Transcribed from the 1845 Thomas Nelson “Works of the Puritan Divines
(Bunyan)” edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org
[Picture: Picture of John Bunyan]
LIFE OF BUNYAN
BY REV. JAMES HAMILTON
SCOTCH CHURCH, REGENT SQUARE, LONDON.
AFTER the pleasant sketches of pens so graceful as Southey’s and
Montgomery’s; after the elaborate biography of Mr Philip, whose
researches have left few desiderata for any subsequent devotee; indeed,
after Bunyan’s own graphic and characteristic narrative, the task on
which we are now entering is one which, as we would have courted it the
less, so we feel that we have peculiar facilities for performing it. Our
main object is to give a simple and coherent account of a most unusual
man—and then we should like to turn to some instructive purpose the
peculiarities of his singular history, and no less singular works.
* * * * *
John Bunyan was born at Elstow, near Bedford, in 1628. His father was a
brazier or tinker, and brought up his son as a craftsman of like
occupation. There is no evidence for the gipsy origin of the house of
Bunyan; and though extremely poor, John’s father gave his son such an
education as poor men could then obtain for their children. He was sent
to school and taught to read and write.
There has been some needless controversy regarding Bunyan’s early days.
Some have too readily taken for granted that he was in all respects a
reprobate; and others—the chief of whom is Dr Southey—have laboured to
shew that there was little in the lad which any would censure, save the
righteous overmuch. The truth is, that considering his rank of life, his
conduct was not flagitious; for he never was a drunkard, a libertine, or
a lover of sanguinary sports: and the profanity and sabbath-breaking and
heart-atheism which afterwards preyed on his awakened conscience, are
unhappily too frequent to make their perpetrator conspicuous. The thing
which gave Bunyan any notoriety in the days of his ungodliness, and which
made him afterwards appear to himself such a monster of iniquity, was the
energy which he put into all his doings. He had a zeal for idle play,
and an enthusiasm in mischief, which were the perverse manifestations of
a forceful character, and which may have well entitled him to Southey’s
epithet—“a blackguard.” The reader need not go far to see young Bunyan.
Perhaps there is near your dwelling an Elstow—a quiet hamlet of some
fifty houses sprinkled about in the picturesque confusion, and with the
easy amplitude of space, which gives an old English village its look of
leisure and longevity. And it is now verging to the close of the
summer’s day. The daws are taking short excursions from the steeple, and
tamer fowls have gone home from the darkening and dewy green. But old
Bunyan’s donkey is still browzing there, and yonder is old Bunyan’s
self—the brawny tramper dispread on the settle, retailing to the more
clownish residents tap-room wit and roadside news. However, it is young
Bunyan you wish to see. Yonder he is, the noisiest of the party, playing
pitch-and-toss—that one with the shaggy eyebrows, whose entire soul is
ascending in the twirling penny—grim enough to be the blacksmith’s
apprentice, but his singed garments hanging round him with a lank and
idle freedom which scorns indentures; his energetic movements and
authoritative vociferations at once bespeaking the ragamuffin ringleader.
The penny has come down with the wrong side uppermost, and the loud
execration at once bewrays young Badman. You have only to remember that
it is Sabbath evening, and you witness a scene often enacted on Elstow
green two hundred years ago.
The strong depraving element in Bunyan’s character was _ungodliness_. He
walked according to the course of this world, fulfilling the desires of
the flesh and of the mind; and conscious of his own rebellion, he said
unto God, “Depart from me, for I desire not the knowledge of thy ways.”
The only restraining influence of which he then felt the power, was
terror. His days were often gloomy through forebodings of the wrath to
come; and his nights were scared with visions, which the boisterous
diversions and adventures of his waking-day could not always dispel. He
would dream that the last day had come, and that the quaking earth was
opening its mouth to let him down to hell; or he would find himself in
the grasp of fiends, who were dragging him powerless away. And musing
over these terrors of the night, yet feeling that he could not abandon
his sins, in his despair of heaven his anxious fancy would suggest to him
all sorts of strange desires. He would wish that there had been no hell
at all; or that, if he must needs go thither, he might be a devil,
“supposing they were only tormentors, and I would rather be a tormentor
than tormented myself.”
These were the fears of his childhood. As he grew older, he grew harder.
He experienced some remarkable providences, but they neither startled nor
melted him. He once fell into the sea, and another time out of a boat
into Bedford river, and either time had a narrow escape from drowning.
One day in the field with a companion, an adder glided across their path.
