his pages without noticing the abundance of his Scriptural quotations;
and these quotations no one can examine without perceiving how minutely
he had studied, and how deeply he had pondered, the word of God. But it
is possible to be very _textual_, and yet by no means very scriptural. A
man may heave an exact acquaintance with the literal Bible, and yet
entirely miss the great Bible message. He may possess a dexterous
command of detached passages and insulated sentences, and yet be entirely
ignorant of that peculiar scheme which forms the great gospel revelation.
But this was Bunyan’s peculiar excellence. He was even better acquainted
with the Gospel as the scheme of God, than he was familiar with the
Bible-text; and the consequence is, that though he is sometimes
irrelevant in his references, and fanciful in interpreting particular
passages, his doctrine is almost always according to the analogy of
faith. The doctrine of a free and instant justification by the imputed
righteousness of Christ, none even of the Puritans could state with more
Luther-like boldness, nor defend with an affection more worthy of Paul.
In his last and best days, Coleridge wrote, “I know of no book, the Bible
excepted, as above all comparison, which I, according to my judgment and
experience, could so safely recommend as teaching and enforcing the whole
saving truth, according to the mind that was in Christ Jesus, as the
Pilgrim’s Progress. It is in my conviction the best _Summa Theologiæ
Evangelicæ_ ever produced by a writer not miraculously inspired.” {30a}
Without questioning this verdict, we would include in the encomium some
of his other writings, which possibly Coleridge never saw. Such as the
Tracts contained in this volume. {30b} They exhibit Gospel-truths in so
clear a light, and state them in such a frank and happy tone, that he who
runs may read, and he who reads in earnest will rejoice. The Pilgrim is
a peerless guide to those who have already passed in at the wicket-gate;
but those who are still seeking peace to their troubled souls, will find
the best directory in “The Jerusalem Sinner Saved.”
II. Invaluable as a theologian, Bunyan stands alone as a contributor to
theological literature. In recent times no man has done so much to draw
the world’s delighted attention to the subjects of supreme solicitude.
No production of a mortal pen has found so many readers as one work of
his; and none has awakened so frequently the sighing behest, “Let me die
the death of the righteous.”
None has painted the beauty of holiness in taints more lovely, nor spoken
in tones more thrilling to the heart of universal humanity. At first the
favourite of the vulgar, he is now the wonder of the learned; and from
the obscurity, not inglorious, of smoky cupboards and cottage chimneys,
he has been escorted up to the highest places of classical renown, and
duly canonized by the pontiffs of taste and literature. The man, whom
Cowper praised anonymously,
“Lest so despised a name should move a sneer,”
has at last extorted emulous plaudits from a larger host of writers than
ever conspired to praise a man of genius, who was also a man of God.
Johnson and Franklin, Scott, Coleridge, and Southey, Byron and
Montgomery, Macintosh and Macaulay, have exerted their philosophical
acumen and poetic feeling to analyze his various spell, and account for
his unequalled fame; and though the round-cornered copies, with their
diverting woodcuts, have not disappeared from the poor man’s ingle,
illustrated editions blaze from the shelves of every sumptuous library,
new pictures, from its exhaustless themes, light up the walls of each
annual exhibition; and amidst the graceful litter of the drawing-room
table, you are sure to take up designs from the Pilgrim’s Progress. So
universal is the ascendancy of the tinker-teacher, so world-wide the
diocese of him whom Whitefield created Bishop Bunyan, that probably half
the ideas which the outside-world entertains regarding experimental
piety, they have, in some form or other, derived from him. One of the
most popular preachers in his day, in his little treatises, as well as in
his longer allegories, he preaches to countless thousands still. The
cause of this unexampled popularity is a question of great practical
moment.
And, first of all, Bunyan speaks to the whole of man,—to his imagination,
his intellect, his heart. He had in himself all these ingredients of
full-formed humanity, and in his books he lets all of them out. French
writers and preachers are apt to deal too exclusively in the one
article—fancy; and though you are amused for the moment with the
rocket-shower of brilliant and many-tinted ideas which fall sparkling
around you, when the exhibition is ended, you are disappointed to find
that the whole was momentary, and that from all the ruby and emerald rain
scarcely one gem of solid thought remains. {32a} Scottish writers and
preachers are apt to indulge the argumentative cacoëthes of their
country, and cramming into a tract or sermon as much hard-thinking as the
Bramah-pressure of hydrostatic intellects can condense into the iron
paragraphs, they leave no room for such delicate materials as fancy or
feeling, illustration, imagery, or affectionate appeal; {32b} whilst
Irish authors and pulpit-orators are so surcharged with their own
exuberant enthusiasm, that their main hope of making you think as they
think, is to make you feel as they feel. The heart is their Aristotle;
and if they cannot win you by a smile or melt you by a tear, they would
think it labour lost to try a syllogism. Bunyan was neither French, nor
Scotch, nor Irish. He embodied in his person, though greatly magnified,
the average mind of England—playful, affectionate, downright. His
intellectual power comes chiefly out in that homely self-commending
sense—the brief business-like reasoning, which might be termed Saxon
logic, and of which Swift in one century, and Cobbett in another, are
obvious instances. His premises are not always true, nor his inferences
always legitimate; but there is such evident absence of sophistry, and
even of that refining and hair-splitting which usually beget the
suspicion of sophistry—his statements are so sincere, and his conclusions
so direct, the language is so perspicuous, and the appeal is made so
honestly to each reader’s understanding, that his popularity as a
reasoner is inevitable. We need not say that the author of the Pilgrim
possessed imagination; but it is important to note the service it
rendered to his preaching, and the charm which it still imparts to his
miscellaneous works. The pictorial power he possessed in a rare degree.
