mealy-mouthed writer) would have used
it, had it in his days borne the same acceptation in which it is now
universally understood;--in that word then, he had been a blackguard.


    The very head and front of his offending
    Hath this extent--no more.'[23]


The meaning of the epithet is admirably explained; but what could
Dr. Southey imagine possible to render such a character more vile
in the sight of God, or a greater pest to society? Is there any
vicious propensity, the gratification of which is not included in
that character? Bunyan's estimate of his immorality and profaneness
prior to his conversion, was not made by comparing himself with
the infinitely Holy One, but he measured his conduct by that of
his more moral neighbours. In his Jerusalem Sinner Saved, he pleads
with great sinners, the outwardly and violently profane and vicious,
that if HE had received mercy, and had become regenerated, they
surely ought not to despair, but to seek earnestly for the same
grace. He thus describes himself:--'I speak by experience; I was
one of those great sin-breeders; I infected all the youth of the
town where I was born; the neighbours counted me so, my practice
proved me so: wherefore, Christ Jesus took me first; and, taking
me first, the contagion was much allayed all the town over. When
God made me sigh, they would hearken, and inquiringly say, What's
the matter with John? When I went out to seek the bread of life,
some of them would follow, and the rest be put into a muse at home.
Some of them, perceiving that God had mercy upon me, came crying to
him for mercy too.'[24] Can any one, in the face of such language,
doubt that he was most eminently 'a brand snatched from the fire';
a pitchy burning brand, known and seen as such by all who witnessed
his conduct? He pointedly exemplified the character set forth by
James, 'the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity, set on fire of
hell' (James 3:6). This was as publicly known before his conversion,
as the effects of the wondrous change were openly seen in his
Christian career afterwards. He who, when convinced of sin, strained
his eyes to see the distant shining light over the wicket-gate,
after he had gazed upon


      --'The wondrous cross
    On which the Prince of glory died,'


became a luminous beacon, to attract the vilest characters to seek
newness of life; and if there be hope for them, no one ought to
despair. Far be it from us to cloud this light, or to tarnish so
conspicuous an example. Like a Magdalene or a thief on the cross,
his case may be exhibited to encourage hope in every returning
prodigal. During this period of his childhood, while striving to
harden his heart against God, many were the glimmerings of light
which from time to time directed his unwilling eyes to a dread
eternity. In the still hours of the night 'in a dream God opened'
his ears[25]--the dreadful vision was that 'devils and wicked
spirits laboured to draw me away with them.' These thoughts must
have left a deep and alarming impression upon his mind; for he
adds, 'of which I could never be rid.'[26]

The author of his life, published in 1692, who was one of his
personal friends, gives the following account of Bunyan's profligacy,
and his checks of conscience:--'He himself hath often, since his
conversion, confessed with horror, that when he was but a child or
stripling, he had but few equals for lying, swearing, and blaspheming
God's holy name--living without God in the world; the thoughts of
which, when he, by the light of Divine grace, came to understand his
dangerous condition, drew many showers of tears from his sorrowful
eyes, and sighs from his groaning heart. The first thing that
sensibly touched him in this his unregenerate state, were fearful
dreams, and visions of the night, which often made him cry out in
his sleep, and alarm the house, as if somebody was about to murder
him, and being waked, he would start, and stare about him with
such a wildness, as if some real apparition had yet remained;
and generally those dreams were about evil spirits, in monstrous
shapes and forms, that presented themselves to him in threatening
postures, as if they would have taken him away, or torn him in
pieces. At some times they seemed to belch flame, at other times
a continuous smoke, with horrible noises and roaring. Once he
dreamed he saw the face of the heavens, as it were, all on fire;
the firmament crackling and shivering with the noise of mighty
thunders, and an archangel flew in the midst of heaven, sounding a
trumpet, and a glorious throne was seated in the east, whereon sat
one in brightness, like the morning star, upon which he, thinking
it was the end of the world, fell upon his knees, and, with uplifted
hands towards heaven, cried, O Lord God, have mercy upon me! What
shall I do, the day of judgment is come, and I am not prepared! When
immediately he heard a voice behind him, exceeding loud, saying,
Repent. At another time he dreamed that he was in a pleasant
place, jovial and rioting, banqueting and feasting his senses, when
a mighty earthquake suddenly rent the earth, and made a wide gap,
out of which came bloody flames, and the figures of men tossed
up in globes of fire, and falling down again with horrible cries,
shrieks, and execrations, whilst some devils that were mingled
with them, laughed aloud at their torments; and whilst he stood
trembling at this sight, he thought the earth sunk under him, and
a circle of flame enclosed him; but when he fancied he was just at
the point to perish, one in white shining raiment descended, and
plucked him out of that dreadful place; whilst the devils cried
after him, to leave him with them, to take the just punishment his
sins had deserved, yet he escaped the danger, and leaped for joy
when he awoke and found it was a dream.'

Such dreams as these fitted him in after life to be the glorious
dreamer of the Pilgrim's Progress, in which a dream is told which
doubtless embodies some of those which terrified him in the night
visions of his youth.

In the interpreter's house he is 'led into a chamber where there
was one rising out of bed, and as he put on his raiment he shook
and trembled. Then said Christian, Why doth this man thus tremble?
The Interpreter then bid him tell to Christian the reason of his
so doing. So he began and said, This night, as I was in my sleep
I dreamed, and behold the heavens grew exceeding black; also it
thundered and lightened in most fearful wise, that it put me into
an agony. So I looked up in my dream, and saw the clouds rack at
an unusual rate, upon which I heard a great sound of a trumpet,
and saw also a man sit upon a cloud, attended with the thousands of
heaven--they were all in flaming fire; also the heavens were in a
burning flame. I heard then a voice saying, "Arise, ye dead, and
come to judgment;" and with that the rocks rent, the graves opened,
and the dead that were therein came forth. Some of them were exceeding
glad, and looked upward; and some sought to hide themselves under
the mountains. Then I saw the man that sat upon the cloud open the
book, and bid the world draw near. Yet there was, by reason of a
fierce flame which issued out and came from before him, a convenient
distance betwixt him and them, as betwixt the judge and prisoners
at the bar. I heard it also proclaimed, "Gather together the tares,
the chaff, and stubble, and cast them into the burning lake"; and
with that the bottomless pit opened just whereabout I stood, out
of the mouth of which there came, in an abundant manner, smoke and
coals of fire, with hideous noises. It was also said, "Gather my
wheat into the garner"; and with that I saw many catched up and
carried away into the clouds, but I was left behind. I also sought
to hide myself, but I could not, for the man that sat upon the
cloud still kept his eye upon me; my sins also came into my mind,
and my conscience did accuse me on every side. Upon that I awaked
from my sleep.'

No laboured composition could have produced such a dream as this.
It flows in such dream-like order as would lead us to infer, that
the author who narrates it had, when a boy, heard the twenty-fifth
chapter of Matthew read at church, and the solemn impression
following him at night assisted in producing a dream which stands,
and perhaps will ever stand, unrivalled.

Awful as must have been these impressions upon his imagination, they
were soon thrown off, and the mad youth rushed on in his desperate
career of vice and folly. Is he then left to fill up the measure
of his iniquities? No, the Lord has a great work for him to do.
HIS hand is not shortened that he cannot save. Bunyan has to be
prepared for his work; and if terrors will not stop him, manifested
mercies in judgments are to be tried.

'God did not utterly leave me, but followed me still, not now with
convictions, but judgments; yet such as were mixed with mercy. For
once I fell into a creek of the sea, and hardly escaped drowning.
Another time I fell out of a boat into Bedford river, but mercy
yet preserved me alive. Besides, another time, being in the field
with one of my companions, it chanced that an adder passed over
the highway, so I, having a stick in my hand, struck her over the
back; and having stunned her, I forced open her mouth with my stick,
and plucked her sting out with my fingers; by which act, had not
God been merciful unto me, I might by my desperateness have brought
myself to my end.

'This also have I taken notice of, with thanksgiving. When I was a
soldier, I, with others, were drawn out to go to such a place to
besiege it; but when I was just ready to go, one of the company
desired to go in my room, to which, when I had consented, he took
my place; and coming to the siege, as he stood sentinel, he was
shot into the head with a musket bullet, and died.'[27]

In addition to these mercies recorded by his own pen, one of his
friends asserts that he acknowledged his deep obligations to Divine
mercy for being saved when he fell into an exceeding deep pit, as
he was traveling in the dark; for having been preserved in sickness;
and also for providential goodness that such a sinner was sustained
with food and raiment, even to his own admiration.

Bunyan adds, 'Here were judgments and mercy, but neither of them
did awaken my soul to righteousness'; wherefore I sinned still,
and grew more and more rebellious against God, and careless of mine
own salvation.'[28]

That such a scape-grace should enter the army can occasion no surprise.
His robust, hardy frame, used to exposure in all weathers--his
daring courage, as displayed in his perilous dealing with the
adder, bordering upon fool-hardiness--his mental depravity and
immoral habits, fitted him for all the military glory of rapine and
desolation. In his Grace Abounding he expressly states that this
took place before his marriage, while his earliest biographer places
this event some years after his marriage, and even argues upon
it, as a reason why he became a soldier, that 'when the unnatural
civil war came on, finding little or nothing to do to support
himself and small family, he, as many thousands did, betook himself
to arms.'[29] The same account states that, 'in June, 1645, being
at the siege of Leicester, he was called out to be one who was to
make a violent attack upon the town, vigorously defended by the
King's forces against the Parliamentarians, but appearing to the
officer who was to command them to be somewhat awkward in handling
his arms, another voluntarily, and as it were thrust himself into
his place, who, having the same post that was designed Mr. Bunyan,
met his fate by a carbine-shot from the wall; but this little or
nothing startled our too secure sinner at that time; for being now
in an army where wickedness abounded, he was the more hardened.'

Thus we find Bunyan engaged in military affairs. There can be no
doubt but that he was a soldier prior to his marriage, and that he
was present at the siege of Leicester; but it is somewhat strange
(if true) that he should have preferred the Parliamentary to the
Royal army. Although this is a question that cannot be positively
decided without further evidence than has yet been discovered,
there are strong reasons for thinking that so loyal a man joined
the Royal army, and not that of the Republicans.

The army into which Bunyan entered is described as being 'where
wickedness abounded,' but, according to Hume, in this year the
Republican troops were generally pious men.

Bunyan's loyalty was so remarkable as to appear to be natural to
him; for even after he had so severely suffered from the abuse of
kingly power, in interfering with the Divine prerogative of appointing
modes of worship, he, who feared the face of no man--who never
wrote a line to curry favour with any man or class of men--thus
expresses his loyal feelings--'I do confess myself one of the
old-fashioned professors, that covet to fear God, and honour the
king. I also am for blessing of them that curse me, for doing good
to them that hate me, and for praying for them that despitefully
use me and persecute me; and have had more peace in the practice of
these things than all the world are aware of.' 'Pray for the long
life of the king.' 'Pray that God would discover all plots and
conspiracies against his person and government.'[30] 'Will you rebel
against the king? is a word that shakes the world.'[31] 'Pray for
all that are in authority; reproach not the governor, he is set over
thee; all his ways are God's, either for thy help or the trial of
thy graces--this is duty, will render thee lovely to thy friends,
terrible to thine enemies, serviceable as a Christian.'[32]
'Let kings have that fear, honour, reverence, worship that is due
to their place, their office and dignity.' 'I speak it to show my
loyalty to the king, and my love to my fellow-subjects.'[33] With
such proofs of his peaceful submission to government in all things
that touched not the prerogatives of God; it would have been marvelous
indeed if he had taken up arms against his king. His infatuated
delight in swearing, and roisterous habits, were ill suited to the
religious restraints of the Parliamentarians, while they would render
him a high prize to Rupert's dragoons. Add to this, the remarkable
fact, that Leicester was besieged and stormed with terrible slaughter
by the king, but not by the army of the Parliament. The taking of
Leicester by the king in person was attended with great cruelties.
The abbey was burnt by the cavaliers. Rupert's black flag was
hoisted on the gate which had been treacherously given up. Every
Scotchman found in the town was murdered. The mace and town seals
were carried off as plunder; and, if the account given by Thoresby
in his History of Leicester is correct, the scene of carnage was
quite enough to sicken Bunyan of a military life. He knew the mode
in which plunder taken from the bodies of the slain was divided by
the conquerors:--


   'Or as the soldiers give unto
    Each man the share and lot,
    Which they by dint of sword have won,
    From their most daring foe;
    While he lies by as still as stone,
    Not knowing what they do.'[34]


'The king's forces having made their batteries, stormed Leicester;
those within made stout resistance, but some of them betrayed
one of the gates; the women of the town laboured in making up the
breaches, and in great danger. The king's forces having entered
the town, had a hot encounter in the market-place; and many of them
were slain by shot out of the windows, that they gave no quarter,
but hanged some of the committee, and cut others to pieces. Some
letters say that the kennels ran down with blood; Colonel Gray the
governor, and Captain Hacker, were wounded and taken prisoners,
and very many of the garrison were put to the sword, and the town
miserably plundered. The king's forces killed divers who prayed
quarter, and put divers women to the sword,[35] and other women
and children they turned naked into the streets, and many they
ravished. They hanged Mr. Reynor and Mr. Sawyer in cold blood; and
at Wighton they smothered Mrs. Barlowes, a minister's wife, and
her children.'[36]

Lord Clarendon admits the rapine and plunder, and that the king
regretted that some of his friends suffered with the rest.[37]
Humphrey Brown deposed that he was present when the garrison, having
surrendered upon a promise of quarter, he saw the king's soldiers
strip and wound the prisoners, and heard the king say--'cut them
more, for they are mine enemies.' A national collection was made
for the sufferers, by an ordinance bearing date the 28th October,
1645, which states that--'Whereas it is very well known what miseries
befell the inhabitants of the town and county of Leicester, when
the king's army took Leicester, by plundering the said inhabitants,
not only of their wares in their shops, but also all their household
goods, and their apparel from their backs, both of men, women,
and children, not sparing, in that kind, infants in their cradles;
and, by violent courses and tortures, compelled them to discover
whatsoever they had concealed or hid, and after all they imprisoned
their persons, to the undoing of the tradesmen, and the ruin of
many of the country.'

Can we wonder that 'the king was abused as a barbarian and a
murderer, for having put numbers to death in cold blood after the
garrison had surrendered; and for hanging the Parliament's committee,
and some Scots found in that town?' The cruelties practiced in the
king's presence were signally punished. He lost 709 men on that
occasion, and it infused new vigour into the Parliament's army. The
battle of Naseby was fought a few days after; the numbers of the
contending forces were nearly equal; the royal troops were veterans,
commanded by experienced officers; but the God of armies avenged
the innocent blood shed in Leicester, and the royal army was cut to
pieces; carriages, cannon, the king's cabinet, full of treasonable
correspondence, were taken, and from that day he made feeble fight,
and soon lost his crown and his life. The conquerors marched to
Leicester, which surrendered by capitulation. Heath, in his Chronicle,
asserts that 'no life was lost at the retaking of Leicester.' Many
of Bunyan's sayings and proverbs are strongly tinged with the spirit
of Rupert's dragoons--'as we say, blood up to the ears.'[38] 'What
can be the meaning of this (trumpeters), they neither sound boot
and saddle, nor horse and away, nor a charge?'[39] In his allegories
when he alludes to fighting, it is with the sword and not with the
musket;[40] 'rub up man, put on thy harness.'[41] 'The father's
sword in the hand of the sucking child is not able to conquer a
foe.'[42]

Considering his singular loyalty, which, during the French
Revolution, was exhibited as a pattern to Dissenters by an eminent
Baptist minister; [43] considering also his profligate character
and military sayings, it is very probable that Bunyan was in the
king's army in 1645, being about seventeen years of age. It was a
finishing school to the hardened sinner, which enabled him, in his
account of the Holy War, so well to describe every filthy lane and
dirty street in the town of Mansoul.

Whether Bunyan left the army when Charles was routed at the battle
of Naseby, or was discharged, is not known. He returned to his
native town full of military ideas, which he used to advantage in
his Holy War. He was not reformed, but hardened in sin, and, although
at times alarmed with convictions of the danger of his soul, yet in
the end, the flesh pleading powerfully, it prevailed; and he made
a resolution to indulge himself in such carnal delights and pleasures
as he was accustomed to, or that fell in his way. 'His neglecting
his business, and following gaming and sports, to put melancholy
thoughts out of his mind, which he could not always do, had rendered
him very poor and despicable.'[44]

In this forlorn and miserable state, he was induced, by the persuasion
of friends, under the invisible guidance of God, to enter into the
marriage state. Such a youth, then only twenty years of age, would
naturally be expected to marry some young woman as hardened as
himself, but he made a very different choice. His earliest biographer
says, with singular simplicity, 'his poverty, and irregular course
of life, made it very difficult for him to get a wife suitable to
his inclination; and because none that were rich would yield to
his allurements, he found himself constrained to marry one without
any fortune, though very virtuous, loving, and conformably obedient
and obliging, being born of good, honest, godly parents, who had
instructed her, as well as they were able, in the ways of truth
and saving knowledge.'[45] The idea of his seeking a rich wife is
sufficiently droll; he must have been naturally a persuasive lover,
to have gained so good a helpmate. They were not troubled with
sending cards, cake, or gloves, nor with the ceremony of receiving
the visits of their friends in state; for he says, that 'This woman
and I came together as poor as poor might be, not having so much
household stuff as a dish or spoon betwixt us both.'[46] His wife
had two books, The Plain Man's Pathway to Heaven, and The Practice
of Piety; but what was of more importance than wealth or household
stuff, she had that seed sown in her heart which no thief could
steal.[47] She enticed and persuaded him to read those books. To
do this he by application 'again recovered his reading, which he
had almost lost.' His wife became an unspeakable blessing to him.
She presents a pattern to any woman, who, having neglected the
apostolic injunction not to be unequally yoked, finds herself under
the dominion of a swearing dare devil. It affords a lovely proof
of the insinuating benign favour of female influence. This was the
more surprising, as he says, 'the thoughts of religion were very
grievous to me,' and when 'books that concerned Christian piety
were read in my hearing, it was as it were a prison to me.' In spite
of all obstacles, his rugged heart was softened by her tenderness
and obedience, he 'keeping on the old course,'[48] she upon every
proper season teaching him how her father's piety secured his own
and his family's happiness. Here was no upbraiding, no snubbing,
no curtain lectures; all was affectionate, amiable mildness. At
first, he became occasionally alarmed for his soul's salvation;
then with the thought of having sinned away the day of grace, he
plunged again into sin with greediness; anon a faint hope of mercy
would fill him with fear and trembling. But this leads us to the
wondrous narrative of his new birth.

