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^
THE
PILGRIM'S PROGRESS
WITH
A LIFE OF JOHN BUNYAN
BY ROBERT SOUTHEY, ESQ. LL.D.
POET LAVaSATB, &c. Ac &c.
ILLUSTRATED WITH ENGRAVINGS.
1 • • «
I â– - -
• t
LONDON :
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE-STREET,
AND
JOHN MAJOR, FLEET-STREET. M.DCCCXXX.
509200
Oh thou, whom, borae on fancy*! eager wing Back to the aeason of life's happy spring, I pleaaed remember, and while memory yet i Holds fait her office here, can ne'er forget ;
Ingenioos dreamer, in whose well told tale
Sweet fiction and sweet truth alike prevail ;
Whose humorous Tein, strong sense, and simple style.
May teach the gayest, make the gravest smile ;
Witty, and well employed, and, like thy Lord,
Speaking in parables his slighted word ;
I name thee not, lest so despised a name
Should more a sneer at thy desenred fame ;
Yet e'en in transitory life's late day.
That mingles all my brown with sober gray,
Rerere the man, whose Piloum marks the road.
And guide* the Pbooress of the soul to God.
COWPER.
• • ,• ■• ,• ••»
• • •• *•••••
• •• •• •«'•
• • « •
• •
PRINTKU BY WILLIAM NICOL, CLEVELAND-ROW, bT. JAMES's.
I
^_ graaus ^ft rary ir
THE LIFE OF JOHN BUNYAN.
When Cowper composed his Satires, he hid the name of Whitefield " beneath welUsoiindiiig Greek ;" and abstained from mentioning Bunyan while lie panegyrized him, " lest so despised a name sliuuld move a sneer. " In Bunyan's case tliis cou1<l hardly have I)een needful forty years ago; for though a just appreciation of our elder and better writers was at that time far leas general than it appears to be at present, the author of the Pilgrim's Progress was even then in High fepntL'. His fame may literally be said to have risen; beginiiiag among the people it had made its way up to those who are called the public. In most uistances the many receive gradually and slowly the opinions of the few respecting lite- rary merit ; and sometimes in assentation to such authority
THE LIFE OF
profess with their lips an admiration of they know not what, they know not why. But here the opinion of the multitude had been ratified by the judicious. The people knew what they admired. It is a book which makes its way through the fancy to the understanding and the heart : the child peruses it with wonder and deUght ; in youth we discover the geniua which it disphiys ; its worth is apprehended as we advance in years, and we perceive its merits feelingly in declining age.
John Bunyan has fidtlifully recorded bis own spiritual his- tory. Had he dreamed of being " for ever known," and taking bis place among those who may be called the immortals of the earth, he would probably have introduced more details of his temporal circumstances and the events of his life. But glorious dreamer as he was, this never entered into liis ima- ginations ; less concerning him than might have been expected has been preserved by those of his own sect, and it is now not hkeiy that any thing more should be recovered from oblivion. The village of Elstow which is within a mile of Bedford was his birthplace, 1628 the year of bis birth; and his descent, to use his own words, " of a low inconsiderable generation, my father's bouse," be says, " being of that rank that is meanest and most despised of all the famiHes in the land." It is stated in a history of Bedfordshire that be was bred to the business of a brazier, and worked as a journey- man in Bedford : but the Braziers' company would not deem itself more honoured now if it could show the name of John Bunyan upon its rolls, than it would have felt disparaged then by any such fellowship ; for he was as his own statement implies, of a generation of Tinkers, born and bred to that
I calling as his father bad been before him. Wlierefore this should have been so mean and despised a calling is not how- ever apparent, when it was not followed as a vagabond employment, but, as in this case, exercised by one who had a settled habitation, and who mean as his condition was, was nevertheless able to put his son to school, in an age when very few of the poor were taught to read and write. The boy learnt both, " according to the rate of other poor men's
JOHN BUNYAN vii
children," but soon lost what little he had been taught, " even," he says, " almost utterly."
Some pains also, it may be presumed, his parents took in impressing him with a sense of his religious duties ; other- wise, when in his boyhood he became a proficient in cursing and swearing above his fellows, he would not have been visited by such dreams and such compunctious feelings as he has described. " Often," he says, " after I had spent this and the other day in sin, I have in my bed been greatly afflicted, while asleep, with the apprehensions of Devils, and wicked Spirits, who still, as I then thought, laboured to draw me away with them." His waking reflections were not less terri- ble than these fearftd visions of the night; and these, he says, ** when I was but a child, but nine or ten years old, did so distress my soul, that then in the midst of my many sports and childish vanities, amidst my vain companions, I was often much cast down, and afflicted in my mind therewith: yet could I not let go my sins. Yea, I was also then so overcome with despair of life and Heaven, that I should often wish, either that there had been no hell, or that I had been a Devil, supposing they were only tormentors ; that if it must needs be that I went thither, I might be rather a tormentor, than be tormented myself."
These feelings when he approached towards manhood, re- curred as might be expected less frequently and with less force ; but though he represents himself as having been what he calls a town-sinner, he was never so given over to a reprobate mind, as to be wholly free from them. For though he became so far hardened in profligacy that he could '' take pleasure in the vileness of his companions," yet the sense of right and wrong was not extinguished in him, and it shocked him if at any time he saw those who pretended to be religious act in a manner unworthy of their profession. Some providential escapes during this part of his life, he looked back upon afterwards, as so many judgements mixed with mercy. Once he fell into a creek of the sea, once out of a boat into the river Ouse near Bedford, and each time was narrowly saved
»
I
THE LIFE OF
from drowning. One day an adder crost his path; he stunned it with a stick, then forced open its mouth with the stick, and plucked out the tongue, which he supposed to he the sting, with his fingers, " by which act," he says. " had not God been merciful unto me, I might by my desperateness have brought myself to my end." If this indeed were an adder, and not a harmless snake, his escape from the fangs was more remarkable than he was himself aware of. A circum- stance which was likely to impress him more deeply occurred in the eighteenth year of his age, when being a soldier in the Parliament's army he was drawn out to go to the siege of Leicester: one of the same company wished to go in his stead ; Bunyan consented to exchange with him, and this volunteer substitute standing centinel one day at the siege Tvas shot through the head with a musket ball.
Some serious thoughts this would have awakened in a harder heart than Bunyan's ; hut his heart never was hard- ened. The self accusations of such a man are to be received with some distrust, not of his sincerity, hut of his sober judgement. It should seem that he ran headlong into the boisterous vices which prove fatal to so many of the ignorant and the brutal, for want of that necessary and wholesome re- strictive disciphne which it is the duty of a government to provide ; hut he was not led into those habitual sins which infix a deeper stain. " Had not a miracle of precious grace prevented, I had laid myself open," he says, " even to the stroke of those laws, which bring some to disgrace and open shame before the face of the world." That grace he had; — he was no drunkard, for if he had been he would loudly have ^iTOclumed it : and on another point we have his own solemn ^claration, in one of the most characteristic passages in his whole works, where he replies to those who slandered him as lleading a licentious life with women. " I call on them," he -aays, " when they have used to the utmost of their cndea- Tours, and made the fullest enquiry that they can, to prove against me truly, that there is any woman in Heaven or Earth or Uelli that can say I have at any time, ui any place, by day
JOHN BUNYAN. ix
or nighty so much as attempted to be naught with them. And speak I thus to beg mine enemies into a good esteem of me ? Noy not I ! I will in this beg belief of no man. Believe^ or disbelieve me in this, *tis all a-case to me. My foes have missed their mark in this their shooting at me. I am not the man. I wish that they themselves be guiltless. If all the fornicators and adulterers in England were hanged up by the neck till they be dead, John Bunyan, the object of their envy would be still alive and well. I know not whether there be such a thing as a woman breathing under the copes of Hea^ ven, but by their apparel, their children, or by common fame» except my wife." And " for a wind-up in this matter" calling again not only upon men, but Angels to prove him guilty if he be, and upon God for a record upon his soul that in these things he was innocent, he says " not that I have been thua kept because of any goodness in me more than any other, but God has been merciful to me, and has kept me."
Bunyan married presently after his substitute had been
killed at the siege of Leicester, probably therefore before he
was nineteen. This he might have counted among his mercies^
as he has counted it that he was led " to Ught upon a wife"
whose father as she often told him, was a godly man who had
been used to reprove vice both in his own house and among
his neighbours, and had Uved a strict and holy life both in
word and deed. There was no imprudence in this early
marriage, though they " came together as poor as poor might he^
not having so much household stuff as a dish or spoon betwixt
them both ;" for Bunyan had a trade to which he could trust,
and the young woman had been trained up in the way she
should go. She brought him for her portion two books-
which her father had left her at his death : " the Plain man's
pathway to Heaven" was one : the other was Bayly, Bishop of
Bangor's " Practice of Piety," which has been translated into
Welsh (the author's native tongue) into Hungarian and into
Polish and of which more than fifty editions were published
in the course of a hundred years. These books he sometimes
read with her ; and though they did not, he says, reach his
THE LIFE OF
leart to awaken it, yet they did beget within him some deaircs to reform his vicious life, ami made him fall in eagerly with the religion of the times, go to church twice a day with the fore- most, and there very devoutly say and sing as others did ; — yet according to hin own account, retaining his wicked Ufe.
At this time Bunyan describes himself as having a most superstitious veneration for " the high place. Priest, Clerk, Testment, service, and what else, belonging to the Church," counting the Priest and Clerk most happy and without doubt blessed because they were as he then thought the servants of God, yea, he could " have laid down at the feet of a Priest, and have been trampled upon by them, their name, their garb and work, did so intosicate and bewitch" him. The ser\ice it must be remembered, of which he speaks, was not the Liturgy of the Church of England, (which might not then be used even in any private family without subjecting them to the penalty of five pounds for the first oflence, ten for the second, and a year's imprieonment for the third,) but what the meagre Directory of the victorious Puritans had substituted for it, in which only the order of the service was prescribed, and all else left to the discretion of the minister. The first doubt which he felt in this stage of his progress, concerning his own prospect of aalvation, was of a curious kind : hearing the Israelites called the peculiar people of God, it occurred to him that if he were one of that race, his soul must needs be safe; having a great longing to be resolved about this question he asked his father at last, and the old tinker assuring him that he was not, put an end to hia hopes on that score.
One day the minister preached agaiost sabbath breaking, and Bunyan who used especially to fuDow his sports on Sundays, fell in conscience under that sermon, verily believing it was intended for him, and feeling what guih was, which he could not remember that he had ever felt before. Home he â– went with a great burthen upon his spirit ; but dinner removed that burthen ; his animal spirits recovered from their depression ; he shook the sermon out of his mind, and away he went with great delight to hia old sports. The Puritans
JOHN BUNYAN. xi
notwithstanding the outcry which they had raised against what is called the Book of Sports, found it necessary to tolerate such recreations on the Sabbath, but it is more remarkable to find a married man engaged in games which are now only practised by boys. Dinner had for a time prevailed over that morning's sermon ; but it was only for a time ; the dinner sat easy upon him, the sermon did not ; and in the midst of a game of cat, as he was about to strike the cat from the hole, it seemed to him as if a voice from Heaven suddenly darted into his soul and said, Wilt thou leave thy sins and go to Heaven ? Or have thy sins, and go to Hell ? " At this," he continues, " 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 understand- ing, 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 ungodly practices."
The voice he believed was from Heaven, and it may be in^ ferred from his relation that though he was sensible the vision was only seen with the mind's eye he deemed it not the leas real. The effect was to fasten upon his spirit a sudden and dreadful conclusion that it was too late for him to turn away from his wickedness, for Christ would not forgive him; he felt his heart sink in despair, and this insane reasoning past in his mind, '^ 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 danmed for many sins, as be damned for few." Thus he says " I stood in the midst of my play, before all that were present, but yet I told them nothing ; but having made this conclusion, I returned desperately to my spor.^ again. And I well re- member that presently this kind of despair did so possess my soul, that I was persuaded I could never attain to other com- fort than what I should get in sin: for Heaven was gone already, so that on that I must not think. Wherefore I found within me great desire to take my fill of sin, still studying
I
THE LIFE OF
what sin was yet to be committed, that I might taste the sweetness of it, — lest I should die before I had my desires. In these things I protest before God I lie not ; neither do I frame this sort of speech : these were really, strongly, and with all my heart, my desires. The good Lord whose mercy is un- searchable, forgive me my transgressions!"
When thus faithfully describing the state of his feelings at that time, Bunyan was not conscious that he exaggerated the character of his oifences. Yet in another part of his writings he qualifies those oifences more truly where he speaks of himself as having been addicted to " all manner of youthful vanities ;" and this relation itself is accompanied with a remark that it is a usual temptation of the Devil " to overrun the spirits with a scurvy and scared frame of heart and benum- ming of conscience ;" so that though there be not much guilt attending the poor creatures who are thus tempted, " yet they continually have a secret conclusion within them, that there is no hope for them." This state lasted with him little more than a month; it then happened that as he stood at a neighbour's shop window, " cursing and swearing and play- ing the madman" after hia wonted manner, the woman of the house heard him, and though she was {he says) a very loose and ungodly wretch she told him that he made her tremble to hear him; " that he was the ungodliest fellow for swearing that ever she heard in all her life ; and that by thus doing he was able to spoil all the youth in the whole town if they came but in hia company." The reproof came with more efiect than if it had come from a better person : it silenced him, and put him to secret shame, and that too, as he thought, " before the God of Heaven;" wherefore, he says, while I stood there, and hanging down my head, 1 wished with all my heart that 1 might be a little child again, that my father might learn me to speak without this wicked way of swearing: for, thought I, I am so accustomed to it, that it is in vain for me to think of a reformation," From that hour however the re- formation of this, the only actual sin to which he was addicted, began. Even to his own wonder it took place, and he who
JOHN BUNYAN. xiii
till then had not known how to speak unless he put an oath before and another behind to make his words have authority, discovered that he could speak better and more pleasantly without such expletives than he had ever done before. • Soon afterwards he fell in company with a poor man who talked to him concerning reUgion and the scriptures in a manner which took his attention, and sent him to his Bible. He began to take great pleasure in reading it, especially the historical parts ; the Epistles he says he " could not away with, being as yet ignorant both of the corruption of our nature and of the want and worth of Christ to save us." An4 this produced such a change in his whole deportment, that his neighbours took him to be a new man, and were amazed at his conversion from prodigious profaneness to a moral and religious Ufe. They began to speak well of him, both to his face and behind his back, and he was well pleased at having obtained and as he thought, deserved, their good opinion. And yet, he says, " I was nothing but a poor painted hypo- crite,— I did all I did either to be seen of, or to be well spoken of by men.— I knew not Christ, nor Grace, nor Faith> nor Hope; and as I have well seen since, had I then died, my state had been most fearful.*'
Bunyan had formerly taken great delight in bell ringing; but now that his conscience " began to be tender," he thought it " a vain practice," in other words a sin ; yet he so hankered after this his old exercise, that though he durst not pull a rope himself, he would go and look at the ringers, not without a secret feeling that to do so was unbecoming the reUgious character which he now professed. A fear came upon him that one of the bells might fall : to secure himself against such an accident, he stood under a beam that lay athwart the steeple, from side to side ; but his apprehensions being once awakened he then considered that the bell might fall with & swing, hit the wall first, rebound, and so strike him in it's descent. Upon this he retired to the steeple door, thinking himself safe enough there, for if the bell should fall he could sUp out. Further than the door he did not venture, nor did
xiv
THE LIFE OF
I
he long continue to think himself secure there ; for the next fancy which possessed him was that the steeple itself might fall; and this so possessed him and so shook his mind, that he dared not stand at the door longer, but fled for fear the tower should come down upon him, — to such a state of nervous weakness had a diseased feeling brought his strong body and strong mind. — The last amusement from which he weaned himself was that of dancing ; it was a full year before he could quite leave that : but in so doing, and in any thing in which he thought he was performing his duty, he had such peace of mind, such satisfaction, that — " to relate it," he says, " in mine own way, I thought no man in England could please God better than I. — Poor wretch as I was, I was all this while ignorant of Jesus Christ, and going about to esta- blish my own righteousness, and had perished Ihereui, had not God in mercy shewed ine more of my state by nature."
Mr. Scott in the hfe of Bunyan prefixed to his edition of the Pilgrim's Progress says it is not advisable to recapitulate those impressions which constitute a large part of his religious experience. But Bunyan's character would be imperfectly understood, and could not be justly appreciated, if this part of his history were kept out of sight. To respect him as he deserves, to admire him as he ought to be admired, it is necessary that we should be informed not only of the coarse- ness and brutality of his youth, but of the extreme ignorance out of whicli lie worked his way, and the stage of burning enthusiasm through which he passed, — a passage not less terri- ble than that of his own Pilgrim in the Valley of the Shadow of Death. His ignorance, Hke the brutal manners from which he had now been reclaimed, was the consequence of his low station in life, but the enthusiasm which then succeeded was brought on by the circumstances of an age in which hypocrisy was regnant, and fanaticism rampant throughout the land. " We intended not," says Baxter, " to dig down the banks, or pull up the hedge and lay all waste and common, when we desired the prelates tyranny might cease." No: for the intention had been under the pretext of abating one tyranny, to establish a lar
JOHN BUNYAN. xv
seyerer and more galling in its stead; in doing this the banks had been thrown down, and the hedge destroyed; and while the bestial herd who broke in rejoiced in the havoc, Baxter and other such erring though good men stood marvelling at the mischief which never could have been effected, if they had not mainly assisted in it. The wildest opinions of every kind were abroad, " divers and strange doctrines," with every wind of which, men having no longer an anchor whereby to hold, were carried about and tossed to and fro. They passed with equal facility firom strict puri- tanism to the utmost license of practical and theoretical im- piety, as antinomians or as atheists; and firom extreme profligacy to extreme superstition in any of its forms. The poor man by whose conversation Bunyan was first led into *^ some love and liking of religion,*' and induced to read the Bible and to delight in it, became a Ranter^ wallowed in his sins as one who was secure in his privilege of election, and finally having corrupted his heart, perverted his reason and seared his conscience, laughed at his former professions, persuaded himself that there was neither a future state for man, nor a God to punish or to save him, and told Bunyan that he had gone through all religions, and in this persuasion had fallen upon the right at last !
Some of the Ranters' books were put into Bunyan's hands. Their effect was to perplex him : he read in them, and thought upon them, and betook himself properly and earnestly thus to prayer — " Lord, I am not able to know the truth from error : leave me not to my own blindness, either to approve of, or condemn this doctrine. If it be of God, let me not despise it ; if it be of the Devil, let me not embrace it. Lord, I lay my soul in this matter only at thy feet ; let me not be deceived, I humbly beseech thee !" And he was not deceived ; for though he fell in with many persons who firom a strict profession of religion, had persuaded themselves that having now attained to the perfection of the Saints, they were dis^ charged from all obligations of moraUty, and nothing which it might please them to do would be accounted to them as sin,
I
THE LIFE OF
neither their evil arguments nor their worse example infected tim. " Oh," he says, " these temptations were suitable to my flesh, I being but a young man, and my nature in its prime ; but God, who had, as I hope, designed me for better things, kept me in the fear of his name, and did not suflTer me to accept sucli cursed principles. And blessed be God who put it in my heart to cry to him to be kept and directed, still distrusting mine own wisdom."
