the deep waters again. It was in vain that he asked the prayers of God’s
people, and equally in vain that he imparted his grief to those who had
passed through the same conflicts with the devil. One “ancient
Christian,” to whom he stated his fear that he had committed the sin for
which there is no forgiveness, thought so too. “Thus was I always
sinking, whatever I did think or do. So one day I walked to a
neighbouring town, and sat down upon a settle in the street, and fell
into a very deep panic about the most fearful state my sin had brought me
to; and after long musing, I lifted up my head; but methought I saw as if
the sun that shineth in the heavens did grudge to give light; and as if
the very stones in the street, and tiles upon the houses, did bend
themselves against me: methought that they all combined together to
banish me out of the world; I was abhorred of them, and unfit to dwell
among them, or be partaker of their benefits, because I had sinned
against the Saviour. Then breaking out in the bitterness of my soul, I
said to my soul, with a grievous sigh, ‘How can God comfort such a wretch
as I am?’ I had no sooner said it, but this returned upon me, as an echo
doth answer a voice, ‘This sin is not unto death.’ At which I was as if
raised out of the grave, and cried out again, ‘Lord, how couldst thou
find out such a word as this?’ for I was filled with admiration at the
fitness and at the unexpectedness of the sentence. The fitness of the
word; the rightness of the timing of it; the power and sweetness and
light and glory that came with it also, were marvellous to me to find. I
was now for the time out of doubt as to that about which I was so much in
doubt before. I seemed now to stand upon the same ground with other
sinners, and to have as good right to the word and prayer as any of
them.”
In coming to this conclusion, he had made a great step in advance. His
misery had hitherto been occasioned by a device of the devil, which keeps
many anxious souls from comfort. He regarded his own case as a special
exception to which a gospel, otherwise general, did not apply; but this
snare was now broken, and, though with halting pace, he was on the way to
settled rest and joy. Frequently he would feel that his transgressions
had cut him off from Christ, and left him “neither foot-hold nor handhold
among all the props and stays in the precious word of life;” but
presently he would find some gracious assurance—he knew not
how—sustaining him. At one time he would appear to himself like a child
fallen into a mill-pond, “who thought it could make some shift to sprawl
and scramble in the water,” yet, as it could find nothing to which to
cling, must sink at last; but by and by he would perceive that an unseen
power was buoying him up, and encouraging him to cry from the depths. At
another time he would be so discouraged and daunted, that he scarcely
dared to pray, and yet in a sort of desperation beginning, he found it
true that “men ought always to pray and not to faint.” On one occasion,
whilst endeavouring to draw near the throne of grace, the tempter
suggested “that neither the mercy of God, nor yet the blood of Christ, at
all concerned him, nor could they help him by reason of his sin;
therefore it was vain to pray.” Yet he thought with himself, “I will
pray.” “But,” said the tempter, “your sin is unpardonable.” “Well,”
said he, “I will pray.” “It is to no boot,” said the adversary. And
still he answered, “I will pray.” And so he began his prayer, “Lord,
Satan tells me that neither they mercy, nor Christ’s blood, is sufficient
to save my soul. Lord, shall I honour thee most by believing thou wilt
and canst? or him, by believing thou neither wilt nor canst? Lord, I
would fain honour thee by believing thou canst and thou wiliest.” And
whilst he was thus speaking, “as if some one had clapped him on the
back,” that scripture fastened on his mind, “O man great is thy faith.”
Relief came slowly but steadily, and was the more abiding, because he had
learned by experience to distrust any comfort which did not come from the
word of God. Such passages as these, “My grace is sufficient for thee,”
and “Him that cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out,” greatly
lightened his burden; but he derived still stronger encouragement from
considering that the Gospel, with its benignity, is much more expressive
of the mind and disposition of God than the law with its severity.
“Mercy rejoiceth over judgment. How shall not the ministration of the
Spirit be rather glorious? For if the ministration of condemnation be
glory, much more doth the ministration of righteousness exceed in glory.