THE SECOND PERIOD.

THE INTERNAL CONFLICT, OR BUNYAN'S CONVICTIONS AND CONVERSION.

All nature is progressive; if an infant was suddenly to arrive at
manhood, how idiotic and dangerous he would be! A long training is
essential to fit the human being for the important duties of life;
and just so is it in the new birth to spiritual existence--first a
babe, then the young man; at length the full stature, and at last
the experienced Christian.

The narrative of Bunyan's progress in his conversion is, without
exception, the most astonishing of any that has been published. It
is well calculated to excite the profoundest investigation of the
Christian philosopher. Whence came those sudden suggestions, those
gloomy fears, those heavenly rays of joy? Much learning certainly
did not make him mad. The Christian dares not attribute his intense
feelings to a distempered brain. Whence came the invisible power
that struck Paul from his horse? Who was it that scared Job with
dreams, and terrified him with visions? What messenger of Satan
buffeted Paul? Who put 'a new song' into the mouth of David? We
have no space in this short memoir to attempt the drawing a line
between convictions of sin and the terrors of a distempered brain.
Bunyan's opinions upon this subject are deeply interesting, and
are fully developed in his Holy War. The capabilities of the soul
to entertain vast armies of thoughts, strong and feeble, represented
as men, women, and children, are so great as almost to perplex the
strongest understanding. All these multitudes of warriors are the
innumerable thoughts--the strife--in ONE soul. Upon such a subject
an interesting volume might be written. But we must fix our attention
upon the poor tinker who was the subject of this wondrous war.

The tender and wise efforts of Mrs. Bunyan to reclaim her husband, were
attended by the Divine blessing, and soon led to many resolutions,
on his part, to curb his sinful propensities and to promote an outward
reformation; his first effort was regularly to attend Divine worship.

He says, 'I fell in very eagerly with the religion of the times, to
wit, to go to church twice a-day, and that too with the foremost;
and there should very devoutly both say and sing as others did,
yet retaining my wicked life; but withal, I was so overrun with a
spirit of superstition, that I adored, and that with great devotion,
even all things, both the high-place, priest, clerk, vestment,
service, and what else belonging to the Church; counting all things
holy that were therein contained, and especially, the priest and
clerk most happy, and without doubt greatly blessed, because they
were the servants, as I then thought,[49] of God, and were principal
in the holy temple, to do his work therein. This conceit grew so
strong in little time upon my spirit, that had I but seen a priest,
though never so sordid and debauched in his life,[50] I should find
my spirit fall under him, reverence him, and knit unto him; yea,
I thought, for the love I did bear unto them, supposing they were
the ministers of God, I could have lain down at their feet, and
have been trampled upon by them; their name, their garb, and work
did so intoxicate and bewitch me.'

All this took place at the time when The Book of Common Prayer,
having been said to occasion 'manifold inconveniency,' was, by an
Act of Parliament, 'abolished,'[51] and by a subsequent Act[52]
prohibited, under severe penalties, from being publicly used.
The 'manifold inconveniences' to which the Act refers, arose from
differences of opinion as to the propriety of the form which had
been enforced, heightened by the enormous cruelties practiced upon
multitudes who refused to use it. Opposition to the English Liturgy
as more combined in Scotland, by a covenant entered into, June 20,
1580, by the king, lords, nobles, and people, against Popery; and
upon Archbishop Laud's attempt, in 1637, to impose the service-book
upon our northern neighbours, tumults and bloodshed ensued; until,
in 1643, a new and very solemn league and covenant was entered into,
which, in 1645, extended its influence to England, being subscribed
by thousands of our best citizens, with many of the nobility--'wherein
we all subscribe, and each with his own hands lifted up to the
Most High God, doe swear'; that being the mode of taking an oath,
instead of kissing the cover of a book, as is now practiced. To the
cruel and intemperate measures of Laud, and the zeal of Charles,
for priestly domination over conscience, may be justly attributed
the wars which desolated the country, while the solemn league and
covenant brought an overwhelming force to aid the Parliament in
redressing the grievances of the kingdom. During the Commonwealth
there was substituted, in place of the Common Prayer, A directory
for the Publique Worship of God, and the uniformity which was
enjoined in it was like that of the Presbyterians and Dissenters
of the present day. The people having assembled, and been exhorted
to reverence and humility, joined the preacher in prayer. He then
read portions of Scripture, with or without an exposition, as he
judged it necessary, but not so as to render the service tedious.
After singing a psalm, the minister prayed, leading the people
to mourn under a sense of sin, and to hunger and thirst after the
grace of God, in Jesus Christ; an outline or abstract is given of
the subject of public prayer, and similar instructions are given as
to the sermon or paraphrase. Immediately after the sermon, prayer
was again offered up, and after the outline that is given of this
devotional exercise, it is noted, 'And because the prayer which
Christ taught his disciples, is not only a pattern of prayer, but
itself a most comprehensive prayer, we recommend it also to be
used in the prayers of the Church.' This being ended, a psalm was
sung, and the minister dismissed the congregation with a solemn
blessing.[53] Some of the clergy continued the use of prayers,
contained in the liturgy, reciting, instead of reading them--a
course that was not objected to. This was the form of service which
struck Bunyan with such awe and reverence, leaving a very solemn
impression upon his mind, which the old form of common prayer had
never produced.

Bunyan was fond of athletic sports, bell-ringing, and dancing; and
in these he had indulged, so far as his worldly calling allowed.
Charles I, whether to promote Popery--to divert his subjects from
political grievances--or to punish the Puritans, had endeavoured
to drown their serious thoughts in a vortex of dissipation,
by re-publishing the Book of Sports, to be used on Sundays. That
'after Divine service our good people be not disturbed, letted, or
discouraged from dancing, either men or women; archery, leaping,
vaulting, or any other such harmless recreations; May games,
Whitsun-ales, Morris dances, May poles, and other sports.' But this
was not all, for every 'Puritan and Precisian was to be constrained
to conformity with these sports, or to leave their country.' The
same severe penalty was enforced upon every clergyman who refused to
read from his pulpit the Book of Sports, and to persuade the people
thus to desecrate the Lord's-day. 'Many hundred godly ministers
were suspended from their ministry, sequestered, driven from their
livings, excommunicated, prosecuted in the high commission court,
and forced to leave the kingdom for not publishing this declaration.'[54]
A little gleam of heavenly light falls upon those dark and gloomy
times, from the melancholy fact that nearly eight hundred conscientious
clergymen were thus wickedly persecuted. This was one of the works
of Laud, who out-bonnered Bonner himself in his dreadful career
of cruelty, while making havoc of the church of Christ. Even
transportation for refusing obedience to such diabolical laws was
not the greatest penalty; in some cases it was followed by the death
of the offender. The punishments inflicted for nonconformity were
accompanied by the most refined and barbarous cruelties. Still many
of the learned bowed their necks to this yoke with abject servility:
thus, Robert Powell, speaking of the Book of Sports, says, 'Needless
is it to argue or dispute for that which authority hath commanded,
and most insufferable insolence to speak or write against it.'[55]
These Sunday sports, published by Charles I, in 1633, had doubtless
aided in fostering Bunyan's bad conduct in his youthful days.
In 1644, when The Book of Common Prayer was abolished, an Act was
passed for the better observance of the Lord's-day; all persons
were prohibited on that day to use any wrestlings, shooting, bowing,
ringing of bells for pastime, masques, wakes, church-ales, dancing,
game, sports or pastime whatever; and that 'the Book of Sports
shall be seized, and publicly burnt.' During the civil war this
Act does not appear to have been strictly enforced; for, four years
after it was passed, we find Bunyan and his dissolute companions
worshipping the priest, clerk, and vestments on the Sunday morning,
and assembling for their Sabbath-breaking sports in the afternoon.
It was upon one of these occasions that a most extraordinary
impression was fixed upon the spirit of Bunyan. A remarkable scene
took place, worthy the pencil of the most eminent artist. This
event cannot be better described than in his own words:--

'One day, amongst all the sermons our parson made, his subject
was, to treat of the Sabbath-day, and of the evil of breaking that,
either with labour, sports, or otherwise; now I was, notwithstanding
my religion, one that took much delight in all manner of vice, and
especially that was the day that I did solace myself therewith;
wherefore I fell in my conscience under his sermons, thinking and
believing that he made that sermon on purpose to show me my evil
doing. And at that time I felt what guilt was, though never before,
that I can remember; but then I was, for the present, greatly
loaden therewith, and so went home, when the sermon was ended, with
a great burthen upon my spirit.

'This, for that instant, did benumb the sinews of my best delights,
and did imbitter my former pleasures to me; but behold it lasted
not for before I had well dined, the trouble began to go off my
mind, and my heart returned to its old course. But O! how glad was
I, that this trouble was gone from me, and that the fire was put
out, that I might sin again without control! Wherefore, when I had
satisfied nature with my food, I shook the sermon out of my mind,
and to my old custom of sports and gaming I returned with great
delight.

'But the same day, as I was in the midst of a game at cat, and
having struck it one blow from the hole, just as I was about to
strike it the second time, a voice did suddenly dart from heaven
into my soul, which said, "Wilt thou leave thy sins and go to
heaven, or have thy sins and go to hell?" At this I was put to an
exceeding maze; wherefore leaving my cat upon the ground, I looked
up to heaven, and was as if I had, with the eyes of my understanding,
seen the Lord Jesus looking down upon me, as being very hotly
displeased with me, and as if he did severely threaten me with some
grievous punishment for these and other my ungodly practices.

'I had no sooner thus conceived in my mind, but, suddenly, this
conclusion was fastened on my spirit, for the former hint did set
my sins again before my face, that I had been a great and grievous
sinner, and that it was now too late for me to look after heaven;
for Christ would not forgive me, nor pardon my transgressions. Then
I fell to musing upon this also; and while I was thinking on it,
and fearing lest it should be so, I felt my heart sink in despair,
concluding it was too late; and therefore I resolved in my mind I
would go on in sin: for, thought I, if the case be thus, my state
is surely miserable; miserable if I leave my sins, and but miserable
if I follow them; I can but be damned, and if I must be so, I had
as good be damned for many sins, as be damned for few.

'Thus I stood in the midst of my play, before all that then were
present: but yet I told them nothing. But I say, I having made this
conclusion, I returned desperately to my sport again; and I well
remember, that presently this kind of despair did so possess my
soul, that I was persuaded I could never attain to other comfort
than what I should get in sin; for heaven was gone already; so that
on that I must not think.'[56]

How difficult is it, when immorality has been encouraged by royal
authority, to turn the tide or to stem the torrent. For at least
four years, an Act of Parliament had prohibited these Sunday
sports. Still the supinelness of the justices, and the connivance
of the clergy, allowed the rabble youth to congregate on the Green
at Elstow, summoned by the church bells to celebrate their sports
and pastimes, as they had been in the habit of doing on the Lord's
day.[57]

This solemn warning, received in the midst of his sport, was one
of a series of convictions, by which he hardened sinner was to
be fitted to receive the messages of mercy and love. In the midst
of his companions and of the spectators, Bunyan was struck with a
sense of guilt. How rapid were his thoughts--'Wilt thou leave thy
sins and go to heaven, or have thy sins and go to hell?' With the
eye of his understanding he saw the Lord Jesus as 'hotly displeased.'
The tempter suggests it is 'too, too late' to seek for pardon,
and with a desperate resolution which must have cost his heart the
severest pangs, he continued his game. Still the impression remained
indelibly fixed upon his mind.

The next blow which fell upon his hardened spirit was still more
deeply felt, because it was given by one from whom he could the
least have expected it. He was standing at a neighbour's shop-window,
'belching out oaths like the madman that Solomon speaks of, who
scatters abroad firebrands, arrows, and death'[58] 'after his wonted
manner.' He exemplified the character drawn by the Psalmist. 'As
he clothed himself with cursing like as with his garment: so let
it come into his bowels like water, and like oil into his bones.'
Here was a disease that set all human skill at defiance, but the
great, the Almighty Physician, cured it with strange physic. Had
any professor reproved him, it might have been passed by as a matter
of course; but it was so ordered that a woman who was notoriously
'a very loose and ungodly wretch,' protested that she trembled to
hear him swear and curse at that most fearful rate; that he was
the ungodliest fellow she had ever heard, and that he was able to
spoil all the youth in a whole town.[59] Public reproof from the
lips of such a woman was an arrow that pierced his inmost soul;
it effected a reformation marvelous to all his companions, and
bordering upon the miraculous. The walls of a fortified city were
once thrown down by a shout and the tiny blast of rams'-horns (Josh
6:20); and in this instance, the foundations of Heart Castle,
fortified by Satan, are shaken by the voice of one of his own
emissaries. Mortified and convicted, the foul-mouthed blasphemer
swore no more; an outward reformation in words and conduct took
place, but without inward spiritual life. Thus was he making vows
to God and breaking them, repenting and promising to do better next
time; so, to use his own homely phrase, he was 'feeding God with
chapters, and prayers, and promises, and vows, and a great many
more such dainty dishes, and thinks that he serveth God as well as
any man in England can, while he has only got into a cleaner way
to hell than the rest of his neighbours are in.'[60]

Such a conversion, as he himself calls it, was 'from prodigious
profaneness to something like moral life.'[61] 'Now I was, as they
said, become godly, and their words pleased me well, though as yet
I was nothing but a poor painted hypocrite.' These are hard words,
but, in the most important sense, they were true. He was pointed
out as a miracle of mercy--the great convert--a wonder to the world.
He could now suffer opprobrium and cavils--play with errors--entangle
himself and drink in flattery. No one can suppose that this outward
reform was put on hypocritically, as a disguise to attain some
sinister object; it was real, but it arose from a desire to shine
before his neighbours, from shame and from the fear of future
punishment, and not from that love to God which leads the Christian
to the fear of offending him. It did not arise from a change
of heart; the secret springs of action remained polluted; it was
outside show, and therefore he called himself a painted hypocrite.
He became less a despiser of religion, but more awfully a destroyer
of his own soul.

A new source of uneasiness now presented itself in his practice
of bell-ringing, an occupation requiring severe labour, usually
performed on the Lord's-day; and, judging from the general character
of bell-ringers, it has a most injurious effect, both with regard
to morals and religion. A circumstance had recently taken place
which was doubtless interpreted as an instance of Divine judgment
upon Sabbath-breaking. Clark, in his Looking-Glass for Saints
and Sinners, 1657, published the narrative:--'Not long since, in
Bedfordshire, a match at football being appointed on the Sabbath,
in the afternoon whilst two were in the belfry, tolling of a bell
to call the company together, there was suddenly heard a clap
of thunder, and a flash of lightning was seen by some that sat in
the church-porch coming through a dark lane, and flashing in their
faces, which must terrified them, and, passing through the porch
into the belfry, it tripped up his heels that was tolling the bell,
and struck him stark dead; and the other that was with him was so
sorely blasted therewith, that shortly after he died also.'[62] Thus
we find that the church bells ministered to the Book of Sports, to
call the company to Sabbath-breaking. The bell-ringers might come
within the same class as those upon whom the tower at Siloam fell,
still it was a most solemn warning, and accounts for the timidity
of so resolute a man as Bunyan. Although he thought it did not become
his newly-assumed religious character, yet his old propensity drew
him to the church tower. At first he ventured in, but took care to
stand under a main beam, lest the bell should fall and crush him;
afterwards he would stand in the door; then he feared the steeple might
fall; and the terrors of an untimely death, and his newly-acquired
garb of religion, eventually deterred him from this mode
of Sabbath-breaking. His next sacrifice made at the shrine of
self-righteousness was dancing: this took him one whole year to
accomplish, and then he bade farewell to these sports for the rest
of his life.[63] We are not to conclude from the example of a man
who in after-life proved so great and excellent a character, that,
under all circumstances, bell-ringing and dancing are immoral.
In those days, such sports and pastimes usually took place on the
Lord's-day; and however the Church of England might then sanction
it, and proclaim by royal authority, in all her churches, the
lawfulness of sports on that sacred day, yet it is now universally
admitted that it was commanding a desecration of the Sabbath, and
letting loose a flood of vice and profaneness. In themselves, on
days proper for recreation, such sports may be innocent; but if they
engender an unholy thought, or occupy time needed for self-examination
and devotion, they ought to be avoided as sinful hindrances to a
spiritual life.

Bunyan was now dressed in the garb of a religious professor, and had
become a brisk talker in the matters of religion, when, by Divine
mercy, he was stripped of all his good opinion of himself; his want
of holiness, and his unchanged heart, were revealed to his surprise
and wonder, by means simple and efficacious, but which no human
forethought could have devised. Being engaged in his trade at
Bedford, he overheard the conversation of some poor pious women,
and it humbled and alarmed him. 'I heard, but I understood not; for
they were far above, out of my reach. Their talk was about a new
birth, the work of God on their hearts, also how they were convinced
of their miserable state by nature; how God had visited their souls
with his love in the Lord Jesus, and with what words and promises
they had been refreshed, comforted, and supported against the
temptations of the devil. Moreover, they reasoned of the suggestions
and temptations of Satan in particular; and told to each other by
which they had been afflicted, and how they were borne up under his
assaults. hey also discoursed of their own wretchedness of heart,
of their unbelief; and did contemn, slight, and abhor their own
righteousness, as filthy and insufficient to do them any good. And
methought they spake as if joy did make them speak; they spake with
such pleasantness of Scripture language, and with such appearance
of grace in all they said, that they were to me as if they had found
a new world; as if they were people that dwelt alone, and were not
to be reckoned among their neighbours (Num 23:9).

'At this I felt my own heart began to shake, as mistrusting my
condition to be nought; for I saw that in all my thoughts about
religion and salvation, the new birth did never enter into my
mind; neither knew I the comfort of the Word and promise, nor the
deceitfulness and treachery of my own wicked heart. As for secret
thoughts, I took no notice of them; neither did I understand what
Satan's temptations were, nor how they were to be withstood, and
resisted.

'Thus, therefore, when I heard and considered what they said, I
left them, and went about my employment again, but their talk and
discourse went with me; also my heart would tarry with them, for
I was greatly affected with their words, both because by them I
was convinced that I wanted the true tokens of a truly godly man,
and also because by them I was convinced of the happy and blessed
condition of him that was such a one.'[64]

The brisk talker of 'talkative,' was confounded--he heard pious
godly women mourning over their worthlessness instead of vaunting
of their attainments. They exhibited, doubtless to his great surprise,
that self-distrust and humility are the beginnings of wisdom.

These humble disciples could have had no conception that the Holy
Spirit was blessing their Christian communion to the mind of the
tinker, standing near them, pursuing his occupation. The recollection
of the converse of these poor women led to solemn heart-searching
and the most painful anxiety; again and again he sought their
company, and his convictions became more deep, his solicitude more
intense. This was the commencement of an internal struggle, the
most remarkable of any upon record, excepting that of the psalmist
David.