These peoiile could neither corrupt his conscience nor im- pose upon his understanding ; He had no sympathies with them. But one day when he was tinkering in the streets of Bedford, he overheard three or four poor women, who as they sate at a door in the sunshine were conversing about their own spiritual state. He was himself " a brisk talker iq the matter of rehgion," but these persons were in their dis- course " far above his reach." Their talk was about a new birth, — how they were convinced of their miserable state by nature, — how God had visited their souls with his love in the Ijord Jesus, — with what words and promises they had been refreshed and supported against the temptations of the Devil, — how they had been afflicted under the assaults of the enemy, and how they had been borne up ; and of their own wretchedness of heart, and of their unbeUef, and the in- sufficiency of their own righteousness. " Metliought," aays Bimyan, " they spake, as if you 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.'" He felt his own heart shake as he heard them ; and when he turned away and went about bis employment agtun, their talk went with him, fur he Iiad heard enough to convince him that he " wanted the true tokens of a true godly man," and to convince him also of the blessed condition of him that was indeed one.
He made it his business therefore frequently to seek the conversation of these women. They were members of a small
JOTIX lUTNVAX. wii
Baptist congregation which a Kentish man John GifFord by name had formed at Bedford. Gifford*s history is remarka* ble ; he had been a major in the king's army, and continuing tme to the cause after the ruin of his party, engaged in the insurrection of his loyal countrymen, for which he and eleven others were condemned to the gallows. On the night before the intended execution his sister came to visit him : she found the centinels who kept the door asleep, and she urged him to take the opportunity of escaping, which he alone of the pri- soners was able to attempt, for his companions had stupified themselves with drink. Gifford passed safely through the sleeping guard, got into the field, lay there some three days in a ditch till the great search for him was. over, then by help of his friends was conveyed in disguise to London, and after- wards into Bedfordshire, where as long as the danger conti- nued he was harboured by certain royalists of rank in that county. When concealment was no longer necessary, he came as a stranger to Bedford and there practised physic; for in those days they who took upon themselves the cure of bodies seem to have entered upon their practise with as Uttle scruple concerning their own qualifications &r it, as they who undertook the cure of souls : if there was but a sufficient stock of boldness to begin with, it sufficed for the one that they were needy, for the others that they were enthusiastic.
Gifford was at that time leading a profligate and reckless life, Uke many of his fellow sufferers whose fortunes had been wrecked in the general calamity: he was a great drinker, a gambler, and oaths came from his lips with habitual profane^ ness. Some of his actions indeed are said to have evinced as much extravagance of mind, as wickedness of heart ; and he hated the puritans so heartily for the misery which they had brought upon the nation, and upon himself in particular, that he oft;en thought of killing a certain Anthony Harrington for no other provocation than because he was a leading man among persons of that description in Bedford. For a heart and mind thus diseased there is but one cure ; and that cfure was vouchsafed at a moment when his bane seemed before
xviii THE LIFE OF
him. He had lost one night about fifteen pounds in gamblu a large sum for one bo circumstnnced ; tlie loss made him furious, and " many desperate thoughts against God" arose in him, when looking into one of the books of Robert Bolton, what he read in it startled him into a sense of Iiis own condi- tion. He continued some weeks under the weight of that feeling; and when it past away, it left him in so exalted and yet so happy a state of mind, that from that time till within few days of his death, he declared — " he lost not the light of God's countenance, — no not for an hour." And now he en- quired after the meetings of the persons whom he had formerly moat despised, and " being naturally bold, would thrust himself again and again into their company, both toge- ther and apart." They at first regarded him with jealousy ; nor when they were persuaded that he was sincere, did they readily encourage him in his desire to preach ; nor after he had made himself acceptable as a preacher, both in private and public trials, were they forward to form themselves into a distinct congregation under his care, " the more ancient pro- fessors being used to live, as some other good men of those times, without regard to such separate and close communion," At length eleven persona, of whom Anthony Harrington was one, came to that determination and chose him for their pastor; the principle upon which they entered into this fellow- ship one with another, and afterwards admitted those who should desire to join them, being Faith in Christ and Holiness of life, without respect to any difference in outward or circum- stantial tilings.
The poor women whose company Bunyan sought after he had Ustencd to their talk, were members of Gifibrd's little flock. The first effect of his conversation with them was that he began to look into the Bible with new eyes, and " indeed was never out of it," either by readingor meditation. He now took delight in St. Paul's epistlee, which before he " could not away with ;" and the first strong impression which they made upon him wa^ that he wanted the gifts of wisdom and knowledge of which the Apostle speaks, and was
JOHN BUNYAN. xix
doubtful whether he had faith or not ; yet this was a doubt which he could not bear^ being certain that if he were without faith) he must perish. Being '' put to his plunge" about this, and not as yet consulting with any one, he conceived that the only means by which he could be certified was by trying to work a miracle, a delusion which he says the tempter enforced and strengthened by urging upon him those texts of scripture that seemed to look that way. One day as he was between Elstow and Bedford the temptation was hot upon him that he should put this to the proof by saying " to the puddles that were in the horse-pads, be dry ; and to the dry places be ye puddles! And truly one time I was going to say so indeed; but just as I was about to speak, this thought came in my mind, ' but go under yonder hedge, and pray first that God would make you able.' But when I had con- cluded to pray, this came hot upon me, that if I prayed, and came again, and tried to do it, and yet did nothing notwith- standing, then to be sure I had no faith, but was a cast-away, and lost. Nay thought I, if it be so, I will not try yet, but will stay a Uttle longer."
About this time the happiness of his poor acquaintance whom he believed to be in a sanctified state was presented to him, he says, in a kind of vision, — that is, it became the sub- ject of a reverie, a waking dream, — in which the germ of the Pilgrim's Progress may plainly be perceived, " I saw," he says, " as if they were on the sunny side of some high moun- tain, 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 even go 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
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were, a narrow gap, like a little doorway in the wall, thr6ugh which I attempted to pass. Now the passage heing very strait and narrow, I made many offers 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 sideling striving, my shoulders, and my whole body: then was I exceeding gladi went and sat down in the midst of them, and so was com- forted with tlie light and heat of their sun. Now the Moun- tain and Wall, &c. 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 t^ 'm that were within: the Wall, I thought, was the Word, that did make separation between the Christians and the World : and the Gap which was in the M'all, I thought, was Jesus Christ, who is the Way to God the Father. But forasmuch as the passage was wonderful narrow, even so narrow, that I could not hut with great difficulty enter in thereat, it shewed me that none could enter into life, but those that were in downright earnest; and unless also they lefl that wicked World behind them; for here was only room for Body and Soul, but not for Body and Soul and Sin."
But though he now prayed wherever he was, at home or abroad, in the house or in the field, two doubts still assaulted him, whether he was elected, and whether the day of grace was not gone by. By the force jind power of the first he felt, even when he " was in a flame to find the way to Heaven," as if the strength of his body were taken from him ; and he found a stumbling block in this text,* " it is neither in him that willeth, nor in him that numeth, but in God that shewetli mercy." It seemed to him that though he should desire and long and labour till his heart broke, no good could come of it, unless he were a chosen vessel of mercy. " Therefore,' be says, " this would stick with me, ' how can you tell that you are elected? and what if you shoidd not?" — O Lord,
k
JOHN BUNYAN. xxi
thought I9 what if I should not indeed ! 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.** And then the text that disturbed him came again into his mind : and he knowing not what to say nor how to answer, was " driven to his wit's end, little deeming," he says, '' that Satan had thus assaulted him, but that it was his own prudence which had started the question." In an evil hour were the doctrines of the Gospel sophisticated with questions which should have been left in the schools for those who are unwise enough to employ themselves in excogitations of^Useless subtlety ! Many are the poor creatures whom such questions have driven to despair and madness, and suicide ; and no one ever more narrowly escaped from such a catas- trophe than Bunyan.
After many weeks when he was even ** giving up the ghost of all his hopes," another text suddenly occurred to him: ** Look at the generations of old, and see, did ever any trust in the Lord, and was confounded?" He went, with a lightened heart to his Bible, fully expecting to find it there ; but he found it not, • . and the *' good people" whom he asked where it was, told him they knew of no such place. But in the Bible he was well assured it was, and the text which had " seized upon his heart with such comfort and strength" abode upon him, for more than a year ; when looking into the Apocrypha, there* he met with it, and was at first he says somewhat daunted at finding it there, • . not in the canonical books. " Yet," he says, " forasmuch as this sentence was the sum and substance of many of the promises, it was my duty to take the comfort of it ; and I blest Grod for that word, for it was of good to me." But then the other doubt which had lain dormant, awoke again in strength • . *' how if the day of grace be past? What if the good people of Bedford who were already converted, were all that were to be saved in those parts?" he then was too late, for they had got the blessing before he came ! ** Oh that I had turned sooner,"
* Ecclesiasticns ii. 10.
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Wiis then his cry; " Oh that I had turned seven years ago! Tu think that I should trifle away my time, till my Soul and Heaven were lost!"
From these fears the recurrence of another passage in scripture delivered him for a while, and he lias remarked that it came into his mind just in the same place where he " received his other encouragement." The test was that in which the servant who had been sent into the streets and lanes to hring in the poor, and the maimed and the halt and the blind to the supper from which the hidden guests ab- sented themselves, returns and says to the master of the house, •" Lord it is done as thou hast commanded, ami yet there is room /" " These," says Bunyan, " were sweet words to me! for truly I thought that by them I saw there was place enough in Heaven for me ; and moreover that when the Lord Jesus did speak these words. He then did think of me ; and that He, knowing the time would come when I should be afflicted with fear that there was no place left for me in his bosom, did speak this word, and leave it upon record, that I might find help thereby against this vile temptation. This I then verily beheved."
But then came another fear; None but those who are called, can inherit the kingdom of Heaven ; . . and this he ap- prehended was not his case. With longings and breathings in his soul which, he says, are not to be expressed, he cried on Christ to call him, being " all on a flame" to be in a converted state; . . " Gold ! could it have been gotten for gold, what could I have given for it ! Had I had a whole world it had all gone ten thousand times over for this." Much as he had formerly respected and venerated the ministers of the Church, with higher admiration he now regarded those who, he thought, had attained to the condition for which he was longing. They were " lovely in his eyes; they shone, they walked, like a people that carried the broad seal of Heaven about them." When he read of those whom our Saviour called when he was upon earth, tu be his disciples, the wishes which his • Luke wr. 23.
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heart conceived were . . " Would I had been Peter : . . would I had been John : . . or would I had been by and heard Him when He called them ! How would I have cried, O Lord, call me also!" In this state of mind, but comforting himself with hoping that if he were not already converted, the time might come when he should be so, he imparted his feelings to those poor women whose conversation had first brought him into these perplexities and struggles. They reported his case to Mr. Gifibrd, and GiiFord took occasion to talk with him, and invited him to his house, where he might hear him confer with others " about the dealings of God with their souls."
This course was little likely to compose a mind so agitated. What he heard in such conferences rather induced fresh disquiet, and misery of another kind. The inward wretched- ness of his wicked heart, he says, began now to be discovered to him, and to work as it had never done before ; he was now conscious of sinful thoughts and desires which he had not till then regarded ; and in persuading him that his heart was innately and wholly wicked, his spiritual Physician had well nigh made him believe that it was hopelessly and incurably so. In vain did those to whom he applied for consolation tell him of the promises ; they might as well have told him to reach the sun, as to rely upon the promises, he says ; original and inward pollution was the plague and affliction which made him loathsome in his own eyes, . . and as in his dreadful state of mind he beUeved, in the eyes of his Creator also ! Sin and Corruption, he thought, would as naturally bubble out of his heart as water from a fountain. None but the Devil he was persuaded could equal him for inward wickedness ! ** Sure," thought he, ^* I am forsaken of God ; sure I am given up to the Devil and to a reprobate mind. — I was sorry that God had made me man. — I counted myself alone, and above the most of men, unblessed!" These were not the torments of a guilty conscience : for he observes that " the guilt of the sins of his ignorance was never much charged upon him ;" and as to the act of sinning, during the years that he continued in this pitiable state, no man could more scrupulously avoid
V THE LIFE or
what seemed to him Guiful in thought, word or deed. " Oh," he says, " how gingerly did I tlien go, in all I did or said ! I found myself as in a mirey bog, that shook if I did but stir, and was as there left both of God and Christ, and the Spirit, and all good things." False notions of that corruption of our nature which it is almost as perilous to exaggerate as to dis- semble, had laid upon him a burthen heavy as that with which his own Christian begins his pilgrimage.
The first comfort which he received, and which had there not been a mist before his understanding he might have found in every page of the Gospel, came to him in a sermon, upon a strange text, strangely handled : " " Behold thou art fair, my Love; behold thou art fair!" The Preacher made the words "my Love" his chief and subject matter; and one sentence fastened upon Banyan's mind. " If, said the Prea- cher, it be so, that the saved Soul is Christ's Love, when under temptation and destruction ; . . then, poor tempted Soul, when thou art assaulted and afflicted with temptations, and the hidings of God's face, yet think on these two words, ' My Love,' atill!" — What shall I get by thinking on these two words ? . . said Bunyan to himself, as he returned home rumin- ating upon this discourse. And then twenty thnes together — " thou art my Love, thou art my Love," reciu-red in mental repetition, kindling his spirit ; and still, he says, " as they ran in my mind they waxed stronger and warmer, and began to make me look up. But being as yet between hope and fear, I still replied in my heart, ' but is it true ? but is it true V At which that sentence fell upon me, f ' He wist not that it was ■true which was come unto him of the Angel.' Then I began to give place to the \Vord,^and now I could believe that my sins should be forgiven me : yea I was now taken with the love and mercy of God, that, I remember, I could not tell how to contain till I got home : I thought I could have spoken of his love, and have told of his mercy to me, even to the very crows that sate upon the ploughed lands before me, had they been capable to have understood me. — Wherefore I said • Solomon's Song iv. 1. t AcW i;iL 9.
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in my soul with much gladness, well, I would I had a pen and ink here, I would write this down before I go any farther, for surely I will not forget this forty years hence. But alas ! within less than forty days I began to question all again !"
Shaken continually thus by the hot and cold fits of a spiri- tual ague, his imagination was wrought to a state of excite- ment in which its own shapings became vivid as realities, and affected him more forcibly than impressions from the external world. He heard sounds as in a dream ; and as in a dream held conversations which were inwardly audible though no sounds were uttered, and had all the connection and coher- ency of an actual dialogue. Real they were to him in the im- pression which they made, and in their lasting effect ; and even afterwards when his soul was at peace, he believed them, in cool and sober reflection, to have been more than natural. Some few days after the sermon, he was much " followed," he says, by these words of the Gospel, * " Simon, Simon, behold Satan hath desired to have you !" He knew that it was a voice from within, . . and yet it was so articulately distinct, so loud, and called as he says so strongly after him, that once in par- ticular when the words Simon! Simon! rung in his ears he verily thought some man had called to him from a distance behind, and though it was not his name, supposed never- theless that it was addressed to him, and looked round sud- denly to see by whom. As this had been the loudest, so it was the last time that the call sounded in his ears ; and he imputes it to his ignorance and foolishness at that time, that he knew not the reason of it ; for soon, he says, he was feelingly convinced that it was sent from Heaven as an alarm, for him to provide against the coming storm, — a storm which " handled him twenty times worse than all he had met with before."
Fears concerning his own state had been the trouble with which he had hitherto contended ; temptations of a different, and even more distressful kind assailed him now, — ^blasphe- mies and suggestions of unbelief, which when he recorded the history of his own soul, he might not and dared not utter,
* Lukexxu.31.
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xxvi THE LIFE OF
either by word or pen ; and no other shadow of consolation could he find against them, than in the consciousness that there was something in him that gave no consent to the sin. He thought himself surely possessed by the Devil ; he was " bound in the wings of the temptation, and the wind would carry him away." When he heard others talk of the sin against the Holy Ghost, discoursing what it might be, " then would the Tempter, he says, provoke me to desire to sin that sin, that 1 was as if I could not, must not, neither should be quiet until I had committed it : — no sin would serve but that. If it were to be committed by speaking of such a word, then I have been as if my mouth would have spoken that word, whether I would or no. And in so strong a measure was this temptation upon me, that often I liave been ready to clap my hands under my chin, to hold my mouth from opening : and to that end also I have had thoughts at other times, to leap with my head downward into some muckhill-hole or other, to keep my mouth from speaking," Gladly now would he have been in the condition of the beasts that perish, for he counted the estate of every thing that God had made far better than his own, such as it had now become. While this lasted, which was about a year, be was most distracted when attending the service of his meeting, or reading the scriptures, or when in prayer. Ho imagined that at such times he felt the Enemy behind him pulling his cloathes ; that he was " continually at him, to have done ; . . break off— make haste — you have prayed enough !" The more he strove to compose his mind and fix it upon God, the more did the Tempter labour to distract and confound it, " by presenting" says he, " to my heart and fancy the form of a bush, a bull, a besom, or the like, as if I should pray to these. To these he would also (at some times especially,) so hold my mind, that I was as if I could think of nothing else, or pray to nothing else but to these, or such as they." Wickeder thoughts were sometimes cast in — such as • " if thou wilt fall down and worship me!" But while Bunyan sufi'ered thus grievously under the • MflUhew iv, !).
JOHN BUNYAN. xxvii
belief that these thoughts and fancies were the immediate suggestions of the evil Spirit, that belief made him at times more passionate in prayer ; and then his heart *^ put forth itself with inexpressible groanings/' and his whole soul was in every word. And although he had not been taught in child- hood to lay up the comfortable promises of the Gospel in his heart and in his soul, that they might be as a sign upon his liand and as a frontlet between his eyes, yet he had not read the Bible so diligently without some profit. When he mused upon these words in the Prophet Jeremiah, ♦ ** thou hast played the harlot with many lovers, yet, return again to me, saith the Lord ;" he felt that they were some support to him, as applying to his case ; and so also was that saying of the same Prophet that f though we have done and spoken as evil things as we could, yet shall we cry unto God ** My Father, thou art the guide of my youth !" and return unto him. More consolation he derived from the Apostle who says J " He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him." And again, § " if God be for us, who can be against us ?" And again II " For I am persuaded that neither death nor hfe, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come ; nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." This also was a help to him If " Be- cause I love, ye shall love also !" These he says, were " but hints, touches and short visits; very sweet when present, only they lasted not." Yet after a while he felt himself not only delivered from the guilt which these things laid upon his con- science, " but also from the very filth thereof;" the temptation was removed, and he thought himself " put into his right mind again."
At this time he *' sate (in puritanical language) under the ministry of holy Mr. Gifford," and to his doctrine he ascribed - in some degree this mental convalescence. But that doctrine
• III.L t lb. V. 4. t 2 Corinth, v. 21. § Romans, viii. 31. II lb. 38, 39. f Jobnxiv. 19.