For even that which was made glorious, had no glory in this respect, by
reason of the glory that excelleth.” Or, as the same truth presented
itself to his mind in an aspect more arresting to a mind like his, “And
Peter said unto Jesus, Master, it is good for us to be here; and let us
make three tabernacles, one for thee, and one for Moses, and one for
Elias. For he wist not what to say, for he was sore afraid. And there
was a cloud overshadowed them, and a voice came out of the cloud, saying,
This is my beloved Son, hear him.” “Then I saw that Moses and Elias must
both vanish, and leave Christ and his saints alone.”
We have now arrived at the happy time when these doubts and distractions
were exchanged for songs of deliverance. We relate it in the words of
Bunyan’s own narrative: “One day as I was passing into the field, and
that too with some dashes on my conscience, fearing lest yet all was not
right, suddenly this sentence fell upon my soul, ‘Thy righteousness is in
heaven;’ and methought withal, I saw with the eyes of my soul, Jesus
Christ at God’s right hand; there, I say, was my righteousness; so that
wherever I was, or whatever I was doing, God could not say of me, ‘He
wants my righteousness,’ for that was just before him. I also saw,
moreover, that it was not my good frame of heart that made my
righteousness better, nor my bad frame that made my righteousness worse;
for my righteousness was Jesus Christ himself, ‘the same yesterday,
to-day, and for ever.’ Now did my chains fall off my legs indeed; I was
loosed from my afflictions and my irons; my temptations also fled away;
so that from that time those dreadful scriptures of God left off to
trouble me. Now went I also home rejoicing for the grace and love of
God; so when I came home I looked to see if I could find that sentence,
‘Thy righteousness is in heaven,’ but could not find such a saying;
wherefore my heart began to sink again, only that was brought to my
remembrance, ‘He is made unto us of God, wisdom, righteousness,
sanctification, and redemption;’ by this word I saw the other sentence
true. For, by this scripture, I saw that the man Christ Jesus, as he is
distinct from us as touching his bodily presence, so he is our
righteousness and sanctification before God. Here, therefore, I lived
for some time very sweetly at peace with God through Christ. Oh!
methought, Christ, Christ! There was nothing but Christ that was before
my eyes. I was not now for looking upon this and the other benefits of
Christ apart, as of his blood, burial, or resurrection, but considering
him as a whole Christ, as he is when all these, and all other his
virtues, relations, offices, and operations met together, and that he sat
on the right hand of God in heaven. ’Twas glorious to me to see his
exaltation, and the worth and prevalency of all his benefits; and that
because now I could look from myself to him, and would reckon that all
those graces of God that now were green on me, were yet but like those
cracked groats and fourpence-halfpennies that rich men carry in their
purses, when their gold is in their trunks at home: Oh! I saw my gold was
in my trunk at home! in Christ my Lord and Saviour. Now Christ was all;
all my _righteousness_, all my _sanctification_, and all my _redemption_.
“Further, the Lord did also lead me into the mystery of union with the
Son of God; that I was joined to him, that I was ‘flesh of his flesh, and
bone of his bone’ (Eph. v. 30); and now was that word of St Paul sweet to
me. By this also was my faith in him as my righteousness the more
confirmed in me; for if he and I were one, then his righteousness was
mine, his merits mine, his victory also mine. Now could I see myself in
heaven and earth at once: in heaven by my Christ, by my head, by my
righteousness and life; though on earth by my body or person. Now I saw
Christ Jesus was looked upon of God, and should also be looked upon by
us, as that common or public person, in whom all the whole body of his
elect are always to be considered and reckoned; that we fulfilled the law
by him, rose from the dead by him, got the victory over sin, death, the
devil, and hell by him; when he died, we died; and so of his
resurrection. ‘Thy dead men shall live; together with my dead body shall
they arise,’ saith he: and again, ‘After two days he will revive us, and
the third day we shall live in his sight:’ which is now fulfilled by the
sitting down of the Son of Man on the right hand of the Majesty in the
heavens, according to that to the Ephesians, ‘He heath raised us up
together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.’
Ah! these blessed considerations and scriptures, with many others of like
nature, were in those days made to spangle in mine eye, so that I have
cause to say, ‘Praise ye the Lord God in his sanctuary; praise him in the
firmament of his power; praise him for his mighty acts: praise him
according to his excellent greatness.’”