Bunyan’s ready switch stunned it in a moment; but with characteristic
daring, he forced open the creature’s mouth, and plucked out the sting—a
foolhardiness which, as he himself observes, might, but for God’s mercy,
have brought him to his end. In the civil war he was “drawn” as a
soldier to go to the siege of Leicester; but when ready to set out, a
comrade sought leave to take his place. Bunyan consented. His companion
went to Leicester, and, standing sentry, was shot through the head, and
died. These interpositions made no impression on him at the time.
He married very early: “And my mercy was to light upon a wife, whose
father was counted godly. This woman and I, though we came together as
poor as poor might be—not having so much household stuff as a dish or
spoon betwixt us, yet this she had for her portion, ‘The Plain Man’s
Pathway to Heaven,’ and ‘The Practice of Piety,’ which her father had
left her when he died, in these two books I would sometimes read with
her; wherein I also found some things that were somewhat pleasing to me.
She also would be often telling of me what a godly man her father was,
and what a strict and holy life he lived in his days, both in word and
deeds. Wherefore these books, with the relation, though they did not
reach my heart to awaken it about my soul and sinful state, yet they did
beget within me some desires to reform my vicious life, and fall in very
eagerly with the religion of the times—to wit, to go to church twice
a-day, and that, too, with the foremost; and there should very devoutly
both say and sing as others did, yet retaining my wicked life. But,
withal, I was so overrun with the spirit of superstition, that I adored,
and that with great devotion, even all things—the high-place, priest,
clerk, vestment, service, and what else belonging to the Church; counting
all things holy that were therein contained, and especially the priest
and clerk, most happy, and, without doubt, greatly blessed, because they
were the servants, as I then thought, of God, and were principal in the
temple to do his work therein.”
So strong was this superstitious feeling—one shared by the ignorant
peasantry in many portions of England, even at the present day—that “had
he but seen a priest, though never so sordid and debauched in his life,
his spirit would fall under him; and he could have lain down at their
feet and been trampled upon by them—their name, their garb, and work, did
so intoxicate and bewitch him.” It little matters what form superstition
takes—image-worship, priest-worship, or temple-worship; nothing is
transforming except Christ in the heart, a Saviour realized, accepted,
and enthroned. Whilst adoring the altar, and worshipping the surplice,
and deifying the individual who wore it, Bunyan continued to curse and
blaspheme, and spend his Sabbaths in the same riot as before.
One day, however, he heard a sermon on the sin of Sabbath-breaking. It
fell heavy on his conscience; for it seemed all intended for him. It
haunted him throughout the day, and when he went to his usual diversion
in the afternoon, its cadence was still knelling in his troubled ear. He
was busy at a game called “Cat,” and had already struck the ball one
blow, and was about to deal another, when “a voice darted from heaven
into his soul, ‘Wilt thou leave thy sins and go to heaven, or have thy
sins and go to hell?’” His arm was arrested, and looking up to heaven,
it seemed as if the Lord Jesus was looking down upon him in remonstrance
and severe displeasure; and, at the same instant, the conviction flashed
across him, that he had sinned so long that repentance was now too late.
“My state is surely miserable—miserable if I leave my sins, and but
miserable if I follow them. I can but be damned; and if I must be so, I
had as good be damned for many sins as few.” In the desperation of this
awful conclusion he resumed the game; and so persuaded was he that heaven
was for ever forfeited, that for some time after he made it his
deliberate policy to enjoy the pleasures of sin as rapidly and intensely
as possible.
To understand the foregoing incident, and some which may follow, the
reader must remember that Bunyan was made up of vivid fancy and vehement
emotion. He seldom believed; he always felt and saw. And he could do
nothing by halves. He threw a whole heart into his love and his hatred;
and when he rejoiced or trembled, the entire man and every movement was
converted into ecstasy or horror. Many have experienced the dim
counterpart of such processes as we are now describing; but will scarcely
recognise their own equivalent history in the bright realizations and
agonizing vicissitudes of a mind so fervent and ideal.
For a month or more he went on in resolute sinning, only grudging that he
could not get such scope as the madness of despair solicited, when one
day standing at a neighbour’s window, cursing and swearing, and “playing
the madman, after his wonted manner,” the woman of the house protested
that he made her tremble, and that truly he was the ungodliest fellow for
swearing that she ever heard in all her life, and quite enough to ruin
the youth of the whole town. The woman was herself a notoriously
worthless character; and so severe a reproof, from so strange a quarter,
had a singular effect on Bunyan’s mind. He was in a moment silenced. He
blushed before the God of heaven; and as he there stood with hanging
head, he wished with all his heart that he were a little child again,
that his father might teach him to speak without profanity; for he
thought it so inveterate now, that reformation was out of the question.