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was of a most peiiluus kind ; for the preacher eshorted his hearers not to he contented with taking any truth upon trust, nor to rest till they had received it with e^"idence from Heaven ; — that is, till their belief should be confirmed hy a particular revelation! without this, he warned them, they would find them- selves wanting in strength when temptation came. This was a doctrine which accorded well with Bunyan's ardent tempera- ment; unless he had it with eWdence from Heaven, let men say what they would, all was nothing to him, so apt was he " to drink in the doctrine, and to pray," he says, " to God that in nothing which pertained to God's glory and his own eternal happiness he would suffer him to be without the conffrmation thereof from Heaven." That confirmation he believed was granted him; "Oh" he exclaims " now, how was my soid led from truth to truth by God ! — there was not anything that I then cried unto God to make known and reveal unto me but He was pleased to do it for me !" He had now an evidence, as he thought, of his salvation, from Heaven, with golden seals appendant, hanging in liis sight : He who before bad Iain trembling at the mouth of Hell, had now as it were, the gate of Heaven in full view : " Oh !" thought he " that I were now fourscore years old, that I might die quickly, — that my soul might be gone to rest !" And his desire and longings were that th" Last Day were come, after which he should eternally enjoy m beatific vision the presence of that Almighty and All merciful Saviour who had offered up Himself, an all sufficient sacrifice for sinners.
While Bunyan was in tliia state a translation of Luther's Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians fell into his hands, an old book, bo tattered and thumb-worn, " that it was ready to fall piece from piece if he did but turn it over." Here in the work of that passionate and mighty mind, he saw his own soul reflected as in a glass. " I had but a little way perused â– it," he says, " when I found my condition in his experience so largely and profoundly handled as if his book had been written out of my heart." And m later life he thought it his duty to decliire that he preferred this book of Martin Luther
JOHN BUNYAN. sxxi
before all tlie books he had ever seen (the Bible alone ex- rcpted) as Attest for a wounded conscience.
Mr, Coleridge has delineated with his wonted and peculiar ability the strong resemblance between Luther and Rousseau, men who to ordinary observers would appear in the constitution of their minds, most unlike each other. In different stages of his mental and spiritual growth Bunyan had resembled both ; like Rousseau he had been tempted to set the question of his salvation upon a cast; like Lutlier he had undergone the agonies of unbelief, and deadly fear, and according to his own persuasion, wrestled with the Enemy. I know not whether any parallel is to he found for him in the next and strangest part of his history ; for now when he was fully convinced that hia faith had been confirmed by special evidence from Heaven, . . when his desire was to die and be with Christ, ■. an almost un- imaginable temptation which he might well call more grievous and dreadful than any with which he had before been ufHicted, came upon him ; it was " to sell and part with Christ,— to exchange him for the things of this Ufe, . . for any tiling ;" for the space of a year he was haunted by this strange and hateful suggestion, and so continually that he was " not rid of it one day in a month, nor sometimes one hour in many succeeding days," unless in his sleep. It intermixt itself with whatever he thought or did. " I could neither eat my food," he says, " stoop for a pin, chop a stick, or cast mine eye to look on this or L>iat, but still the temptation would come, ' sell Christ for this, or sell Christ for that ; sell Him, sell Him, sell Him !' Sometimes it would run in my thoughts not so little as an hundred times together, ' sell Him, sell Him, sell Hmi, sell Him!' Against which, I may say, for whole hours together, I have been forced to stand as continually leaning and forcing my spirit against it, lest haply, before I were aware, some wicked thought might arise in my heart, that might consent thereto : and sometimes the Tempter would make me believe I had consented to it ; but then should I be tortured upon a rack for whole days together. This temptation did put me to such scares, — that by the very forte of my mind, in labouring to
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gainsay and resist this wickedness, my very body would be put into action,^ — by way of pushing or thrusting with my hands or elbows, still answering as fast as the Destroyer said ' sell Him ;' ' I will not ! I will not '. I will not ! no, not for thousands, thousands, thousands of worlds 1 and thus till I scarce knew where I was, or how to be composed again."
This torment was accompanied with a prurient scrupulosity which Bunyan when he became his own biographer looked back upon as part of the same temptation proceeding imme- diately from the Eril One : " he would not let me eat at quiet, but forsooth when I was set at the table, I must go thence to pray ; I must leave my food now, and just now, . . so counter- feit holy would this Devil be! When I was thus tempted, I should say in myself, ' now I am at meat, let me make an end. ' No,' said he, ' you must do it now, or you will displease God and despise Christ.'" Thus was he distracted, imagining these things to be impulses from God, and that to withstand them was to disobey the Almighty ; " and then," says he, " should I be as guilty because 1 did not obey a temptation of the Devil as if I had broken the law of God indeed !"
In this strange state of mind he had continued about a year, when one morning as he lay in bed, the wicked suggestion still running in his mind " sell Him, sell Him, sell Him, sell Him," as fast as a man could speak, and he answering as fast, " no, no, not Tor thousands, thousands, thousands," till he was almost out of breath, .. he felt this thought pass through his heart " let Him go if he will," and it seemed to him that his heart freely consented thereto. " Oh," he exclaims, " the diligence of Satan ! Oh the desperateness of man's heart ! Now was the battle won, and down fell I, as a bird that is shot, from the top of a tree, into great guilt and fearful de- spair. Thus getting out of my bed I went moping into the field, but God knows with as heavy a heart as mortal man, I think, could bear ; where for the space of two hours I was like a man bereft of Ufc, and as now, past all recovery, and bound over to eternal punishment." Then it occurred to him what is said of Esau by the author of the Epistle to the
JOHN BUNYAN. xxxi
♦ Hebrews, now having sold his birthright, when he would afterwards have inherited the blessings he was rejected ; for ^' he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears." At the recollection of a better •f text, the words of that disciple, (blessed above all men,) whom Jesus loved, he had for a while such reUef that he began to conceive peace in his soul again, " and methought,** says he, " I saw as if the Tempter did leer and steal away from me as being ashamed of what he had done." But this was only like a passing gleam of sunshine : the sound of Esau's fate was always in his ears ; his case was worse than Esau*s, worse than David's ; Peter's came nigher to it ; yet Peter s was only a denial of his master, this a selling of his Saviour : — he came nearer therefore to Judas than to Peter ! And though he was yet sane enough to consider that the sin of Judas had been deUberately committed, whereas his on the contrary,, was " against his prayer and striving,—- in a fearful hurry, on a sudden," the relief which that consideration brought was but little, and only for a while. The sentence concerning Csau, Uterally taken and more unhappily appUed, fell like a hot thunderbolt upon his conscience ; '' then should I, for whole days together feel my very body, as well as my mind, to shake and totter under the sense of this dreadful judge- ment of God ; — such a clogging and heat also at my stomach, by reason of this my terror, that I was sometimes as if my breast bone would spUt asunder." And then he called to mind how Judas burst asunder ; and feared that a continual trem- bling like his was the very mark that had been set on Cain ; and thus did he '^ twist and twine and shrink" imder a burthen which so oppressed him that he could ** neither stand nor go, nor Ue, either at rest or quiet."
This fatal sentence possessed him so strongly that when thinking on the words in Isaiah, J " I have blotted out as a thick cloud thy transgressions, and as a cloud thy sins; return unt^ me, for I have redeemed thee !" . . and when it seemed to his diseased imagination that this text called
• xii. 16. 17. t John i. 7. X xliv. 22.
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auillbly and loudly after him, as if pursuing him, so loudly as to make him, he says, look as it were, over his shoulder, behind him, to see if the God of Grace were following him with a pardon in His hand ;— the eclio of the same sentence still sounded in his conscience : and when he heard " Return unto me, for I liave redeemed thee, return, return !" articula- ted as it seemed to him with a loud voice, ... it was overpowered by tlie inward echo, " he found no place of repentance, tliough he sought it carefully with tears."
How httle would some of the most frequent and contagious disorders of the hmnan mind be understood, if a sufferer were not now and then found collected enougli, even in the paroxysms of the disease to observe it's symptoms, and detail them afterwards, and reason upon them when in a state to discriminate between what had been real and what imaginary. Bunyan was never wholly in that state. He noted faithfully all that occurred in liis reveries, and faithfully reported it ; but there was one thing happened at tliis time, which after an interval of twenty years, appeared to him, who was accustomed to what he deemed preternatural impressions, so much more preternatural than all his former visitings, that he witheld it from the first relation of his own life, and in a later and more enlarged account narrated it so cautiously as to imply more than he thought it prudent to express. " Once," he says, " as I was walking to and fro in a good man's shop, bemoaning of myself in my sad and doleful state ; afflicting myself with self-abhorrence for this wicked and ungodly thought; lamenting also this hard hap of mine, for that I should commit so great a sin ; greatly fearing I should not be pardoned ; praying also in my heart, that if this sin of mine did differ from that against the Holy Ghost, the Lord would show it to me ; and being now ready to sink with fear ; sud- denly there was, as if there had rushed in at the window, the noise of Wind upon me, but very pleasant, and as if I heard a Voice speaking, ' Didst ever reftise to be justified by the Blood of Christ?' And withal my whole life of profession past was, in a moment opened to me, wherein I was made to see
JOHN BUNYAN. xxxiii
that designedly I had not. So my heart answered groaiiingly,
* no !' Then fell with power, that word of God upon me,
* ' See that ye refiise not Him that speaketh !' This made a strange seizure upon my spirit ; it brought light with it, and commanded a silence in my heart of all those tumultuous thoughts that before did use, like masterless hell-hounds, to roar and bellow and make an hideous noise within me. It shewed me also that Jesus Christ had yet a word of grace and mercy for me ; that He had not, as I had feared, quite forsaken and cast off my soul. Yea, this was a kind of chide for my proneness to desperation ; a kind of threatening of me, if I did not, notwithstanding my sins and the heinousness of them, ven- ture my salvation upon the Son of God. But as to my deter- mining about this strange dispensation, what it was, I know not; or from whence it came, I know not ; I have not yet in twenty years time been able to make a judgement of it; I thought then here what I should be loath to speak. But verily that sudden rushing Wind was as if an Angel had come upon me : but both it and the salvation, I will leave until the Day of Judgement. Only this I say, it commanded a great calm in my soul ; it persuaded me there might be hope ; it shewed me, as I thought, what the sin unpardonable was ; and that my soul had yet the blessed privilege to flee to Jesus Christ for mercy. But, I say, concerning this dispensation, I know not what yet to say unto it ; which was also in truth the cause that at first I did not speak of it in the book. I do now also leave it to be thought on by men of sound judgement. I lay not the stress of my salvation thereupon, but upon the Lord Jesus, in the promise : yet seeing I am here unfolding of my secret things, I thought it might not be altogether inexpedient to let this also shew itself, though I cannot now relate the matter as there I did experience it."
The " savour" of this lasted about three or four days, and then he began to mistrust and to despair again ! Struggling nevertheless against despair, he determined that if he must die it should be at the feet of Christ in prayer : and pray he
* Hebrews xii. 25.
W did, though
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did, though the saying about Esau was ever at his heart Uke a flaming sword, to keep the way of the Tree of Life, lest he should taste thereof and live." " Oh," he exclaims, " who knows how hard a thing I found it to come to God in prayer !" He desired the prayers of those whom he calls the people of God, meaning Mr. GifTord's little congregation, and tlie handfull of persons within Ms circuit who were in commu- nion with them : yet he dreaded lest they should receive this answer to their prayers in his behalf" pray not for him, fori have rejected him." He met indeed with cold consolation from an " ancient Christian," to whom he opened his case, and said he was afraid he had committed the sin against the Holy Ghost ; this man like one of Job's comforters, replied, he thought so too ; but Bunyan comforted himself, by finding upon a little further conversation that this friend of his " though a good man, was a stranger to much combat with the DeviL" So he betook himself again to prayer, as well as he could, but in such a state of mind, that " the most free and fidl and gracious words of the Gospel," only made him the more mis- erable. " Thus was he always sinking whatever he could do." " So one day I walked to a neighbouring town," he says, " and sat down upon a settle in the street, and fell into a very deep pause, about the most fearful state my sin had brought me to: and after long musing I lifted up my head, but metliought I saw as if the sun that shineth in the heavens did grudge to give me light ; and as if the very stones in the street and tiles upon the houses, did band themselves agunst me. Methought that they all combined together to banish me out of the world ! I was abhorred of them, and unfit to dwell among them, because I had sinned against the Saviour. Oh how happy now was every creature over I was ! for they stood fast and kept their station ; but I was gone and lost !" In this mood breaking out in the bitterness of his soul, he said to himself with a grievous sigh, " how can God comfort such a wretch V And he had no sooner said this, than quick as the return of an echo, he was answered " this sin is not unto death." He says not that this seemed to be spoken
JOHN BUNYAN. xxxv
audibly, but that it came to him with power and sweetness and light and glory; that it was a release to him from his former bonds, and a shelter from his former storms. On the following evening this supportation as he calls it began to fail ; and under many fears, he had recourse to prayer, his soul crying with strong cries, " O Lord, I beseech Thee shew me that Thou hast loved me with an everlasting love T* and like an echo the words returned upon him ♦ " I have loved thee, with an everlasting love." That night he went to bed in quiet ; and when he awoke in the morning, '^ it was fresh upon my soul," he says, " and I believed it."
Being thus, though not without many misgivings, brought into " comfortable hopes of pardon," the love which he bore towards his Saviour worked in him at this time *^ a strong and hot desire of revengement" upon himself, for the sin which he had committed ; and had it been the Romish super- stition which Bunyan had imbibed he might now have vied with St. Dominic the Cuirassier, or the Jesuit Joam d' Almeida in inflicting torments upon his own miserable body. A self- tormentor he continued still to be, vacillating between hope and fear ; sometimes thinking that he was set at hberty from his guilt, sometimes that he had left himself '^ neither foot- hold, nor hand-hold among all the stays and props in the precious word of life." One day, when earnestly in prayer, this scripture fastened on his heart; '^ O man great is thy faith !" " even," he says, " as if one had clapped me on the back as I was on my knees before God." At another time when doubting whether the Blood of Christ was sufficient to save his soul, and dreading lest that doubt should not be removed, the inward voice for which he listened sounded suddenly within his heart f " He is able." — '* But methought, this word able was spoke loud unto me; it shewed a great word; it seemed to be writ in great letters, and gave such a jus tie to my fear and doubt for the time it tarried with me, as I never had all my life either before or after." But it tarried only about a day. Next, when he was trembling in prayer under a
* Jeremiah xxxi. 3. t Hebrews tU, 25.
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fear that no word of God could Iielp him, this part of a sen- tence darted in upon hiin, " My Grace is sufficient." A little while before he had looked at that very text, and tlirown down the hook, thinking it could not come near his soul with comfort ; " then I thought it was not large enough for me ; no, not large enough ; . . but now it was as if it had arms of Grace so wide, that it could not only inclose me, but many more besides." In such conflicts he says " peace would be in and out, sometimes twenty times a day ; comfort now and trouble presently ; peace now, and before I could go a fur- long, as full of fears and guilt as ever heait could hold I For this about the sufficiency of Grace, and that of Esau's parting with his birthright, would be like a pair of scales within my mind ; sometimes one end would be uppermost, and sometimes again tlie other, according to which would be my peace or troubles." He prayed therefore to God for help to apply the whole sentence which of himself he was not as yet able to do. He says, " that He gave, that I gathered, but fiirther I could not go, for as yet it only helped me to hope there might be mercy for me ; ' my (hace is sufficient ; It answered hie question that there was hope : but lie was not contented because yor thee was left out, and he prayed for that also.
It was at a meeting with his fellow believers, when his fears again were prevailing, that the words for which he longed, according to his own expression " broke in" upon him, "My Grace is student for thee, my Grace is sufficient for thee, my Grace is sufficient for thee, — three times together. He was then as though he had seen the Lord look down from Heaven upon him, " through the tiles," and direct these words to him. It sent him mourning home; it broke his heart, and filled him full of joy, .ind laid him low as the dust- And now he began to venture upon examining " those most fearful and terrible scriptures," on which till now he scarcely dared cast his eyes, "(yea had much ado an hundred times to for- bear wishing them out of the Bible :) he began " to come close to them, to read them and consider them, and to weigh their scope and tendency." The result was a clear perception
JOHN BUNYAN. xxxvii
that he had not fallen quite away; that his sin, though de- vilish, had not been consented to, and put in practice, and that after deliberation, . . not public and open ; that the texta which had hitherto so appalled him were yet consistent with those which proffered forgiveness and salvation. " And now remained only the hinder part of the tempest, for the thunder was gone past ; only some drops did still remain." And when one day in the field, the words " Thy righteousness is in Heaven" occurred to him, " methought withal," he aays, " I saw with the eyes of my soul, Jesus Christ at God's right hand, . . there, I say, as my righteousness, . . for my righteous- ness was Christ himself, *' the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever,'" Then his chains fell off in very deed: he was loosed from his affliction, and his temptation fled away.
This was afler two years and a half of incessant agitation and wretchedness. Bunyan thought he could trace the cause of this long temptation to a sin which he had committed, and to a culpable omission. He had, during the time when doubt and unbelief assailed him, tempted the Lord by asking of Him a sign whereby it might appear that the secret thoughts of the heart were known to Him ; and he had omitted when praying earnestly for the removal of present troubles, and for assur- ances of faith, to pray that he might be kept from temptation. " This," he says, " I had not done, and therefore was thus suffered to sin and fall. — And tndy this very thing is to this day of such weight and awe upon me, that 1 dare not when I come before the Lord, go off my knees, until I entreat him for help and mercy against the temptations that are to come : and I do beseech thee, Reader, that thou learn to beware of my negligence, by the affliction that for this thing I did, for days and months and years, with sorrow undergo." Far more satisfactorily could he trace in himself the benefits which he derived from this long and dreadfiil course of suffering, under which a weaker body must have sunk, and from which it is almost miraculous that any mind should have escaped without passing into incurable insanity. Before that trial, • Hebrews lUi. 8.
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his soul had been " perplexed with unbelief, blasphemy, hardness of heart, questions about the Being of God, Christ, the truth of the Word, and certainty of the world to come." " Then," he soys, " I was greatly assaulted and tormented with atheism; but now the case was otherwise; now wasX^od and Christ continually before my face, though not in a way of comfort, but in a way of exceeding dread and terror. - The giory of the holiness of God did at this time break me to pieces ; and the bowels and compassion of Christ did break me as on the wheel; for I could not consider him but as a lost and rejected Christ, the remembrance of which was aa the continual breaking of my bones. The Scriptures also were wonderful things unto me; I saw that the truth and verity of them were the keys of the kingdom of Heaven ; those that the Scriptures favour, they must inherit Hiss ; but those that they oppose and condemn, must perish for ever- more.— Oh ! one sentence of the Scripture did more afflict and terrify my mind, I mean those sentences that stood against me (as sometimes I thought they every one did) ■. more, I say, than an army of forty thousand men that might come against me. Woe he to him against whom the Scrip- tures bend themselves!"