It was the work of the Holy Spirit in regenerating and preparing
an ignorant and rebellious man for extraordinary submission to
the sacred Scriptures, and for most extensive usefulness. To those
who never experienced in any degree such feelings, they appear to
indicate religious insanity. It was so marvelous and so mysterious,
as to be mistaken by a poet laureate, who profanely calls it a
being 'shaken continually by the hot and cold fits of a spiritual
ague': 'reveries': or one of the 'frequent and contagious disorders
of the human mind,'[65] instead of considering it as wholesome but
bitter medicine for the soul, administered by the heavenly Physician.
At times he felt, like David, 'a sword in his bones,' 'tears his
meat.' God's waves and billows overwhelmed him (Psa 43). Then came
glimmerings of hope--precious promises saving him from despair--followed
by the shadow of death overspreading his soul, and involving him
in midnight darkness. He could complain in the bitterness of his
anguish, 'Thy fierce wrath goeth over me.' Bound in affliction and
iron, his 'soul was melted because of trouble.' 'Now Satan assaults
the soul with darkness, fears, frightful thoughts of apparitions;
now they sweat, pant, and struggle for life. The angels now come
(Psa 107) down to behold the sight, and rejoice to see a bit of
dust and ashes to overcome principalities, and powers, and might,
and dominion.'[66] His mind was fixed on eternity, and out of the
abundance of his heart he spoke to one of his former companions;
his language was that of reproof--'Harry, why do you swear and curse
thus? what will become of you if you die in this condition?'[67]
His sermon, probably the first he had preached, was like throwing
pearls before swine--'He answered in a great chafe, what would the
devil do for company, if it were not for such as I am.'[68]

By this time he had recovered the art of reading, and its use a
little perplexed him, for he became much puzzled with the opinions
of the Ranters, as set forth in their books. It is extremely
difficult to delineate their sentiments; they were despised by all
the sects which had been connected with the government, because,
with the Quakers and Baptists, they denied any magisterial or state
authority over conscience, and refused maintenance to ministers;
but from the testimony of Bunyan, and that of the early Quakers,
they appear to have been practical Antinomians, or at least very
nearly allied to the new sect called Mormonites. Ross, who copied
from Pagitt, describes them with much bitterness--'The Ranters are
unclean beasts--their maxim is that there is nothing sin but what
a man thinks to be so--they reject the Bible--they are the merriest
of all devils--they deny all obedience to magistrates.'[69]

This temptation must have been severe. The Ranters were like the
black man with the white robe, named Flatterer, who led the pilgrims
into a net,[70] under the pretence of showing them the way to the
celestial city; or like Adam the first, who offered Faithful his
three daughters to wife[71]--the lust of the flesh, the lust of
the eyes, and the pride of life--if he would dwell with him in the
town of Deceit. 'These temptations,' he says, 'were suitable to my
flesh,'[72] I being but a young man, and my nature in its prime;
and, with his characteristic humility, he adds, 'God, who had, as
I hope, designed me for better things, kept me in the fear of his
name, and did not suffer me to accept such cursed principles.' Prayer
opened the door of escape; it led him to the fountain of truth.
'I began to look into the Bible with new eyes. Prayer preserved me
from Ranting errors. The Bible was precious to me in those days.'[73]
His study of the Holy Oracles now became a daily habit, and that
with intense earnestness and prayer. In the mist of the multitude
of sects with which he was on all sides surrounded, he felt the
need of a standard for the opinions which were each of them eagerly
followed by votaries, who proclaimed them to be THE TRUTH, the
way, and the life. He was like a man, feeling that if he erred
in the way, it would be attended with misery, and, but for Divine
interference, with unutterable ruin--possessed of a correct map,
but surrounded with those who, by flattery, or threats, or deceit,
and armed with all human eloquence, strove to mislead him. With an
enemy within to urge him to accept their wily guidance, that they
might lead him to perdition--inspired by Divine grace, like Christian
in his Pilgrim, he 'put his fingers in his ears, and ran on, crying
Life, life, eternal life.' He felt utter dependence upon Divine
guidance, leading him to most earnest prayer, and an implicit obedience
to Holy Writ, which followed him all through the remainder of his
pilgrimage. 'The Bible' he calls 'the scaffold, or stage, that
God has builded for hope to play his part upon in this world.'[74]
Hence the Word was precious in his eyes; and with so immense
a loss, or so magnificent a gain, the throne of grace was all his
hope, that he might be guided by that counsel that cannot err, and
that should eventually insure his reception to eternal glory.

While in this inquiring state, he experienced much doubt and
uncertainty arising from the apparent confidence of many professors.
In his own esteem he appeared to be thoroughly humbled; and when
he lighted on that passage--'To one is given by the spirit the word
of wisdom, to another, knowledge, and to another, faith' (1 Cor
12:8,9), his solemn inquiry was, how it happened that he possessed
so little of any of these gifts of wisdom, knowledge, or faith--more
especially of faith, that being essential to the pleasing of God.
He had read (Matt 21:21), 'If ye have faith and doubt not, ye shall
say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into
the sea; it shall be done'; and (Luke 17:6), 'If ye had faith as a
grain of mustard seed, ye might say to this sycamore tree, Be thou
plucked up by the root, and be thou planted in the sea, and it shall
obey you'; and (1 Cor 13:2), 'Though I have all faith, so that I
could remove mountains.' The poor tinker, considering these passages
in their literal import, imagined they were meant as tests to try
whether the believer possessed faith or not. He was a stranger to
the rules of Hebrew rhetoric; nor did he consider that they were
addressed to the apostles, who had the power to work miracles. He
had no idea that the removing a mountain, or planting a sycamore
tree in the sea, were figures of speech conveying to us the fact
that, aided by faith, mountainous difficulties might and would be
overcome. Anxious for some ocular demonstration that he had faith,
he almost determined to attempt to work a miracle--not to convert
or confirm the faith of others, but to satisfy his own mind as to
his possessing faith. He had no such magnificent idea as the removal
of a mountain, for there were none in his neighbourhood, nor to
plant a tree in the sea, for Bedfordshire is an inland county; but
it was of the humblest kind--that some puddles on the road between
Elstow and Bedford should change places with the dry ground. When
he had thought of praying for ability, his natural good sense led
him to abandon the experiment.[75] This he calls 'being in my plunge
about faith, tossed betwixt the devil and my own ignorance.'[76] All
this shows the intensity of his feelings and his earnest inquiries.

It may occasion surprise to some, that a young man of such
extraordinary powers of mind, should have indulged the thought of
working a miracle to settle or confirm his doubts; but we must take
into account, that when a boy he had no opportunity of acquiring
scriptural knowledge; no Sunday schools, no Bible class excited
his inquiries as to the meaning of the sacred language. The Bible
had been to him a sealed book until, in a state of mental agony,
he cried, What must I do to be saved? The plain text was all his
guide; and it would not have been surprising, had he been called
to bottle a cask of new wine, if he had refused to use old wine
bottles; or had he cast a loaf into the neighbouring river Ouse,
expecting to find it after many days. The astonishing fact is, that
one so unlettered should, by intense thought, by earnest prayer,
and by comparing one passage with another, arrive eventually at so
clear a view both of the external and internal meaning of the whole
Bible. The results of his researches were more deeply impressed
upon his mind by the mistakes which he had made; and his intense
study, both of the Old and New Testaments, furnished him with an
inexhaustible store of things new and old--those vivid images and
burning thoughts, those bright and striking illustrations of Divine
truth, which so shine and sparkle in all his works. What can be
more clear than his illustration of saving faith which worketh by
love, when in after-life he wrote the Pilgrim's Progress. Hopeful
was in a similar state of inquiry whether he had faith. 'Then I said,
But, Lord, what is believing?' And then I saw from that saying, He
that cometh to me shall never hunger, and he that believeth in me
shall never thirst, that believing and coming was all one, and that
he that came, that is, ran out in his heart and affections after
salvation by Christ, he indeed believed in Christ (John 6:25).[77]

In addition to his want of scriptural education, it must be remembered
that, when he thought of miraculous power being an evidence of faith,
his mind was in a most excited state--doubts spread over him like
a huge masses of thick black clouds, hiding the Sun of Righteousness
from his sight. Not only is he to be pardoned for his error, but
admired for the humility which prompted him to record so singular
a trial, and his escape from 'this delusion of the tempter.' While
'thus he was tossed betwixt the devil and his own ignorance,'[78]
the happiness of the poor women whose conversation he had heard at
Bedford, was brought to his recollection by a remarkable reverie
or day dream:--

'About this time, the state and happiness of these poor people at
Bedford was thus, in a dream or vision, represented to me. I saw
as if they were set on the sunny side of some high mountain, there
refreshing themselves with the pleasant beams of the sun, while
I was shivering and shrinking in the cold, afflicted with frost,
snow, and dark clouds. Methought also, betwixt me and them, I saw
a wall that did compass about this mountain; now through this wall
my soul did greatly desire to pass, concluding that if I could, I
would go even into the very midst of them, and there also comfort
myself with the heat of their sun.

'About this wall I thought myself to go again and again, still
prying, as I went, to see if I could find some way or passage, by
which I might enter therein; but none could I find for some time.
At the last I saw, as it were, a narrow gap, like a little doorway
in the wall, through which I attempted to pass; but the passage
being very strait and narrow, I made many efforts to get in, but
all in vain, even until I was well nigh quite beat out, by striving
to get in; at last, with great striving, methought I at first did
get in my head, and after that, by a sidling striving, my shoulders,
and my whole body; then I was exceeding glad, and went and sat down
in the midst of them, and so was comforted with the light and heat
of their sun.

'Now this mountain, and wall, was thus made out to me: The mountain
signified the church of the living God; the sun that shone thereon,
the comfortable shining of his merciful face on them that were
therein; the wall I thought was the Word, that did make separation
between the Christians and the world; and the gap which was in
this wall, I thought, was Jesus Christ, who is the way to God the
Father (John 14:6; Matt 7:14). But forasmuch as the passage was
wonderful narrow, even so narrow that I could not, but with great
difficulty, enter in thereat, it showed me, that none could enter
into life, but those that were in downright earnest, and unless
also they left this wicked world behind them; for here was only
room for body and soul, but not for body and soul and sin.[79]

'This resemblance abode upon my spirit many days; all which time
I saw myself in a forlorn and sad condition, but yet was provoked
to a vehement hunger and desire to be one of that number that did
sit in the sunshine. Now also I should pray wherever I was; whether
at home or abroad, in house or field, and should also often, with
lifting up of heart, sing that of the fifty-first Psalm, "O Lord,
consider my distress."'[80]

In this striking reverie we discover the budding forth of that great
genius which produced most beautiful flowers and delicious fruit,
when it became fully developed in his allegories.

While this trial clouded his spirits, he was called to endure
temptations which are common to most, if not all, inquiring souls,
and which frequently produce much anxiety. He plunged into the
university problems of predestination, before he had completed his
lower grammar-school exercises on faith and repentance. Am I one of
the elect? or has the day of grace been suffered to pass by never
to return? 'Although he was in a flame to find the way to heaven
and glory,' these questions afflicted and disquieted him, so that
the very strength of his body was taken away by the force and
power thereof. 'Lord, thought I, what if I should not be elected!
It may be you are not, said the tempter; it may be so, indeed
thought I. Why then, said Satan, you had as good leave off, and
strive no farther; for if indeed you should not be elected and
chosen of God, there is no talk of your being saved; "for it is
neither of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God
that showeth mercy."

'By these things I was driven to my wit's end, not knowing what to
say, or how to answer these temptations. Indeed, I little thought
that Satan had thus assaulted me, but that rather it was my own
prudence thus to start the question: for that the elect only obtained
eternal life; that I without scruple did heartily close withal;
but that myself was one of them, there lay all the question.'[81]

Thus was he for many weeks oppressed and cast down, and near
to 'giving up the ghost of all his hopes of ever attaining life,'
when a sentence fell with weight upon his spirit--'Look at the
generations of old and see; did ever any trust in the Lord and was
confounded' (Ecclesiasticus 2:10). This encouraged him to a diligent
search from Genesis to Revelation, which lasted for above a year,
and although he could not find that sentence, yet he was amply
rewarded for this diligent examination of the Holy Oracles, and
thus he obtained 'yet more experience of the love and kindness of
God.' At length he found it in the Apocrypha, and, although not the
language of inspiration, yet as it contained the sum and substance
of the promises, he took the comfort of it, and it shone before his
face for years. The fear that the day of grace had passed pressed
heavily upon him; he was humbled, and bemoaned the time that he
had wasted. Now he was confronted with that 'grim-faced one, the
Captain Past-hope, with his terrible standard,' carried by Ensign
Despair, red colours, with a hot iron and a hard heart, and
exhibited at Eye-gate.[82] At length these words broke in upon his
mind, 'compel them to come in, that my house may be filled--and yet
there is room.' This Scripture powerfully affected him with hope,
that there was room in the bosom and in the house of Jesus for his
afflicted soul.

His next temptation was to return to the world. This was that
terrible battle with Apollyon, depicted in the Pilgrim's Progress,
and it is also described at some length in the Jerusalem Sinner
Saved. Among many very graphic and varied pictures of his own
experience, he introduces the following dialogue with the tempter,
probably alluding to the trials he was now passing through. Satan
is loath to part with a great sinner. 'This day is usually attended
with much evil towards them that are asking the way to Zion, with
their faces thitherward. Now the devil has lost a sinner; there is
a captive has broke prison, and one run away from his master. Now
hell seems to be awakened from sleep, the devils are come out. They
roar, and roaring they seek to recover their runaway. Now tempt
him, threaten him, flatter him, stigmatize him, throw dust into
his eyes, poison him with error, spoil him while he is upon the
potter's wheel, anything to keep him from coming to Christ.'[83]
'What, my true servant,' quoth he, 'my old servant, wilt thou forsake
me now? Having so often sold thyself to me to work wickedness,
wilt thou forsake me now? Thou horrible wretch, dost not know,
that thou hast sinned thyself beyond the reach of grace, and dost
thou think to find mercy now? Art not thou a murderer, a thief, a
harlot, a witch, a sinner of the greatest size, and dost thou look
for mercy now? Dost thou think that Christ will foul his fingers
with thee? It is enough to make angels blush, saith Satan, to see
so vile a one knock at heaven-gates for mercy, and wilt thou be
so abominably bold to do it?' Thus Satan dealt with me, says the
great sinner, when at first I came to Jesus Christ. And what did
you reply? saith the tempted. Why, I granted the whole charge to
be true, says the other. And what, did you despair, or how? No,
saith he, I said, I am Magdalene, I am Zaccheus, I am the thief,
I am the harlot, I am the publican, I am the prodigal, and one of
Christ's murderers; yea, worse than any of these; and yet God was
so far off from rejecting of me, as I found afterwards, that there
was music and dancing in his house for me, and for joy that I was
come home unto him. O blessed be God for grace (says the other),
for then I hope there is favour for me. Yea, as I told you, such
a one is a continual spectacle in the church, for every one by to
behold God's grace and wonder by.[84] These are the 'things the
angels desire to look into' (1 Peter 1:12), or as Bunyan quaintly
says, this is the music which causes 'them that dwell in the higher
orbs to open their windows, put out their heads, and look down to
see the cause of that glory' (Lev 15:7,10).[85]

As he became less agitated with fear, and drew consolation more
frequently from the promises, with a timid hope of salvation, he
began to exhibit singular powers of conception in spiritualizing
temporal things. His first essay was to find the hidden meaning
in the division of God's creatures into clean and unclean. Chewing
the cud, and parting the hoof, he conceived to be emblematical of
our feeding upon the Word of God, and parting, if we would be saved,
with the ways of ungodly men.[86] It is not sufficient to chew the
cud like the hare--nor to part the hoof like the wine--we must do
both; that is, possess the word of faith, and that be evidenced
by parting with our outward pollutions. This spiritual meaning of
part of the Mosaic dispensation is admirably introduced into the
Pilgrim's Progress, when Christian and Faithful analyse the character
of Talkative.[87] This is the germ of that singular talent which
flourished in after-life, of exhibiting a spiritual meaning drawn
from every part of the Mosaic dispensation, and which leads one of
our most admired writers[88] to suggest, that if Bunyan had lived
and written during the early days of Christianity, he would have
been the greatest of the fathers.

Although he had received that portion of comfort which enabled him
to indulge in religious speculations, still his mind was unsettled,
and full of fears. He now became alarmed lest he had not been
effectually called to inherit the kingdom of heaven.[89] He felt
still more humbled at the weakness of human nature, and at the
poverty of wealth. Could this call have been gotten for money, and
'could I have given it; had I a whole world, it had all gone ten
thousand times over for this.' In this he was sincere, and so he
was when he said, I would not lose one promise, or have it struck
out of the Bible, if in return I could have as much gold as would
reach from London to York, piled up to the heavens. In proportion
to his soul's salvation, honour was a worthless phantom, and gold
but glittering dust. His earnest desire was to hear his Saviour's
voice calling him to his service. Like many young disciples, he
regretted not having been born when Christ was manifest in the flesh.
'Would I had been Peter or John!' their privations, sufferings,
martyrdom, was nothing in comparison to their being with, and hearing
the voice of the Son of God calling them to his service. Strange,
but general delusion! as if Christ were not the same yesterday, to
day, and for ever. Groaning for a sense of pardon, he was comforted
by Joel--'I will cleanse their blood that I have not cleansed,
for the Lord dwelleth in Zion' (Joel 3:21), and he was led to seek
advice and assistance from a neighbouring minister, and from pious
persons.