Nevertheless, so it was, from that instant onward he was cured of his
wicked habit, and people wondered at the change.
“Quickly after this I fell into company with one poor man that made
profession of religion; who, as I then thought, did talk pleasantly of
the Scriptures and of the matter of religious. Wherefore, falling into
some love and liking of what he said, I betook me to my Bible, and began
to take great pleasure in reading, but especially with the historical
part thereof; for as for Paul’s Epistles, and such like Scriptures, I
could not away with them, being as yet ignorant either of the corruption
of my nature, or of the want and worth of Jesus Christ to save me.
Wherefore I fell into some outward reformation, both in my words and
life, and did set the commandments before me for my way to heaven; which
commandments I also did strive to keep, and, as I thought, did keep them
pretty well sometimes, and then I should have comfort; yet now and then
should break one, and so afflict my conscience; but then I should repent,
and say I was sorry for it, and promise God to do better next time, and
there got help again; for then I thought I pleased God as well as any man
in England. Thus I continued about a year; all which time our neighbours
did take me to be a very godly man, a new and religious man, and did
marvel much to see such great and famous alteration in my life and
manners; and indeed so it was, though I knew not Christ, nor grace, nor
faith, nor hope; for, as I have well since seen, had I then died, my
state had been most fearful. But, I say, my neighbours were amazed at
this my great conversion, from prodigious profaneness to something like a
moral life; and so they well might; for this my conversion was as great
as for Tom of Bedlam to become a sober man. Now, therefore, they began
to speak well of me, both before my face and behind my back. Now I was,
as they said, become godly; now I was become a right honest man. But oh!
when I understood these were their words and opinions of me, it pleased
me mighty well. For though, as yet, I was nothing but a poor painted
hypocrite, yet I loved to be talked of as one that was truly godly . . .
And thus I continued for about a twelvemonth or more.”
Though not acting from enlightened _motives_, Bunyan was now under the
guidance of new _influences_. For just as the Spirit of God puts forth a
restraining influence on many during the days of their carnality, which
makes the change at their conversion less conspicuous than if they had
been lifted from the depths of a flagitious reprobacy; so others he long
subjects to a preparatory process, during which some of the old and most
offensive things of their ungodliness pass away; and when the revolution,
effected by the entrance of the evangelic motive, at last takes place, it
is rather to personal consciousness than to outward observation that the
change is perceptible. The real and final transformation is rather
within the man than upon him. So was it with John Bunyan. One by one he
abandoned his besetting sins, and made many concessions to conscience,
while as yet he had not yielded his heart to the Saviour. It was slowly
and regretfully, however, that he severed the “right hand.” One of his
principal amusements was one which he could not comfortably continue. It
was _bell-ringing_; by which he probably means the merry peals with which
they used to desecrate their Sabbath evenings. It was only by degrees
that he was able to abandon this favourite diversion. “What if one of
the bells should fall?” To provide against this contingency, he took his
stand under a beam fastened across the tower. “But what if the falling
bell should rebound from one of the side walls, and hit me after all?”
This thought sent him down stairs, and made him take his station, rope in
hand, at the steeple door. “But what if the steeple itself should come
down?” This thought banished him altogether, and he bade adieu to
bell-ringing. And by a similar series of concessions, eventually, but
with longer delay, he gave up another practice, for which his conscience
checked him—dancing. All these improvements in his conduct were a source
of much complacency to himself, though all this while he wanted the
soul-emancipating and sin-subduing knowledge of Jesus Christ. The Son
had not made him free.
There is such a thing as cant. It is possible for flippant pretenders to
acquire a peculiar phraseology, and use it with a painful dexterity; and
it is also possible for genuine Christians to subside into a state of
mind so listless or secular, that their talk on religious topics will
have the inane and heartless sound of the tinkling cymbal. But as there
is an experimental religion, so is it possible for those who have felt
religion in its vitality to exchange their thoughts regarding it, and to
relate what it—or rather, God in it—has done for them. There are few
things which indicate a healthier state of personal piety than such a
frank and full-hearted Christian intercourse. It was a specimen of such
communings which impressed on the mind of Bunyan the need of something
beyond an outside reformation. He had gone to Bedford in prosecution of
his calling, when, passing along the street, he noticed a few poor women
sitting in a doorway, and talking together. He drew near to listen to
their discourse. It surprised him; for though he had by this time become
a great talker on sacred subjects, their themes were far beyond his
reach. God’s work in their souls, the views they had obtained of their
natural misery and of God’s love in Christ Jesus, what words and promises
had particularly refreshed them and strengthened them against the
temptations of Satan; it was of matters so personal and vital that they
spake to one another. “And methough they spake as if you had made them
speak; they spoke 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!’”