But this led bun to search the Bible and dwelt upon it with an earnestness and intensity which no determination of a calmer mind could have commanded. " This made me," he says, " with careful heart and watchful eye, with great fear- fulness, to turn over every leaf, and with much diUgence mixed with trembUng to consider every sentence, together with its natural force and latitude. By this also I was greatly holden off my former foolish practice of putting by the Word of promise when it came into my mind : for now, though I could not suck that comfort and sweetness from the promise as I had done at other times, yea, like to a man a-sinking, I should catch at all I saw; formerly I thought I might not meddle with the Promise, unless I felt its comfort ; but now 'twas no time thus to do, the Avenger of Blood too hardly did pursue me." If in the other writings of Bunyan, and
JOHN BUNYAN. xxxix
especially in that which has made his name immortal, we dis- cover none of that fervid language, in which his confessions and self-examination are recorded, . . none of those ** thoughts that breathe and words that burn,". . none of that passion in which the reader so far participates as to be disturbed and distressed by it, — ^here we perceive how he acquired that thorough and familiar acquaintance with the Scriptures which in those works is manifested. '' Now therefore was I glad,** he says, '' to catch at that Word, which yet I had no ground or right to own ; and even to leap into the bosom of that Promise, that yet I feared did shut its heart against me. Now also I should labour to take the Word as God hath laid it down, without restraining the natural force of one syllable thereof. Oh! what did I now see in that blessed sixth of John, ^'^ and him that comes to me I will in no toise cast put .'" Now I began to consider with myself, that God hath fL bigger mouth to speak with, than I had a heart to conceive with. I thought also with myself, that He spake not his words in haste, or in an unadvised heat, but with infinite wisdom and judgement, and in very truth and faithfulness. I should in these days, often in my greatest agonies, eyen flounce towards the Promise, (as the horses do towards sound ground, that yet stick in the mire,) concluding, (though as one almost bereft of his wits through fear) ' on this I will rest and stay, and leave the ftdfilling of it to the God of Heaven that made it !' Oh, many a pull hath my heart had with Satan for that blessed sixth of John 1 I did not now, as at other times, look principally for comfort, (though, O how welcome would it have been unto me !) but now, a Word, a Word to lean a weary soul upon, that it might not sink for ever ! 'twas that I hunted for! Yea often when I have been making to the Promise, I have seen as if the Lord would reftise my soul for ever : I was often as if I had run upon the pikes, and as if the Lord had thrust at me, to keep me from Hun, as with a flaming sword !**
•JohikTl.37.
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W When Bunyan passed from this horrible condition into a
state of happy feeling, liis mind was nearly overthrown by the transition. " I bad two or three times," he says, " at or about my deliverance from this temptation, such strange ap- prehensions of the Grace of God that I could hardly Iwar up under it ; it was so out of measure amazing when 1 thought it could reach me, that I do think if that sense of it liad abode long upon me, it would have made ine uncapable of business." He had not however yet attained that self controul which be- longs to a sane mind ; for after he had been formally admitted into fellowship with Gifford's little congregation, and had been by him baptized accordingly, by inmiersion, probably in the river Ouse, (for the Baptists at that time sought rather than shunned publicity on such occasions) he was for nearly a year pestered with strange and villainous thouglits whenever he communicated at the meeting. These however left him. When threatened with consumption at one time, he was deli- vered from the fear of dissolution, by faith, and the strong desire of entering upon eternal life ; and in another illness, when the thouglit of approaching death for awhile overcame him, " behold," he says, " as I was in the midst of those fears the words of tlie Angela carrying Lazarus into Abra- ham's bosom, darted in upon me, as who should say, ' so shall it be with thee when thou dost leave this world I' This did sweetly revive my spirits, and help me to hope in God ; which when I had with comfort mused on awhile, that Word fell with great weight upon my mind ' O Death, where is thy sting? O Grave, where is thy victory?' At this I became • both well in body and mind at once ; for my sickness did presently vanish, and I walked comfortably in my work for God again,"
Giffbrd died in 1655, having drawn up during his last ill- ness an Epistle to his congregation, in a wise and tolerant and truly Christian spirit: he exhorted them to remember his advice that when any person was to be admitted a member of their community, that person should solemnly declare that
JOHN BUNYAN. xli
"union with Christ was the foundation of all Saints* commu- nion/' and not merely an agreement concerning '* any ordi- nances of Christy or any judgement or opinion about externals:'* and that such new members should promise that " through Grace they would walk in love with the Church, though there should happen any difference in judgement about other things.** " Concerning separation from the Church (the dying pastor pursued) about baptism, laying on of hands, anointing with oil, psalms, or any other externals, I charge every one of you respectively as ye will give an account of 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 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 in the true church, which is but one.** Mr. Ivimey in his History of the English Baptists says of Gifford, '' his labours were apparently confined to a narrow circle ; but their effects have been very widely extended, and will not pass away when time shall be no more. We allude to his having baptized and introduced to the Church the wicked Tinker of Elstow. He was doubtless the honoured Evangelist who pointed Bunyan to the Wicket Gate, by instructing him in the know- ledge of the Gospel ; by turning him from darkness to light, and firom the power of Satan unto God. Little did he think such a chosen vessel was sent to his house, when he opened his door to admit the poor, the depraved, and the despairing Bunyan.**
But the wickedness of the Tinker has been greatly over- charged ; 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, for which we have no synonyme, the full meaning of which no circumlocution can convey, and which though it may hardly be deemed present- able in serious composition, I shall use, as Bunyan himself (no mealy-mouthed writer) would have used it, had it in his
r
xlii THE LIFE OF
days borne the same acceptation in which it is now miiverfaally understood ; — in that word then, he had been a blackguard : — The very head and front of his offending Hath this extent, no more. Such he might have been expected to be by his birth, breed- ing and vocation, scarcely indeed by possibiHty could be have been otherwise ; but he was never a vicidTis man. It has been seen that at the first reproof he shook off, at once and for ever, the practice of profane swearing, the worst if not the only ain to which he was ever addicted. He must have been atill a very young man when that outward reformation took place, which little as he afterwards valued it, and insufficient as it may have been, gave evidence at least of right intentions under the direction of a strong will : and throughout his sub- sequent struggles of mind, the force of a diseased imagination is not more manifest, than the earnestness of his religious feehngs and aspirations. His connection with the Baptists was eventually most beneficial to him ; had it not been for the encouragement which he received from them he might have hved and died a tinker ; for even when he cast off, like a slough, the coarse habits of his early life, his latent powers could never without some such encouragement and impulse have broken through the thick ignorance with which they were inc rusted.
The coarseness of that incrustation could hardly be con- ceived, if proofs of it were not preserved in his own hand- writing. There is no book except the Bible which he is known to have perused so intently as the Acts and Monu- ments of John Fox the martyrologiat, one of the best of men; a work more hastily than judiciously compiled in its earlier parts, but invaluable for that greater and far more im- portant portion which has obtained for it its popular name of the Book of Martyrs. Bunyan's own copy of this work is in existence,* and valued of course as auch a relic of such a
* It was purchased in [he jrear 1780 by Mr.Woatner of the Minoriei ; frombini it descended to hii diughter Mrs. Parnell of Botolph-loae ; and byber oblipng perouBsion the renes have been transcribed and fac-dniUei taken fnmi it.
JOHN BITNYAN.
xliii
man ought to be. In each volume he has written his name beneath the title page in a large and stout print-hand^ thus —
And under some of the wood cuts he has inserted a few rhymes, which are undoubtedly his own composition; and which though much in the manner of the verses that were printed under the illustrations to his own Pilgrim's Progress when that work was first adorned with cuts . . (verses worthy of such embellishments,) are very much worse than even the worst of those. Indeed it would not be possible to find speci- mens of more miserable doggerel. But as it has been proper to lay before the reader the vivid representation of Bunyan in his feverish state of enthusiasm, that the sobriety of mind into which he settled may be the better appreciated and the more admired ; so for a like reason is it fitting that it should be seen, from how gross and deplorable a state of ignorance that intellect which produced the Pilgrim's Progress worked its way. — ^These then are the verses.
Under the print of an Owl appearing to a Council held by Pope John at Rome. (Acts and Moniunents, vol. i. 781.)
Doth the owle to them apper which putt them all into a fear WiU not the man & trubel crown cast the owle unto the ground.
For tfaii and Ibr oUier kind assUUnce the present edition is indebted to Mr. Richard Thomson, anthor of An Historical Essay on Magna Charta, with a general View and Explanation of the whole of the English Charters of Liberties ; — a book as beantifnUy and appropriately adorned as it is elaborately and learn- edly compiled.
The edition of the Acts'and Monuments is that of 1641, 3 vol. folio, the last of those in black letter, and probably the latest when it came into Bnnyan's hands. One of his signatores bears the date of 1662: but the rerses must undoubtedly hare been written some years earlier, before the publication of his first tract.
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Under the martyrdom of John Hus. (ActsandMon.vol,i.821.)
heare ie John hus that you may see
uesed in deed with all crulity.
But DOW lect us follow & look one him
Wheor he is full field in deed to the hrim. Under the martyrdom of John Rogers, the Protomartyr in the Marian Persecution, (lb. vol. iii. 133.)
It was the will of X. (Christ) that thou should die
M'' Rogers his body in the flames to fry.
O Blessed man thou did lead this bloody way,
O how wilt thou shicu with X in the last day. Under the martyrdom of Lawrence Sanders. (lb. vol.iii. 139.)
M' Sanders is the next blessed man in deed
And from all trubels he is made free.
Farewell world & nil hear be lo
»For to my dear Lord I must gooe. Another is here presented as it appears in his own rude handwriting under the martyrdom of Thomas Haukes, — who having promised to his friends that he would lift his hands above his head toward Heaven, before he gave up the ghost, in token to them that a man under the pain of such burning might keep his mind quiet and patient, lifted his scorched arms in fulfilment of that pledge, after his speech was gone, and raised them in gesture of thanksgiving triumph towards the living God.
hear is one stout and strong in deed he doth not waver like as doth a Reed, a Sighn he give them yea last of all that are obedant to the hevenly caU.
JOHN BUNYAN. xlv
There is yet one more of these Tinker's tetrasticks, penned in the margin, beside the account of Gardener's death :
the blood the blood that he did shed
is falling one his one head ;
and dredfiill it is for to see
the beginnes of his misere. Vol. iii. p. 527*
These curious inscriptions must have been Bunyan's first
attempts in verse ; he had no doubt found difficulty enotigh
in tinkering them to make him proud of his work when it was
done; for otherwise he would not have written them in a
book which was the most valuable of all his goods and chat*
tela. In latter days he seems to have taken this book for his
art of poetry, and acquired from it at length the tune and the
phraseology of such verses as are there inserted, — ^with a few
rare exceptions, they are of Robert Wisdom's school, and
something below the pitch of Sternhold and Hopkins. But if
he learnt there to make bad verses, he entered fully into the
spirit of its better parts, and received that spirit into as reso-
hite a heart as ever beat in a martyr's bosom. From the
example^ which he found there, and from the Scriptures
which he perused with such intense devotion, he derived " a
rapture"
— ^that raising him from ignorance
— Carried him up into the air of action
— And knowledge of himself :
And when the year after Gifibrd's death a resolution was passed by the Meeting that ** some of the brethren (one at a time) to whom the Lord may have given a gift, be called forth, and encouraged to speak a word in the church for mutual edification," Bunyan was one of the persons so called upon. '^ Some," he says, " of the most able among the Saints with us, . . I say, the most able for judgement and holiness of Ufe, • . 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
xlri THE LIFE OF
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 heing still by them desired and intreated, I con- sented to their request ; and did twice, at two several assem- blies, (but in private) though with much weakness and infirmity, discover my gift amongst them ; at which they not only seemed to be, but did solemnly protest, as in the sight of the great God, they were both alTeeted and comforted, and gave thanks to the Father of Mercies for the grace bestowed on me."
In those days the supply of public news came so slowly and vas so scanty when it came, that even the proceedings of so humble an individual as Bunyan became matter of considerable attention in the town of Bedford. His example drew many to the Baptist- Meeting, from curiosity to discover what had affected him there and produced such a change in his con- versation, " When I went out to seek the Bread of Life, some of them," he says, " would follow, and the rest be put into a muse at home. Yea almost all the town, at first, at times would go out to hear at the place where I found good. Yea, young and old for a while had some reformation on them : also some of them perceiving that God had mercy upon me, came crying to Him for mercy too." Bunyan was not one of those enthusiasts who thrust themselves forward in confident reliance upon what they suppose to be an inward call. He entered upon bis probation with diffidence and fear, not daring " to make use of his gift in a pubUc way ;" and gradually acquired a trust in himself and a consciousness of his own qua- lifications, when some of those who went into the country to disseminate their principles and make converts, took him in their company. Exercising himself thus as occasion offered, he was encouraged by the approbation with which others heard him ; and in no long time, " after some solemn prayer, with fasting," he was " more particularly called forth, and ap- pointed to a more ordinary and public preaching, not only to, and amongst them that believed, but also to offer the Gospel to those who had not yet received the faith thereof."
JOHN BUNYAN. xlvii
The Bedford meeting had at this time its regukr minister whose name was John Burton; so that what Bunyan received was a roving commission to itinerate in the villages round about; and in this he was so much employed that when in the ensuing year he was nominated for a deacon of the congreg»- tion^ they declined electing him to that office, on the ground that he was too much engaged to attend to it. Having in previous training overcome his first diffidence, he now " feh in his mind a secret pricking forward** to this ministry ; not '^ for desire of vain glory**, for he was even at that time ** sorely afflicted** concerning his own eternal state, but because the scriptures encouraged him, by texts which ran continually in his mind, whereby '^ I was made,** he says, " to see, that the Holy Ghost never intended that men who have gifts and abilities should bury them in the earth, but rather did com- mand and stir up such to the exercise of their gift, and also did command those that were apt and ready, so to do.'* Those gifts he had, and could not but be conscious of them ; he had also the reputation of possessing them, so that people came by hundreds to hear him from all parts round about, though " upon divers accounts ;'* some to marvel, and some perhaps to mock : but some also to Usten, and to be '^ touched with a conviction that they needed a Saviour.** ^* But I first,'* he says, " could not beUeve 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 firom me that they should be awakened by me, stiU 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 shewed to them the way of salvation. Where- fore seeing them in both their words and deeds to be so con- stant, 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 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
xlviii
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refreshmenl,* '* the blessing of them that were ready to perish is come upon me; yea I caused the widow's heart to sing for joy."
When he first began to preach Bunyan endeavoured to work upon his hearers by alarming them ; he dealt cliieEy in Comminations, and dwelt upon the dreadful doctrine that the curse of God " lays hold on ail men as they come into the world, because of sin." " This part of my work," says he, " I fulfilled with great sense : for the terrors of the law, and guilt for my transgressions, lay heavy upon my conscience. I preached what I felt, — what I smartingly did feel, — even that under which my poor soul did groan and tremble to astonish- ment. Indeed 1 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 be aware of, I can truly say^lhat 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 im- mediately,even before I could get down the pulpit stairs,! have been as bad as I was before. Yet God carried me on; but surely with a strong hand, for neither guilt nor Hell could take me off my work." This is a case like that of the fiery old soldier Jolm Haime who was one of Wesley's first lay preachers.
When he was in a happier state of mind, he took a different and better course " still preaching what he saw and felt;" he then laboured " to hold forth our Lord and Saviour" in all his ofiices, relations and benefits unto the World ; — and " to re- move those false supports and props on which the world doth lean, and by them fall and perish." Preaching however was not his only employment, and though still working at his busi- ness for a maintenance, he found time to compose a treatise against some of those heresies which the first Quakers poured forth so profiisely in their overfiowing enthusiasm. In that age of theological warfare, no other sectaries acted so eagerly upon the offensive. It seems that they came into some of
JOHN BUNYAN.
xlix
the meetings which Bunyan attended to bear testimony against the doctrines which were taught there ; and this induced him to write his first work, entitled " Some Gospel Truths opened according to the Scriptures: or the Divine and Human Nature in Christ Jesus ; His coming into the world; His Righteousness, Death, Resurrection, Ascension, Intercession and second coming to Judgement, plainly demonstrated and proved." Burton prefixed to this treatise a commendatory epistle, bid- ding the reader not to he offended because the treasure of the Gospel was held forth to him in a poor earthen vessel by one who had neither the greatness nor the wisdom of this world to commend him. " Having had experience," he sayat " with many other saints of this man's soundness in the faith, of hia godly conversation, and his ability to preach the Gospel, not by human art, hut by the Spirit of Christ, and that with much success in the conversion of sinners,— I say having had experience of this, and judging this book may be profitable to many others, as well as to myself, I thought it my duty upon this account to bear witness with my brother to the plain and simple, and yet glorious truths of our Lord Jesus Christ,"
It may be asked, how is it possible thai the man who wrote such illiterate and senseless verses in the margin of his Book of Martyrs, could have composed a treatise hke this, about the same time, or shortly afterwards? To this it may be replied that if the treatise were seen in its original spelling it might have at first sight as tinkerly an appearance as the verses : but in those days persons of much higher station spelt quite as loosely, . . perhaps all who were not professionally scholars, . . for it was before the age of spelling books ; and it may be believed that in most cases the care of orthography was left to the printers. And it is not to be concluded from Bunyan's wretched verses that he would write as wretchedly in prose ; in versifying he was attempting an art which he had never learnt, and for whicli he had no aptitude ; but in prose he wrote as he conversed and as he preached, using the plain straightforward language of common life. Burton may have corrected some vulgarisms, but other correction would not
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be needed; for frequent perusal of the scriptures had made Bunyan fully competent to state what those doctrines were which the Quakers impugned ; he was ready with the scrip- tural proofs ; and in a vigorous mind like his right reasoning naturally results from right premises.