The poor women in Bedford, whose conversation had been blessed to
his thorough awakening, were sought for, and to them he unfolded his
sorrows. They were members of a Baptist church, under the pastoral
care of John Gifford, a godly, painstaking, and most intelligent
minister, whose history is very remarkable. In early life he had
been, like Bunyan, a thoroughly depraved character; like him had
entered the army, and had been promoted to the rank of a major
in the royal forces. Having made an abortive attempt to raise a
rebellion in his native county of Kent,[90] he and eleven others were
made prisoners, tried by martial law, and condemned to the gallows.
On the night previous to the day appointed for his execution, his
sister found access to the prison. The guards were asleep, and his
companions drowned in intoxication. She embraced the favourable
moment, and set him at liberty. He lay concealed in a ditch for
three days, till the heat of the search was over, and in disguise
escaped to London, and thence to Bedford, where, aided by some
great people who favoured the royal cause, he commenced business
as a doctor. Here his evil habits followed him, notwithstanding his
merciful deliverance. Swearing, drunkenness, gambling, and other
immoral practices, rendered him a curse to others, especially to
the Puritans, whom he bitterly persecuted. One night he lost fifteen
pounds at play, and, becoming outrageous, he cast angry reproaches
upon God. In this state he took up a book by R. Bolton--he read,
and his conscience was terror-stricken. Distress, under conviction
of sin, followed him. He searched his Bible, and found pardon
and acceptance. He now sought acquaintance with those whom before
he had persecuted, but, like Paul, when in similar circumstances,
'they were all afraid of him.' His sincerity soon became apparent;
and, uniting with eleven others, they formed a church. These men
had thrown off the fetters of education, and were, unbiased by any
sectarian feeling, being guided solely by their prayerful researches
into divine truth as revealed in the Bible. Their whole object
was to enjoy Christian communion--to extend the reign of grace--to
live to the honour of Christ--and they formed a new, and at that time
unheard-of, community. Water-baptism was to be left to individual
conviction; they were to love each other equally, whether they
advocated baptism in infancy, or in riper years. The only thing
essential to church-fellowship, in Mr. Gifford's opinion, was--'UNION
WITH CHRIST; this is the foundation of all saints' communion, and
not any judgment about externals.' To the honour of the Baptists,
these peaceable principles appear to have commenced with two or
three of their ministers, and for the last two centuries they have
been, like heavenly leaven, extending their delightful influence
over all bodies of Christians.

Such was the man to whom Bunyan was introduced for religious
advice and consolation; and he assisted in forming those enlarged
and nonsectarian principles which made his ministry blessed, and will
render his Works equally acceptable to all evangelical Christians
in every age of the church. Introduced to such a minister, and
attending social meetings for prayer and Christian converse, he felt
still more painfully his own ignorance, and the inward wretchedness
of his own heart. 'His corruptions put themselves forth, and
his desires for heaven seemed to fail.' In fact, while he compared
himself with his former self, he was a religious giant; in comparison
with these pious, long-standing Christians, he dwindled into a
pigmy; and in the presence of Christ he became, in his own view,
less than nothing, and vanity. He thus describes his feelings:--'I
began to sink--my heart laid me low as hell. I was driven as with
a tempest--my heart would be unclean--the Canaanites would dwell
in the land.'[91] He was like the child which the father brought
to Christ, who, while he was coming to Him, was thrown down by the
devil, and so rent and torn that he lay and wallowed, foaming. His
heart felt so hard, that with many a bitter sigh he cried, 'Good
Lord! break it open. Lord, break these gates of brass, and cut these
bars of iron asunder' (Psa 107:16). Little did he then think that
his bitterness of spirit was a direct answer to such prayers.
Breaking the heart was attended with anguish in proportion as it
had been hardened. During this time he was tender and sensitive
as to the least sin; 'now I durst not take a pin or a stick, my
conscience would smart at every touch.' 'O, how gingerly did I then
go in all I said or did!'[92] 'Still sin would as naturally bubble
out of my heart as water would bubble out of a fountain.' He felt
surprised when he saw professors much troubled at their losses, even
at the death of the dearest relative. His whole concern was for his
salvation. He imagined that he could bear these small afflictions
with patience; but 'a wounded spirit who can bear?'

In the midst of all these miseries, and at times regretting that he
had been endowed with an immortal spirit, liable to eternal ruin,
he was jealous of receiving comfort, lest it might be based upon
any false foundation. Still as his only hope he was constant in
his attendance upon the means of grace, and 'when comforting time
was come,' he heard one preach upon two words of a verse, which
conveyed strong consolation to his weary spirit; the words were, 'my
love' (Song 4:1). From these words the minister drew the following
conclusions:--1. That the church, and so every saved soul, is Christ's
love, even when loveless; 2. Christ's love is without a cause; 3.
They are Christ's love when hated of the world; 4. Christ's love
when under temptation and under desertion; 5. Christ's love from
first to last.[93] Now was his heart filled with comfort and hope.
'I could believe that my sins should be forgiven me'; and, in a
state of rapture, he thought that his trials were over, and that
the savour of it would go with him through life. Alas! his enjoyment
was but for a season--the preparation of his soul for future
usefulness was not yet finished. In a short time the words of our
Lord to Peter came powerfully into his mind--'Satan hath desired
to have you'; and so strong was the impression they made, that he
thought some man addressed them to him; he even turned his head to
see who it was that thus spoke to him. This was the forerunner of
a cloud and a storm that was coming upon him. It was the gathering
up of Satan's mighty strength, to have, if possible, overwhelmed
him. His narrative of this internal tempest in his soul--this last
great struggle with the powers of darkness--is very striking.

'About the space of a month after, a very great storm came down
upon me, which handled me twenty times worse than all I had met
with before; it came stealing upon me, now by one piece, then by
another. First, all my comfort was taken from me; then darkness
seized upon me; after which, whole floods of blasphemies, both
against God, Christ, and the Scriptures, were poured upon my spirit,
to my great confusion and astonishment. These blasphemous thoughts
were such as also stirred up questions in me against the very
being of God, and of his only beloved Son. As, whether there were
in truth a God or Christ, or no? And whether the Holy Scriptures
were not rather a fable, and cunning story, than the holy and pure
Word of God.

'These suggestions, with many others, which at this time I may not,
dare not utter, neither by word nor pen, did make such a seizure upon
my spirit, and did so overweigh my heart, both with their number,
continuance, and fiery force, that I felt as if there were nothing
else but these from morning to night within me, and as though indeed
there could be room for nothing else; and also concluded, that God
had, in very wrath to my soul, given me up unto them, to be carried
away with them as with a mighty whirlwind.

'Only by the distaste that they gave unto my spirit, I felt there
was something in me that refused to embrace them.'[94]

Here are the facts which are allegorized in the history of
Christian, passing through the Valley of Humiliation, and fighting
with the Prince of the power of the air. 'Then Apollyon, espying his
opportunity, began to gather up close to Christian, and wrestling
with him, gave him a dreadful fall; and with that Christian's
sword flew out of his hand.' This was the effect of his doubts of
the inspiration of the Scriptures--the sword of the Spirit. 'I am
sure of thee now, said Apollyon; and with that he had almost pressed
him to death, so that Christian began to despair of life; but as
God would have it, while Apollyon was fetching of his last blow,
Christian nimbly stretched out his hand for his sword, and caught
it, saying, "Rejoice not against me, O mine enemy, when I fall I
shall arise" (Matt 7:8), and with that gave him a deadly thrust,
which made him give back as one that had received his mortal wound.
Christian perceiving that, made at him again, saying, "Nay, in all
these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved
us"; and with that Apollyon spread forth his dragon wings, and sped
him away.'[95] What an awful moment, when he fell unarmed before
his ferocious enemy! 'Faith now has but little time to speak to
the conscience--it is now struggling for life--it is now fighting
with angels--with infernals--all it can do now is to cry, groan,
sweat, fear, fight, and gasp for life.'[96] How desperate the
conflict--the mouth of hell yawning to swallow him--man cannot aid
the poor warrior, all his help is in God. Is it not a wonder to see
a poor creature, who in himself is weaker than the moth, to stand
against and overcome all devils--all the world--all his lusts and
corruptions; or, if he fall, is it not a wonder to see him, when
devils and guilt are upon him, to rise again, stand upon his legs,
walk with God again, and persevere in faith and holiness?[97]

This severe conflict lasted for about a year. He describes his
feelings at times as resembling the frightful pangs of one broken
on the wheel. The sources of his misery were fears that he had sinned
against the Holy Ghost; and that through his hardness of heart and
impatience in prayer--he should not persevere to the end. During
all this time, occasional visits of mercy kept him from despair;
and at some intervals filled him with transports of joy. At one
time so delightfully was his burden removed that he could not tell
how to contain himself. 'I thought I could have spoken of his love
and of his mercy to me, even to the very crows that sat upon the
ploughed lands before me, had they been capable to have understood
me.'[98] Thus his feelings were controlled by reason, very different
to the poor madman who, in olden time, is represented as preaching
to the fish. With Bunyan it was a hallowed joy--a gush of holy
gladness, in which he wished all creation to participate. his heart
was baptized in hope. 'I know that my Redeemer liveth'; and with
holy Job, he wished to perpetuate his joy by a memorial not in
rock, but in a book of resemblance. 'I would I had a pen and ink
here to write it down.' This is the first desire that he expressed
to proclaim or publish to others the great Saviour he had found:
but he was not yet prepared; he must pass through deeper depths,
and possess a living knowledge of Divine truth, burnt into his soul
by satanic fires.

Very soon after this, he was harassed with fear lest he should part
with Christ. The tempter, as he did with Christian in the Valley of
the Shadow of Death, suggested blasphemies to him, which he thought
had proceeded from his own mind. 'Satan troubled him with his
stinking breath. How many strange, hideous, and amazing blasphemies
have some that are coming to Christ had injected upon their spirits
against him.'[99] 'The devil is indeed very busy at work during
the darkness of a soul. He throws in his fiery darts to amazement,
when we are encompassed with the terrors of a dismal night; he is
bold and undaunted in his assaults, and injects with a quick and
sudden malice a thousand monstrous and abominable thoughts of God,
which seem to be the motions of our own minds, and terribly grieve
and trouble us.'[100]

What makes those arrows more penetrating and distressing is, that
Satan, with subtle art, tips them with sentences of Scripture. 'No
place for repentance'; 'rejected'; 'hath never forgiveness,' and
other passages which, by the malignant ingenuity of the fiend, are
formed by his skill as the cutting and barbed points of his shafts.
At one time Bunyan concluded that he was possessed of the devil;
then he was tempted to speak and sin against the Holy Ghost. He
thought himself alone in such a tempest, and that no one had ever
felt such misery as he did. When in prayer, his mind was distracted
with the thought that Satan was pulling his clothes; he was even
tempted to fall down and worship him. Then he would cry after God,
in awful fear that eventually Satan would overcome him. During all
this time he was struggling against the tempter; and, at length,
the dayspring visited him in these words, 'I am persuaded that
nothing shall separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.'
Again he was cast down with a recollection of his former blasphemies.
What reason can I have to hope for an inheritance in eternal life?
The questions was answered with that portion of Scripture, 'If God
be for us, who can be against us?' These were visits which, like
Peter's sheet, of a sudden were caught up to heaven again.[101]
At length the Sun of Righteousness arose, and shone upon him with
healing influence. 'He hath made peace through the blood of his
cross,' came with power to his mind, followed by the consoling words
of the apostle, 'Forasmuch, then, as the children are partakers of
flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same;
that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death,
that is, the devil, and deliver them who through fear of death were
all their lifetime subject to bondage' (Heb 2:14,15). This was the
key that opened every lock in Doubting Castle. The prisoner escaped
to breathe the air of hope, and joy, and peace. 'This,' said he,
'was a good day to me, I hope I shall not forget it.' 'I thought
that the glory of those words was then so weighty on me, that I
was, both once and twice, ready to swoon as I sat, not with grief
and trouble, but with solid joy and peace.'

His mind was now in a fit state to seek for church fellowship, as a
further means of advance in his knowledge of Divine love. To effect
this object, he was naturally led to the Baptist church at Bedford,
to which those pious women belonged whose Christian communion had
been blessed to him. I sat under the ministry of holy Mr. Gifford,
whose doctrine, by God's grace, was much for my stability.[102]
Although his soul was led from truth to truth, his trials were not
over--he passed through many severe exercises before he was received
into communion with the church.[103]

At length he determined to become identified with a body of
professed Christians, who were treated with great scorn by other
sects because they denied infant baptism, and he became engaged in
the religious controversies which were fashionable in those days.
We have noticed his encounter with the Ranters, and he soon had
to give battle to persons called Quakers. Before the Society of
Friends was formed, and their rules of discipline were published,
many Ranters and others, some of whom were bad characters and held
the wildest opinions, passed under the name of Quakers. Some of
these denied that the Bible was the Word of God; and asserted that
the death of Christ was not a full atonement for sin--that there
is no future resurrection, and other gross errors. The Quakers,
who were afterwards united to form the Society of Friends, from the
first denied all those errors. Their earliest apologist, Barclay,
in his theses on the Scriptures, says, 'They are the doctrines of
Christ, held forth in precious declarations, spoken and written
by the movings of God's Spirit.' Whoever it was that asserted the
heresies, to Bunyan the investigation of them, in the light of Divine
truth, was attended with great advantages. It was through 'this
narrow search of the Scriptures that he was not only enlightened,
but greatly confirmed and comforted in the truth.'[104]

He longed to compare his experience with that of some old and eminent
convert, and 'God did cast into his hand' Luther On the Galatians,
'so old that it was ready to fall piece from piece, if I did but
turn it over.'[105] The commentary of this enlightened man was
a counterpart to his own feelings. 'I found,' says Bunyan, 'my
condition, in his experience so largely and profoundly handled,
as if his book had been written out of my own heart. I prefer the
book before all others as most fit for a wounded conscience.' This
was the 'voice of a man' that Christian 'heard as going before him
in the Valley of the Shadow of Death,' and was glad that some who
feared God were in this valley as well as himself, who could say,
'I will fear no evil for thou art with me.'[106] In many things
Luther and Bunyan were men of similar temperament. Like Emmanuel's
captains, in the Holy War, they were 'very stout rough-hewn men;
men that were fit to break the ice, and to make their way by dint
of sword.'[107] They were animated by the same principles, and
fought with the same weapons; and although Luther resided in a castle
protected by princes, was furnished with profound scholastic learning,
and became a terror to Popery; yet the voice of the unlettered
tinker, issuing from a dreary prison, bids fair to be far more
extensively heard and blessed than that of this most illustrious
reformer.[108]

Bunyan's happiness was now very great; his soul, with all its
affections, clave unto Christ: but lest spiritual pride should
exalt him beyond measure, and lest he should be scared to renounce
his Saviour, by the threat of transportation and death, his heart
was again wounded, and quickly after this his 'love was tried to
purpose.'

The tempter came in upon him with a most grievous and dreadful
temptation; it was to part with Christ, to exchange him for the
things of this life; he was perpetually tormented with the words
'sell Christ.' At length, he thought that his spirit gave way
to the temptation, and a dreadful and profound state of despair
overpowered him for the dreary space of more than two years.[109]
This is the most extraordinary part of this wonderful narrative, that
he, without apparent cause, should thus be tempted, and feel the
bitterness of a supposed parting with Christ. There was, doubtless,
a cause for every pang; his heavenly Father afflicted him for
his profit. We shall soon have to follow him through fiery trials.
Before the justices, allured by their arguments, and particularly by
the sophistry of their clerk, Mr. Cobb, and then dragged from a
beloved wife and from children to whom he was most fondly attached--all
these fiery trials might be avoided, if he would but 'sell Christ.'
A cold damp dungeon was to incarcerate his body for twelve tedious
years of the prime of his life, unless he would 'sell Christ.' His
ministering brother and friend, John Child, a Bedford man, who had
joined in recommending Bunyan's Vindication of Gospel Truths,[110]
fell under this temptation, and fearing temporal ruin and imprisonment
for life, conformed, and then fell into the most awful state of
despair, suffering such agonies of conscience, that, to get rid of
present trouble, he hurried himself into eternity. Probably Bunyan
alludes to this awful instance of fell despair in his Publican
and Pharisee: 'Sin, when appearing in its monstrous shape and hue,
frighteth all mortals out of their wits, away from God; and if he
stops them not, also out of the world.'[111] To arm Bunyan against
being overcome by a fear of the lions in the way to the house
Beautiful--against giving way, under persecution--he was visited
with terrors lest he should sell or part with Christ. During these
sad years he was not wholly sunk in despair, but had at times some
glimmerings of mercy. In comparing his supposed sin with that of
Judas, he was constrained to find a difference between a deliberate
intention to sell Christ and a sudden temptation.[112] Through
all these searchings of heart and inquiries at the Word, he became
fixed in the doctrine of the final perseverance of God's saints. 'O
what love, what care, what kindness and mercy did I now see mixing
itself with the most severe and dreadful of all God's ways to his
people; he never let them fall into sin unpardonable.' 'But these
thoughts added grief and horror to me; I thought that all things
wrought for my eternal overthrow.' So ready is the tender heart to
write bitter things against itself, and as ready is the tempter to
whisper despairing thoughts. In the midst of this distress he 'saw
a glory in walking with God,' although a dismal cloud enveloped
him.

This misery was aggravated by reading the fearful estate of Francis
Spira, who had been persuaded to return to a profession of Popery,
and died in a state of awful despair.[113] 'This book' was to his
troubled spirit like salt rubbed into a fresh wound.

Bunyan now felt his body and mind shaking and tottering under the
sense of the dreadful judgment of God; and he thought his sin--of
a momentary and unwilling consent to give up Christ--was a greater
sin than all the sins of David, Solomon, Manasseh, and even than
all the sins that had been committed by all God's redeemed ones.
Was there ever a man in the world so capable of describing the
miseries of Doubting Castle, or of the Slough of Despond, as poor
John Bunyan?

He would have run from God in utter desperation; 'but, blessed
be his grace, that Scripture, in these flying sins, would call,
as running after me, "I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, thy
transgressions, and, as a cloud, thy sins: return unto me, for I have
redeemed thee"' (Isa 44:22).Still he was haunted by that scripture,
'You know how that afterwards, when he would have inherited the
blessing, he found no place of repentance, though he sought it
carefully with tears.' Thus was he tossed and buffeted, involved in
cloudy darkness, with now and then a faint gleam of hope to save
him from despair. 'In all these,' he says, 'I was but as those
that justle against the rocks; more broken, scattered, and rent.
Oh! the unthought of imaginations, frights, fears, and terrors, that
are effected by a thorough application of guilt.'[114] 'Methought
I saw as if the sun that shineth in the heavens did grudge to give
light, and as if the very stones in the street, and tiles upon the
houses, did bend themselves against me.'[115] Here we find him in
that doleful valley, where Christian was surrounded by enemies that
'cared not for his sword,' he put it up, and places his dependence
upon the more penetrating weapon, 'All Prayer.' Depending upon
this last resource, he prayed, even when in this great darkness
and distress. To whom could he go? his case was beyond the power
of men or angels. His refuge, from a fear of having committed the
unpardonable sin, was that he had never refused to be justified by
the blood of Christ, but ardently wished it; this, in the midst of
the storm, caused a temporary clam. At length, he was led to look
prayerfully upon those scriptures that had tormented him, and to
examine their scope and tendency, and then he 'found their visage
changed, for they looked not so grimly on him as before he thought
they did.'[116] Still, after such a tempest, the sea did not at
once become a calm. Like one that had been scared with fire, every
voice was fire, fire; every little touch hurt his tender conscience.[117]

All this instructive history is pictured by a few words in the
Pilgrim's Progress. At the Interpreter's house the pilgrim is shown
'a fire burning against a wall, and one standing by it, always
casting much water upon it, to quench it; yet did the fire burn
higher and hotter.'[118] As Esau beat him down, Christ raised him
again. The threatening and the promise were like glittering swords
clashing together, but the promise must prevail.

