ARREST AND TRIAL.
Bunyan's preaching enterprise became an extraordinary success. All the
Midland Counties heard of his fame, and demanded to hear him. He had
been Deacon under Gifford at the Bedford Church; but he was in such
request as a preacher, that, in 1657, he was released from his duties
there as unable to attend to them. Sects were springing up all over
England as weeds in a hotbed. He was soon in controversy; Controversy
with Church of England people; Controversy with the Ranters, who
believed Christ to be a myth; Controversy with the Quakers who, at
their outset, disbelieved in his Divinity and in the inspiration of
the Scriptures. Envy at his rapidly acquired reputation brought him
baser enemies. He was called a witch, a Jesuit, a highwayman. It was
reported that he had 'his misses,' that he had two wives, &c. 'My foes
have missed their mark in this,' he said with honest warmth: 'I am not
the man. If all the fornicators and adulterers in England were hanged
by the neck, 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 cope of the whole heavens but by their apparel,
their children, or common fame, except my wife.'
But a more serious trial was now before him. Cromwell passed away. The
Protectorate came to an end. England decided that it had had enough of
Puritans and republicans, and would give the Stuarts and the
Established Church another trial. A necessary consequence was the
revival of the Act of Uniformity. The Independents were not meek like
the Baptists, using no weapons to oppose what they disapproved but
passive resistance. The same motives which had determined the original
constitution of a Church combining the characters of Protestant and
Catholic, instead of leaving religion free, were even more powerful at
the Restoration than they had been at the accession of Elizabeth.
Before toleration is possible, men must have learnt to tolerate
toleration itself; and in times of violent convictions, toleration is
looked on as indifference, and indifference as Atheism in disguise.
Catholics and Protestants, Churchmen and Dissenters, regarded one
another as enemies of God and the State, with whom no peace was
possible. Toleration had been tried by the Valois princes in France.
Church and chapel had been the rendezvous of armed fanatics. The
preachers blew the war-trumpet, and every town and village had been
the scene of furious conflicts, which culminated in the Massacre of
St. Bartholomew. The same result would have followed in England if the
same experiment had been ventured. The different communities were
forbidden to have their separate places of worship, and services were
contrived which moderate men of all sorts could use and interpret
after their own convictions. The instrument required to be delicately
handled. It succeeded tolerably as long as Elizabeth lived. When
Elizabeth died, the balance was no longer fairly kept. The High Church
party obtained the ascendancy and abused their power. Tyranny brought
revolution, and the Catholic element in turn disappeared. The Bishops
were displaced by Presbyterian elders. The Presbyterian elders became
in turn 'hireling wolves,' 'old priest' written in new characters.
Cromwell had left conscience free to Protestants. But even he had
refused equal liberty to Catholics and Episcopalians. He was gone too,
and Church and King were back again. How were they to stand? The stern
resolute men, to whom the Commonwealth had been the establishment of
God's kingdom upon earth, were as little inclined to keep terms with
Antichrist as the Church people had been inclined to keep terms with
Cromwell. To have allowed them to meet openly in their conventicles
would have been to make over the whole of England to them as a
seed-bed in which to plant sedition. It was pardonable, it was even
necessary, for Charles II. and his advisers, to fall back upon
Elizabeth's principles, at least as long as the ashes were still
glowing. Indulgence had to be postponed till cooler times. With the
Fifth Monarchy men abroad, every chapel, except those of the Baptists,
would have been a magazine of explosives.
Under the 35th of Elizabeth, Nonconformists refusing to attend worship
in the parish churches were to be imprisoned till they made their
submission. Three months were allowed them to consider. If at the end
of that time they were still obstinate, they were to be banished the
realm; and if they subsequently returned to England without permission
from the Crown, they were liable to execution as felons. This Act had
fallen with the Long Parliament, but at the Restoration it was held to
have revived and to be still in force. The parish churches were
cleared of their unordained ministers. The Dissenters' chapels were
closed. The people were required by proclamation to be present on
Sundays in their proper place. So the majority of the nation had
decided. If they had wished for religious liberty they would not have
restored the Stuarts, or they would have insisted on conditions, and
would have seen that they were observed.