Extricated from the Slough of Despond, Bunyan went on his way rejoicing;
and though sometimes interrupted by disquieting thoughts and strong
temptations, his subsequent career was a path of growing comfort and
prevailing peace. At the age of twenty-six he was admitted a member of
that Baptist church of which Mr Gifford was the faithful pastor,—a rare
man, who, in angry times, and in a small communion, preserved his
catholicity. Holding that “union with Christ,” and not agreement
concerning any ordinances or things external, is the foundation of
Christian fellowship, with his dying hand he addressed a letter to his
beloved people, in which the following sentence occurs, the utterance of
a heart enlarged by Christian magnanimity, and bent on those objects
which alone look important when the believer is waiting on the top of
Pisgah:—“Concerning separation from the Church about baptism, laying on
of hands, anointing with oil, psalms, or any other externals, I charge
every one of you respectively, as you will give an account of it to our
Lord Jesus Christ, who will 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.” If our Baptist
brethren are justly proud that the burning and shining light of Bunyan
was set upon their candlestick, they have equal reason to boast of the
torch at which his bland and diffussive light was kindled. John Bunyan
doubtless owed to John Gifford the peculiar type of his Christianity, its
comprehensiveness, and its sect-forgetting zeal for the things of Jesus
Christ.
He had not long been a member of the church when he was called to
exercise its actual ministry. Gifford was gone to his everlasting rest;
and as a substitute for his labours, it was put upon a few of the
brethren to speak the word of exhortation to the rest. Of these Bunyan
was one. At first he did not venture farther than to address his friends
in their more private meetings, or to follow up, with a brief
application, the sermons delivered by others in their village-preaching.
But these exercises having afforded the utmost satisfaction to his
judicious though warm-hearted hearers, he was urged forward to more
public services. These he was too humble to covet, and too earnest to
refuse. Though his education was sufficiently rude, God had given him
from the first a strong athletic mind and a glowing heart,—that downright
logic and teeming fancy, whose bold strokes and burning images heat the
Saxon temper to the welding point, and make the popular orator of our
English multitude. Then his low original and rough wild history, however
much they might have subjected him to scorn had he exchanged the leathern
apron for a silken one, or scrambled from the hedge-side into the
high-places of the church, entailed no suspicion, and awakened much
surprise, when the Bedford townsmen saw their blaspheming neighbour a new
man, and in a way so disinterested preaching the faith which he once
destroyed. The town turned out to hear, and though there was some
mockery, many were deeply moved. His own account of it is:—“At first I
could not believe that God should speak by me to the heart of any man,
still counting myself unworthy; yet those who were thus touched, would
love me, and have a particular respect for me; and though I did put it
from me, that they should be awakened by me, still they would confess it
and affirm it before the saints of God . . . Wherefore, seeing them in
both their words and deeds to be so constant, and also in their hearts so
earnestly pressing after the knowledge of Jesus Christ, rejoicing that
ever God did send me where they were, then I began to conclude 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 such sweet refreshment: ‘The
blessing of them that were ready to perish is come upon me; yea, I caused
the widow’s heart to sing for joy.’ At this, therefore, I rejoiced; yea,
the tears of those whom God had awakened by my preaching would be both
solace and encouragement to me. I thought on those sayings, ‘Who is he
that maketh me glad, but the same that is made sorry by me!’ And again,
‘Though I be not an apostle to others, yet doubtless I am unto you: for
the seal of my apostleship are ye in the Lord.’”