His entire relief at last was sudden, while meditating in the field
upon the words, 'Thy righteousness is in heaven.' Hence he drew the
conclusion, that his righteousness was in Christ, at God's right
hand, ever before him, secure from all the powers of sin and
Satan. Now his chains fell off; he was loosed from his affliction
and irons; his temptation fled away. His present supply of grace
he compared to the cracked groats and fourpence half-pennies,[119]
which rich men carry in their pockets, while their treasure is safe
in their trunks at home, as his was in the store-house of heaven.

This dreary night of awful conflict lasted more than two years; but
when the day-spring from on high visited him, the promises spangled
in his eyes, and he broke out into a song, 'Praise ye the Lord.
Praise God in his sanctuary: praise him in the firmament of his
power. Praise him for his mighty acts: praise him according to his
excellent greatness.'[120]

Bunyan's opinion as to the cause of this bitter suffering, was his
want of watchfulness, his not coming boldly to the throne of grace,
and that he had tempted God. The advantages he considered that
he had gained by it were, that it confirmed his knowledge of the
existence of God, so that he lost all his temptations to unbelief,
blasphemy, and hardness of heart, Doubts as to the truth of the
Word, and certainty of the world to come, were gone for ever.

He found no difficulty as to the keys of the kingdom of heaven.
'Now I saw the apostles to be the elders of the city of refuge,
those that they were to receive in, were received to life, but
those that they were to shut out, were to be slain by the avenger
of blood.' Those were to enter who, with Peter, confessed to Jesus,
'Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God' (Matt 16:16).
This is simply an authority to proclaim salvation or condemnation
to those who receive or reject the Saviour. It is upon his shoulder
the key of the house is laid (Isa 22:22). Christ only has the key,
no MAN openeth or shutteth (Rev 1:18, 3:7). All that man can do,
as to binding or loosening, is to warn the hardened and to invite
the contrite.

By these trials, the promises, became more clear and invaluable
than ever. He never saw those heights and depths in grace, and
love, and mercy, as he saw them after this severe trial--'great
sins drew out great grace'; and the more terrible and fierce guilt
was, the more high and mighty did the mercy of God in Christ appear.
These are Bunyan's own reflections; but may we not add to them, that
while he was in God's school of trial, every groan, every bitter
pang of anguish, and every gleam of hope, were intended to fit him
for his future work as a preacher and writer? Weighed in the balances
of the sanctuary, there was not a jot too little, or an iota too
much. Every important subject which embarrasses the convert, was
most minutely investigated, especially faith, the sin against the
Holy Ghost, the divinity of Christ, and such essential truths. He
well knew every dirty lane, and nook, and corner of Mansoul, in
which the Diabolonians found shelter, and well he knew the frightful
sound of Diabolus' drum.[121] Well did his pastor, John Burton,
say of him, 'He hath through grace taken these three heavenly
degrees, to wit, union with Christ, the anointing of the Spirit,
and experience of the temptations of Satan, which do more fit
a man for that mighty work of preaching the gospel, than all the
university learning and degrees that can be had.'[122]

Preserved in Christ Jesus, and called--selected from his associates
in sin, he was taken into this school, and underwent the strictest
religious education. It was here alone that his rare talent could
be cultivated, to enable him, in two immortal allegories, to narrate
the internal discipline he underwent. It was here he attained
that habitual access to the throne of grace, and that insight into
the inspired volume, which filled his writings with those solemn
realities of the world to come; while it enabled him to reveal
the mysteries of communion with the Father of spirits, as he so
wondrously does in his treatise on prayer. To use the language of
Milton--'These are works that could not be composed by the invocation
of Dame Memory and her Siren daughters, but by devout prayer to that
eternal Spirit, who can enrich with all utterance and knowledge,
and send out his seraphim, with the hallowed fire of his altar,
to touch and purify the lips of whom he pleases, without reference
to station, birth, or education.' The tent-maker and tinker, the
fisherman and publican, and even a friar or monk,[123] became the
honoured instruments of his choice.

Throughout all Bunyan's writings, he never murmurs at his want
of education, although it is often a source of humble apology. He
honoured the learned godly as Christians, but preferred the Bible
before the library of the two universities.[124] He saw, what every
pious man must see and lament, that there is much idolatry in human
learning, and that it was frequently applied to confuse and impede
the gospel. Thus he addresses the reader of his treatise on The Law
and Grace--'If thou find this book empty of fantastical expressions,
and without light, vain, whimsical, scholar-like terms, it is because
I never went to school, to Aristotle or Plato, but was brought up
at my father's house, in a very mean condition, among a company of
poor countrymen. But if thou do find a parcel of plain, yet sound,
true, and home sayings, attribute that to the Lord Jesus his gifts
and abilities, which he hath bestowed upon such a poor creature as
I am and have been.'[125] His maxim was--'Words easy to be understood
do often hit the mark, when high and learned ones do only pierce
the air. He also that speaks to the weakest may make the learned
understand him; when he that striveth to be high, is not only
of the most part understood but of a sort, but also many times is
neither understood by them nor by himself!'[126] This is one of
Bunyan's maxims, well worthy the consideration of the most profoundly
learned writers, and also of the most eloquent preachers and public
speakers.

Bunyan was one of those pioneers who are far in advance of the age
in which they live, and the narrative of his birth and education
adds to the innumerable contradictions which the history of man
opposes to the system of Mr. Owen and the Socialists, and to every
scheme for making the offspring of the poor follow in leading-strings
the course of their parents, or for rendering them blindly submissive
to the dictates of the rich, the learned, or the influential. It
incontestably proves the gospel doctrine of individuality, and,
that native talent will rise superior to all impediments. Our
forefathers struggled for the right of private judgment in matters
of faith and worship--their descendants will insist upon it,
as essential to salvation, personally to examine every doctrine
relative to the sacred objects of religion, limited only by Holy
Writ. This must be done with rigorous impartiality, throwing aside
all the prejudices of education, and be followed by prompt obedience
to Divine truth, at any risk of offending parents, or laws, or
resisting institutions, or ceremonies which he discovers to be of
human invention. All this, as we have seen in Bunyan, was attended
with great mental sufferings, with painstaking labour, with a
simple reliance upon the Word of God, and with earnest prayer. If
man impiously dares to submit his conscience to his fellow-man,
or to any body of men called a church, what perplexity must he
experience ere he can make up his mind which to choose! Instead of
relying upon the ONE standard which God has given him in his Word;
should he build his hope upon a human system he could be certain only
that man is fallible and subject to err. How striking an instance
have we, in our day, of the result of education, when the mind does
not implicitly follow the guidance of the revealed Word of God.
Two brothers, named Newman, educated at the same school, trained in
the same university, brought up under the same religious system--all
human arts exhausted to mould their minds into strict uniformity,
yet gradually receding from the same point in opposite directions,
but in equally downward roads; one to embrace the most puerile
legends of the middle ages, the other to open infidelity. Not so
with those who follow the teachings of the Word of God, by which,
and not by any church, they are to be individually judged at the great
day: no pontiff, no priest, no minister, can intervene or mediate
for them at the bar of God. There it will be said, 'I know you, by
your prayers for Divine guidance and your submission to my revealed
will'; or, 'I know you not,' for you preferred the guidance of
frail, fallible men, to me, and to my Word--a solemn consideration,
which, as it proved a source of solid happiness and extensive
usefulness to Bunyan in his pilgrimage, so it insured to him, as
it will to all who follow his course, a solid foundation on which
to stand at the great and terrible day, and thus enable them to
live as well as die in the sure and certain hope of a triumphant
entry into the celestial city.

THE THIRD PERIOD.

BUNYAN IS BAPTIZED, AND ENTERS INTO COMMUNION WITH A CHRISTIAN
CHURCH AT BEDFORD--IS SET APART TO FILL THE DEACON'S OFFICE, AND
SENT OUT AS AN ITINERANT PREACHER IN THE NEIGHBOURING VILLAGES.

Man is naturally led to seek the society of his fellow-men.
His personal progress, and the great interests of civilization,
depend upon the nature of his friendly intercourse and his proper
associations. So is it with the Christian, but in a much higher
degree. Not only does he require companions with whom he can enjoy
Christian communion--of sufferings and of pleasures--in seasons of
depressing trials, and in holy elevations--but with whom he may also
form plans to spread the genial influence of Christianity, which
has blessed and so boundlessly enriched his own soul. Christian
fellowship and communion has received the broad seal of heaven.
'The Lord hearkened,' when they that feared him spake often to one
another, 'and a book of remembrance was written before him for them
that feared the Lord' (Mal 3:16).

Bunyan possessed a soul with faculties capable of the highest
enjoyment of the communion of saints in church order. His ideas of
mutual forbearance--that 'in lowliness of mind should each esteem
others better than themselves'--he enforces with very peculiar
power, and, at the same time, with delicate sensibility. After the
pilgrims had been washed by Innocence in the Interpreter's bath,
he sealed them, which 'greatly added to their beauty,' and then
arrayed them in white raiment of fine linen; and 'when the women
were thus adorned, they seemed to be a terror one to the other, for
that they could not see that glory each one on herself which they
could see in each other. Now, therefore, they began to esteem
each other better than themselves.'[127] 'The Interpreter led them
into his garden, where was great variety of flowers. Then said he,
Behold, the flowers are diverse in stature, in quality and colour,
and smell and virtue, and some are better than some; also, where the
gardener hath set them, there they stand, and quarrel not with one
another.'[128] 'When Christians stand every one in their places,
and do their relative work, then they are like the flowers in the
garden that grow where the gardener hath planted them, and both
honour the gardener and the garden in which they are planted.'[129]
In the same treatise on Christian Behaviour, similar sentiments
are expressed in language extremely striking and beautiful. 'The
doctrine of the gospel is like the dew and the small rain that
distilleth upon the tender grass, wherewith it doth flourish and
is kept green (Deut 32:2).Christians are like the several flowers
in a garden that have upon each of them the dew of heaven, which,
being shaken with the wind, they let fall their dew at each other's
roots, whereby they are jointly nourished, and become nourishers
of one another. For Christians to commune savourly of God's matters
one with another, it is as if they opened to each other's nostrils
boxes of perfume.'[130] Similar peaceful, heavenly principles, flow
through Bunyan's Discourse of the Building, &c., of the House of
God and its inmates;[131] and blessed would it be if in all our
churches every believer was baptized into such motives of forbearance
and brotherly love. These sentiments do honour to the head and heart
of the prince of allegorists, and should be presented in letters
of gold to every candidate for church fellowship. A young man
entertaining such opinions as these, however rude his former conduct,
being born again to spiritual enjoyments, would become a treasure
to the Christian society with which he might be connected.

In ordinary cases, the minister or people who have been useful to
a young convert, lead him in his first choice of Christian associates;
but here we have no ordinary man. Bunyan, in all things pertaining
to religion, followed no human authority, but submitted himself to
the guidance of the inspired volume. Possessing a humble hope of
salvation, he would read with deep interest that 'the Lord added
to the church such as should be saved.' The question which has so
much puzzled the learned, as to a church or the church, would be
solved without difficulty by one who was as learned in the Scriptures
as he was ignorant of the subtle distinctions and niceties of the
schools. He found that there was one church at Jerusalem (Acts
8:1), another at Corinth (1 Cor 1:2), seven in Asia (Rev 1:4),
and others distributed over the world; that 'the visible church of
Christ is a (or every) congregation of faithful men.'[132] He well
knew that uniformity is a fool's paradise; that though man was
made in the image of God; it derogates not from the beauty of that
image that no two men are alike. The stars show forth God's handy
work, yet 'one star different from another star in glory' (1 Cor
15:41). Uniformity is opposed to every law of nature, for no two
leaves upon a majestic tree are alike. Who but an idiot or a maniac
would attempt to reduce the mental powers of all men to uniformity?
Every church may have its own order of public worship while the
Scriptures form the standard of truth and morals. Where differences
of opinion occur, as they most certainly will, as to the observance
of days or abstinence from meats--whether to stand, or sit, or
kneel, in prayer--whether to stand while listening to some pages
of the inspired volume, and to sit while others are publicly
read--whether to call Jude a saint, and refuse the title to Isaiah--are
questions which should bring into active exercise all the graces of
Christian charity; and, in obedience to the apostolic injunction,
they must agree to differ. 'Let every man be fully persuaded in
his own mind' (Rom 14:5). Human arts have been exhausted to prevent
that mental exercise or self-persuasion which is essential to a
Christian profession. The great object of Satan has ever been to
foster indifference, that deadly lethargy, by leading man to any
source of information rather than prayerful researches into the
Bible. Bunyan's severe discipline in Christ's school would lead
him to form a judgment for himself; he was surrounded by a host
of sects, and, with such a Bible-loving man, it is an interesting
inquiry what party he would join.

He lived in times of extraordinary excitement. England was in a
transition state. A long chain of events brought on a crisis which
involved the kingdom in tribulation. It was the struggle between
the unbridled despotism of Epsicopacy, and the sturdy liberty of
Puritanism. For although the immediate cause of the civil wars was
gross misgovernment--arbitrary taxation without the intervention
of Parliament, monopolies and patents, to the ruin of trade; in
fact, every abuse of the royal power--still, without the additional
spur of religious persecution, the spirit of the people would never
have proved invincible and overpowering. The efforts of Archbishop
Laud, aided by the queen and her popish confessor, Panzani, to
subjugate Britain to the galling yoke of Rome, signally failed,
involving in the ruin the life of the king and his archbishop, and
all the desolating calamities of intestine wars, strangely called
'civil.' In this strife many of the clergy and most of the bishops
took a very active part, aiding and abetting the king's party in their
war against the parliament--and they thus brought upon themselves
great pains and penalties. The people became suddenly released
from mental bondage; and if the man who had been born blind, when
he first received the blessing of sight, 'saw men as trees walking,'
we cannot be surprised that religious speculations were indulged in,
some of which proved to be crude and wild, requiring much vigorous
persuasive pruning before they produced good fruit. Bunyan was
surrounded by all these parties; for although the rights of conscience
were not recognized--the Papists and Episcopalians, the Baptists
and Unitarians, with the Jews, being proscribed--yet the hand of
persecution was comparatively light. Had Bunyan chosen to associate
with the Episcopalians, he would not have passed through those
severe sufferings on which are founded his lasting honours. The
Presbyterians and Independents received the patronage of the state
under the Commonwealth, and the great mass of the clergy conformed to
the directory, many of them reciting the prayers they had formerly
read; while a considerable number, whose conscience could not
submit to the system then enforced by law, did, to their honour,
resign their livings, and suffer the privations and odium of being
Dissenters. Among these were necessarily included the bishops.[133]

Of all sects that of the Baptists had been the most bitterly
written against and persecuted. Even their first cousins, the
Quakers, attacked them in language that would, in our peaceful days,
be considered outrageous. 'The Baptists used to meet in garrets,
cheese-lofts, coal-holes, and such like mice walks,'--'theses
tumultuous, blood-thirsty, covenant-breaking, government-destroying
Anabaptists.'[134] The offence that called forth these epithets
was, that in addressing Charles II on his restoration, they stated
that "they were no abettors of the Quakers." Had royal authority
possessed the slightest influence over Bunyan's religious opinions,
the question as to his joining the Baptists would have been settled
without investigation. Among other infatuations of Charles I, had
been his hatred of any sect that professed the right and duty of
man to think for himself in choosing his way to heaven. In 1639
he published his 'Declaration concerning the tumults in Scotland,'
when violence was resorted to against the introduction of the Common
Prayer in which he denounced voluntary obedience because it was not
of constraint, and called it 'damnable'; he calls the principles
of the Anabaptists, in not submitting their consciences to human
laws, 'furious frenzies,' and 'madness'; all Protestants are 'to
detest and persecute them'; 'these Anabaptists raged most in their
madness'; 'the scandal of their frenzies'; 'we are amazed at, and
aggrieved at their horrible impudence'; 'we do abhor and detest
them all as rebellious and treasonable.'[135] This whole volume
is amusingly assuming. The king claims his subjects as personal
chattels, with whose bodies and minds he had a right to do as he
pleased. Bunyan owed no spiritual submission to man, 'whose breath
is in his nostrils'; and risking all hazards, he became one of the
denounced and despised sect of Baptists. To use the language of his
pilgrim, he passed the lions, braving all the dangers of an open
profession of faith in Christ, and entered the house called Beautiful,
which 'was built by the Lord of the hill, on purpose to entertain
such pilgrims in.'[136] He first gains permission of the watchman,
or minister, and then of the inmates, or church members. This
interesting event is said to have taken place about the year
1653.[137] Mr. Doe, in The Struggler, thus refers to it, Bunyan
'took all advantages to ripen his understanding in religion, and
so he lit on the dissenting congregation of Christians at Bedford,
and was, upon confession of faith, baptized about the year 1653,'[138]
when he was in the twenty-fifth year of his age. No minutes of the
proceedings of this church, prior to the death of Mr. Gifford in
1656,[139] are extant, or they would identify the exact period when
Bunyan's baptism and admission to the church took place. The spot
where he was baptized is a creek by the river Ouse, at the end
of Duck Mill Lane. It is a natural baptistery, a proper width and
depth of water constantly fresh; pleasantly situated; sheltered
from the public highway near the High Street. The Lord's Supper was
celebrated in a large room in which the disciples met, the worship
consecrating the place.[140]

Religious feelings and conduct have at all times a tendency to
promote the comfort, and elevate the character of the poor. How
often have we seen them thus blessed; the ragged family comfortably
clothed, the hungry fed, and the inmates of a dirty miserable cottage
or hovel become a pattern of cleanly happiness. One of Bunyan's
biographers, who was an eye-witness, bears this testimony. 'By this
time his family was increased, and as that increased God increased
his stores, so that he lived now in great credit among his neighbours.'
He soon became a respectable member of civil as well as religious
society; for, by the time that he joined the church, his Christian
character was so fully established, that, notwithstanding the meanness
of his origin and employment, he was considered worthy of uniting
in a memorial to the Lord Protector. It was to recommend two
gentlemen to form part of the council, after Cromwell had dissolved
the Long Parliament. It is a curious document, very little known,
and illustrative of the peculiar style of these eventful times.

Letter from the people of Bedfordshire to the Lord Generall Cromwell,
and the Councell of the army.

May 13th, 1653.