The conversation of these poor people made a deep impression on Bunyan’s
mind. He saw that there was something in real religion into which he had
not yet penetrated. He sought the society of these humble instructors,
and learned from them much that he had not known before. He began to
read the Bible with new avidity; and that portion which had formerly been
most distasteful, the Epistles of Paul, now became the subject of his
special study. A sect of Antinomians, who boasted that they could do
whatsoever they pleased without sinning, now fell in his way. Professors
of religion were rapidly embracing their opinions, and there was
something in their wild fervour and apparent raptures, prepossessing to
the ardent mind of Bunyan. He read their books, and pondered their
principles; but prefaced his examination with the simple prayer,—“O Lord,
I am a fool, and not able to know the truths from error. Lord, leave me
not to my own blindness. If this doctrine be of God, let me not despise
it; if it be of the devil, let me not embrace it. Lord, in this matter I
lay my soul only at thy foot: let me not be deceived, I humbly beseech
thee.” His prayer was heard, and he was saved from this snare of the
devil.
The object to which the eye of an inquiring sinner should be turned, is
CHRIST—the finished work and the sufficient Saviour. But, in point of
fact, the chief stress of the more evangelical instruction has usually
been laid on FAITH—on that act of the mind which unites the soul to the
Saviour, and makes salvation personal; and it is only by studying faiths
that many have come at last to an indirect and circuitous acquaintance
with Christ. By some such misdirection Bunyan was misled. In quest of
faith he went a long and joyless journey, and was wearied with the
greatness of his way. It was secretly urged upon his mind, that if he
had faith he would be able to work miracles; and passages of Scripture
were borne in upon his mind, which bespoke the omnipotence of faith. One
day, on the road from Elstow to Bedford, it was suggested to his mind to
try some miracle, and that miracle should be, “to say to the puddles
which were in the horse-pads, ‘Be dry,’ and to the dry places, ‘Be you
puddles.’” However, before doing this, he thought he should go over the
hedge and pray for faith, and then come and speak the word. “But what
if, after you have prayed and tried to do it, nothing happens?” The
dread of this alternative made him postpone the anxious experiment, and
left him still in doubt.
Then he had a sort of waking vision, suggested by what he had seen in his
pious friends at Bedford. “I saw as if they were on the sunny side of
some high mountain, there refreshing themselves with the pleasant beams
of the sun, while I was shivering and shrinking in the cold, afflicted
with frost, snow, and dark clouds. Methought also, betwixt me and them,
I saw a wall that did compass about this mountain; now through this wall
my soul did greatly desire to pass, concluding that if I could, I would
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 gap or passage
to enter therein. But none could I find for some time. At the last I
saw, as it were, a narrow gap, like a little doorway in the wall, through
which I attempted to pass. Now, the passage being very strait and
narrow, I made many offers to get in, but all in vain, even until I was
wellnigh 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. {9} Then was I
exceeding glad; went and sat down in the midst of them, and so was
comforted with the light and heat of their sun. Now, this mountain and
wall were thus made out to me: The mountain signified the church of the
living God; the sun that shone thereon, the comfortable shining of his
merciful face on them that were therein: the wall, I thought, was the
world, that did make separation between the Christians and the world; and
the gap which was in the wall, 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, but with great difficulty, enter in
thereat, it shewed me that none could enter into life but those that were
in downright earnest, and unless they left that wicked world behind them;
for here was only room for body and soul, but not for body and soul and
sin.” The dream did him good, for, though it brought him no absolute
assurance, it inspirited his efforts after it.
There is scarcely a fear which can assail an inquiring spirit which did
not at some stage of his progress arrest the mind of Bunyan. At one time
he was afflicted by an erroneous view of the doctrine of election.
Looking at them from the outer and under side, those purposes of
everlasting love which secure their safety who have already got within
the precincts of salvation, appeared bristling and forbidding—a frowning
_chevaux de frise_, rather than a fence of protection and preservation.
And when somewhat relieved from this perplexity, he fell into another.
He feared that the day of grace was gone; and so impressed on his mind
was this mournful conviction, that he could do little else than upbraid
his own infatuation for allowing the one propitious season to pass for
ever away. But the words, “Compel them to come in, that my house may be
filled;” and those others, “And yet there is room,” brought him relief.