An ill judgement might be formed of Bunyan's treatise from that part of its title which promises " profitable directions to -Atand fast in the doctrine of Jesus the Son of Mary, against those blustering storms of the Devil's temptations, which do at this day, like so many Scorpions, break loose from the bot- tomless Pit, to bite and torment those that have not tasted the virtue of Jesus, by the Revelation of the Spirit of God.'' Little wisdom and less moderation might be expected in a polemical discourse so introduced 1 It is however a calm, well arranged and well supported statement of the scriptural doc- trines on some momentous points which the primitive Quakers were understood by others to deny ; and which in fact, though they did not so understand themselves, they frequently did deny, both virtually and explicitly, when in the heat and acerbity of oral disputation they said they knew not what ; and also, when under the same belief of immediate inspiration, they committed to writing whatever words came uppermost, as fast as the pen could put them down, and subjected to no after revision what had been produced with no fore thought. " I would not have thee think, " says Bunyan, " that I speak at random in this thing; know for certain that I myself have heard them blaspheme, — yea with a grinning countenance, at the doctrine of that Man's second coming from Heaven, above the stars, who was bom of the Virgin Mary. Yea they have told me to my face, that I have used conjuration and witch- craft, because what I preached was according to the scriptures. I was also told to my face, that I preached up an Idol, because I said that the Son of Mary was in Heaven, with the same Body that was crucified on the cross ; and many other things have they blasphemously vented against the Lord of Life and Glory and his precious Gospel. The Lord reward them According as their work shall be 1"
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A reply to diisi (published originally like the treatise wludi provoked it, as a pamphlet,) is inserted among " the Memor- able Works of a Son of Thunder and Consolation, namely that True Prophet and Faithful Servant of God and Sufferer for the Testimony of Jesus, Edward Burroughs . • Published and Printed for the good and benefit of Generations to come, in the year 167^." This answer is entitled '' the True Faith of the Gt>spel of Peace contended for in the spirit of meek-« nesB ; and the mystery of Salvation, (Christ within, the hope of Glory,) vindicated in the spirit of love, against the secret opposition of John Bunyan, a professed minister in Bedford- shire.'* Words soft as dew, or as the droppings of a sum- mer cloud ; but they were the forerunners of a storm, and the Son of Thunder breaks out at once : . . '^ How long ye crafty Fowlers will ye prey upon the Innocent, and shoot at him secretly? How long shall the Righteous be a prey to your teeth, ye subtle Foxes who seek to devour? The just Ope against whom your bow is bent, cries for vengeance against you in the ears of the Lord. Yet you strengthen your hands in iniquity, and gird yourselves with the zeal of madness and fiiry ; you think to swallow up the Harmless and to blot out the name of the Righteous, that his generation may not be. found on earth. You shoot your arrows of cruelty, even bitter words, and make the Innocent your mark to prey upon^ You despise the way of uprightness and simplicity, and the path of craft and subtlety you tread : your dens are in dark- ness, and your mischief is hatched upon your beds of secret whoredom. — ^Yet — you are found out with the searching eyci of the Lord,— -and as with a whirlwind will he scatter you, and your nimie shall rot, and your memorial shall not be found, and the deeper you have digged the pit for another, the greater will be your own fall. — ^And John Bunyan and his £ellow, who have joined themselves to the broken army of Magog, now in the heat of the day of great striving, are not the least of all guilty among their brethren, of secret smiting, the innocent, with secret Ues and slanders, who have shewed themselves in defence of the Dragon against the Lamb, inr
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this day of war betwixt them." In thia strun the Son of Thunder roars and blazes away, like a Zeu? vi/<f/3/>Efifn)c in prose. " Your spirit is tried, and your generation is read at large, and your stature and countenance is clearly described to me, to be of the stock of Ishmael, and of the seed of Cain, whose line reacheth unto the murthering Priests, Scribes and Pharisees. — Oh thou blind Priest, whom God hath confounded in thy language, — the design of the Devil in deceiving souls is thy own, and I turn it back to thee. — Thou directest alto- gether to a thing without, despising the Light within, and worshipping the name Mary in thy imagination, and knowest not Him who was before the world was, in whom alone is sal- vation, and in no other. — If we should diligently search we should find thee, through feigned words, through covetousness, making merchandize of souls, loving the wages of unrighteous- ness: and such were the scoffers whom Peter speaks of, among whom thou art found in tliy practice, among them who are preaching for hire, and love the error of Balaam, who took gifts and rewards. ^ — ^The Lord rebuke thee thou unclean spirit, who hast falsely accused the innocent to clear thyself from guilt ; but at thy door guilt lodges, and I leave it with thee ; clear thyself if thou art able. And thy wicked reproaches we patiently bear, till the Lord appear for us : and we are not greater than our Lord, who was said to have a Devil by thy generation: and their measure of wickedness thou fulfills, and art one of the Dragon's army against the Lanih and his followers ; and thy weapons are slanders ; and thy refuge is lies; and thy work is confused, and hath hardly gained a name in Babylon's record ; and by us, ( so much of it at least as is against us) is cast by as our spoiled prey, and trampled upon in all thy reproachful speeches, who art unclean."
Mixed with these railings were affirmations as honestly made that the Quakers owned all the scriptures which Bun- yan had alledged against them, concerning the life, and death and resurrection of our Lord, yet withal bearing witness " that without the revelation of Christ within, there is no sal- vation," There were many and wide differences between
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Banyan and the Quakers, but pope upon these points when they understood each other, and when the Quakers under- stood themselves. He repUed in a vmdication of his Treatise* complaining that his opponent had uttered a very great num- ber of heresies, and falsely reported many things; and wishing him to be sober if he could, and to keep under his unruly spirit, and not to appear so much, at least not so grossly, a rail- ing Rabshakeh. He maintained, which was in fact the point at issue, that the opinions held at that day by the Quakers were the same that the Ranters had held long ago, " only the Ranters had made them thread-bare at an alehouse, and the Quakers had set a new gloss upon them again by an outward legal holiness, or righteousness." He dwelt upon the error of the Quakers in confounding conscience with the Spirit of Christ, thereby " idolizing and making a God" of what '^ is but a creature, and a faculty of the soul of man, which Grod hath made," — ^which '* is that in which is the law of Nature* which is able to teach the Oentiles, that sin against the law is sin against Grod, and which is called by the Apostle * but even Nature itself." — '^ O wonderful that men should make a' Grod and a Christ of their consciences because they can con- vince of sin!" To the reproach of making merchandize of souls and loving the wages of unrighteousness he answered thus. *' Friend dost thou speak this as from thy own know- ledge, or did any other tell thee so? However that spirit that led thee out of this way is a Ijring Spirit. For though I be poor and of no repute in the world, as to outward things* yet this 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 fiving, 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 ^ven me freely, and not for filthy lucre's sake. Other things I might speak in vindication of my prac- tice in this thing. But ask of others, and they will tell thee
• 1 Corinth, xi. 14. d
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W that the things I say are truth : and hereafter have a care of receiving anything by hearsay only, lest you be found a pub- lisher of those lies which are brought to you by others, and so render yourself the less credible."
This reproof was so far lost upon his antagonist that be returned thus to tlie charge. " Thou seemest to be grieved, and calls this a false accusation. But let's try ; the cause ad- mits dispute. Art not thou in their steps, and among them that do these things? Ask John Burton vritb whom thou art joined close to vindicate liim and call him brother, hath he not so much yearly, 150£, or more {except thou hast some of it,) which is unrighteous wages, and hire, and gifts, and rewards? What sayest thou? Art thou not in his steps, and among, and with, him and them that do these things? If he be thy brother, and thou so own liini, wliat is evil in him whom thou vindicates I lay upon thee- Though thou bid me have a care of receiving by hearsay, what I have said and received in this is truth, though thou evade it never so much." Burroughs must have examined very little into the truth or probability of what he heard when he could believe and re- peat that a poor Baptist-Meeting at Bedford raised I50£ a year for it's minister ! — " Your words," says be, " describe your nature; for by your voice I know you to be none of Christ's sheep; and accordingly I judge in just judgement and in true knowledge. — Envy is of Cain's nature and seed, and in that you are ; and lyars are of Ishmael's stock, and you are guilty of that ; and you are among the murdering PriestB party, and close joined to them, in doctrine and practise, especially in writing against us. — Thy portion shall be how- ling and gnashing of teeth, for the Lyars portion is the Lake. — I reprove thee by the spirit of the Lord, and so leave thee to receive thy reward from the just God of righteous judgement, who upon thy head will render vengeance m flames of fire, in his dreadful day.— A Lyar and slanderer thou art, a perverter and wrester of the right way of God and of the scriptures, a hypocrite and dissembler, a holder forth of damnable doctrines, an envious man and false
JOHN BUNYAN iv
acicusery — and all thy lyesi slanders, deceits, confusions, hypocrisies, ccmtradictions, and damnable doctrines of Devils, with impudency held forth by thee, shall be consiuned in the pit of vengeance. — ^Alas, alas for thee John Bunyan! thy several months travail in grief and pain is a fruitless birth, and perishes as an untimely fig, and its praise is blotted out among men, and it's past away as smoke. Truth is atop of thee, and outreaches thee, — ^and it shall stand for ever to eonfound thee and all its enemies ; and though thou wilt not subject thy mind to serve it willingly, yet a slave to it must thou be; and what thou dost in thy wickedness against it, the end thereof brings forth the glory of it, and thy own con- founding and shame. And now be wise and learned, and put off thy armour : for thou mayest understand thie more thou strives, the more thou art entangled, and the higher thou arises in envy, the deeper is thy fall into confusion; and the more thy arguments are, the more ihcreased is thy folly. Let experience teach thee, and thy own wickedness correct thee; and thus I leave thee. And if thou wilt not own the Light of Christ in thy own conscience, nor to reform thee and con- vince thee, yet in the Day of Judgement thou shalt own it; and it shall witness the justness of the judgement of the Lord when for thy iniquities he pleads with thee. And behold as a thief in the night, when thou art not aware. He will come ; and then Woe unto thee that art polluted !**
Bunyan made no farther reply either to the reasoning or Rabshaking o{ his opponent; for although as he says it pleased him much '' to contend with great earnestness for the word of fidth and the remission of sins by the death and sufferings of our Saviour,** he had no liking for controversy, and more- over saw that '' his work before lum ran in another channel.** BBs great desire was to get into what he calls '^ the darkest places of the country,** and awaken the religious feelings of that class of persons, who then as now, in the midst of a Christian nation, were like the beasts that perish. While he was thus usefully employed " the Doctors and Priests of the country,** he says began to open wide against him ^* and
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in the year 1657 an indictment was preferred against him at the assizes for preaching at Eaton ; for though this was in the golden days of Oliver Cromwell, the same writer who tella • us that " in those days there was no persecution)" observes f " that the Presbyterian ministers who were then in possession of the livings could not bear with the preaching of an illiterate tinker and an unordained minister." But the Presbyterians were not the only clergy who had intruded into the benefices of their loyal brethren, or retained those which were lawfully their own by conforming to the limes and de- serting the Church in whose service they were ordained. There was a full proportion of Independents among these in- cumbents and some Baptists also. And that there was much more persecution during the Protectorate than Cromwell would have allowed, if he coidd have prevented it, may be seen by the liistory of the Quakers, — to say nothing of the Papists, against whom the penal laws remained in full force, — nor of the Church of England. The simple truth is, all parties were agreed in the one Catholic opinion that certain doc- trines are not to be tolerated ; they diiFered as to what those doctrines were; and they difiered also as to the degree in which they held the principle of intolerance, and the extent to which they practised it. The Papists true to their creed proclaimed it without reserve or limit, and burnt all hereticft wherever they had power to do so. The Protestants there- fore tolerated no Papists where they were strong enough to maintain the ascendancy which they had won. The Church of England would have silenced all sectaries ; it failed in the attempt, being betrayed by many of its own members ; and then the Sectaries overthrew the Church, put the Primate to death, ejected all the Clergy who adhered to their principles, imprisoned some, deported others, and prohibited even the private and domestic use of the Liturgy. The very Baptists of Bunyan's congregation, and at a time too when Bunyan was their pastor, interdicted | a " dearly beloved sister" from communicating with a church of which her son in law was • Ivimey's Hiat. of Ihe BaptiiU. Vol ii. |j. 27. f lb- p. 34. I lb. p. 3r.
JOHN BUNYAN. Ivii
mtnistery because he was not a Baptist ; and they excluded * a brother " because in a great assembly of the Church of England he was profanely bishopt, after the antichristian order of that generatioui to the great profanation of God's order, and heart-breaking of his Christian brethren.** The Independents flogged and hanged the Quakers: and the Quakers prophecied in the gall of bitterness against all other communities, and condemned them to the bottomless pit, in hearty beUef and jubilant expectation that the sentence would be carried into full effect by the Devil and his Angels. It is not known in what manner the attempt at silencing Bunyan was defeated. He tells us that the ignorant and malicious were then stirred up to load him with slanders; and that whatever the Devil could devise, and his instruments invent was '* whirled up and down the country** against him^ thinking that by that means they should make his ministry to be abandoned. It was nunoured that he was a Witch, a Jesuit, a Highwayman : and now it was that the aspersions cast upon his moral character called forth that characteristic â–¼indication of himself which has already been noticed. Equally characteristic is the appeal which he made to his own manners and deportment. *' And in this,** says he, " I admire the wisdom of God, that he made me shy of women from my first conversion until now. These know, and can also bear me vntness with whom I have been most intimately concerned, that it is a rare thing to see me carry it pleasant towards a woman. The. common salutation of women I abhor; t'is odious to me in whomsoever I see it. Their company alone I cannot away with! I seldom so much as touch a woman*8 hand ; for I think these things are not so becoming me. When I have seen good men salute those women that they have visited, or that have visited them, I have at times made my objection against it ; and when they have answered that it was but a piece of civility, I have told them, it is not a comely sight. Some indeed have urged the holy kiss: but then I have asked why they made baulks? Why they did
* Ivimey. toI. ii. p. 40.
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sahite the most handsome, and let the ill-favoured go? Thto« how laudable soever such things have been in the eyes of others, they have been unseemly in my sight," — Dr. Dodd- ridge could not have thus defended liimself. But though this passage might have been writtea by a saint of the monastic kalendar, Bunyan was no woman-hater. He had at this time married a second wife; and that he " carried it pleasant" towards her appears by her behaviour towards him in his troubles.
Those troubles came on a few months only after the Rcb- toratioD, Bunyan being one of the first persons after that event, who was punished for nonconformity. The nation was in a most unquiet state. There was a restless, rancourousi implacable party who would have renewed the civil war, for the sake of again trying the experiment of a Commonwealth, which bad so compleatly and miserably failed when the power was in their hands. They looked to Ludlow as their General ; and Algernon Sidney " took the first opportunity of solicit- ing for them men from Holland and money from France. The political entliusiasts who were engaged in such schemes counted upon the sectaries for support. Even among the sober sects there were men who at the cost of a rebellion would gladly have again thrown down the Church EstabUsh- ment, for the hope of setting up their own system during the anarchy that must ensue. Among tlie wilder, some were eager to proclaim King Jesus, and take possession of the earth as being the Saints to whom it was promised : and some, (a. few years later) less in hope of ejecting their republican projecM than in despair and vengeance, conspired to burn London : they were discovered, tried, convicted and executed ; they confessed their intention; they named the day which had been appointed for carrying it into effect, because an astrological scheme had shown it to be a lucky one for this
• CEuTres de LouUjIt. T 2, p. 204. Ludlow's Memoirs, (Edinburgh 1751.) vol.3. 151. ISC. Ladlow'B psiaporC from the Comte d'EsLraiIra, aenl him tliit he migbt go from Svilzerlaod lo Paris, ihcre to coufer withSidney upon this project, it printed in the same volamc, p. Iij7.
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design; and on ihat very day the fire of London broke out. In such times the Government was rendered suspicious by the constant sense of danger, and was led as much by fear as by resentment to severities which are explained by the necessity of self defence, — ^not justified by it, when they fall upon the innocent, or even upon the less guilty.
A warrant was issued against Bunyan as if he had been a dangerous person, because he went about preaching; this oflBce was deemed, (and well it might be) incompatible with his calling ; he was known to be hostile to the restored Churchf and probably it might be remembered that he had served in the Parliament's army. Accordingly he was arrested at a place called Samsell in Bedfordshire, at a meeting in a private liouse. He was aware of this intention, but neither chose to put off the meeting, nor to escape, lest such conduct <m his part should make *' an ill savour in the country ;** and because he was resolved ^ to see the utmost of what they could say or do to him;" so he was taken before the Justice, Wingate by name, who had issued the warrant. Wingate asked him why he did not content himself witii following his calling, jnatead of breaking die law; and Bunyan replied that he could both follow his calling, and preach the word too. He was then required to find sureties; they were ready, and being called in were told tiiey were bound to keep him firom pieaehingy odierwiae their bonds would be forfeited. Upon diis Banyan declared that he would not desist firom speaking Ab word of Qodm WhQe his mittimus was making in conse- quence of this determination, one whom he calls an old en^ nqr of die tmtii, entered into discourse with him, and said he had read of one Alexander die coppersmith who troubled the Aposdes, — ^ aiming 'tis like at me," says Bunyan, '' because I was a tinker; to which I answered that I also had read of priests and Pharisees that had their hands in the Uood of oar Lord*" Aye, was the rejrander, and you are one of those Pharisees, for you make long prayers to devour widows* ^ I answered," says Banyan, ** that if he had got no by preadmig and fwajring than I had done, he would
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not be ao rich as now he waa." This ended in his commit- tal to Bedford jail there to remain till the quarter sessions. He was offered his liberty if he would promise not to call the people together, but no such promise would he make; and when he was told that none but poor, simple, ignorant people came to hear him, he replied that such had most need of teaching, and therefore it was his duty to go on in that work. It appears however that after a few days he listened to hia friends, and would have given bond for his appearance at the sessions : but tlie magistrate to whom they applied was afraid to take it. " Whereat," says Bunyan, " I was not at ail daunted, but rather glad, and saw evidently that the Lord had heard me. For before I went down to the justice, I begged of God that if I might do more good by being at liberty than in prison, that then I might be set at liberty ; but if not — His will be done ; for I was not altogether without hopes, but that my imprisonment might be an awakening to the saints in the country : therefore I could not tell which to chuse ; only I in that manner did commit the thing to God. And verily at my return, I did meet my God sweetly in the prison again, comforting of me, and satisfying of me that it was His will and muid that I should be there."
Some seven weeks after tliis the Sessions were held, and John Bunyan was indicted as a person who " devilishly and perniciously abstained from coming to Churcli to hear divine service, and who was a common upholder of several unlawful meetings and conventicles to the great disturbance and dis- traction of the good subjects of this kingdom." He answered that as to the first part of this he was a common frequenter of the Church of God ; but being demanded whether he attended the parish Church, he replied that he did not, and for this reason, that he was not commanded so to do in the word of God ; we were commanded there to pray, but with the spirit, not by the common prayer book, the prayers in that book being made by other men, and not by the motion of the Holy Spirit within our own hearts. And as to the Lord's prayer, said he, " there are very few that can, in the
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Spirit, say the two first words of that prayer ; that is, that can call God their father, as knowing what it is to be bom again, and as having experience that they are begotten of the Spirit of God ; which if they do not, all is but babbling.** Having persuaded himself by weak arguments Bunyan used them as if they had been strong ones ; " Shew me,'* he said, " the place in the Epistles where the Common Prayer book is written, or one text of scripture that commands me to read it, and I will use it* But yet, notwithstanding, they that have a mind to use it, they have their Uberty; that is, I would not keep them from it. But for our parts, we can pray to God without it. Blessed be his name!'* But the Sectaries had kept their countrymen from it, while they had the power ; and Bunyan himself in his sphere laboured to dissuade them firom it.
Men who are called in question for their opinions, may be expected to under, or over-state them at such times, accord- ing as caution or temerity may predominate in their disposi- tions. In none of Bunyan's writings does he appear so little reasonable, or so little tolerant, as upon these examinations. He was a brave man, — a bold one, — and believed himself to be an injured one, standing up against persecution ; for he knew that by his preaching, evident and certain good was done; but that there was any evil in his way of doing it, or likely 'to arise firom it, was a thought which, if it had arisen in his own mind, he would immediately have ascribed to the sugges- tion of Satan. Some farther disputation ensued ; " we were told,** he said, *' to exhort one another daily, while it is called to day :*' but the Justice replied he ought not to preach. In rejoinder he offered to prove that it was lawful for him and such as him to preach, and quoted the Apostle's words, " as every man hath received the gift, even so let him minister the same unto another.** Let me a little open that scripture to you, said the magistrate : As evert/ man hath received his gift ; that is, as every man hath received a trade, so let him follow it. If any man have received a gift of tinkering as thou hast doiie#.let Jiim follow his tinkering. And so other men their
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trades, and the divine his calling." But John insisted that spiritual gifts were intended in this passage. The magistrate said men might exhort if they pleased in their fumilicB, but not otherwise. John answered, " if it were lawful to do good to some, it was lawful to do good to more. If it were a good thing to exhort our famihes, it was good to ex.hort others. And if it were held a sin for them to meet together and seek the face of God, and exhort one another to follow Christ, he would sin still." They were now at a point. You confess the indictment then? said the magistrate. He made answer — " this 1 confess : We have had many meetings together, both to pray to God, and to exhort one another ; and we had the sweet comforting presence of the Lord among us for our en- couragement ; blessed he hia name ! There I confess mjself guilty, and no otherwise." Then said the magistrate " hear your judgement ! You must be had back again to prison, and there lie for three months following; and at three months end, if you do not submit to go to church to hear divine ser- vice, and leave your preaching, you must be banished the realm. And if after such a day as shall be appointed you to be gone, you shall be found in this realm, or he found to come over agmn without special license from the king, you must stretch hy the neck for it : I tell you plainly." Bunyan re- solutely answered that if " he were out of prison to day, he would preach the Gospel again to-morrow, by the help of God!"