May it please your Lordship, and the rest of the council of the
army. We (we trust) servants of Jesus Christ, inhabitants in the
county of Bedford, haveing fresh upon our hearts the sadde oppressions
we have (a long while) groan'd under from the late parlayment, and
now eyeing and owning (through grace) the good hand of God in this
great turne of providence, being persuaded that it is from the Lord
that you should be instrument in his hand at such a time as this,
for the electing of such persons whoe may goe in and out before his
people in righteousnesse, and governe these nations in judgment,
we having sought the Lord for yow, and hopeing that God will still
doe greate things by yow, understanding that it is in your hearte
through the Lord's assistance, to establish an authority consisting
of men able, loveing truth, feareing God, and hateing covetouseness;
and we having had some experience of men with us, we have judged
it our duty to God, to yow, and to the rest of his people, humbly
to present two men, viz., Nathaniell Taylor, and John Croke, now
Justices of Peace in our County, whom we judge in the Lord qualified
to manage a trust in the ensuing government. All which we humbly
referre to your serious considerations, and subscribe our names
this 13th day of May, 1653--

John Eston, Clement Berridge, Isaac Freeman, John Grewe, John
Bunyan, William Dell, John Gifford, William Baker, junr., William
Wheelar, Ja. Rush, Anth. Harrington, John Gibbs, Tho. Varrse,
Richard Spensley, John Donne, Michael Cooke, Edward Covinson, Tho.
Gibbs, John Ramsay, John Hogge, Edward White, Robert English, John
Jeffard, John Browne, John Edridge, John Ivory, John White, George
Gee, Daniell Groome, Charles Peirse, Ambrose Gregory, Luke Parratt,
Thomas Cooke, William Page, Thomas Knott, Thomas Honnor. These to
the Lord Generall Cromwell, and the rest of the councell of the
army, present.[141]

Bunyan's daughter Elizabeth was born at Elstow, April 14, 1654, and
a singular proof of his having changed his principles on baptism
appears in the church register. His daughter Mary was baptized
in 1650, but his Elizabeth in 1654 is registered as born, but no
mention is made of baptism.

The poor harassed pilgrim having been admitted into communion with
a Christian church, enjoyed fully, for a short season, his new
privileges. He thus expresses his feelings:--'After I had propounded
to the church that my desire was to walk in the order and ordinances
of Christ with them, and was also admitted by them: while I thought
of that blessed ordinance of Christ, which was his last supper
with his disciples before his death, that scriptures, "this do in
remembrance of me," was made a very precious word unto me; for by
it the Lord came down upon my conscience with the discovery of his
death for my sins: and as I then felt, did as if he plunged me in
the virtue of the same.'[142]

In this language we have an expression which furnishes a good
sample of his energetic feelings. He had been immersed in water at
his baptism, and doubtless believed it to be a figure of his death
to sin and resurrection to holiness; and when he sat at the Lord's
table he felt that he was baptized into the virtue of his Lord's
death; he is plunged into it, and feels the holy influence covering
his soul with all its powers.

His pastor, John Gifford, was a remarkably pious and sensible man,
exactly fitted to assist in maturing the mind of his young member.
Bunyan had, for a considerable time, sat under his ministry, and
had cultivated acquaintance with the members of his church; and so
prayerfully had he made up his mind as to this important choice of
a church, with which he might enter into fellowship, that, although
tempted by the most alluring prospects of greater usefulness,
popularity, and emolument, he continued his church fellowship with
these poor people through persecution and distress, imprisonment
and the threats of transportation, or an ignominious death, until
he crossed the river 'which has no bridge,' and ascended to the
celestial city, a period of nearly forty years. Of the labours of
his first pastor, John Gifford, but little is known, except that
he founded the church of Christ at Bedford, probably the first, in
modern times, which allowed to every individual freedom of judgment
as to water baptism; receiving all those who decidedly appeared
to have put on Christ, and had been received by him; but avoiding,
with godly jealousy, any mixture of the world with the church. Mr.
Gifford's race was short, consistent, and successful. Bunyan calls
him by an appellation, very probably common in his neighbourhood
and among his flock, 'holy Mr. Gifford';[143] a title infinitely
superior to all the honours of nobility, or of royalty. He was
a miracle of mercy and grace, for a very few years before he had
borne the character of an impure and licentious man--an open enemy
to the saints of God. His pastoral letter, left upon record in the
church-book, written when drawing near the end of his pilgrimage,
is most admirable; it contains an allusion to his successors, Burton
or Bunyan, and must have had a tendency in forming their views of
a gospel church. Even Mr. Southey praises this puritanic epistle
as exemplifying 'a wise and tolerant and truly Christian spirit':
and as it has not been published in any life of Bunyan, I venture
to introduce it without abridgement:--

To the Church over which God made me an overseer when I was in the
world.

I beseech you, brethren beloved, let these following words (wrote
in my love to you, and care over you, when our heavenly Father
was removing me to the kingdom of his dear Son), be read in your
church-gatherings together. I shall not now, dearly beloved, write
unto you about that which is the first, and without which all other
things are as nothing in the sight of God, viz., the keeping the
mystery of the faith in a pure conscience; I shall not, I say, write
of these things, though the greatest, having spent my labours among
you, to root you and build you up in Christ through the grace you
have received; and to press you to all manner of holiness in your
conversations, that you may be found of the Lord, without spot,
and blameless, at His coming. But the things I shall speak to you
of, are about your CHURCH AFFAIRS, which I fear have been little
considered by most of you; which things, if not mended aright,
and submitted unto, according to the will of God, will by degrees
bring you under divisions, distractions, and at last, to confusion
of that gospel order and fellowship which now, through grace, you
enjoy. Therefore, my brethren, in the first place, I would not
have any of you ignorant of this, that every one of you are as much
bound now to walk with the church in all love; and in the ordinances
of Jesus Christ our Lord, as when I was present among you: neither
have any of you liberty to join yourselves to any other society,
because your pastor is removed from you; for you were not joined
to the ministry, but to Christ, and the church; and this is and was
the will of God in Christ to all the churches of the saints, read
Acts 2:42; and compare it with Acts 1:14, 15. And I charge you
before the Lord, as you will answer it at the coming of our Lord
Jesus, that none of you be found guilty herein.

Secondly. Be constant in your church assemblies. Let all the work
which concerns the church be done faithfully among you; as admission
of members, exercising of gifts, election of officers, as need
requires, and all other things as if named, which the Scriptures
being searched, will lead you into, through the Spirit; which things,
if you do, the Lord will be with you, and you will convince others
that Christ is your head, and your dependency is not upon man; but
if you do the work of the Lord negligently, if you mind your own
things and not the things of Christ, if you grow of indifferent
spirits, whether you mind the work of the Lord in his church
or no, I fear the Lord by degrees will suffer the comfort of your
communion to be dried up, and the candlestick which is yet standing
to be broken in pieces; which God forbid.

Now, concerning your admission of members, I shall leave you to the
Lord for counsel, who hath hitherto been with you; only thus much
I think expedient to stir up your remembrance in; that after you
are satisfied in the work of grace in the party you are to join
with, the said party do solemnly declare (before some of the church
at least), That Union with Christ is the foundation of all saints'
communion; and not any ordinances of Christ, or any judgment
or opinion about externals; and the said party ought to declare,
whether a brother or sister, that through grace they will walk in
love with the church, though there should happen any difference in
judgment about other things. Concerning separation from the church
about baptism, laying on of hands, anointing with oil, psalms, or
any externals, I charge every one of you respectively, as you will
give an account for it to our Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge
both quick and dead at his coming, that none of you be found guilty
of this great evil; which, while some have committed, and that
through a zeal for God, yet not according to knowledge, they have
erred from the law of the love of Christ, and have made a rent from
the true church, which is but one. I exhort you, brethren, in your
comings together, Let all things be done decently, and in order,
according to the Scriptures. Let all things be done among you
without strife and envy, without self-seeking and vain-glory. Be
clothed with humility, and submit to one another in love. Let the
gifts of the church be exercised according to order. Let no gift be
concealed which is for edification; yet let those gifts be chiefly
exercised which are most for the perfecting of the saints. Let
your discourses be to build up one another in your most holy faith,
and to provoke one another to love and good works: if this be not
well-minded, much time may be spent and the church reap little or
no advantage. Let there be strong meat for the strong, and milk
for babes. In your assemblies avoid all disputes which gender to
strife, as questions about externals, and all doubtful disputations.
If any come among you who will be contentious in these things,
let it be declared that you have no such order, nor any of the
churches of God. If any come among you with any doctrine contrary
to the doctrine of Christ, you must not treat with such an one as
with a brother, or enter into dispute of the things of faith with
reasonings (for this is contrary to the Scriptures); but let such
of the brethren who are the fullest of the Spirit, and the word of
Christ, oppose such an one steadfastly face to face, and lay open
his folly to the church, from the Scriptures. If a brother through
weakness speak anything contrary to any known truth of God (though
not intended by him), some other brother of the church must
in love clear up the truth, lest many of the church be laid under
temptation. Let no respect of persons be in your comings-together;
when you are met as a church there's neither rich nor poor, bond
nor free in Christ Jesus. 'Tis not a good practice to be offering
places or seats when those who are rich come in; especially it is
a great evil to take notice of such in time of prayer, or the word;
then are bowings and civil observances at such times not of God.
Private wrongs are not presently to be brought unto the church. If
any of the brethren are troubled about externals, let some of the
church (let it not be a church business) pray for and with such
parties.

None ought to withdraw from the church if any brother should walk
disorderly, but he that walketh disorderly must bear his own burden,
according to the Scriptures. If any brother should walk disorderly,
he cannot be shut out from any ordinance before church censure.
Study among yourselves what is the nature of fellowship, as the
word,[144] prayer, and breaking of bread; which, whilst few, I
judge, seriously consider, there is much falling short of duty in
the churches of Christ. You that are most eminent in profession,
set a pattern to all the rest of the church. Let your faith, love,
and zeal, be very eminent; if any of you cast a dim light, you will
do much hurt in the church. Let there be kept up among you solemn
days of prayer and thanksgiving; and let some time be set apart, to
seek God for your seeds, which thing hath hitherto been omitted. Let
your deacons have a constant stock by them, to supply the necessity
of those who are in want. Truly, brethren, there is utterly a fault
among you that are rich, especially in this thing, 'tis not that
little which comes from you on the first day of the week that will
excuse you. I beseech you, be not found guilty of this sin any
longer. He that sows sparingly will reap sparingly. Be not backward
in your gatherings-together; let none of you willingly stay till
part of the meeting be come,[145] especially such who should be
examples to the flock. One or two things are omitted about your
comings-together, which I shall here add. I beseech you, forbear
sitting in prayer, except parties be any way disabled; 'tis not a
posture which suits with the majesty of such an ordinance. Would you
serve your prince so? In prayer, let all self-affected expressions
be avoided, and all vain repetitions. God hath not gifted, I judge,
every brother to be a mouth to the church. Let such as have most
of the demonstration of the Spirit and of power, shut up all your
comings-together, that ye may go away with your hearts comforted
and quickened.

Come together in time, and leave off orderly; for God is a God of
order among his saints. Let none of you give offence to his brethren
in indifferent things, but be subject to one another in love. Be
very careful what gifts you approve of by consent for public service.

Spend much time before the Lord, about choosing a pastor, for though
I suppose he is before you,[146] whom the Lord hath appointed, yet
it will be no disadvantage to you, I hope, if you walk a year or
two as you are before election; and then, if you be all agreed, let
him be set apart, according to the Scriptures. Salute the brethren
who walk not in fellowship with you, with the same love and name
of brother or sister as those who do.

Let the promises made to be accomplished in the latter days, be
often urged before the Lord in your comings-together; and forget
not your brethren in bonds. Love him much for the work's sake, who
labours over you in the word and doctrine. Let no man despise his
youth.[147] Muzzle not the mouth of the ox that treads out the
corn to you. Search the Scriptures; let some of them be read to
you about this thing. If your teacher at any time be laid aside,
you ought to meet together as a church, and build up one another.
If the members at such a time will go to a public ministry, it
must first be approved of by the church. Farewell; exhort, counsel,
support, reprove one another in love.

Finally, brethren, be all of one mind, walk in love one to another,
even as Christ Jesus hath loved you, and given himself for you.
Search the Scriptures for a supply of those things wherein I am
wanting. Now the God of peace, who raised up our Lord Jesus Christ
from the dead, multiply his peace upon you, and preserve you to
his everlasting kingdom by Jesus Christ. Stand fast: the Lord is
at hand.

That this was written by me, I have set my name to it, in the
presence of two of the brethren of the church.

John Gifford.[148]

Bunyan was now settled under the happiest circumstances, and doubtless
looked forward to much religious enjoyment. A pious wife--peace
in his soul--a most excellent pastor, and in full communion with
a Christian church. Alas! his enjoyments were soon interrupted;
again a tempest was to agitate his mind, that he might be more deeply
humbled and prepared to become a Barnabas or son of consolation to
the spiritually distressed.

It is a remarkable fact, that upon the baptism of our Lord, after
that sublime declaration of Jehovah--'this is my beloved Son,'
'Jesus was led into the wilderness, to be tempted of the devil.' As
it was with their leader, so it frequently happens to his followers.
After having partaken, for the first time, of the holy enjoyments
of the Lord's table--tending to exalt and elevate them, they are
often abased and humbled in their own esteem, by the assaults of
Satan and his temptations, aided by an evil heart of unbelief. Thus
Christian having been cherished in the house called Beautiful, and
armed for the conflict, descended into the Valley of Humiliation,
encountered Apollyon in deadly combat, and walked through the Valley
of the Shadow of Death. 'For three quarters of a year, fierce and
said temptations did beset me to blasphemy, that I could never have
rest nor ease. But at last the Lord came in upon my soul with that
same scripture, by which my soul was visited before; and after that,
I have been usually very well and comfortable in the partaking of
that blessed ordinance; and have, I trust, therein discerned the
Lord's body, as broken for my sins, and that his precious blood hath
been shed for my transgressions.'[149] This is what Bunyan calls,
'the soul killing to itself its sins, its righteousness, wisdom,
resolutions, and the things which it trusted in by nature'; and
then receiving 'a most glorious, perfect, and never-fading life.'
The life of Christ in all its purity and perfections imputed to
me--'Sometimes I bless the Lord my soul hath had this life not only
imputed to me, but the very glory of it upon my soul--the Son of
God himself in his own person, now at the right hand of his Father
representing me complete before the mercy-seat in his ownself.'
'There was my righteousness just before the eyes of Divine glory.'[150]

About this period his robust hardy frame gave way under the attack
of disease, and we have to witness his feelings when the king of
terrors appeared to be beginning his deadly work. Whether the fiery
trials, the mental tempest through which he had passed, were too
severe for his bodily frame, is not recorded. His narrative is, that,
'Upon a time I was somewhat inclining to a consumption, wherewith,
about the spring I was suddenly and violently seized, with much
weakness in my outward man; insomuch that I thought I could not
live.'[151] This is slightly varied in his account of this illness
in his Law and Grace. He there says, 'having contracted guilt upon
my soul, and having some distemper of body upon me, I supposed
that death might now so seize upon, as to take me away from among
men.[152] These serious considerations led to a solemn investigation
of his hopes. His having been baptized, his union to a church, the
good opinion of his fellow-men, are not in the slightest degree
relied upon as evidences of the new birth, or of a death to sin
and resurrection to holiness.' 'Now began I afresh to give myself
up to a serious examination after my state and condition for the
future, and of my evidences for that blessed world to come: for
it hath, I bless the name of God, been my usual course, as always,
so especially in the day of affliction, to endeavour to keep my
interest in the life to come, clear before my eye.

'But I had no sooner began to recall to mind my former experience
of the goodness of God to my soul, but there came flocking into my
mind an innumerable company of my sins and transgressions: amongst
which these were at this time most to my affliction, namely,
my deadness, dullness, and coldness in holy duties; my wanderings
of heart, my wearisomeness in all good things, my want of love to
God, his ways and people, with this at the end of all, "Are these
the fruits of Christianity? Are these the tokens of a blessed man?"

'At the apprehension of these things my sickness was doubled upon
me, for now was I sick in my inward man, my soul was clogged with
guilt; now also was my former experience of God's goodness to me
quite taken out of my mind, and hid as if it had never been, nor seen.
Now was my soul greatly pinched between these two considerations,
"Live I must not, die I dare not." Now I sunk and fell in my spirit,
and was giving up all for lost; but as I was walking up and down
in my house, as a man in a most woeful state, that word of God took
hold of my heart, Ye are "justified freely by his grace, through
the redemption that is in Jesus Christ" (Rom 3:24). But O! what a
turn it made upon me!

'Now was I as one awakened out of some troublesome sleep and dream;
and listening to this heavenly sentence, I was as if I had heard
it thus expounded to me:--"Sinner, thou thinkest, that because of
thy sins and infirmities, I cannot save thy soul; but behold my Son
is by me, and upon him I look, and not on thee, and will deal with
thee according as I am pleased with him." At this I was greatly
lightened in my mind, and made to understand, that God could
justify a sinner at any time; it was but his looking upon Christ,
and imputing of his benefits to us, and the work was forthwith
done.'[153]

'Now was I got on high, I saw myself within the arms of grace and
mercy; and though I was before afraid to think of a dying hour, yet
now I cried, Let me die. Now death was lovely and beautiful in my
sight, for I saw that we shall never live indeed, till we be gone
to the other world. I saw more in those words, "Heirs of God" (Rom
8:17), than ever I shall be able to express. "Heirs of God," God
himself is the portion of his saints.'[154]

As his mental agitation subsided into this delicious calm, his bodily
health was restored; to use his own figure, Captain Consumption,
with all his men of death, were[155] routed, and his strong bodily
health trimphed over disease; or, to use the more proper language
of an eminent Puritan, 'When overwhelmed with the deepest sorrows,
and that for many doleful months, he who is Lord of nature healed
my body, and he who is the Father of mercies and God of all grace
has proclaimed liberty to the captive, and given rest to my weary
soul.'[156] Here we have a key to the most eventful picture in
the Pilgrim's Progress--The Valley of the Shadow of Death--which
is placed in the midst of the journey. When in the prime of life,
death looked at him and withdrew for a season. It was the shadow
of death that came over his spirit.

The church at Bedford having increased, Bunyan was chosen to fill
the honourable office of a deacon. No man could have been better
fitted for that office than Bunyan was. He was honesty itself, had
suffered severe privations, so as to feel for those who were pinched
with want; he had great powers of discrimination, to distinguish
between the poverty of idleness, and that distress which arises from
circumstances over which human foresight has no control, so as to
relieve with propriety the pressure of want, without encouraging
the degrading and debasing habit of depending upon alms, instead
of labouring to provide the necessaries of life. He had no fine
clothes to be spoiled by trudging down the filthiest lanes, and
entering the meanest hovels to relieve suffering humanity. The
poor--and that is the great class to whom the gospel is preached,
and by whom it is received--would hail him as a brother. Gifted in
prayer, full of sound and wholesome counsel drawn from holy writ,
he must have been a peculiar blessing to the distressed, and to all
the members who stood in need of advice and assistance. Such were
the men intended by the apostles, 'men of honest report, full
of the Holy Ghost and wisdom' (Acts 6:3), whom the church were to
select, to relieve the apostles from the duties of ministration to
the wants of the afflicted members, in the discharge of which they
had given offence.