There was a solemnizing and subduing power in Bunyan’s ministry, because
it was heart-felt. So far as the truths he uttered were capable of
becoming subjects of personal consciousness, he had experienced them; and
so far as they were subjects of intellectual conviction, he was not only
fully persuaded of them, but saw them so clear and evident, that his
realizations were continually quickening into sensations. He thus began
with a John-Baptist ministry, to which succeeded a Pentecostal evangel;
and at last it grew into the Pauline amplitude and completeness, “the
whole counsel of God.” “In my preaching of the word, I took special
notice of this one thing, namely, that the Lord did lead me to begin
where the word begins with sinners; that is, to condemn all flesh, and to
open and allege that the curse of God by the law doth belong to and lay
hold on all men as they come into the world, because of sin. Now this
part of my work I fulfilled with great sense; for the terrors of the law,
and guilt for my transgressions, lay heavy on my conscience. I preached
what I felt, what I smartingly did feel; even that under which my poor
soul did groan and tremble to astonishment. Indeed I have been as one
sent to them from the dead; I went myself in chains to preach to them in
chains; and carried that fire in my own conscience that I persuaded them
to be aware of . . . Thus I went on for the space of two years, crying
out against men’s sins, and their fearful state because of them. After
which the Lord came in upon my own soul with some sure peace and comfort
through Christ; for he did give me many sweet discoveries of his blessed
grace through him. Wherefore now I altered in my preaching (for still I
preached what I saw and felt). Now, therefore, I did much labour to hold
forth Jesus Christ in all his offices, relations, and benefits, unto the
world, and did strive also to discover, to condemn, and remove those
false supports and props on which the world doth both lean, and by them
fall and perish. On these things also I staid as long as on the other.
After this, God led me into something of the mystery of union with
Christ; wherefore, that I discovered and shewed to them also. And when I
had travelled through these three chief points of the word of God, I was
caught in my present practice, and cast into prison, where I have lain
alone as long again to confirm the truth by way of suffering, as I was
before in testifying of it, according to the scriptures, in a way of
preaching.”
Bunyan’s preaching was no incoherent rant. Words of truth and soberness
formed the staple of each sermon; and his burning words and startling
images were only the electric scintillations along the chain of his
scriptural eloquence. Though the common people heard him most gladly, he
had occasional hearers of a higher class. Once on a week-day he was
expected to preach in a parish church near Cambridge, and a concourse of
people had already collected in the churchyard. A gay student was riding
past, when he noticed the crowd, and asked what had brought them
together. He was told that the people had come out to hear one Bunyan, a
tinker, preach. He instantly dismounted, and gave a boy twopence to hold
his horse, for he declared he was determined to hear the tinker _prate_.
So he went into the church, and heard the tinker; but so deep was the
impression which that sermon made on the scholar, that he took every
subsequent opportunity to attend Bunyan’s ministry, and himself became a
renowned preacher of the gospel in Cambridgeshire. Still he felt that
his errand was to the multitude, and his great anxiety was to penetrate
the darkest places of the land, and preach to the most abandoned people.
In these labours of unostentatious heroism, he sometimes excited the
jealousy of the regular parish ministers, and even under the tolerant
rule of the Protector, was in some danger of imprisonment. However, it
was not till the Restoration that he was in serious jeopardy; but
thereafter he was among the first victims of the grand combination
betwixt priests and rulers to exterminate the gospel in England.
On the 12th of November 1660, he had promised to meet a little
congregation in a private house at Samsell in Bedfordshire. Before the
hour of meeting he was apprised that a warrant was out to seize him; but
he felt that he owed it to the gospel not to run away at such a time.
Accordingly when the people were assembled with no weapons but their
Bibles, the constable entered and arrested the preacher. He had only
time to speak a few words of counsel and encouragement to his hearers,
“You see we are prevented of our opportunity to speak and hear the word
of God, and are likely to suffer for the same. But be not discouraged.
It is a mercy to suffer for so good a cause. We might have been
apprehended as thieves or murderers, or for other wickedness; but blessed
be God, it is not so. We suffer as Christians for well doing; and better
be the persecuted than the persecutors.” After being taken before a
justice, he was committed to gaol till the ensuing sessions should be
held at Bedford. There an indictment was preferred—“That John Bunyan, of
the town of Bedford, labourer, being a person of such and such
conditions, he hath since such a time devilishly and perniciously
abstained from coming to church to hear divine service; and is a common
upholder of several 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,” &c. Of course he
was convicted, and sentenced to imprisonment, with certification, that if
he did not conform within a given period, he would he banished out of the
kingdom.