Venner's plot showed the reality of the danger and justified the
precaution.
The Baptists and Quakers might have been trusted to discourage
violence, but it was impossible to distinguish among the various
sects, whose tenets were unknown and even unsettled. The great body of
Cromwell's spiritual supporters believed that armed resistance to a
government which they disapproved was not only lawful, but was
enjoined.
Thus, no sooner was Charles II. on the throne than the Nonconformists
found themselves again under bondage. Their separate meetings were
prohibited, and they were not only forbidden to worship in their own
fashion, but they had to attend church, under penalties. The Bedford
Baptists refused to obey. Their meeting-house in the town was shut up,
but they continued to assemble in woods and outhouses; Bunyan
preaching to them as before, and going to the place in disguise.
Informers were soon upon his track. The magistrates had received
orders to be vigilant. Bunyan was the most prominent Dissenter in the
neighbourhood. He was too sensible to court martyrdom. He had intended
to leave the town till more quiet times, and had arranged to meet a
few of his people once more to give them a parting address. It was
November 12, 1660. The place agreed on was a house in the village of
Samsell near Harlington. Notice of his intention was privately
conveyed to Mr. Wingate, a magistrate in the adjoining district. The
constables were set to watch the house, and were directed to bring
Bunyan before him. Some member of the congregation heard of it. Bunyan
was warned, and was advised to stay at home that night, or else to
conceal himself. His departure had been already arranged; but when he
learnt that a warrant was actually out against him, he thought that he
was bound to stay and face the danger. He was the first Nonconformist
who had been marked for arrest. If he flinched after he had been
singled out by name, the whole body of his congregation would be
discouraged. Go to church he would not, or promise to go to church;
but he was willing to suffer whatever punishment the law might order.
Thus at the time and place which had been agreed on, he was in the
room, at Samsell, with his Bible in his hand, and was about to begin
his address, when the constables entered and arrested him. He made no
resistance. He desired only to be allowed to say a few words, which
the constables permitted. He then prepared to go with them. He was not
treated with any roughness. It was too late to take him that night
before the magistrate. His friends undertook for his appearance when
he should be required, and he went home with them. The constables came
for him again on the following afternoon.
Mr. Wingate, when the information was first brought to him, supposed
that he had fallen on a nest of Fifth Monarchy men. He enquired, when
Bunyan was brought in, how many arms had been found at the meeting.
When he learnt that there were no arms, and that it had no political
character whatever, he evidently thought it was a matter of no
consequence. He told Bunyan that he had been breaking the law, and
asked him why he could not attend to his business. Bunyan said that
his object in teaching was merely to persuade people to give up their
sins. He could do that and attend to his business also. Wingate
answered that the law must be obeyed. He must commit Bunyan for trial
at the Quarter Sessions; but he would take bail for him, if his
securities would engage that he would not preach again meanwhile.
Bunyan refused to be bailed on any such terms. Preach he would and
must, and the recognizances would be forfeited. After such an answer,
Wingate could only send him to gaol: he could not help himself. The
committal was made out, and Bunyan was being taken away, when two of
his friends met him, who were acquainted with Wingate, and they begged
the constable to wait. They went in to the magistrate. They told him
who and what Bunyan was. The magistrate had not the least desire to be
hard, and it was agreed that if he would himself give some general
promise of a vague kind he might be let go altogether. Bunyan was
called back. Another magistrate who knew him had by this time joined
Wingate. They both said that they were reluctant to send him to
prison. If he would promise them that he would not call the people
together any more, he might go home.
They had purposely chosen a form of words which would mean as little
as possible. But Bunyan would not accept an evasion. He said that he
would not force the people to come together, but if he was in a place
where the people were met, he should certainly speak to them. The
magistrate repeated that the meetings were unlawful. They would be
satisfied if Bunyan would simply promise that he would not call such
meetings. It was as plain as possible that they wished to dismiss the
case, and they were thrusting words into his mouth which he could use
without a mental reservation; but he persisted that there were many
ways in which a meeting might be called; if people came together to
hear him, knowing that he would speak, he might be said to have called
them together.
Remonstrances and entreaties were equally useless, and, with extreme
unwillingness, they committed him to Bedford Gaol to wait for the
sessions.