While thus actively employed, he was again visited with a severe
illness, and again was subject to a most searching and solemn
investigation as to his fitness to appear before the judgment-seat
of God. 'All that time the tempter did beset me strongly, labouring
to hide from me my former experience of God's goodness; setting
before me the terrors of death, and the judgment of God, insomuch
that at this time, through my fear of miscarrying for ever, should
I now die, I was as one dead before death came; I thought that
there was no way but to hell I must.'[157]

'A wounded spirit who can bear.' Well might the apostle say, 'If
in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most
miserable' (1 Cor 15:19). Bunyan had enjoyed holy emotions full of
glory, and now the devil was threatening him, not only with the loss
of heaven, but the terrors of hell. The Puritan, Rogers, describes
religious melancholy as 'the worst of all distempers, and those sinking
and guilty fears which it brings along with it are inexpressibly
dreadful; what anguish, what desolation! I dare not look to heaven;
there I see the greatness of God, who is against me. I dare not
look into his Word; for there I see all his threats, as so many
barbed arrows to strike me to the heart. I dare not look into the
grave; because thence I am like to have a doleful resurrection; in
this doleful night the soul hath no evidence at all of its former
grace.'[158] Bunyan's experience reminds us of the impressive
language of Job--a book full of powerful imagery and magnificent
ideas, in which Bunyan delighted, calling it 'that blessed
book.'[159] Job goes on, from step to step, describing his mental
wretchedness, until he rises to a climax, God 'runneth upon me like
a giant' (16:7-22). 'Thou huntest me as a fierce lion' (10:16).
'The arrows of the Almighty are within me; they drink up my spirit:
the terrors of God do set themselves in array against me' (6:4).
Poor Bunyan, in the depth of his distress, cried unto God, and was
heard and relieved from these soul troubles. He recollected the
joyful ascent of Lazarus from the extreme of human misery to the
height of celestial enjoyments. His spirit was sweetly revived, and
he was enabled, with delight, to hope yet in God, when that word
fell with great weight upon his mind, 'O death, where is thy sting?
O grave, where is thy victory?' 'At this he became both well in
body and mind at once; his sickness did presently vanish, and he
again walked comfortably in his work for God.'[160] The words, 'by
grace are ye saved,' followed him through the rest of his pilgrimage.
His consolation was, that 'a little true grace will go a great way;
yea, and do more wonders than we are aware of. If we have but grace
enough to keep us groaning after God, it is not all the world that
can destroy us.'[161] He had now become deeply instructed in the
school of Christ, and was richly furnished with the weapons of
spiritual warfare; 'a scribe instructed into the kingdom of heaven,
like unto a man that is an householder, which bringeth forth out
of his treasure things new and old' (Matt 13:12). Or, as 'the man
of God, perfected, thoroughly furnished unto all good works' (2
Tim 3:17). It was powerfully impressed upon his mind that all his
inward conflicts were to be made use of in preparing him to instruct
others. All the events of his Saviour's life passed before his mind
as if he had stood by as a witness to his birth--his walking with
his disciples; his wondrous parables and stupendous miracles; his
mental and bodily sufferings; his sacrifice, burial, ascension,
intercession, and final judgment; all passed in vivid review before
the eye of his mind; and then, he says, 'as I was musing with myself
what these things should mean, methought I heard such a word in my
heart as this, I have set thee down on purpose, for I have something
more than ordinary for thee to do'; which made me the more to
marvel, saying, 'What, my Lord, such a poor wretch as I?'[162] Such
was his inward call to the ministry; and it being attended with
the three requisites usually insisted on among Dissenters--ability,
inclination, and opportunity--he was sent out as an itinerant
preacher in the surrounding villages in 1655, and laid the foundation
of many churches, which now flourish to the praise of the glory of
Divine grace. In some of these villages the gospel had never before
been preached; they were strongholds of Satan. These were fit places
for the full display of his intrepid energy.

After thus preaching and much suffering, for fifteen years, he was
appointed to the pastoral office, or eldership.[163] Can a man enter
upon the work of the ministry from a better school than this? Deeply
versed in scriptural knowledge; thoroughly humbled by the assaults
of sin and Satan; aware of his devices; with a keen perception of
the value of the soul; its greatness; and, if lost, the causes and
the unspeakable extent of its loss. Solemnly devout and fluent in
prayer; ready in conversation upon heavenly things; speaking the
truth without fear of consequences, yet avoiding unnecessary offence;
first speaking in the church-meeting, and then more extensively in
barns, or woods, or dells, to avoid the informers.[164] Such was
his training; and the result was, that, when permitted to proclaim
the gospel publicly, thousands hung upon his words with intense
feeling; numerous converts were by his means added to the church;
the proud became broken-hearted, and the lowly were raised, and
blessings abounded; the drunkards were made sober; thieves and
covetous were reclaimed; the blasphemers were made to sing the
praises of God; the desert bid fair to blossom and bring forth
fruit as a garden. But, alas! his early labours were contrary to
acts of parliament; the spirit of intolerance and persecution soon
troubled, and eventually consigned him to a prison.

Before we bid a final farewell to Bunyan's extraordinary mental
struggles with unbelief, it may be well to indulge in a few sober
reflections. Are the narratives of these mighty tempests in his
spirit plain matters of fact? No one can read the works of Bunyan
and doubt for a moment his truthfulness. His language is that of
the heart, fervent but not exaggerated, strong but a plain tale of
real feelings. He says, and he believed it, 'My sins have appeared
so big to me, that I thought one of my sins have been as big as
all the sins of all the men in the nation; ay and of other nations
too, reader; these things be not fancies, for I have smarted for
this experience. It is true that Satan has the art of making the
uttermost of every sin; he can blow it up, make it swell, make every
hair of its head as big as a cedar;[165] but yet the least stream
of the heart blood of Jesus hath vanished all away and hath made
it to fly, to the astonishment of such a poor sinner, and hath
delivered me up into sweet and heavenly peace and joy in the Holy
Ghost.'[166] Some have supposed the narrative to be exaggerated,
while others have attributed the disturbed state of his mind to
disease; my humble belief is that the whole is a plain unvarnished
account of facts; that those facts occurred while he was in full
possession of all the faculties of his mind. To ascribe such powers
to the invisible world by which we are constantly surrounded, does
not agree with the doctrines of modern philosophers. Those holy
or unholy suggestions suddenly injected, would by the world be set
down as the hallucinations of a distempered imagination. Carnal
relations attributed Christian's alarm to 'some frenzy distemper
got into his head,' and Southey, following their example, ascribes
Bunyan's hallowed feelings to his want of 'sober judgment,' 'his
brutality and extreme ignorance,' a 'stage of burning enthusiasm,'
and to 'an age in which hypocrisy was regnant, and fanaticism rampant
throughout the land.'[167] What a display of reigning hypocrisy
and rampant fanaticism was it to see the game at cat openly played
by men on Sunday, the church bells calling them to their sport!!!
Had Southey been poet-laureate to Charles II, he might with equal
truth have concealed the sensuality, open profaneness, and debauchery
of that profligate monarch and his court of concubines, and have
praised him as 'the Lord's anointed.' Bunyan was an eye-witness of
the state of the times in which he lived, and he associated with
numbers of the poor in Bedfordshire and the adjoining counties. So
truthful a man's testimony is of great value, and he proves that
no miraculous reformation of manners had taken place; no regnant
hypocrisy nor rampant fanaticism. In 1655, that being the brightest
period of the Commonwealth, he thus 'sighs' over the state of his
country:--'There are but a few places in the Bible but there are
threatenings against one sinner or another; against drunkards,
swearers, liars, proud persons, strumpets, whoremongers, covetous,
railers, extortioners, thieves, lazy persons. In a word, all manner
of sins are reproved, and there is a sore punishment to be executed
on the committers of them; and all this made mention of in the
Scriptures. But for all this, how thick, and by heaps, do these
wretches walk up and down our streets? Do but go into the ale-houses,
and you shall see almost every room besprinkled with them, so
foaming out their own shame that it is enough to make the heart of
a saint to tremble.'[168] This was a true character of the great
masses of the labouring and trading portions of the commonwealth.
Let us hear his testimony also as to the most sacred profession,
the clergy, in 1654:--

'A reason why delusions do so easily take place in the hearts of
the ignorant, is, because those that pretend to be their teachers,
do behave themselves so basely among them. And indeed I may say
of these, as our Lord said of the Pharisees in another case, the
blood of the ignorant shall be laid to their charge. They that
pretend they are sent of the Lord, and come, saying, Thus saith
the Lord; we are the servants of the Lord, our commission is from
the Lord by succession; I say, these pretending themselves to be the
preachers of truth, but are not, do, by their loose conversation,
render the doctrine of God, and his Son Jesus Christ, by whom the
saints are saved, contemptible, and do give the adversary mighty
encouragement, to cry out against the truths of our Lord Jesus
Christ, because of their wicked waling. For the most part of them,
they are the men that at this day do so harden their hearers in
their sins by giving them such ill examples, that none goeth beyond
them for impiety. As, for example, would a parishioner learn to
be proud, he or she need look no farther than to the priest, his
wife, and family; for there is a notable pattern before them. Would
the people learn to be wanton? they may also see a pattern among
their teachers. Would they learn to be drunkards? they may also have
that from some of their ministers; for indeed they are ministers
in this, to minister ill example to their congregations. Again,
would the people learn to be covetous? they need but look to
their minister, and they shall have a lively, or rather a deadly
resemblance set before them, in both riding and running after great
benefices, and parsonages by night and by day. Nay, they among
themselves will scramble for the same. I have seen, that so soon
as a man hath but departed from his benefice as he calls it, either
by death or out of covetousness of a bigger, we have had one priest
from this town, and another from that, so run, for these tithe-cocks
and handfuls of barley, as if it were their proper trade, and calling,
to hunt after the same. O wonderful impiety and ungodliness! are
you not ashamed of your doings? Read Romans 1 towards the end. As
it was with them, so, it is to be feared, it is with many of you,
who knowing the judgments of God, that they who do such things are
worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure also in
them that do them. And now you that pretend to be the teachers of
the people in verity and truth, though we know that some of you
are not, is it a small thing with you to set them such an example
as this? Were ever the Pharisees so profane; to whom Christ said,
Ye vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell? Doth not the
ground groan under you? surely, it will favour you no more than it
favoured your fore-runners. Certainly the wrath of God lies heavy
at your doors, it is but a very little while, and your recompense
shall be upon your own head. And as for you that are indeed of
God among them, though not of them, separate yourselves. Why should
the righteous partake of the same plagues with the wicked? O ye
children of the harlot! I cannot well tell how to have done with
you, your stain is so odious, and you are so senseless, as appears
by your practices.'[169]

The testimony of George Fox as to England's fashions in 1654, is
very pointed and extremely droll:--Men and women are carried away
with fooleries and vanities; gold and silver upon their backs,[170]
store of ribbands hanging about the waist, knees, and feet--red or
white, black or yellow; women with their gold; their spots on their
faces, noses, cheeks, foreheads; rings on their fingers, cuffs
double, like a butcher's white sleeves; ribbands about their hands,
and three or four gold laces about their clothes; men dressed like
fiddlers' boys or stage players; see them playing at bowls, or
at tables, or at shovel-board, or each one decking his horse with
bunches of ribbands on his head, as the rider hath on his own.
These are gentlemen, and brave fellows, that say pleasures are
lawful, and in their sports they should like wild asses. This is
the generation carried away with pride, arrogancy, lust, gluttony,
and uncleanness; who eat and drink and rise up to play, their eyes
full of adultery, and their bodies of the devil's adorning.[171]
Such quotations from the writings of men of undoubted veracity, and
who lived during that period, might be multiplied to fill a volume.

Is this the regnant hypocrisy and rampant fanaticism which prevailed
in England, and which Southey supposes to have influenced Bunyan
and deranged his sober judgment? It is true that the Protector
and his council discountenanced vice and folly, and that there was
more piety and virtue in the kingdom at that time than it had ever
before witnessed. But it would have been the greatest of miracles,
had the people been suddenly moralized, after having been baptized
in brutality for ages. Not a century had elapsed since the autos
da fe had blazed throughout the country, burning the most pious,
moral, and enlightened of her citizens. A century of misery to the
professors of religions had passed, in which the persecutions of
Papists and Puritans, hanging, transporting, murdering by frightful
imprisonments all those who dared to dissent from the church of
England. All this must have produced a debasing effect upon public
morals. Even among professors Bunyan discovered pride, covetousness,
impiety and uncleanness.[172]

Bunyan's religious impressions did not, as Southey states, arise
from his ignorance, brutal manners, low station, nor from the
fanaticism of the age in which he lived. Did the similar feeling of
Job or David spring from these polluted fountains? He is a stranger
to Christ's school that confounds its discipline with mental
drunkenness, or with the other depraved sources alluded to by
Southey. The luxurious imagination which ruled over him, must be
curbed and brought into subjection to Christ. He must be weaned
from a reliance upon sudden impulses to rely upon Divine truth.
The discovery of errors by scriptural investigation was putting
on armour of proof. Self-confidence was gradually swallowed up
by dependence upon the word--the result of the severest spiritual
training. Those painful exercises produced a life of holiness and
usefulness. Can the thistle produce grapes, or the noxious weeds
corn? Never! His experience came from heaven, in mercy to his
soul, and to make him a blessing to millions of his race. By this
he was made truly wise, civilized, enlightened, and elevated.
Every painful feeling was measured by Divine rule--weighed in the
sanctuary balance--not one iota too much or too little to form
his noble character. He has been compared with Lord Byron, one of
our most impassioned thinkers and writers; but the noble poet's
heart-griefs were on the wrong side. Judging of his own feelings
by those painted on his heroes--they fight for freedom only to
gratify lust, pride, and ambition, while the future appeared in
dark, dreary uncertainty. But Bunyan strives to be released from
the slavery of sin and Satan, that he might enjoy the liberty of
being a servant of Christ, whose service is perfect freedom, with a
glorious vista of eternity occasionally breaking in upon his soul.

Well may it be said of him:--Simple, enchanting man! what does not
the world owe to thee and to the great Being who could produce such
as thee? Teacher alike of the infant and of the aged; who canst
direct the first thought and remove the last doubt of man; property
alike of the peasant and the prince; welcomed by the ignorant and
honoured by the wise; thou hast translated Christianity into a new
language, and that a universal one! Thou art the prose poet of all
time!

THE FOURTH PERIOD.

BUNYAN ENTERS INTO CONTROVERSY--BECOMES AN AUTHOR--OFFENDS A
PERSECUTING MAGISTRACY, AND IS PROCEEDED AGAINST AT THE SESSIONS
UNDER AN ACT OF THE COMMONWEALTH--IS ACCUSED OF REPORTING A STRANGE
CHARGE OF WITCHCRAFT--PUBLICLY DISPUTES WITH THE QUAKERS.

In proportion as a man becomes a public character, especially if
eminent for talent and usefulness in the church, so will his enemies
increase. The envy of some and the malice of others will invent
slanders, or, what is worse, put an evil construction upon the
most innocent conduct, in the hope of throwing a shade over that
brightness which reveals their own defects. In this they are aided
by all the craft, and cunning, and power of Satan, the archenemy of
man. The purity of gospel truth carries with it the blessed fruits
of the highest order of civilization; the atmosphere in which it
lives is 'good will to man.' Salvation is a free gift, direct from
God to the penitent sinner. It cannot be obtained by human aid,
nor for all the gold in the universe. It cannot possibly be traded
in, bought, or sold, but is bestowed without money or price. Hence
the opposition of Antichrist. The cry or groan of the contrite
enters heaven and brings down blessings, while the most elegant and
elaborately-composed prayer, not springing from the heart, is read
or recited in vain. Human monarchs must be approached by petitions
drawn up in form, and which may be accepted, although the perfection
of insincerity and hypocrisy. The King of kings accepts no forms;
he knows the heart, and requires the approach of those who worship
him to be in sincerity and in truth; the heart may plead without
words, God accepteth the groans and sighs of those that fear him.
These were the notions that Bunyan had drawn from the Holy Oracles,
and his conversation soon made him a favourite with the Puritans,
while it excited feelings of great hostility among the neighbouring
clergy and magistrates.

Bunyan's conversion from being a pest to the neighbourhood to
becoming a pious man, might have been pardoned had he conformed to
the Directory; but for him to appear as a Dissenter and a public
teacher, without going through the usual course of education and
ordination, was an unpardonable offence. The opinions of man gave
him no concern; all his anxiety was to have the approbation of
his God, and then to walk accordingly, braving all the dangers,
the obloquy, and contempt that might arise from his conscientious
discharge of duties, for the performance of which he knew that he
alone must give a solemn account at the great day.

He entered upon the serious work of the ministry with fear and
trembling, with much heart-searching, earnest prayer, and the advice
of the church to which he was united, not with any pledge to abide
by their decision contrary to his own conviction, but to aid him
in his determination. His own account of these important inquiries
is very striking:--'After I had been about five or six years awakened,
and helped myself to see both the want and worth of Jesus Christ
our Lord, and also enabled to venture my soul upon him, some of
the most able among the saints with us, for judgment and holiness
of life, as they conceived, did perceive that God had counted me
worthy to understand something of his will in His holy and blessed
Word, and had given me utterance, in some measure, to express what
I saw to others for edification; therefore they desired me, and that
with much earnestness, that I would be willing at some times to
take in hand, in one of the meetings, to speak a word of exhortation
unto them. The which, though at the first it did much dash and
abash my spirit, yet being still by them desired and entreated, I
consented to their request, and did twice, at two several assemblies
in private, though with much weakness and infirmity, discover my
gift amongst them; at which they did solemnly protest, as in the
sight of the great God, they were both affected and comforted, and
gave thanks to the Father of mercies for the grace bestowed on me.

'After this, sometimes, when some of them did go into the country
to teach, they would also that I should go with them; where, though
as yet I did not, nor durst not, make use of my gift in an open
way, yet more privately, as I came amongst the good people in those
places, I did sometimes speak a word of admonition unto them also,
the which they, as the other, received with rejoicing at the mercy
of God to me-ward, professing their souls were edified thereby.