Then, again, he saw that the call of Christ was needful to make a man a
disciple; and he feared that he should never get that call. “But oh! how
I now loved those words that spake of a Christian’s calling as when the
Lord said to one, Follow me; and to another, Come after me: and oh!
thought I, that he would say so to me too: how gladly would I run after
him! How lovely now was every one in my eyes, that I thought to be
converted, whether man or woman! They shone, they walked like a people
that carried the broad seal of heaven upon them. Oh! I saw the lot was
fallen to them in pleasant places, and they had a goodly heritage. But
that which made me sick, was that of Christ,—‘He went up into a mountain,
and called to him whom he would, and they came unto him.’ This Scripture
made me faint and fear, yet it kindled fire in my soul. That which made
me fear was this: lest Christ should have no liking to me, for he called
whom he would. But oh! the glory that I saw in that condition did still
so engage my heart, that I could seldom read of any that Christ did call
but I presently wished, ‘Would I had been in their clothes! would I had
been born Peter! would I had been born John! or, would I had been bye,
and had heard him when he called them, how would I have cried, O Lord,
call me also. But oh! I feared he would not call me.’”
There was at that time a minister in Bedford whose history was almost as
remarkable as Bunyan’s own. His name was Gifford. He had been a staunch
royalist, and concerned in the rising in Kent. He was arrested, and,
with eleven of his comrades, was doomed to die. The night before the day
fixed for his execution his sister came to visit him. She found the
guard asleep, and, with her assistance, the prisoner effected his escape.
For three days he was hid in a field, in the bottom of a deep ditch; but
at last he contrived to get away to a place of safety in the
neighbourhood of Bedford. Being there a perfect stranger, he ventured on
the practice of physic; but he was still abandoned to reckless habits and
outrageous vice. One evening he lost a large sum of money at the
gaming-table, and in the fierceness of his chagrin his mind was filled
with the most desperate thoughts of the providence of God. In his
vexation he snatched up a book. It was a volume of Bolton, a solemn and
forceful writer then well known. A sentence in this book so fixed on his
conscience that for many weeks he could get no rest in his spirit. When
at last he found forgiveness through the blood of Christ, his joy was
extreme, and, except for two days before his death, he never lost the
comfortable persuasion of God’s love. For some time the few pious
individuals in that neighbourhood would not believe that such a reprobate
was really converted; but, nothing daunted by their distrust, like his
prototype of Tarsus, he began to preach the Word with boldness, and,
endowed with a vigorous mind and a fervent spirit, remarkable success
attended his ministry. A little church was formed, and he was invited to
become its pastor; and there he continued till he died. {11} It was to
this Mr Gifford that Bunyan was at this time introduced; and though the
conversations of this “Evangelist” brought him no immediate comfort, it
was well for him to enjoy the friendship and sympathy of one whose own
views were so clear and happy.
It is instructive to find, that, amid all the depression of these anxious
days, it was not any one sin, nor any particular class of sins, which
made him so fearful and unhappy. He felt that he was a sinner, and as a
sinner he wanted a perfect righteousness to present him faultless before
God. This righteousness, he also knew, was nowhere to be found except in
the person of Jesus Christ. “My original and inward pollution,—that was
my plague and affliction. _That_ I saw at a dreadful rate, always
putting forth itself within me,—that I had the guilt of to amazement; by
reason of that I was more loathsome in mine own eyes than a toad; and I
thought I was so in God’s eyes too. Sin and corruption, I said, would as
naturally bubble out of my heart as water would out of a fountain. I
thought now that every one had a better heart than I had. I could have
changed hearts with any body. I thought none but the devil himself could
equalize me for inward wickedness and pollution of mind. I fell,
therefore, at the sight of my own vileness, deeply into despair; for I
concluded that this condition that I was in could not stand with a state
of grace. Sure, thought I, I am forsaken of God; sure I am given up to
the devil and a reprobate mind. And thus I continued a long while, even
for some years together.”
During these painful apprehensions regarding his own state, it is no
marvel that he looked on secular things with an apathetic eye. “While
thus afflicted with the fears of my own damnation, there were two things
would make me wonder: the one was, when I saw old people hunting after
the things of this life, as if they should live here always; the other
was, when I found professors much distressed and cast down when they met
with outward losses, as of husband, wife, child, &c. Lord, thought I,
what a-do is here about such little things as these! What seeking after
carnal things by some, and what grief in others for the loss of them! If
they so much labour after, and shied so many tears for the things of this
present life, how am I to be bemoaned, pitied, and prayed for! My soul
is dying, my soul is damning. Were my soul but in a good condition, and
were I but sure of it, ah! how rich would I esteem myself, though blessed
but with bread and water! I should count those but small afflictions,
and bear them as little burdens. A wounded spirit who can bear?”