Back therefore he was taken ; " and I can truly say," he says, " I bless the Lord for it ; that my heart was sweetly refreshed hi the time of my examination, and also afterwards at my returning to the prison, so that I found Christ's words more than bare trifles, where he saith, •" He will give you a mouth and wisdom which all your adversaries shall not be able to gainsay nor resist." Three months elapsed, and the Clerk of the Peace then went to him by desire of the magis- trate to see if he could be persuaded to obedience. But Bunyan insisted that the law, being intended against ihose " iiukeixL 15. ■• " 1 .^. j
JOHN BUNYAN. Iziu
who dmgned to do ^vil in their meetings, did not apply to him. He was told that he might exhort his neighbours in priyate discoiyrse, if he did not cafl together an assembly of people ; this he might do, and do much good thereby, with- out breaking the law. But, said Bunyan, if I may do good to one, why not to two? and if to two why not to four, and so to eight, and so on? Aye, said the Clerk, and to a hun- dred, I warrant you! Yes, Bunyan answered, I think I should not be forbidden to do as much good as I can. They then began to discuss the question whether imder pretence of d<nng good, harm might not be done, by seducing the people, and Bunyan allowed that there might be many who designed the destruction of the government : let them, he saidj be punished, and let him be punished also should he do any thing not becoming a man and a Christian ; if error or heresy could be proved upon him he would disown it, even in the market place ; but to the truth, he would stand to the last drop of his blood. Bound in conscience he held himself to obey all righteous laws, whether there were a king or not; and if he offended against them, patientiy to bear the penalty* And to cut off all occasion of suspicion as touching the harm- lessness of his doctrines, he would willingly give any one die notes of all his sermons, for he sincerely desired to live in peace and to submit to the present authority. ^* But there are two ways of obeying,*' he observed ; " the one to do that which I in my conscience do believe that I am bound to do, actively ; and where I cannot obey actively, there I am willing to lie down, and to suffer what they shall do unto me.'* And here ihe intertiew ended, Bunyan thanking him for his " civil and meek discoursing," and breathing a wish that tiiey might meet in Heaven.
Shortly afterwards the Coronation took place, and the pro^ damation which allowed persons to sue out a pardon during twelve months from that day, had the effect of suspending the proceedings against him, if any fkrther were intended. When the assises came, his wife presented a petition to the Judges that tiiey would impartially take his case into consideration^
W'i^
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Sir Matthew Hale was one of these Judges, and expressed a wish to serve her if he could, hut a fear that he could do her no good; and being assured by one of the Justices that Bunyan had been convicted, and was a hot-spirited fellow, he waived the matter. But the high Sheriff encouraged the poor woman to make another effort for her husband before they left the town ; and accordingly " with a bashed face and a trembling heart," she entered the Swan Chamber, where the two Judges and many magistrates and gentry of the country were in com- pany together. Trembling however as she was, Elizabeth Bun- yan had imbibed something of her husband's spiriL She had been to London to petition the House of Lords in his behalf, and had been told by one whom she calls Lord Barkwood that they could do nothing, but that his releasement was com- mitted to the Judges at these next assizes, and now I am come to you she said, and you give neither releasement, nor relief! And she complained to Hale that he was kept un- lawfully in prison, for the indictment was false, and he was clapped up before there were any proclamations against the meetings. One of the Judges then said he had been lawfully convicted. " It is false," replied the woman : " for when they said to him do you confess the indictment, he said only this, that he had been at several meetings both when there was preaching the Word and prayer, and that they had God's presence among them." Will your husband leave preaching ? said Judge Twisden ; if he will do bo, then send for him. " My Lord," said she, " he dares not leave preacliing, as long as he can speak."
Sir Matthew himself was not likely to be favourably im- pressed by this sort of pleading. But he listened sadly wJien she told him that there were four small children by the former wife, one of them blind ; that they had nothing to live upon while their father was in prison, but the charity of good people; and that she herself " smayed" at the news when her husband was apprehended, being but young and unac- customed to such things, fell in labour, and continuing in it for eight days was dehvered of a dead child. Alas, poor
JOHN BUNYAN. IxV
woman ! said Hale. But Twisden said poverty was her cloak, for he understood her husband was better maintained by running up and down a-preaching, than by following his calling. Sir Matthew asked what was his callingi and was told that he was a tinker. Yes, observed the wife, and be? cause he is a tinker and a poor man, therefore he is despised and cannot have justice. The scene ended in Sir Matthew's mildly teUing her he was sorry he could do her no good; that what her husband had said was taken for a conviction^ and that there was no other course for her than either to apply to the king, or sue out his pardon, or get a writ 6f error, which would be the cheapest. She urged them to send for Bunyan that he might speak for himself: his appearance however would rather have confirmed those in their opinions who said that there was not such another pestilent fellow in the country, than have moved the Judges in his favour. Elizabeth Bunyan concludes her account by saying, " this I remember, that though I was somewhat timorous at my first entrance into the chamber, yet before I went out I could not but break forth into tears ; not so much because they were so hard hearted against me and my husband, but to think what a sad account such poor creatures will have to give at the coming of the Lord ! "
No fiffdier stepa for procuring his release were taken at this time ; either because the means for defiraying the legal expences could not be raised; or, which is quite as probably because it was certain that Bunyan thinking himself in con- science bound to preach in defiance of the law, would sooa have made his case worse than it then was. For he had for- tunately a firiend in the jailor, and was somewhat like a prisoner at large, being allowed to go whither he would, and return wheahrtibought proper. He attended the meetings of the. congregation to ^fhich he bekmgedf he was employed by them to visit £sorderly members, he was often out in the night, and it is said that many of the Baptist congregations in Bed- fordshire owe their origin to his midnight preaching. ^ I toA^ lowed my wonted couney** he mys, ** taking all occasions to
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visit the people of God, exhorting them to be etedfkst in the faith of Jesua Christ, and to take heed that they touched not the Common Prayer, &c." — an &c. more full of meaning than that which occasioned the dishonest outcry against the &c. oath. So far did this liberty extend that he went " to see the Christians at London," — an indiscretion which cost the jailor a severe re- proof, and had nearly cost him his place ; and which compelled him to withhold any farther indulgence of this kind, "so," says Bmiyan, " that I must not now look out of the door." " They charged me," he adds, " that I went thither to plot and raise divisions and make insurrections, which God knows was a slander." It was slanderous to charge him with plotting, or with traitorous intentions ; but in raising divisions he was, beyond all doubt, actively and heartily engaged. The man who distinguished a handfuU of Baptists in London as the Christiana of that great metropolis, and who when let out by favour from his prison, exhorted the people of God as he calls them to take heed that they touched not the Common Prayer, was not employed in promoting unity, nor in making good subjects, however good his intentions, however orthodox his creed, however sincere and fervent his piety. Peace might be on his lipa, and zeal for the salvation of others in his heart ; but he was certainly at that time no preacher of good will, nor of Christian charity. And without reference to human laws, it may be affirmed that the circumstances which removed this high-minded and hot-minded man from a course of dangerous activity, in which he was as little likely to acquire a tolerant spirit, as to impart it, and placed him in confine- ment, where his understanding had leisure to ripen and to cool, was no less favourable for his moral and religious nature than it has ultimately proved to his usefulness and his fame. Notliing is more certain than that the gratification which a resolute spirit feels in satisfying its conscience exceeds all others ; this feehng is altogether distinct from that peace of mind which under all afflictions abides in the regenerate heart; nor is it so safe a feeling, for it depends too much upon ex- citement, and the exaltation and triumph which it produces
JOHN BUNYAN. Ixvii
ire akih to pride. Bunyan*8 heart had been kindled by the Book of Martyrs, — cold and insensible indeed must any heart be which could dwell without emotion upon those precious re- cords of religious heroism ! He had read in those records with perfect sympathy the passionate epistle which the ItaUan Mar- tyr Pomponius Algerius addressed from prison to his friends. That Martyr was a student of Padua, and in what in one sense may be called the golden age of literature, had been devoted to study from his childhood with ambitious diligence and the most hopeful success. ** To mitigate your sorrow which you take for me," said this noble soldier of the noble Army, " I cannot but impart unto you some portion of my delectation and joys which I feel and find, to the intent that you may re- joice with me and sing before the Lord. — I have found a nest of honey and honey-comb in the entrails of a lion. — ^Behold He that was once far from me, now is present with me : Whom once scarce I could feel, now I see more apparently : Whom once I saw afar off, now I behold near at hand: Whom once I hungered for, the Same now approacheth and reacheth His hand unto me. He doth comfort me, and heapeth me up with gladness ; He ministreth strength and courage ; He healeth me, refiresheth, advanceth and comforteth me. — ^The sultry heat of the prison, to me is coldness : the cold winter to me is a fresh spring time in the Lord. He that feareth not to be burnt in the fire, how will he fear the heat of the weather? Or what careth he for the pinching frost, who burneth with the love of the Lord? This place is sharp and tedious to them that be guilty : but to the innocent, — ^here droppeth de- lectable dew, here floweth pleasant nectar, here runneth sweet milk, here is plenty of all good things. — Let the miser- able worldling say if there be any plot, pasture or meadow, so delightful to the mind of man as here ! Here is Mount Sion ; here I am already in Heaven itself. Here standeth first Christ Jesus in the front : about him stand the old Patriarchs, Prophets and Evangelists, Apostles, and all the servants of Grod ; of whom some do embrace and cherish me ; some exhort, some open the sacraments unto me, some comfort me, other*
Uviii THE LIFE OF
some are singing about me. How then shall I be thought to be alone, among so many and such as these, the beholding of whom to me is both solace and example !
" This man," says Bunyan, " was when he wrote this letter, in the House of the Forest of Lebanon, — in the Church in the Wilderness,— in the Place and Way of contending for the Truth of God ; and he drank of both cups, — of that wluch was exceeding bitter, and of that which was exceeding sweet : and the reason why he complained not of the bitter, was because the sweet had overcome it. As his afflictions abounded for Christ, so did his consolations hy him ; — so did I say? they abounded much more. But was not this man, thiidE you a Giant ? A pillar in this House ? Had he not also now hold of the shield of Faitli ? Yea, was he not now in the combat \ And did he not behave himself vahantly ? Was not his mind ele- vated a thousand degrees beyond sense, carnal reasons, fleshly love, self concerns, and the desire of embracing worldly things ! This man had got that by the end that pleased him : neither could all the flatteries, promises, threats or reproachee, make him once listen to, or enquire after what the world, or the glory of it could afford. His mind was captivated with delights invisible, he coveted to shew his love to his Lord by laying down his life for his sake. He longed to be there, where there shall be no more pain, nor sorrow, nor sigliing, nor tears, nor troubles!"
Bunyan had thoroughly conformed his own frame of mind to that which he thus admired ; but there were times when his spirit failed, and there is not a more cliaracteristic passage in bis works than that in which he describes his apprehensions, and inward conflict, and final determination. " I will tell you a pretty business," he says; " I was in a very sad and low condition for many weeks ; at which times also, being but a young prisoner and not acquainted with the laws, I had this lying much upon my spirits, that my imprisonment might end at the gallows, for auglit that I could tell. Now therefore Satan laid hard at me, to beat me out of heart, by suggesting this unto me ; ' but how, if when you come indeed to die, you
JOHN BUNYAN. Ixiic
should be in this condition ; that is, as not to savour the things of Grod, nor to have any evidence upon your soul for a better state hereafter?* (for indeed at that time all the things of God were hid from my soul.) Wherefore when I at first began to think of this, It was a great trouble to me ; for I thought with myself, that in the condition I now was, I was not fit to die ; neither indeed did I think I could, if I should be called to it. Besides, I thought with myself, if I should make a scrambling shift to clamber up the ladder, yet I should either with quaking, or other symptoms of fainting, give occasion to the enemy to reproach the way of God, and his people for their timorous- ness. This therefore lay with great trouble upon me; for methought I was ashamed to die with a pale face and totter- ing knees, in such a case as this. Wherefore I prayed to God that he would comfort me, and give me strength to do and suffer what he should call me to ; yet no comfort appearedj but all continued hid. I was^ also at this time so really pos« sessed with the thought of death, that oft I was as if I was on the ladder with a rope about my neck. Only this was some encouragement to me; I thought I might now have an oppor* tunity to speak my last words unto a multitude, which I thought would come to see me die ; and, thought I, if, it must be so, if God will but convert one soul by my last words, I shall not count my life thrown away, nor lost.
''But yet all the things of God were kept out of my sight ; and still the Tempter followed me with, * but whither must you go when you die? what will become of you? where will you be found in another world ? what evidence have you for Heaven and glory, and an inheritance among them that are sanctified V Thus was I tossed for many weeks, and knew not what to do. At last this consideration fell with weight upon me, that it was for the word and way of God that I ^vas in this condition, . wherefore I was engaged not to flinch an hair*s breadth from it. I thought also that God might chuse whether He would give me comfort now, or at the hour of death ; but I might not therefore chuse, whether I would hold my profession or not. I was bound, but He was free. .Yea it was my duty to stand
e
Hx
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to his Word) whether lie would »
I ever look upon me or save me at the last ; Wherefore, thought I, the point being thus, I am for going on, and venturing my eternal state with Christ, whether I have comfort here or no. If God doth not come in, thought 1, I will leap off the ladder even blindfold into eternity; sink or swim, — come Heaven, come hell; — Lord Jesus, if Thou wilt catch me, do : — if not, 1 will venture for thy name !" John Bunyan did not ask himself how far the case of those martyrs whose example he was prepared to follow resembled the situation in which he was placed. Such a ques- tion, had he been cool enough to entertain it, might have shewn him that they had no other alternative than idolatry or the stake : but that he was neither called upon to renounce any thing that he did believe, nor to profess any thing that he did not ; that the congregation to which he belonged held at that time their meetings unmolested ; that be might have worshipped when he pleased, where he pleased, and how he pleased ; that he was only required not to go about the country holding conventicles ; and that the cause for that interdiction was — not that persons were admonished in such conventicles to labour for salvation, but that they were exhorted there to regard with abhorrence that Protestant Church which is es- sentially part of the constitution of this kingdom, from the doctrines of which Church, except in the point of infant bap- tism, he did not differ a hair's breadth. This I am bound to observe, because Bunyan has been, and no doubt will continue to be, most wrongfully represented as having been the victim of intolerant laws, and prelatical oppression.
But greater strength of will and strength of heart could not have been manifested, if a plain duty wherewith there may be no compromise had called for that sacrifice which he was ready to have made. It would be wronging him here were the touching expression of his feelings under these circum- stances to be withheld. " 1 found myself," he says, " a man encompassed with infirmities. The parting with my wife and poor children, hath often been to me in this place, as the pul- ling the Sesh from the bones ; and that not only because I am
JOHN BUNYAN. Ixxl
somewhat too fond of these great merciesi but also because I should have often brought to my mind the many hardships, miseries and wants that my poor family was like to meet with, should I be taken from them ; especially my poor blind child, who lay nearer my heart than all besides. Oh, the thoughts of the hardships I thought my poor blind one might go under would break my heart to pieces! — Poor child! thought I, what sorrow art thou like to have for thy portion in this world ! Thou must be beaten ; must beg ; suffer hunger, coldi nakedness and a thousand calamities, though I cannot now endure the wind should blow upon thee ! But yet, recalling myself, thought I, I must venture you all with God, though it goeth to the quick to leave you ! Oh, I saw in this condition I was as a man who was pulling down his house upon the heads of his wife and children : yet, thought I, I must do it, I must do it! And now I thought on those two milch-kine that were to carry the Ark of God into another country and to leave their ♦ calves behind them/'
These fears past away when he found that no further prOf ceedings were intended against him. But his worldly occu- pation was gone, for there was an end of tinkering as well as of his ministerial itinerancy ; *^ he was as effectually called away from his pots and kettles," says Mr. Ivimey, ** as die Apostles were from mending their nets ;*' he learnt therefore to make tagged thread-laces, and by this means supported his family. They lost the comfort of his presence ; but in other respects their condition was not worsened by his impri- sonment, which indeed was likely to render them oli^jeets of kindness as well as of compassion to their neighbours. In an age when the stale of our prisons was disgraceful to a Christ- tian people, and the treatment of prisoners not unfrequently most inhuman, Bunyan was fortunate in the place of his con- finement and in the disposition of his jailer, who is said to have committed the management of the prison to his care, knowing how entirely he might be trusted. He had the society diere of some who were suffering for the same cause; he
• 1 Samvel vi. 10.
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had hia Bible and his Book of Martyrs ; to brood over his own thoughts. The fever of his enthusiasm had spent itself; the asperity of his opinions was softened as his mind enlarged ; and the Pilgrim's Progress was one of the fruits of hia imprisonment. But before that work is spoken of more particularly, it will be convenient to pursue the story of his life to its close.
He remained a prisoner twelve years, But it appears that during the last four of those years he regularly attended the Baptist Meeting, his name being always in the records ; and in the eleventh year the congregation chose him for their Pastor, " he at the same time accepted the invitation, and gave himself up to serve Christ and liis Church in that charge, and received of the Elders the right hand of fellowship." The more recent historian of the Baptists says, " bow he could exercise his pastoral office in preaching among them, while he continued a prisoner in the jail, we are at a loss to conceive :" — unquestionably only by being a prisoner at large, and having the liberty of the town while he lodged in the prison. There is a print in which he is represented as pur- sued by a rabble to his own door ; but there is no allusion to any such outrage in any part of his works : in his own neigh- bourhood, where he had always lived, it is most unlikely to have happened ; and if Bimyan had any enemies latterly, they were among the bigots of his own persuasion. Jlis character had by this time obtained respect, his books had attracted notice, and Dr. Barlow then Bishop of Lincoln, and other Churchmen, are said to have pitied " his hard and unreason- able sufferings so far as to stand very much his ti-iends in procuring his enlargement."* How this was effected is not known.