'Wherefore at last, being still desired by the church, after some
solemn prayer to the Lord, with fasting, I was more particularly
called forth, and appointed to a more ordinary and public preaching
of the word, not only to and amongst them that believed, but also
to offer the gospel to those who had not yet received the faith
thereof.'[173]

The ministry of Bunyan's pastor, whom he affectionately called
holy Mr. Gifford, must have been wonderfully blessed. In 1650 only
twelve pious men and women were formed into a Christian church,
and, although subject to fierce persecution, they had so increased
that in 1672 ten members had been solemnly set apart for the work
of the ministry, and they became a blessing to the country round
Bedford. The benighted state of the villages was a cause of earnest
prayer that men might be sent out, apt to teach, and willing to
sacrifice liberty, and even life, to promote the peaceful reign of
the Redeemer. The names of the men who were thus set apart were--John
Bunyan, Samuel Fenn, Joseph Whiteman, John Fenn, Oliver Scott, Luke
Ashwood, Thomas Cooper, Edward Dent, Edward Isaac, and Nehemiah
Coxe.[174] Four of these were permitted to fulfil their course
without notoriety; the others were severely persecuted, fined and
imprisoned, but not forsaken.

Encouraged by the opinion of the church which had been so prayerfully
formed, that it was his duty to proclaim the glad tidings of
salvation, Bunyan entered upon his important work, and was soon
encouraged by a hope that his labours were useful to his fellow-men.
'About this time,' he narrates, 'I did evidently find in my mind
a secret pricking forward thereto, though, I bless God, not for
desire of vain glory, for at that time I was most sorely afflicted
with the fiery darts of the devil concerning my eternal state. But
yet I could not be content unless I was found in the exercise of
my gift; unto which also I was greatly animated, not only by the
continual desires of the godly, but also by that saying of Paul to
the Corinthians, "I beseech you, brethren [ye know the household
of Stephanas, that it is the first-fruits of Achaia, and that they
have addicted themselves to the ministry of the saints], that ye
submit yourselves unto such, and to every one that helpeth with
us, and laboureth" (1 Cor 16:15,16).

'By this text I was made to see that the Holy Ghost never intended
that men, who have gifts and abilities, should bury them in the
earth, but rather did command and stir up such to the exercise of
their gift, and also did commend those that were apt and ready so
to do.

'Wherefore, though of myself, of all the saints the most unworthy,
yet I, but with great fear and trembling at the sight of my own
weakness, did set upon the work, and did according to my gift, and
the proportion of my faith, preach that blessed gospel that God
had showed me in the holy Word of truth; which, when the country
understood, they came in to hear the Word by hundreds, and that from
all parts. And I thank God he gave unto me some measure of bowels
and pity for their souls, which did put me forward to labour with
great diligence and earnestness, to find out such a word as might,
if God would bless it, lay hold of and awaken the conscience, in
which also the good Lord had respect to the desire of his servant;
for I had not preached long before some began to be touched, and
be greatly afflicted in their minds at the apprehension of the
greatness of their sin, and of their need of Jesus Christ.

'But I at first could not believe that God should speak by me to
the heart of any man, still counting myself unworthy; yet those
who were thus touched would love me, and have a particular respect
for me; and though I did put it from me that they should be awakened
by me, still they would confess it, and affirm it before the saints
of God. They would also bless God for me, unworthy wretch that I
am! and count me God's instrument that showed to them the way of
salvation.

'Wherefore, seeing them in both their words and deeds to be so
constant, and also in their hearts so earnestly pressing after the
knowledge of Jesus Christ, rejoicing that ever God did send me where
they were; then I began to conclude that it might be so, that God
had owned in his work such a foolish one as I; and then came that
word of God to my heart with much sweet refreshment, "The blessing
of him that was ready to perish came upon me, and I caused the
widow's heart to sing for joy" (Job 29:13).

'At this therefore I rejoiced; yea, the tears of those whom God
did awaken by my preaching would be both solace and encouragement
to me. I thought on those sayings, "Who is he that maketh me glad,
but the same that is made sorry by me" (2 Cor 2:2). And again,
"Though I be not an apostle to others, yet doubtless I am unto you:
for the seal of my apostleship are ye in the Lord" (1 Cor 9:2).
These things, therefore, were as an another argument unto me, that
God had called me to, and stood by me in this work.

'In my preaching of the Word I took special notice of this one
thing, namely, that the Lord did lead me to begin where his Word
begins with sinners; that is, to condemn all flesh, and to open
and allege, that the curse of God by the law doth belong to, and
lay hold on all men as they come into the world, because of sin.
Now this part of my work I fulfilled with great feeling, for the
terrors of the law, and guilt for my transgressions, lay heavy on
my own conscience. I preached what I felt, what I smartingly did
feel, even that under which my poor soul did groan and tremble to
astonishment. Indeed, I have been as one sent to them from the
dead; I went myself in chains to preach to them in chains; and
carried that fire in my own conscience that I persuaded them to
beware of.[175] I can truly say, that when I have been to preach,
I have gone full of guilt and terror even to the pulpit-door, and
there it hath been taken off, and I have been at liberty in my
mind until I have done my work, and then, immediately, even before
I could get down the pulpit stairs, I have been as bad as I was
before: yet God carried me on with a strong hand, for neither guilt
nor hell could take me off my work. Thus I went on for the space
of two years, crying out against men's sins, and their fearful
state because of them.'[176]

A man so much in earnest soon became a most acceptable and popular
preacher. He studied his sermons carefully, and wrote such memorandums
and notes as might refresh his memory before going into the pulpit,
although his intensity of feeling, his ready utterance, and natural
eloquence which charmed his hearers, and his extensive usefulness
as a preacher, render it quite improbable that he restricted himself
to notes while publicly engaged in sacred services. They must have
aided him when he did not enjoy liberty of utterance. 'At times
when I have begun to speak the Word with much liberty, I have been
presently so straitened in speech that I scarcely knew what I was
about, or as if my head had been in a bag.'[177] They were valuable,
also, as a proof that all he said had its exclusive reference to
the world to come, without the mixture of politics, which might
have given offence to the Government. Thus, when he was apprehended
for neglecting to attend the church service and for preaching the
gospel, in his conversation with Mr. Cobb, the magistrate's clerk,
he said 'that, to cut off all occasions of suspicion from any,
as touching the harmlessness of my doctrine, in private I would
willingly take the pains to give any one the notes of all my
sermons, for I do sincerely desire to live quietly in my country,
and to submit to the present authority.'[178] In such troublesome
times these would afford abundant proof that he was desirous of
submitting to all the political institutions of his country, while
he dared not conform to human laws affecting his faith or his mode
of worshipping God, for which he alone was to stand answerable at
the great day.

The employment of his time in earning a maintenance for his family,
and his constant engagements to preach, interfered with the proper
fulfillment of his duties as a deacon of the church. His resignation
of this important office is thus recorded in the minutes of the
church--'At a meeting held on the 27th of the 6th month, 1657, the
deacon's office was transferred from John Bunyan to John Pernie,
because he could no longer discharge its duties aright, in consequence
of his being so much employed in preaching.'

We cannot wonder that his time was incessantly employed. His was
no ordinary case. He had to recover and improve upon the little
education he had received, and lost again by dissipated habits. He
must have made every effort, by his diligent study of the Bible,
to gain that spiritual knowledge which alone could enable him
to proclaim the unsearchable riches of Christ, and that profound
internal converse with the throne of God which appears in all his
writings. In addition to all this, he was engaged in continual
controversy with a variety of sects, which, in his sober judgment,
opposed the simplicity of the gospel. Among these the Ranters, or
Sweet Singers, were very conspicuous. It is difficult to discover
what were their opinions, but they appear to have been nearly
like the Dutch Adamites; they were severely persecuted, by public
authority, under the Commonwealth, for blasphemy. George Fox
found some of them in prison at Coventry in 1649, and held a short
disputation with them. They claimed each one to be GOD, founding
their notion on such passages as 1 Corinthians 14:25, 'God is in
you of a truth.' Fox quaintly asked them whether it would rain the
next day; and upon their answering that they could not tell, 'Then
said I unto them, God can tell.'[179] Strange as it may appear,
the Ranters had many followers, while numerous pious people were
troubled by their impudence and perversion of Scripture, but more
especially by their being a persecuted people. Taking advantage of
the inquiries that were excited by these strange doctrines, Bunyan
determined to become an author, that he might set forth more
extensively than he could do by preaching, the truths of the gospel
in their native purity, simplicity, and beauty, as an antidote to
fanaticism. The learned and eloquent looked with contempt upon the
follies of the Ranters, Familists, and some loose Quakers, 'and
only deigned to abuse them with raillery, while the poor unlettered
tinker wrote against them.' To indite a work would be to him a
pleasant recreation, but writing a book must have been extremely
difficult, and have required extraordinary patience. This will be
better seen by a specimen of his handwriting, now in the Bedford
Library, found in Fox's Book of Martyrs, the three volumes of which
beguiled many of his tedious hours when in prison.

To write a volume, containing about twenty-five thousand words,
must have been a serious task to such a scribe.

It is interesting to trace his improvement in calligraphy while
recovering his lost education, and advancing in proficiency in an
art so essential to his constantly extending usefulness. The next
is a more useful running hand, however defective in orthography
and grammar; it is from the first page of a copy of Bishop Andrews'
sermons[180]--

The inscription in a copy of his Holy City, 1665, in Dr. Williams'
or the Dissenter's Library, Red Cross Street, is in a still more
useful hand, as good as that of most authors of that day--

The autograph in Powell's Concordance, in the library of the Baptist
Academy, Bristol, is in a fair hand--

His autograph is in possession of the Society of Antiquaries. The
document to which it is subscribed is written in a remarkably neat
hand, addressed to the Lord Protector. The signatures appear to be
written as if in the writer's best style.[181]

Signature to the deed of gift[182]--

In addition to the motives which have been noticed as inducing
him to become an author, it appears, that in the course of his
itinerating labours, he was much grieved with the general depravity
which had overspread all classes of society. Evil communications
had corrupted the great mass, and occasioned an aversion to hear
the gospel, which plunged the people into carnal security. When
roused by his preaching they too often found refuge in despair, or
in vain attempts to impose upon God their unholy self-righteousness,
endeavouring 'to earn heaven with their fingers' ends';[183]
anything rather than submit to receive salvation as the free gift
of God, and thus be led to consecrate all their powers to his glory
and the comfort of society. A few who appeared to have thought on
this solemn subject, without any change of conduct, are called by
Bunyan 'light notionists, with here and there a legalist,'[184] or
those who relied upon a creed without the fruits of righteousness,
and some of these imbibed notions of the strangest kind--that the
light within was all-sufficient, without any written revelation of
the will of God--that the account of Christ's personal appearance
on earth was a myth, to represent his residence in the persons of
believers, in whom he suffers, is crucified, buried, and raised
again to spiritual life--that such persons might do whatever their
inclinations led them to, without incurring guilt or sin; in short,
many sinned that grace might abound!! Some of them professed to
be the Almighty God manifest in the flesh. All this took place in
what was called a Christian country, upon which millions of treasure
had been spent to teach religion by systems, which had persecuted
the honest, pious professors of vital Christianity to bonds,
imprisonment, and death. This had naturally involved the kingdom
in impiety and gross immorality. The discovery of the awful state
of his country, while he was engaged in preaching in the villages
round Bedford induced him, in the humble hope of doing good, to
become an author, and with trembling anxiety he issued to the world
the first production of his pen, in 1656, under the title of Some
Gospel Truths Opened According to the Scriptures; and, as we shall
presently find, it met with a rough reception, plunging him into
controversy, which in those days was conducted with bitter acrimony.

Before it was published, he sought the approbation and protection
of Mr. John Burton, who had been united with Mr. Gifford in the
pastoral charge of the church to which Bunyan belonged. The testimony
that he gives is very interesting:--

'Here thou hast things certain and necessary to be believed, which
thou canst not too much study. Therefore pray that thou mayest
receive it, so it is according to the Scriptures, in faith and
love, not as the word of man but as the word of God, and be not
offended, because Christ holds forth the glorious treasure of the
gospel to thee in a poor earthen vessel, by one who hath neither
the greatness nor the wisdom of this world to commend him to thee;
for as the Scriptures saith, Christ, who was low and contemptible
in the world himself, ordinarily chooseth such for himself and for
the doing of his work. "Not many wise men after the flesh, not many
mighty, not many noble are called: but God hath chosen the foolish
things of the world." This man [Bunyan] is not chosen out of an
earthly, but out of the heavenly university, the church of Christ,
furnished with the Spirit, gifts, and graces of Christ--out of
which, to the end of the world, the word of the Lord and all true
gospel ministers must proceed. And, though this man hath not the
learning or wisdom of man; yet, through grace, he hath received the
teaching of God, and the learning of the Spirit of Christ. He hath
taken these three heavenly degrees--union with Christ, the anointing
of the Spirit, and experience of the temptations of Satan--which
do more fit a man for the mighty work of preaching the gospel, than
all the university learning and degrees that can be had. I have
had experience with many other saints of this man's [Bunyan's]
soundness in the faith, his godly conversation, and his ability to
preach the gospel, not by human art, but by the Spirit of Christ,
and that with much success in the conversion of sinners. I thought
it my duty to bear witness with my brother to these glorious truths
of the Lord Jesus Christ.'[185]

Bunyan was twenty-eight years of age when he published this work,
and as he attacked the follies of his times, and what he deemed to
be heresies, were exposed to Scripture light and condemned without
mercy, it very naturally involved him in controversy. This brought
forth the remarkable resources of his mind, which was stored with
the Scriptures--his fearlessness--ready wit and keen retort, much
sanctified by an earnest desire for the salvation of his opponents.
An extraordinary man, younger than himself, full of energy and
enthusiasm, entered the lists with him; and in Edward Burrough,
very properly called a son of thunder and of consolation, Bunyan
found an able disputant. He was talented, pious, and fearless in his
Master's work, and became eminently useful in laying the foundation
of the Society of Friends. Soon after this he was numbered with the
noble army of martyrs at the age of twenty-eight, being sacrificed
in Newgate, at the shrine of religious intolerance.

At this time the Quakers were not united as a body, and consequently
there was no test of character nor rules of discipline for those
who assumed that name. They were very dissimilar men to their quiet
and unobtrusive descendants. The markets, fairs, and every public
concourse were attended by them, denouncing false weights and
measures, drunkenness and villany, with the curses of the Almighty,
calling upon the people, frequently with furious and fearful energy
and powerful eloquence, to repent, and cry unto God, that his mercy
might be extended to the salvation of their immortal souls. their
zeal led them to many breaches of good manners. They would enter
churches, and after the service, when the quiet folks were thinking
of gratifying their bodies with a substantial dinner, they were
arrested by the violent declamation of a man or woman, frequently
denouncing the priest as being the blind leading the blind.
This naturally led to a scene of riot and confusion, in which the
Quakers were in many cases handled with great barbarity. among these
disturbers were mingled persons of bad character. The violence of
sectarian feeling in the churches thus disturbed, made no discrimination
between bad and good; they were equally subjected to the roughest
treatment. Bunyan attacked those who denied that Christ had appeared
in the world as Emmanuel, God with us 'in fashion as a man,' that
by the infinite merits of his life and death imputed to believers,
they might be made holy. His attack was also directed against those
who refused obedience to the written Word, or who relied upon inward
light in contradistinction and preference to the Bible. The title
to Burrough's answer is a strange contrast to the violence of his
language--The Gospel of Peace Contended for in the Spirit of Meekness
and Love. In this spirit of meekness he calls his opponents 'crafty
fowlers preying upon the innocent'; and lovingly exclaims, 'How
long shall the righteous be a prey to your teeth, ye subtle foxes;
your dens are in darkness, and your mischief is hatched upon your
beds of secret whoredoms.' The unhallowed spirit of the age mistook
abuse for argument, and harsh epithets for faithful dealing.[186]

Bunyan replied in A Vindication of Gospel Truths, to the great
satisfaction of all his friends; and although Burrough answered
this tract also, Bunyan very wisely allowed his railing opponent to
have the last word, and applied his great powers to more important
labours than caviling with one who in reality did not differ with
him. The Quaker had been seriously misled by supposing that the
Baptist was a hireling preacher; and we must be pleased that he was
so falsely charged, because it elicited a crushing reply. Burrough,
in reply to an imputation made by Bunyan, that the Quakers were
the false prophets alluded to in Scripture, observed that 'in those
days there was not a Quaker heard of.' 'Friend,' replied Bunyan,
'thou hast rightly said, there was not a Quaker heard of indeed,
though there were many Christians heard of then. Again, to defend
thyself thou throwest the dirt in my face, saying, If we should
diligently trace thee, we should find thee in the steps of the
false prophets, through fancied words, through covetousness, making
merchandise of souls, loving the wages of unrighteousness.' To
which Bunyan replied; 'Friend, dost thou speak this as from thy
own knowledge, or did any other tell thee so? However, that spirit
that led thee out this way, is a lying spirit; for though I be poor,
and of no repute in the world as to outward things, yet through
grace I have learned, by the example of the apostle, to preach the
truth, and also to work with my hands, both for mine own living,
and for those that are with me, when I have opportunity. And I
trust that the Lord Jesus, who hath helped me to reject the wages
of unrighteousness hitherto, will also help me still, so that I
shall distribute that which God hath given me freely, and not for
filthy lucre sake.'[187] Thus had he learned of the apostle to
'make the gospel of Christ without charge' (1 Cor 9:18); and upon
this subject they strangely agreed. The same agreement existed
between them upon the necessity of inward light from the Holy
Spirit; without which they both considered the Bible to be a dead
letter. The peculiar principle which separates the Quaker from
every other Christian community, has nothing to do with the light
within. Upon that subject all evangelical sects are agreed. The
substantial difference is whether our Lord intended the work of
the ministry to be exclusively a work of benevolence, charity, and
love, binding all who are capable of using the talent intrusted
to them, to do it without worldly reward. Surely every man may be
satisfied in his own mind upon such a subject, without quarrelling
with, or anathematizing each other. Bunyan and Burrough agreed,
without knowing it, in the sentiments of their illustrious and
learned cotemporary, John Milton, as to the ministry being without
charge; and had they, when offended, followed their Master's rule,
'If thy brother trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault
between thee and him along' (Matt 18:15), had they met, and on
their knees before the throne of grace, sought from heaven wisdom
and charity in defending Divine truth, we can easily imagine that
the approbation of God would have been manifested, by sending them
on their important work in peaceful unity. They had been immersed
in the same deep and solemn regeneration, and their ardent object
was the same--to spread the influence of the kingdom of Christ.

When Christians of various denominations meet in prayer, how it melts
down their sectarian bitterness. In this controversy, mention is
made of a total absti

Showing first 200,000 characters. Full text: gutenberg.org/ebooks/6049