This long interval of gloom was at last relieved by a brief sunburst of
joy. He heard a sermon on the text, “Behold, thou art fair, my love;” in
which the preacher said, that a ransomed soul is precious to the Saviour,
even when it appears very worthless to itself,—that Christ loves it when
tempted, assaulted, afflicted, and mourning under the hiding of God’s
countenance. Bunyan went home musing on the words, till the truth of
what the preacher said began to force itself upon his mind; and half
incredulous at first, a hesitating hope dawned in upon his spirit. “Then
I began to give place to the word, which, with power, did over and over
make this joyful sound within my soul—“Thou art my love, thou art my
love; and nothing shall separate thee from my love.” And with that my
heart was filled full of comfort and hope; and now I could believe that
my sins should be forgiven me: yea, I was now so 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 sat upon the ploughed lands
before me, had they been capable to have understood me. Wherefore, I
said in my soul, with much gladness, Well, I would I had pen and ink
here. I would write this down before I go any farther; for surely I will
not forget this forty years hence.”
However, as he himself remarks, in less than forty days he had forgotten
it all. A flood of new and fierce temptations broke over him, and had it
not been for a strong sustaining arm which unseen upheld him, his soul
must have sunk in the deep and angry waters. At one time he was almost
overwhelmed in a hurricane of blasphemous suggestions, and at another
time his faith had wellnigh made shipwreck on the shoals of infidelity or
deliberate atheism. But the very reluctance and dismay of his spirit
showed that a new nature was in him. “I often, when these temptations
have been with force upon me, did compare myself to the case of such a
child whom some gipsy hath by force took up in her arms, and is carrying
from friend and country; kick sometimes I did, and also shriek and cry;
but yet I was bound in the wings of the temptation, and the wind would
carry me away.” It was all that he could do to refrain from articulating
such words as he imagined would amount to the sin against the Holy Ghost;
and for a year together he was haunted with such diabolical suggestions
that he was weary of his life, and fain would have changed condition with
a horse or a dog. During this dreary term it is no wonder that his heart
felt hard. “Though he should have given a thousand pounds for a tear, he
could not shed one; and often he had not even the desire to shed one.”
Every ordinance was an affliction. He could not listen to a sermon, or
take up a religious book, but a crowd of wild and horrid fancies rushed
in betwixt the subject and his bewildered mind, he could not assume the
attitude of prayer but he felt impelled to break off, almost as if some
one had been pulling him away; or, to mar his devotion, some ridiculous
object was sure to be presented to his fancy. It is not surprising that
he should have concluded that he was possessed by the devil; and it is
scarcely possible to peruse his own and similar recitals without the
forcible conviction that they are more than the mere workings of the
mind, either in its sane or its disordered state.
Only relieved by some glimpses of comfort, “which, like Peter’s sheet,
were of a sudden caught up from him into heaven again,” this horrible
darkness lasted no less than a year. The light which first stole in upon
it, and in which it finally melted away, was a clear discovery of the
person of Christ, more especially a distinct perception of the
dispositions which he manifested while here on earth. And one thing
greatly helped him. He alighted on a congenial mind, and an experience
almost identical with his own. From the emancipation which this new
acquaintance gave to his spirit, as well as the tone which he imparted to
Bunyan’s theology, we had best relate the incident in his own words.
“Before I had got thus far out of my temptations, I did greatly long to
see some ancient godly man’s experience, who had writ some hundreds of
years before I was born; for those who had writ in our days, I thought
(but I desire them now to pardon me) that they had writ only that which
others felt; or else had, through the strength of their wits and parts,
studied to answer such objections as they perceived others perplexed
with, without going down themselves into the deep. Well, after many such
longings in my mind, the God in whose hands are all our days and ways,
did cast into my hands one day a book of Martin Luther’s: it was his
Comment on the Galatians; it also was so old that it was ready to fall
piece from piece if I did but turn it over. Now I was pleased much that
such an old book had fallen into my hands; the which, when I had but a
little way perused, I found my condition in his experience so largely and
profoundly handled, as if his book had been written out of my heart.
This made me marvel: for thus, thought I, this man could not know
anything of the state of Christians now, but must needs write and speak
the experience of former days. Besides, he doth most gravely also, in
that book, debate of the sin of these temptations, namely, blasphemy,
desperation, and the like; shewing that the law of Moses, as well as the
devil, death, and hell, hath a very great hand therein: flee which, at
first, was very strange to me; but considering and watching, I found it
so indeed. But of particulars here I intend nothing; only this,
methinks, I must let fall before all men, I do prefer this book of Martin
Luther upon the Galatians—excepting the Holy Bible—before all the books
that ever I have seen, as most fit for a wounded conscience.”