■This is llieslat«mentgiren in the cODtiaiiBtioa of hiiUFe, appended to hii own ■ccouat otbiaaeU, nod supposed to hare been irnttcn bjr ChorleB Doe, a Bapliit MinlUeri "'to was intiin«lely acqaainled with Idm. Mt. Ivimey, however, to ianlidale this produces a paaiage from tho preface to one of Owen's senuom : this passage saye " that Bunyan iraS confioed upon Ba eicominunicalion for uoa- confbnnity ; that there was a law Uut if any two persons would go to tlie Bishop of Ibi diocese, and offer a cautiotuiry bond that the prisoner should coufurm In
JOHN BUNYAN. Uxiii
From this time his life appears to have past smoothly. His congregation and his other friends bought ground and built a Meeting house for him, and there he continued to preach before large audiences. Every year he used to visit London, where his reputation was so great that if a day's notice were given, *^ the Meeting house in Southwark at which he gene- rally preached, would not hold half the people that attended. Three thousand persons have been gathered together there ; and not less than twelve hundred on week days, and dark winter's mornings at seven o'clock." He used also to preach in the surrounding counties. The Baptist congregation at Hitchin is supposed to have been founded by him. Their meetings were held at first about three miles from that town, in a wood near the village of Preston, Bunyan standing in a pit, or hollow, and the people round about on the sloping sides. ^^ A chimney comer at a house in the same wood is still looked upon with veneration, as having been the place of his refreshment." About five miles from Hitchin was a famous Puritan preaching place called Bendish. It had been a malt house, was very low, and thatched, and ran in two directions, a large square pulpit standing in the angles ; and adjoining the pulpit was a high pew,^ in which ministers sate out of sight of informers, and from which, in case of alarm they could escape into an adjacent lane. The building being much decayed, this Meeting was removed in 1787 to a place called Coleman Green ; and the pulpit, which was there held to be the only remaining one in which Bunyan had preached, was with a commendable feeling carefiilly removed
Ealf a year, the Bisbop might release him upon that bond; that Barlow was applied to, to do this, by Owen whose tutor he had been ; that Barlow refused unless the Lord ChanceUor would issue out an order to him to take the cau- tionary bond and release the prisoner: that this, though very chargeable, was done, and that Bunyan was then set at liberty, " but little thanks to the Bishop." ** From this account,** says Mr. Ivimey, " it should seem the honour given to Dr. Barlow has been ill bestowed." Upon this statement it will be sufficient to ob<- serre that Bunyan was not imprisoned upon a sentence of exoommunicalion ; and- that he would not have been imprisoned at all, if he would have allowed his- friends to enter into a bond for him, far lees objectionable on his part than the firaudulent one upon' which, it is here pretended, he was released at last.
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tliithcr. But another " true pulpit," is stiewn in London, in the Jewin Street Meeting. It is aaid that Owen greatly ad- miied ids preacliing, and that being asked by Cliarles II. " liow a learned man such as he was could sit and listen to an illiterate tinker ;" he replied, " May it please your Majesty, could I possess that tinker's abihties for preaching, I would most gladly relinquish all my learning."
This opinion would be discreditable to Owen's judgement, if he really entertained it, and the anecdote were entitled to belief. For great part of Bunyan's tracts are supposed to contain the substance of his sermons, which it is said he commonly committed to writing, after he had preached them ; and certainly if he had left no other proofs of his genius, these would not have perpetuated his name. But the best sermons are not always those wliich produce most effect in delivery. A reader may be lulled to sleep by the dead letter of a printed discourse, who would have been roused and thrilled if the same discourse had come to him in a stream of living oratory, enforced by the tones, and eye, and coun- tenance, and gestures of the preacher. One who is as much in earnest as he was, even if his matter should be worse, and his manner feebler, will seldom fail to move hearers, when they see that he is moved himself. But Bunyan may be 9Ui>- posed to have been always vehement and vigorous in delivery, as he frequently is in his language. One day when he had preached " with peculiar warmth and enlargement," some of his friends came to shake hands with him after the service, and observed to him what " a sweet sermon" lie had delivered. " Aye !" he replied, "you need not remind me of that; for the Devil told me of it before I was out of the pulpit." This anecdote authenticates itself.
He became a voluminous writer, and pubUshed about three score tracts or books. They have been collected into two foho volumes, but indiscriminately arranged, and without any notice of their respective dates ; and this is a great fault : for by a proper arrangement, or such notices, the progress of his mind might more satisfactorily be traced. Some passages
JOHN BUNYAN. Ixxv
occur in them which may make us shudder; these are very few, and in what may probably be deemed his earUer works, because such passages are found in them. A very few also there are in which the smut of his old occupation has been left upon the paper. The strongest prejudice which he retained, and precisely for this reason that it was the most unreasonable, was his dislike of the Liturgy, — the Book of Common Prayer, being, like ** the common salutation of wo- men," ** what he could not away with." But the general tenour of his writings is mild, and tolerant, and charitable ; and if Calvinism had never worn a blacker appearance than in Bunyan's works, it could never have become a term of re- proach ; nor have driven so many pious minds, in horroi' of it, to an opposite extreme.
Bunyan looked for a Millennium, though he did not partake the madness o^the Fifth-monarchy men, nor dream of living to see it. He agreed with the Particular or stricter Baptists that Church communion was to be held with those only, who are *^ visible Saints by calling ;" that is, with those who make a profession of faith and repentance and holiness, and who are now called Professors in their own circle, but in those days took to themselves complacently the appellation of Saints. He dared not hold communion with others^ he said, because the Scriptures so often command that all the con- gregation should be holy; and because so to do, would be plowing with an ox and an ass together ; and because God has threatened to plague the ** mingled people" with dreadftil punishments. ** It is all one," he says, '' to communicate with the profane, and to sacrifice to the Devil." But he held that difference of opinion concerning baptism should be no bar to communion; and for this he was attacked by Kiffin and JesBey, two of the most eminent among the Baptists. The more par- ticular Particulars had long been displeased with his tolerance upon this point, and had drawn away some of his congrega- tion; and Bunyan complained of this ** Church-rending" spirit. " Yourself," he says to Kiffin, " could you but get the oppor- tunity, under pretence of this innocent ordinance as you term
Ixivi THE LIFE OF
it, of wntcr-baptism, wouJd not stick to make inroads and out- roads too, in all the churches that suit not your fancy in tlie land ! For you have already been bold to affirm that all those that have baptized infanta, ought to be ashamed and repent, before they be sliewed the pattern of the House : and what is this but to threaten that, could you have your will of them, you would quickly take from them their present church pri- vileges ?" He complains of " brethren of the baptized way who would not pray with men as good themselves, because they were not baptized, (that is, re-baptized) — but would either like Quakers stand with their hats on their heads, or else withdraw till they had done."
One of his opponents liad said upon this subject, that " if it be preposterous and wicked for a man and woman to co- habit together, and to enjoy the privileges of a married estate" without the solemnity of public marriage, " so it is no less dis- orderly upon a spiritual account, for any one to claim the privileges of a Church, or to be admitted to the same, till they had been under the solemnity of re-bap tisui." " These words," said Bunyan, " are very black j — I wot that through igno- rance and a preposterous zeal he said it. God give him repentance !" They neither judged nor spoke so charitably of him : they called him a Machiavelian, a man devilish, proud, insolent and presumptuous ; — some compared him to the Devil ; others to u Bedlamite, others to a sot i and they sneered at his low origin and the base occupation from which he had risen : " such insults," said he, " 1 freely bind unto me, as an ornament among the rest of my reproaches, till the Lord shall wipe them off' at his coming." They reproached him for de- clining a public conference with them in London upon the matter in dispute. To this he answered thus; "the reason why I came not amongst you, «-as partly because I consulted muie own weakness, and counted not myself, being a dull- beaded man, able to engage so many of the chief of you us 1 was then informed intended to meet me. I also feared in per- sonal disputes, heats and bitter contentions might arise, a thing my spirit hath not pleasure in. 1 feared also that both
JOHN BUNYAN. butvit
myself and words would be misrepresented ;— for if they that answer a book will alter and screw arguments out of their places, and make my sentences stand in their own words, not mine, when, I say, my words are in a book to be seen ; what would you have done had I in the least, either in matter or manner, though but seemingly, miscarried among you ?"
Throughout this controversy Bunyan appears to great ad- vantage as a meek good man, beyond the general spirit of his age in toleration, and far beyond that of his fellow sectarians. His was indeed so Catholic a spirit, that though circumstances- had made him a sectarian, he liked not to be called by the denomination of his sect. ^' I know none," says he, '^ to whom that title is so proper as to the disciples of John. And since ybtt would know by what name I would be distinguished from others, I tell you, I would be, and hope I am, a Christian ; and chuse if God should count me worthy, to be called a Chris- iiaUf a Believer, or other such name which is approved by the Holy Ghost. And as for those factious titles of Anabaptists, Independents, Presbyterians, or the like, I conclude that they come neither from Jerusalem nor from Antioch, but rather from Hell and Babylon ; for they naturally tend to divisions. You may know them by their fruits."
In another of his treatises he says, ^^jars' and divisions, wran^lings and prejudices eat out the growth, if not the life of religion. These are those waters of Marah that imbitter our spirits,^ and quench the spirit of God. Unity and Peace is said to be like the dew of Hermon,* and as a dew that descended upon Sion, when the Lord promised his blessing. Divisions run reUgion into briars and thorns, contentions and parties. Divisions are to churches, Uke wars in countries ; where war is, the ground lieth waste and untilled ; none takes care of it. It is love that edifieth, but division pulleth down. Divisions are as the north-east wind to the fruits, which eauseth them to dwindle away to nothing: but when the storms are over, every thing begins to grow. When men are divided they seldom speak the truth in love ; and then no
* Psalm cxzziii. 3.
Lutviii THE LIFE OF
marvel, tliey grow not up to Him in all things which is the Head. — It is a sad presage of an approaching famine (as one well observes)— not of bread, nor water, but of hearing the Word of God, when the thin ears of corn devour the plump full ones ; when our controversies about doubtful things, and things of less moment eat up our zeal, for the more indispu- table and practical things in religion : which may give us cause to fear, that this will be the character by which our age will be known to posterity, that it was the age which talked of religion most, and loved it least." It is of the divisions among those who could as tittle conform with one another, as with the Church of England, that he is here speakijig. And when his Mr. Badman says, "that no sin reigneth more in the world than pride among Professors," and asks " who is prouder than your Professors? scarcely the Devil himself:" Bunyan assents to this condemnation in the character of Mr. Wiseman, saying, " Who can contradict him ! the thing is too apparent for any man to deny." In his last sermon he com- plains of the many prat/crless Professors in London, " Coffee- houses," he says, " will not let you pray ; trades will not let you pray ; looking-glasses will not let you pray : but if you was born of God you would." In another place his censure is directed against the praycrfull ones. " The Pharisee, saith the text, stood and prayed with himself It is at this day," says Bunyan, " wonderful common, for men to pray exlem- pore also : to pray by a book, by a premeditated set form, ia now out of fashion : he is counted nobody now, that cannot at any time, at a minutes warning, make a prayer of half an hour long, I am not against extempore prayer, for I believe it to be the best kind of praying ; but yet I am jealous that there arc a great many such prayers made, especially in pulpits and public meetings, without the breathing of the Holy Ghost in them : for if a Pharisee of old could do so, why may not a Pha- risee now do the same ? — Great is the formality of religion this day, and little the power thereof! — How proud, how covetous, how like the world in garb and guise, in words and actions, are most of the great Professors of this our day ! But
JOHN BUNYAN. Ixxix
when they come to divine worship, especially to pray, by their words and carriage there, one would almost judge them to be Angels in Heaven." Thus it appears Bunyan, like Wesley, lived to perceive " that often where there is most profession, there is least piety.'*
This is manifest also in another passage, which is moreover worthy of notice because it is in Bishop Latimer's vein. It is in his " Heavenly Footman, or description of the man that gets to Heaven, together with the way he runs in, the marks he goes by ; also some directions how to run so as to obtain.** No doubt it contains the substance of some of his sermons ; and to sermons in such a strain, however hearers might differ in taste and in opinions, there are none who would not listen* ' — " They that will have Heaven, they must run for it, because the Devil, the Law, Sin, Death and Hell, follow them. There is never a poor Soul that is going to Heaven, but the Devil, the Law, Sin, Death and Hell, make after that SouL ' The Devil, your adversary, as a roaring Lion, goeth about, seeking^ whom he may devour.' And I will assure you, the Devil b nimble ; he can run apace ; he is light of foot ; he hath over- taken many ; he hath turned up their heels, and hath given them an everlasting falL Also the Law ! that can shoot a great way : have a care thou keep out of the reach of those great guns the Ten Commandments ! Hell also hath a wide mouth ; and can stretch itself farther than you are aware of! And as the Angel said to Lot, * take heed, look not behind thee, neither, tarry thou in all the plain, (that is, any where between this and Heaven), lest thou be consumed,' so say I to thee, take heed, tarry not, lest either the Devil, Hell, Death, or the fearftd curses of the Law of God do overtake thee, and throw thee down in the midst of thy sins so as never to rise and recover again. If this were well considered, then thou, as well as I, wouldst say, they that will have Heaven must run for it!"
** But, if thou wouldst so run as to obtain the kingdom of Heaven, then, be sure that thou get into the way that leadeth thither : for it is a vain thing to think that ever thou shalt
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have the prize, though thou runnest never so fast, unless thou ait in the way that leads to it. Set the case, that there should be a man in London tliat was to run to York for a wager ; now though he run never so swiftly, yet if he run full south, be might run himself quickly out of breath, and be never the nearer the prize, but rather the farther off; just so is it here : it is not simply the runner, nor yet the hasty runner, that winneth the crown, unless he be in the way that leadeth thereto, I liave observed, tliat little time that I have been a Professor, that there is a great running to and fro, some this way, and some tliat way, yet it is to be feared most of them are out of the way : and then, though they run as swift as the Eagle can fly, they are benefitted nothing at all ! — Here is one run a Quaking, another a Ranting ; one again runs afler the Baptism, and another after the Irtdepcndency. Here's one for Frec-wiU, and another for Presbytery ; and yet possibly most of these sects run quite the wrong way ; and yet every one is for his life, his soul, . . cither for Heaven or Hell ! — Mistrust thy own strength, and throw it away ! Down on thy knees in prayer to the Lord, for the Spirit of Truth ! Keep company with the soundest Christians that have most experience of Christ : and be sure thou have a care of Quakers, Ranters, Free-willers : also do not have too much company with some Anabaptists, though I go under that name myself."
Little has been recorded of Bunyan during the sixteen years between his enlargement and his death. It appears that besides his yearly visit to London, he made stated cir- cuits into other parts of England ; that he exerted himself to relieve the temporal wants of those who were suffering as nonconformists under oppressive laws ; that he administered diligently to the sick and afflicted, and successfully employed his influence in reconcihng differences among " professors of the Gospel," and thus prevented " many disgraceftd and burthensome litigations." One of his biographers thinks it highly probable that he did not escape trouble in the latter part of Charles the second's reign " as the justices of Bedford
^
JOHN BUNYAN. Ixxxi
were so zealous in the cause of persecution ;" but it is much more probable that in a pUice where so much indulgence had been shown him during the latter years of his imprisonment, he was let alone ; and there can be little doubt but that if he had undergone any farther vexation for the same causes, a full account of it would have been preserved. At Bedford where he was liked as well as known, he was evidently favoured : in other places he would be exposed to the same risk as other nonconforming preachers ; and there is a tradi^ tion among the Baptists at Reading that he sometimes went through that town drest like a carter, and with a long whip in his hand, to avoid detection. Reading was a place where he was well known : the house in which the Baptists met for worship was in a lane there, and from the back door they had a bridge over a branch of the river Kennett, whereby in case of alarm they might escape. In a visit to that place he contracted the disease which brought him to the grave* A firiend of his who resided there had resolved to disinherit his son ; the young man requested Bunyan to interfere in his be- half; he did so with good success, and it was his last labour of love ; for returning to London on horseback through heavy rain, a fever ensued which, after ten days, proved fatal.
He died at the house of his friend Mr. Stradwick a grocer, at the sign of the Star on Snow Hill, and was buried in that firiend's vault in Bunhill Fields burial-ground, which the Dis-^ sentera cegard as their Catnpo Santos — and especially for his sake. It is said that many have made it their desire to be interred as near as possible to the spot where his remains are deposited. His age and the date of his decease are thus re- corded in his epitaph. Mr. John Bunyan, Author of the Pilgrim's Progress, ob. 12 Aug. 1688 set. 60.
The Pilgrim's Progress now is finished. And Death has laid him in bis earthly bed.
It appears that at the time of his death, the Lord Mayor^ ^ Sir John Shorter, was one of his London flock. But
* September 6. 1668. '* Few days before died Bunian bis Lordship's teacher.
K
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though he had obtained favour among the magiBtracy, he was not one of those Nonconformists who were duped by the insidious liberality of the Government at that time, and lent their aid to measures which were intended for the destruction of the Protestant faith. " It is said, that he clearly saw through the designs of the court in favour of Popery," (blind indeed must they have been who did not !) when James granted his indulgence to the Dissenters ; and that " he advised his brethren to avail themselves of the sunshine by diligent endeavours to spread the Gospel, and to prepare for an approacliing storm by fasting and prayer." " He foresaw" says the Baptist Minister who added a supplement to his account of his own life, " all the advantages that could redound to the Dissenters would have been no more than what Polyphemus, the monstrous Giant of Sicily would have allowed Ulysses,— to wit, " that he woidd eat his men first, and do him the favour of being eaten last." — " WTien Regu- lators went into all cities and towns corporate to new model the magistracy, by turning out some and putting in others," Bunyan laboured zealously with lits congregation *' to prevent their being imposed on in that kind. And when a great man in those days, coming to Bedford upon some Euch errand, sent for him, (as was supposed) to give him a place of public trust, he would by no means come at him, but sent his excuse."
His earliest biographer says also, that " though by reason of the many losses he sustained by imprisonment and spoil, his chargeable sickness &c, his earthly treasure swelled not to excess, yet he always bad sufficient to live decently and creditably." But all that Bunyan had to lose by " spoil," was his occupation as a tinker, which fortunately for him and the world was put an end to earher than in the course of his Preacher's progress he could otherwise have cast it off. That progress raised him to a station of re.<; pec lability and comfort ; and he was too wise and too religious a man to desire riches say, UiDugli once a cabler." ElUi'
JOHN BUNYAN. Ixxxiii
either for himself or his children. When a wealthy London citizen offered to take one of his sons as an apprentice with* out a premium, he declined the friendly and advantageous offer, saying " God did not send me to advance my family, but to preach the Gospel." No doubt he saw something in the business itself, or in the way of life to which it led, unfavourable to the moral character.
His widow put forth an advertisement stating her inability to print the writings which he left unpublished. They are probably included in the folio edition of his works which was published in 1692, the year of her decease, by Bunyan's successor at Bedford, Ebenezer Chandler, and John Wilson, a brother minister of the same sect, who went in Bunyan's life time from the Bedford congregation to be the first pastor of a Baptist flock at EKtchin.
Three children survived him; there were none by the second marriage ; and the blind daughter, the only one whom it might have troubled him to leave with a scanty provision, happily died before him. He is said to have kept up " a very strict discipline in his family, in prayer and exhortations." Such a discipline did not in this case produce its usual ill effect; for according to what little is known of his children, they went on in the way they had been trained. His eldest son was forty-five years a member of the Bedford Meeting; he preached there occasionally, and was employed in visiting the disorderly members ; he was therefore in good repute for discretion, as well as for his reUgious character. The names of other descendants are in the books of the same meeting ; in the burial ground belonging to it his great-grand-daughter Han- nah Bunyan was interred in 1770 at the age of 76; and with her all that is related of his posterity ends.