It is not for us to say that Bunyan was too precise. He was himself
the best judge of what his conscience and his situation required. To
himself, at any rate, his trial was at the moment most severe. He had
been left a widower a year or two before, with four young children,
one of them blind. He had lately married a second time. His wife was
pregnant. The agitation at her husband's arrest brought on premature
labour, and she was lying in his house in great danger. He was an
affectionate man, and the separation at such a time was peculiarly
distressing. After some weeks the quarter sessions came on. Bunyan was
indicted under the usual form, that he 'being a person of such and
such condition had since such a time devilishly and perniciously
abstained from coming to church to hear Divine service, and was a
common upholder of unlawful meetings and conventicles, to the great
disturbance and distraction of the good subjects of this kingdom,
contrary to the laws of our Sovereign Lord the King.'
There seems to have been a wish to avoid giving him a formal trial. He
was not required to plead, and it may have been thought that he had
been punished sufficiently. He was asked why he did not go to church?
He said that the Prayer-book was made by man; he was ordered in the
Bible to pray with the spirit and the understanding, not with the
spirit and the Prayer-book. The magistrates, referring to another Act
of Parliament, cautioned Bunyan against finding fault with the
Prayer-book, or he would bring himself into further trouble. Justice
Keelin who presided said (so Bunyan declares, and it has been the
standing jest of his biographers ever since) that the Prayer-book had
been in use ever since the Apostles' time. Perhaps the words were that
parts of it had been then in use (the Apostles' Creed, for instance),
and thus they would have been strictly true. However this might be,
they told him kindly, as Mr. Wingate had done, that it would be better
for him if he would keep to his proper work. The law had prohibited
conventicles. He might teach, if he pleased, in his own family and
among his friends. He must not call large numbers of people together.
He was as impracticable as before, and the magistrates, being but
unregenerate mortals, may be pardoned if they found him provoking. If,
he said, it was lawful for him to do good to a few, it must be equally
lawful to do good to many. He had a gift, which he was bound to use.
If it was sinful for men to meet together to exhort one another to
follow Christ, he should sin still.
He was compelling the Court to punish him, whether they wished it or
not. He describes the scene as if the choice had rested with the
magistrates to convict him or to let him go. If he was bound to do his
duty, they were equally bound to do theirs. They took his answers as a
plea of guilty to the indictment, and Justice Keelin, who was
chairman, pronounced his sentence in the terms of the Act. He was to
go to prison for three months; if, at the end of three months, he
still refused to conform, he was to be transported; and if he came
back without license he would be hanged. Bunyan merely answered, 'If
I were out of prison to-day, I would preach, the Gospel again
to-morrow.' More might have followed, but the gaoler led him away.
There were three gaols in Bedford, and no evidence has been found to
show in which of the three Bunyan was confined. Two of them, the
county gaol and the town gaol, were large roomy buildings. Tradition
has chosen the third, a small lock-up, fourteen feet square, which
stood over the river between the central arches of the old bridge; and
as it appears from the story that he had at times fifty or sixty
fellow-prisoners, and as he admits himself that he was treated at
first with exceptional kindness, it may be inferred that tradition, in
selecting the prison on the bridge, was merely desiring to exhibit the
sufferings of the Nonconformist martyr in a sensational form, and that
he was never in this prison at all. When it was pulled down in 1811 a
gold ring was found in the rubbish, with the initials 'J. B.' upon it.
This is one of the 'trifles light as air' which carry conviction to
the 'jealous' only, and is too slight a foundation on which to assert
a fact so inherently improbable.
When the three months were over, the course of law would have brought
him again to the bar, when he would have had to choose between
conformity and exile. There was still the same desire to avoid
extremities, and as the day approached, the clerk of the peace was
sent to persuade him into some kind of compliance. Various
insurrections had broken out since his arrest, and must have shown
him, if he could have reflected, that there was real reason for the
temporary enforcement of the Act. He was not asked to give up
preaching. He was asked only to give up public preaching. It was well
known that he had no disposition to rebellion. Even the going to
church was not insisted on. The clerk of the peace told him that he
might 'exhort his neighbours in private discourse,' if only he would
not bring the people together in numbers, which the magistrates would
be bound to notice. In this way he might continue his usefulness, and
would not be interfered with.