His mental eye perceived the truth most vividly. Some minds are moving
in a constant mystery. They see men like trees walking. The different
doctrines of the Bible all wear dim outlines to them, jostling and
jumbling; and after a perplexing morrice of bewildering hints and half
discoveries, they vanish into the misty back-ground of nonentity. To
Bunyan’s bright and broad-waking eye all things were clear. Thee men
walked and the trees stood still. Everything was seen in sharp relief
and definite outline—a _reality_. And besides the pictorial, he
possessed in highest perfection the illustrative faculty. Not only did
his own mind perceive the truth most vividly, but he saw the very way to
give others a clear perception of it also. This is the great secret of
successful teaching. Like a man who has chambered his difficult way to
the top of a rocky eminence, but who, once he has reached the summit,
perceives an easier path, and directs his companions along its gentler
slopes, and gives them a helping-hand to lift them over the final
obstacles; it was by giant struggles over the debris of crumbling hopes,
and through jungles of despair, and up the cliffs of apparent
impossibility, that Bunyan forced his way to the pinnacle of his eventual
joy; but no sooner was he standing there, than his eagle-eye detected the
easier path, and he made it the business of his benevolent ministry to
guide others into it. Though not the truth, an illustration is a
stepping-stone towards it; an indentation in the rock which makes it
easier to climb. No man had a happier knack in hewing out these notches
in the cliff, and no one knew better where to place them, than this
pilgrim’s pioneer. Besides, he rightly judged that the value of these
suggestive similes—these illustrative stepping-stones—depends very much
on their breadth and frequency. But Bunyan appeals not only to the
intellect and imagination, but to the hearts of men. There was no
bitterness in Bunyan. He was a man of kindness and compassion. How
sorry he is for Mr Badman! and how he makes you sympathize with Christian
and Mr Ready-to-halt and Mr Feeble-mind, and all the other interesting
companions of that eventful journey! And in his sermons how piteously he
pleads with sinners for their own souls! and how impressive is the
undisguised vehemency of his yearning affections! In the same sentence
Bunyan has a word for the man of sense, and another for the man of fancy,
and a third for the man of feeling; and by thus blending the
intellectual, the imaginative, and the affectionate, he speaks home to
the whole of man, and has made his works a lesson-book for all mankind.
Another secret of Bunyan’s popularity is the felicity of his style. His
English is vernacular, idiomatic, universal; varying with the subject;
homely in the continuous narrative; racy and pungent in his lively and
often rapid discourse; and, when occasion requires, “a model of
unaffected dignity and rhythmical flow;” but always plain, strong, and
natural. However, in speaking of his style, we do not so much intend his
words as his entire mode of expression. A thought is like a gem; but
like a gem it may be spoiled in the setting. A careless artist may chip
it and grievously curtail its dimensions; a clumsy craftsman, in his fear
of destroying it, may not sufficiently polish it; or in his solicitude to
show off its beauty, may overdo the accompanying ornaments. Bunyan was
too skilful a workman so to mismanage the matter. His expression neither
curtails nor encumbers the thought, but makes the most of it; that is,
presents it to the reader as it is seen by the writer. Though there is a
great appearance of amplitude about his compositions, few of his words
could be wanted. Some styles are an ill-spun thread, full of
inequalities, and shaggy from beginning to end with projecting fibres
which spoil its beauty, and add nothing to its strength; but in its easy
continuousness and trim compactness, the thread of Bunyan’s discourse
flows firm and smooth from first to last. Its fulness regales the ear,
and its felicity aids the understanding.
FOOTNOTES
{9} Those who are interested in the historic parallels supplied by
Christian biography, will find a similar instructive dream in the Life of
General Burn, vol. i. pp. 127–130.
{11} Ivimey’s Life of Bunyan, pp. 51–53.
{30a} Remains, vol. iii. p. 391.
{30b} The other items contained in the book that this text comes from
were: Jerusalem Sinner Saved; Pharisee and the Publican; The Trinity and
the Christian; The Law and a Christian; Bunyan’s Last Sermon; Bunyan’s
Dying Sayings and An Exhortation to Peace and Unity. All of them are
available from Project Gutenberg—DP.
{32a} Pascal was an exception. D’Aubigné, so far as writing in French
makes a Frenchman, is another. Their works are full of fancy, but it is
the fancy which gives to truth its wings. The rocket is charged, not
with coloured sparks, but burning jewels.
{32b} Here, again, exceptions occur, and the greatest of our Scottish
preachers is a contradiction to the characteristic style of his country.