A description of his character and person was drawn by his first biogra|>her. ** He appeared in countenance" says that friend, '* to be of a stern and rough temper ; but in his conversation, mild and affable, not given to loquacity or much discourse ixx company, unless some urgent occasion required it ; observing never to boast of himself, or his parts, but rather
htxjtir THE LIFE OF
seem low in his own eyes, and submit himself to the judgement of others ; abhorring lying and swearing ; being just in all that lay in his power to his word ; not seeming to revenge injuries ; loving to reconcile differences, and make friendship with all. He had a sharp quick eye, accomplished with an excellent discerning of persons, being of good judgement and quick wit. As for his person he was tall of stature ; strong boned, though not corpident ; somewhat of a ruddy face, with spark- ling eyes ; wearing his hair on his upper lip, after the old British fashion : his hair reddish, but in his later days time had sprinkled it with grey ; his nose well set but not dechning or bending, and his mouth moderate large; his forehead something high, and his habit always plain and modest. ^Vnd thus have we impartially described the internal and external parts of a person, who had tried the smiles and frowns of Time, not puffed up in prosperity, nor shaken in adversity, always holding the golden mean."
Mr. Whitbread, father to the distinguished member of that name, was so great an admirer of Bunyan, that he left by will 500£ to the Meeting at Bedford, expressly as a token of respect for his memory; the interest to be distributed an- nually in bread to the poor of that meeting, between Michael- mas and Christmas. When Bunyan's pulpit bible was to be sold among the library of the Rev. Samuel Palmer of Hack- ney, Mr. Whitbread the Member gave a commission to bid as much for it, as the bidder thought his father, had he been living, would have given for a relic whicli he would have valued so highly. It was bought accordingly for twenty guineas.
It remains now to speak of that work which has made the name of Bunyan famous.
It is not known in what year the Pilgrim's Progress was first published, no copy of the first edition having as yet been discovered : the second is in the British Museum ; it is " with additions," and its date is 1G78 ; but as the book is known to have been written during Bunyan's imprisonment, which
JOHN BUNYAN. Ixxx?
terminated in IGTS^ it was probably published before his release^ or at latest immediately after it. The earliest with which Mr. Major has been able to supply me, either by means of his own diligent enquiries, or the kindness of his friends, is that '* eighth e-di-ti-on" so humorously introduced by Gay, and printed,— -not for Ni-cho-las * Bod-ding-ton, but for Na- thanael Ponder, at the Peacock in the Poultrey, near the Church, 1682; for whom also the ninth was published in 1684, and the tenth in 1685. All these no doubt were large impressions.
This noted eighth edition is " with additions ;" but there is no reason to suppose that they were " new ones, never made before,** for the ninth and tienth bear die same promise and contain no alteration whatever. One passage of consi- derable length was added after the second edition, — ^the whole scene between Mr. By-Ends and his three friends, and their subsequent discourse with Christian and Faithful. It appears to have been written with reference to some particular case ; and in Bunyan's circle, the name of the person intended was probably well known. Perhaps it was first inserted in the fourth impression " which had many additions more than any preceding:" this is stated in an advertisement on the back of the frontispiece to the eighth : where it is also said '* the publisher observing that many persons desired to have it il- lustrated with pictures, hath endeavoured to gratify them therein : and besides those that are ordinarily printed to the fifth impression, hath provided thirteen copper cuts curiously engraven for such as desire them.'* This notice is repeated in the next edition, with this alteration, that the seventh instead of the fourth is named as having the additions, and the 8th. as that which had the ordinary prints. I can only say with certainty that no additions have been made subse- quently to the eighth, and no other alterations than such verbal ones as an Editor has sometimes thought pro{>er to
* This immortal name appears to the sixth edition'of the second part, " printed for Robert Ponder, and sold by Nicholas Boddington in Duck-Lane, 1693/*
f
Isnxn THE LIFE OF
make, or as creep into all books which are reprinted without
a careful collation of the text,
The rapidity with which these editions succeeded one
another, and the demand for pictures to illustrate them, are
not the only proofs of the popularity which the Pilgrim's
Progress obtained, before the second part was published.
In the verses prefixed to that part Bunyan complains of
dishonest imitators.
some have of late to counterfeit
My KIgrim, to their own, my title set ; Yea others, hiUf my uame, and title too. Have stitched to their books, to make them do.
Only one of these has fallen in my way,— for it is by acci- dent only that books of this perishable kind, which have no merit of their own to preserve them, are to be met with : and this though entitled " the Second part of the Pilgrim's Pro- gress" • has no other relation to the first than in it's title,
* " from this present world of Wickcdneia and Misery, lo an Etcmilj' of Holi- Desa aad Felicity, exactly described under tbe ^imiliLude of a dream, rclaliug Ibe moaner and occasion of bis letting out from, nnd difficult and dangerous jonmey through the vorld, and safe srriml at lost to Elfrnal Hnppiness.
" Thty inert Slrangtri and Pilgriuu on Earlh, but Ihtg drnrcd a better Cmiary, thai it an atmienly. Hebrews li. 13. 16.
" Let lu lag aixde tvcTy weight, and the Sin that doth id eatilg heiel u, ok/ rwn with palienct Ike rair that u let hefote at. Hebrews xii. 1.
London, printed for Thomai Maltbus, at the Sun, in the Ponltry. 168.1.
Tbe Author who signs bimaclf T. S. dedicates this book " to Him that is higher thaa the Higbcit ; the Almighty and everlasting Jeharab, who is Ibe terror and conTusion of tbe bardcned and impenitent world, and tbe hope and happiness of kU conrerted and returning sinners." At tbe conclusion is an Apology for his Book, wherein he says that tbe hope of delivering plain truth in a familiar maa- ner which should at the same time satisfy tbe judicious and yet be understood by the meanest capacities and the most illiterate persona, was the motive " which put the author of the First Part of (he Pilgrim's Progress upon composing and publishing that necessary and useful tract, which bath deservedly obtained such on universal esteem and comnicndHtian. And this consideratian likewise, to^ titer with the importunity of others, was the motive that prevailed with me to compose and publish tbe following medilationn in Buch n method as might geire as a supplement, or s second part to It : wherein 1 have eodeavonred to supply « fourfold defect, which, 1 ohKrve, the brevity of that discourse aeccsaitated tbe snthor into : First there is nothing said of tbe Stale of Man in his first creation \
JOHN BUNYAN. Ixxxvii
which was probably a trick of the publishers. These inter- lopers may very likely have given Bunyan an additional in- ducement to prepare a second part himself. It appeared in 1684 with this notice on the back of the title page ; " I appoint Mr. Nathaniel Ponder, but no other to print this book, John Bunyan, January 1, 1684." No additions or alterations were made in this part, though the author lived more than four years after its pubUcation.
A collation of the first part with the earliest attainable copies has enabled me in many places to restore good old vernacular English which had been injudiciously altered, or carelessly corrupted. This has also been done in the second part ; but there I had the first edition before me, and this it is evident had not been inspected either in manuscript or while passing through the press, by any person capable of correcting it. It is plain that Bunyan had willingly availed himself of such corrections in the first part ; and therefore it would have been improper to have restored a certain vulgarism
nor secondly of the misery of Man in his lapsed estate, before conversion : thirdly, a too brief passing over the methods of divine goodness in the convincing, con- verting and reconciling of sinners to himself : and fourthly, I have endeavoured to deliver the whole in such serious and spiritual phrases that may prevent that lightness and laughter, which the reading some passages therein occasions in some vain and frothy minds. And now that it may answer my design, and be univer- sally useful, I commend both it and thee to the blessing of Him, whose wisdom and power, grace and gfoodness, it is that is only able to make it so. And withal I heartily wish, that what hath been formally proposed by some well-minded per- sons, might be more generaUy and universally practised, vU. the giving of books of this nature at funerals, instead of rings, gloves, wine, or biscuit ; assuring my- self that reading, meditation, and several holy and heavenly discourses which may probably be raised upon the occasion of such presents as these, would mightily tend to the making people serious ; and furnish not only the person who discourses, but the rest who are present, and who would otherwise be employing their thoughts and tongues too, in such foolish, vain and frothy discourse, as is too too commonly used at such times, with such frames of spirits as may be suitable to the greatness and solemnity of that occasion which then calls them together.— Amongst those few who have practised this, abundance of good hath been observed to have been done by that means ; and who knows, were it more generally used and become a custom amongst us at our burials what good might be effected thereby?"
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I wrote not this of any oslentalion ; Nor 'caust; I seek of men their commendation. I do it to keep them from such surmize. As tempt them will my name lo acaodalize. Witness my name ; if anagrammd to thee The letters make Nu hwy in a B.
John Bunyan.
A passage* has already been quoted from his account of a dream, which evidently contains the germ of the Pilgrim's Progress. The same obvious allegory had been rendered familiar to his mind by the letter of the Italian Martyr Pom- ponius Algerius. " In this world," says that high-minded and triumphant Witness for the Truth, " there is no mansion firm to me ; and therefore I will travel up to the New Jeru- salem, which is in Heaven, and which offereth itself to me, without paying any fine or income. Behold I have entered already on my journey, where my house atandeth for me prepared, and where I shall have riches, kinsfolks, delights, honours never failing."
But original as Bunyan believed his own work to be, and as in the main undoubtedly it is, the same allegory had often been treated before him, so often indeed that to notice all preceding works of this kind would far exceed all reasonable limits here. Some of these may have fallen in Bunyan's way, and modified his own conception when he was not aware of any such influence. Mr. Montgomery in his very able intro- ductory Essay to the Pilgrim's Progress, observes, " that a Poem entitled the Pilgrimage, in Whitney's Emblems, and the emblem which accompanies it, may have suggested to him the first idea of his story ; indeed, he says, if he had had Whitney's picture before him he could not more accurately
• There ia anolUer in liis HenTenly FoolmsD, but 1 know not wbelher this trcBtiac was written before or itfter the Pilgrim's Progress. " Though the W»y to HeBTCD he but one, yet there »re msny crooked luniMi nad by-psths shoot doim upon it, BS I msy say. And notrithBtsnding the Kiagdoiu of Heaven be the biggest city, yd usually thoic by-pathi arc the most beiten : moit travellen go tlioK ways, and thcrerore the way lo Hearen is hard to be fotiad and as hard to be kept in, becauee of these."
JOHN BUNYAN. xci
have copied it in words," than in the passage where Evange- list directs Christian to the Wicket-Gate.
Another book in which a general resemblance to' the Pil- grim*s Progress has been observed is the Voyage of the Wandering Knight, of which a translation from the French of the CarmeUte, Jean de Carthenay, was printed in the reign of Elizabeth, the Carmelite himself having (as Mr. Douce has kindly informed me), imitated a French poem (once very popular) composed A. D. 1310, by Guill. de Guilleville, a monk of Chanliz, and entitled the Pelerin de la Vie Humaine. There is a vague general resemblance in the subject of this work, and some occasional resemblance in the details ; but the coincidences are such as the subject would naturally lead to, and the Pilgrim's Progress might have been exactly what it is, whether Bunyan had ever seen this book or not. But he had^ certainly seen Bernard's " Isle of Man, or the Legal
* Bimyan had evidently the following lively passage in his mind when he wrote the yerses introductory to his Second Part.
" Well, I have clothed this Book as it is. It may be some humour took me, atf once it did old Jacob, who apparelled Joseph differently from all the rest of his brethren in a party-coloured coat. It may also be that I look (as Jacob did on his Joseph) with more delight on this lad, than on twenty other of his brethren bom before him, or on a younger Benjamin brought forth soon after him^— When I thus apparelled him, I intended to send him forth to his brethren, hoping there- by to procure him the more acceptance, where be happily should come : and my expectation hath not failed : deceived altogether I am not, as was Jacob in send- ing his Joseph among hb envious brethren ; for not only hundreds, but some thousands have welcomed him to their houses. They say they like his counte- nance, his habit, and manner of speaking well enough ; though others, too nice, be not so well pleased therewith."
" But who can please all ? or how can any one so write or speak, as to content every man ? If any mistake me, and abuse him in their too carnal apprehension, without the truly intended spiritual use, let them blame themselves, and neither me nor him : for their fault is their own, which I wish them to amend. You that like him, I pray you still accept of him, for whose sake, to further your spiritual meditation, I have sent him out with these Contents, and more marginal notes. His habit is no whit altered, which he is constrained by me to wear, not only on woiidng days, but even upon holydays and Sundays too, if he go abroad. A fitter garment I have not now for him ; and if I should send out the poor lad naked, I know it would not please you. This his coat, though not altered in the fashion, yet it is made somewliat longer. For though from his first birth into the world it be near a year, yet he is grown a little bigger. But I think him to be
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The book in question (to which without reference to this supposed plagiarism, Mr. Douce with his wonted knowledge, had previously directed my attention), I have had an oppor- tunity of perusing, through the kindness of its possesaor Mr. OflFor. A person looking (like Bunyan's accuser) at the prints, and not understanding the language in which the book is written, might liave supposed that iiints had been taken from them for the adventures at the Slough of Despond, and at Vanity Fair ; but that the Pilgrim's Progress was not a trans- lation from the work he must have known, for the Pilgrims in the prints are women; and it required no knowledge of Dutch to perceive that the book is written not as a narrative, but in a series of Dialogues.
Bolswert the engraver is the author of this book, which is entitled the "Pilgrimage of Dovekin and Willekin to their Beloved in Jerusalem. The author was a true lover of his mother tongue, and more than once laments over the fasliion of corrupting it with words borrowed from other languages ; all the examples which he adduces of such adulterations arc French. The book tliough totally neglected now, was once very popular ; my venerable friend Bilderdijk tells me " that it was one of the delights of his childhood." I am obliged to Mr. Major for a Frenchf translation of it, in which some intermediate possessor has drawn his pen through the name of Rousseau, that name appearing, upon comparing it with a fac-simile in Rees's CyclopEcdia, and with an autograph also, to be in the hand-writing of Jean Jacques. The French translator, as might be expected, has carefully got rid of every thing which relates to Flemish manners and feelings, and the raciness of the original is completely lost in his version.
* Dujflieas enilc Willemynkcaa Pclgrimagie tot liaren bcminden liianeii JeniMlern ; haerliedcr teghenspoet, bclet coOe eyadt. BcBcbreveD rude mel ein-ipelpnde beclden wlghegheven door Boctius a Boliwcrt. T* Antwcrpeii, by Hierooimtis Verduuen, A°. 1(127.
la CM lie Jeiuialem: canleitaHl plaiievri iHiiilens nrrivcz pcHdanl Itur fogagc. Par Bant dt BalactTl, Xmvtilt Edilian ctrrig^e el i hrtlUc tcloH le ililc ilu lenu, el (Krifhit dcfiguriM tn laillf iltuet, A Liege, 1734.
JOHN BUNYAN. xcv
The two sisters Dovekin and Willekin are invited in a dream by the Beloved, in the language of the Canticles to arise and come away. Willekin who is for a little more sleep, a little more slumber, is not inclined to accept the invitation, and disparages her lover, saying that he is no better than Joseph the Carpenter and Peter the Fisherman, with whom he used to keep company. Dovekin, however, persuades her to rise, and set off upon their pilgrimage to him ; it is but a day*8 journey: they wash at their outset in a river of clear water which has its source in Rome, and (taking the Nether- lands in its way) flows to Jerusalem ; and by this river they are to keep, or they will lose themselves. They gather flowers also at the beginning of their journey for the purpose of presenting them to the Bridegroom and his mother, whose favour Dovekin says it is of the utmost importance to obtain, and who, she assures her sister, dearly loves the Nether- landers. The wilful sister collects her flowers without any choice or care, loses them, over-eats herself, and is obUged to go to the river to wash herself after eating ; she then finds her flowers again and they proceed till they come to a village, where it happens to be fair time, and Willekin will not be dissuaded by her prudent sister from stopping to look at some Mountebanks. The print annexed is what was sup- posed to represent Vanity Fair, whereas the story relates merely to a Flemish Kermes, and the only adventure which befalls the idle sister there is, that she brings away from it certain living and loathsome parasites of humanity, who pass under a generic appellation in the French version, but in the honest Dutch original are called by their own name.
Going out of her way to admire a peacock Willekin steps in the dirt. Presently she must go see some calves at play, a cow bemires her with a whisk of its tail, and she must repair to the river and cleanse herself there again ; thank God for this river ! says Dovekin. Poor thoughtless incor- rigible Willekin thus goes on from one mishap to another, and taking a bye-path falls into a ditch, which the detector of Bunyan's plagiarism immediately supposed to.be his
xcvi THE LIFE OF
Slough of Despond. She goes on committing follies at every occaeion, and some crimes; and the end (for it must he need- less to pursue the story) is that when they come within sight of Jerusalem, she climbs a steep and dangerous place, not- withstanding her sister's entreaties, in order to obtain a better prospect; the wind blows her down, she falls into a deep pit full of noxious creatures, where no help can be given her, and there she is left with broken bones, to her fate. Dove- kin proceeds, reaches the suburbs of Jerusalem, undergoes a purification in a tub, then makes a triumphant entrance into the City of Jerusalem in a lofty chariot, and is there with all honour and solemnity espoused to the Bridegroom. And this is the book from which Bunyan was said to have stolen the Pilgrim's Progress ! If ever there was a work which carried with it the stamp of originality in all its parts, it is that of John Eunyan's!
Mr. D'lsraeii, from whose works the best-informed reader may learn much, and who in the temper of his writings as wel! as in the research which they display, may be a useful model for succeeding authors, calls Bunyan " the Spenser of the people," He is indeed the Prince of all allegorists in prose. The allegory is never lost sight of in the first part : in the second it is not so uniformly preserved ; parties who begin their pilgrimage in childhood, grow up upon the way, pass through the stage of courtship, marry and are given in mar- riage, have children and dispose of their children. Yet to most readers this second part is as delightful as the first ; and Bunyan had perhaps more pleasure in composing it, not only because he was chewing the cud of his old inventions, but because there can be no doubt tliat he complimented the friends whom he delighted to honour, by giving them a place among the persons of his tale. We may be sure that Mr. Valiant-for-the-Truth, Old Honest of the Town of Stupidity, Mr. Despondency and his daughter Much-afraid, and their Companions, were well known in " Bishop Bunyan's" dio- cese: and if no real characters, were designed by him in those who are less favourably introduced as turning back on
JOHN BUNYAN. xcvU
their journey, striking into bye-paths, or slumbering by the way, likenesses would be discovered where none were in* tended.
None but those who have acquired the ill habit of alwajrs reading critically, can wish the Second Part had not been written, or feel it as a clog upon the first. There is a plea^ sure in travelling with another company over the same ground^ a pleasure of reminiscence, neither inferior in kind nor in degree to that which is derived from a first impression. The author evidently felt this, and we are indebted to it for some beautiful passages of repose, such as that in the valley of HumiUation. The manner in which Christian's battle is referred to, and the traces of it pointed out, reminds me of what is perhaps the best imagined scene inPalmerin of Eng- land, where Palmerin enters a chapel, and is shown the tombs of some of the knights of King Lisuarte's court.
Bunyan concludes with something Uke a promise of a third part. There appeared one afler his death, by some unknown hand, and it has had the fortune to be included in many edi- tions of the original work. It is impossible to state through how many editions that work has past; probably no other book in the English language has obtained so constant and so wide a sale. The prints which have been engraved to illustrate it would form a collection, not so extensive indeed, but almost as curious, as that which Mr. Duppa saw at Val- lumbrosa, where a Monk had got together about eight thou- sand different engravings of the Virgin Mary. The worst specimens both in wood and copper would be found among them ; as now some of the best are to be added. When the reader has seen Giant Slaygood with Mr. Feeblemind in his hand, he will I think agree with me that if a nation of Ana- kim existed at