After Bunyan ceases to be his own biographer, our materials become
exceeding scanty. This is the less to be lamented when we reflect that
the history of his “hidden life” is already told. The processes have now
been related which formed and developed the inner man; and the few
external events that befel him, and the few important things that he did,
during the remaining eight-and-twenty years of his mortal pilgrimage, may
be recorded in a single page.
His imprisonment was protracted from sessions to sessions, till he had
measured out twelve weary years in Bedford gaol. Perhaps we should not
call them _weary_. They had their alleviations. His wife and children
were allowed to visit him. His blind and most beloved daughter was
permitted to cheer his solitude and her own. He had his Bible, and his
“Book of Martyrs.” He had his imagination, and his pen. Above all, he
had a good conscience. He felt it a blessed exchange to quit the “iron
cage” of despair for a “den” oft visited by a celestial comforter; and
which, however cheerless, did not lack a door to heaven.
Whether it was the man’s own humanity, or whether it was that God who
assuaged Joseph’s captivity, gave Bunyan special favour in the eyes of
the keeper of his prison, the fact is certain, that he met with singular
indulgence at the least likely hands. Not only was he allowed many a
little indulgence in his cell, but he was suffered to go and come with a
freedom which could hardly have been exceeded had the county gaol been
his own hired house. For months together he was a constant attender of
the church-meetings of his brethren in Bedford, and was actually chosen
pastor during the period of his incarceration. On one occasion some of
the bishops who had heard a rumour of the unusual liberty conceded to
him, sent a messenger from London to Bedford to ascertain the truth. The
officer was instructed to call at the prison during the night. It was a
night when Bunyan had received permission to stay at home with his
family; but so uneasy did he feel, that he told his wife he must go back
to his old quarters. So late was it that the gaoler blamed him for
coming at such an untimely hour; but a little afterwards the messenger
arrived. “Are all the prisoners safe?” “Yes.” “Is John Bunyan safe?”
“Yes.” “Let me see him.” Bunyan was called, and the messenger went his
way; and when he was gone the gaoler told him, “Well, you may go out
again just when you think proper; for you know when to return better than
I can tell you.”
But the best alleviations of his captivity were those wonderful works
which he there projected or composed. Some of these were controversial;
but one of them was his own life, under the title, “Grace abounding to
the Chief of Sinners,” and another was the “PILGRIM’S PROGRESS.”
In 1672 he obtained his liberty, and his friends immediately built for
him a large meeting-house, where he continued to preach with little
interruption till his death. Once a year he visited London, and was
there so popular, that twelve hundred people would gather together at
seven in the morning of a winter’s working-day to hear him. Amongst the
admiring listeners, Dr Owen was frequently found; and once when Charles
the Second asked how a learned man like him could sit down to hear a
tinker prate, the great theologian is said to have answered, “May it
please your Majesty, could I possess the tinker’s abilities for
preaching, I would most gladly relinquish all my learning.” But popular
as he was, he was not fond of praise. One day after he had concluded an
impressive discourse, his friends pressed round to thank him for his
“sweet sermon.” “Aye,” he bluntly answered, “you need not remind me of
that; for the devil told me as much before I left the pulpit.”
He had numbered sixty years, and written as many books, when he was
released from his abundant labours. A young gentleman, his neighbour,
had fallen under his father’s displeasure, and was much concerned at his
father’s estrangement as well as at the prospect of being disinherited.
He begged Mr Bunyan’s friendly interposition to propitiate his father,
and prepare the way for his return to parental favour and affection. The
kind-hearted man undertook the task, and having successfully achieved it,
was returning from Reading to London on horseback, when he was thoroughly
drenched with excessive rains. He arrived cold and wet at the house of
Mr Strudwick, a grocer on Snow Hill. Here he was seized with fits of
shivering, which passed off in violent fever, and after ten days’
sickness, on the 31st of August 1688, his pilgrimage ended, and he went
in by the gate into the city.
* * * * *
As the most appropriate introduction to the following selections from the
practical writings of Bunyan, we would chose this rapid history of the
MAN, with a few remarks on the THEOLOGIAN and the AUTHOR.