There was one thing of which Bunyan was very conscious—that his
extrication from the fearful pit was the work of an almighty hand. The
transition was very blissful; but just because his present views were so
bright and assuring, he knew that flesh and blood had not revealed them.
“Now I had an evidence, as I thought, of my salvation from heaven, with
many golden seals thereon, all hanging in my sight. Now could I remember
this manifestation and the other discovery of grace with comfort, and
should often long and desire that the last day were come, that I might be
for ever inflamed with the sight and joy and communion with him, whose
head was crowned with thorns, whose face was spit on and body broken, and
soul made an offering for my sins: for, whereas before I lay continually
trembling at the mouth of hell, now methought I was got so far therefrom,
that I could not, when I looked back, scarce discern it. And oh! thought
I, that I were fourscore years old now, that I might die quickly, that my
soul might be gone to rest.” “And now I found, as I thought, that I
loved Christ dearly. Oh! methought that my soul cleaved unto him, my
affections cleaved unto him. I felt love to him as hot as fire; and new,
as Job said, I thought I should die in my nest.”
Another period of fearful agony, however, awaited him, and, like the
last, it continued for a year. In perusing his own recital of these
terrible conflicts, the first relief to our tortured sympathy is in the
recollection that it is all over now, and that the sufferer, escaped from
his great tribulation, is long ago before the throne. But in the calmer,
because remoter, contemplation of this fiery trial, it is easy to see
“the end of the Lord.” When He permitted Satan to tempt his servant Job,
it was not for Job’s sake merely, nor for the sake of the blessed
contrast which surprised his latter days, that he allowed such
thick-coming woes to gather round the patriarch; but it was to provide in
his parallel experience a storehouse of encouragement and hope for the
future children of sorrow. And when the Lord permitted the adversary so
violently to assail our worthy, and when he caused so many of his own
waves and billows to pass over him, it was not merely for the sake of
Bunyan; it was for the sake of Bunyan’s readers down to the end of time.
By selecting this strong spirit as the subject of these trials, the Lord
provided, in his intense feelings and vivid realizations, a normal type—a
glaring instance of those experiences which, in their fainter
modifications, are common to most Christians; and, through his graphic
pen, secured a guidebook for Zion’s pilgrims in ages yet to come. In the
temptations we are now called to record, there is something so peculiar,
that we do not know if Christian biography supplies any exact
counterpart; but the time and manner of its occurrence have many and
painful parallels. It was after he had entered into “rest”—when he had
received joyful assurance of his admission into God’s family, and was
desiring to depart and be with Christ—it was then that this assault was
made on his constancy, and it was a fiercer assault than any. If we do
not greatly err, it is not uncommon for believers to be visited after
conversion with temptations from which they were exempt in the days of
their ignorance; as well as temptations which, but for their conversion,
could not have existed.
The temptation to which we have alluded, took this strange and dreadful
form—to sell and part with his Saviour, to exchange him for the things of
this life—for anything. This horrid thought he could not shake out of
his mind, day nor night, for many months together. It intermixed itself
with every occupation, however sacred, or however trivial. “He could not
eat his food, stoop for a pin, chop a stick, nor cast his eye to look on
this or that, but still the temptation would come, ‘Sell Christ for this,
sell Christ for that, sell him, sell him.’ Sometimes it would run in my
thoughts not so little as a hundred times together, Sell him, sell him,
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 was 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 as tortured on a rack
for whole days together.”—“But, to be brief, one morning as I did lie in
my bed, I was, as at other times, most fiercely assaulted with this
temptation to sell and part with Christ—the wicked suggestion still
running in my mind, Sell him, sell him, sell him, sell him, as fast as a
man could speak, against which I also, as at other times, answered, No,
no; not for thousands, thousands, thousands, at least twenty times
together. But at last, after much striving, even until I was almost out
of breath, I felt this thought pass through my heart, Let him go, if he
will; and I thought also that I felt my heart freely consent thereto.
Oh, 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 despair. 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 life, and as now past all recovery, and bound
over to eternal punishment. And withal, that scripture did seize upon my
soul, ‘O profane person, as Esau, who, for one morsel of meat, sold his
birth-right; for ye know how that afterwards, when he would have
inherited the blessing, he was rejected; for he found no place of
repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears.’ These words were
to my soul like fetters of brass, in the continual sound of which I went
for several months together.”
The anxious casuistry in which he sought relief, and the alternation of
wistful hope and blank despair, in which for many a dismal day he was
tossed to and fro, none but himself can properly describe. They are
deeply affecting, and to some may prove instructive.