Bunyan knew his own freedom from seditious intentions. He would not
see that the magistrates could not suspend the law and make an
exception in his favour. They were going already to the utmost limit
of indulgence. But the more he disapproved of rebellion, the more
punctilious he was in carrying out resistance of another kind which he
held to be legitimate. He was a representative person, and he thought
that in yielding he would hurt the cause of religious liberty. 'The
law,' he said, 'had provided two ways of obeying--one to obey
actively, and if he could not in conscience obey actively, then to
suffer whatever penalty was inflicted on him.'
The clerk of the peace could produce no effect. Bunyan rather looked
on him as a false friend trying to entangle him. The three months
elapsed, and the magistrates had to determine what was to be done. If
Bunyan was brought before them, they must exile him. His case was
passed over and he was left in prison, where his wife and children
were allowed to visit him daily. He did not understand the law or
appreciate their forbearance. He exaggerated his danger. At the worst
he could only have been sent to America, where he might have remained
as long as he pleased. He feared that he might perhaps be hanged.
'I saw what was coming,' he said, 'and had two considerations
especially on my heart, how to be able to endure, should my
imprisonment be long and tedious, and how to be able to encounter
death should that be my portion. I was made to see that if I would
suffer rightly, I must pass sentence of death upon everything that can
properly be called a thing of this life, even to reckon myself, my
wife, my children, my health, my enjoyments all as dead to me, and
myself as dead to them. Yet I was a man compassed with infirmities.
The parting with my wife and poor children hath often been to me in
this place (the prison in which he was writing) as the pulling of my
flesh from my bones; and that not only because I am too, too, fond of
those great mercies, but also because I should have often brought to
my mind the hardships, miseries, and wants 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 I had besides. Poor child, thought I,
what sorrow art thou like to have for thy portion in this world! Thou
must be beaten, suffer hunger, cold, nakedness, and a thousand
calamities, though I cannot now endure the wind should blow on thee.
But yet, thought I, I must venture all with God, though it goeth to
the quick to leave you. I was as a man who was pulling down his house
upon the head of his wife and children. Yet thought I, I must do it--I
must do it. I had this for consideration, that if I should now venture
all for God, I engaged God to take care of my concernments. Also I had
dread of the torments of hell, which I was sure they must partake of
that for fear of the cross do shrink from their profession. I had this
much upon my spirit, that my imprisonment might end in the gallows for
aught I could tell. In the condition I now was in I was not fit to
die, nor indeed did I think I could if I should be called to it. I
feared I might show a weak heart, and give occasion to the enemy. This
lay with great trouble on me, for methought I was ashamed to die with
a pale face and tottering knees for such a cause as this. The things
of God were kept out of my sight. The tempter followed me with, "But
whither must you go when you die? What will become of you? What
evidence have you for heaven and glory, and an inheritance among them
that are sanctified?" Thus was I tossed many weeks; but I felt it was
for the Word and way of God that I was in this condition. God might
give me comfort or not as He pleased. I was bound, but He was
free--yea, it was my duty to stand to His Word, whether He would ever
look upon me or no, 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 does not come
in, thought I, I will leap off the ladder even blindfold into
eternity, sink or swim, come heaven, come hell. Now was my heart full
of comfort.'
The ladder was an imaginary ladder, but the resolution was a genuine
manly one, such as lies at the bottom of all brave and honourable
action. Others who have thought very differently from Bunyan about
such matters have felt the same as he felt. Be true to yourself
whatever comes, even if damnation come. Better hell with an honest
heart, than heaven with cowardice and insincerity. It was the more
creditable to Bunyan, too, because the spectres and hobgoblins had
begun occasionally to revisit him.
'Of all temptations I ever met with in my life,' he says, 'to question
the being of God and the truth of His Gospel is the worst and worst to
be borne. When this temptation comes it takes my girdle from me and
removes the foundation from under me. Though God has visited my soul
with never so blessed a discovery of Himself, yet afterwards I have
been in my spirit so filled with darkness, that I could not so much as
once conceive what that God and that comfort was with which I had been
refreshed.'