“Then began I, with sad and careful heart, to consider of the nature and
largeness of my sin, and to search into the word of God, if in any place
I could espy a word of promise, or any encouraging sentence by which I
might take relief. Wherefore I began to consider that of Mark iii., ‘All
manner of sins and blasphemies shall be forgiven unto the sons of men,
wherewith soever they shall blaspheme:’ which place, methought, at a
blush, did contain a large and glorious promise for the pardon of high
offences. But considering the place more fully, I thought it was rather
to be understood as relating more chiefly to those who had, while in a
natural state, committed such things as there are mentioned; but not to
me, who had not only received light and mercy, but that had, both after
and also contrary to that, so slighted Christ as I had done. I feared,
therefore, that this wicked sin of mine might be that sin unpardonable,
of which he there thus speaketh, ‘But he that blasphemeth against the
Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal
damnation.’
“And now was I both a burden and a terror to myself; nor did I ever so
know as now what it was to be weary of my life and yet afraid to die. O
how gladly would I have been anybody but myself! anything but a man! and
in any condition but my own! for there was nothing did pass more
frequently over my mind, than that it was impossible for me to be
forgiven my transgression, and to be saved from wrath to come.”
He set himself to compare his sin with that of David and Peter, but saw
that there were specialties in his guilt which made it far greater. The
only case which he could compare to his own was that of Judas.
“About this time I did light on the dreadful story of that miserable
mortal, Francis Spira. Every sentence in that book, every groan of that
man, with all the rest of his actions in his dolors, as his tears, his
prayers, his gnashing of teeth, his wringing of hands, his twisting, and
languishing, and pining away, under the mighty hand of God that was upon
him, was as knives and daggers to my soul; especially that sentence of
his was frightful to me, ‘Man knows the beginning of sin, but who bounds
the issues thereof!’ Then would the former sentence, as the conclusion
of all, fall like a hot thunderbolt again upon my conscience, ‘For you
know how, that afterwards, when he would have inherited the blessing, he
was rejected; for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it
carefully with tears.’ Then should I be struck into a very great
trembling, insomuch that at sometimes I could, for whole days together,
feel my very body, as well as my mind, to shake and totter under the
sense of this dreadful judgment of God.
“Now I should find my mind to flee from God as from the face of a
dreadful judge; yet this was my torment, I could not escape his hand.
‘It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the hiving God.’ But
blessed be his grace, that scripture in these flying fits would call as
running after me,—‘I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, thy
transgressions, and as a cloud thy sins; return unto me, for I have
redeemed thee.’ This, I say, would come in upon my mind when I was
fleeing from the face of God; for I did flee from his face, that is, my
mind and spirit fled before him: by reason of his highness I could not
endure. Then would that text cry, Return unto me; it would cry aloud,
with a very great voice, Return unto me, for I have redeemed thee.
Indeed this would make me make a little stop, and, as it were, look over
my shoulder behind me, to see if I could discern that the God of grace
did follow me with a pardon in his hand.
“Once 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
shew it me; and being now ready to sink with fear, suddenly 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 refuse 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
that designedly I had not; so my heart answered groaningly, No. Then
fell with power that word of God upon me, See that ye refuse 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 rise, like masterless hell-hounds, to roar and
bellow, and make a 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
feared, quite forsaken and cast off my soul: Yea, this was a kind of
check for my proneness to desperation; a kind of threatening of me if I
did not, notwithstanding my sins and the heinousness of them, venture my
salvation upon the Son of God. But as to my determining about this
strange dispensation, what it was, I know not. I have not yet in twenty
years’ time been able to make a judgment of it. I thought then what here
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 judgment. 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. I
leave it to be thought on by men of sound judgment. 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 then I did experience it. This lasted in the savour
thereof about three or four days, and then I began to mistrust and
despair again.”
No solid peace can enter the soul except that which is brought by the
Comforter. It is not the word read and heard, but the word revealed by
the Spirit, which is saving and assuring. There is undoubtedly a divine
operation on the mind wherever any special impression is produced by the
truths of God; and whether that impression should be made with audible
and visible manifestations accompanying it—as on the day of Pentecost—or
should be so vivid as to convert a mental perception into a bodily
sensation, as we are disposed to think was the case with some of the
remarkable sights and heavenly voices which good men have recorded, is
really of little moment. In Bunyan’s case, so warm was his imagination,
that every clear perception was sure to be instantaneously sounding in
his ear, or standing out a bright vision before his admiring eyes. This
feature of his mental conformation has been noticed already; but this may
be the proper place to allude to it again.