The Works of John Bunyan
WITH AN
INTRODUCTION TO EACH TREATISE, NOTES,
AND A
SKETCH OF HIS LIFE, TIMES, AND CONTEMPORARIES.
VOLUME FIRST.
EXPERIMENTAL, DOCTRINAL, AND PRACTICAL.
EDITED BY
GEORGE OFFOR, ESQ.
Contents
MEMOIR OF JOHN BUNYAN
GRACE ABOUNDING TO THE CHIEF OF SINNERS
A RELATON OF THE IMPRISONMENT OF MR. JOHN BUNYAN
THE JERUSALEM SINNER SAVED
THE GREATNESS OF THE SOUL
THE WORK OF JESUS CHRIST AS AN ADVOCATE
CHRIST A COMPLETE SAVIOUR
COME AND WELCOME TO JESUS CHRIST
JUSTIFICATION BY AN IMPUTED RIGHTEOUSNESS
SAVED BY GRACE
THE STRAIT GATE
LIGHT FOR THEM THAT SIT IN DARKNESS
A TREATISE OF THE FEAR OF GOD
THE DOCTRINE OF THE LAW AND GRACE UNFOLDED
ISRAEL’S HOPE ENCOURAGED
A DISCOURSE TOUCHING PRAYER
THE SAINTS’ PRIVILEGE AND PROFIT
THE ACCEPTABLE SACRIFICE
PAUL’S DEPARTURE AND CROWN
THE DESIRE OF THE RIGHTEOUS GRANTED
MEMOIR OF JOHN BUNYAN
THE FIRST PERIOD.
THIS GREAT MAN DESCENDED FROM IGNOBLE PARENTS—BORN IN POVERTY—HIS
EDUCATION AND EVIL HABITS—FOLLOWS HIS FATHER’S BUSINESS AS A
BRAZIER—ENLISTS FOR A SOLDIER—RETURNS FROM THE WARS AND OBTAINS AN
AMIABLE, RELIGIOUS WIFE—HER DOWER.
‘We have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the
power may be of God, and not of us.’—2 Cor 4:7
‘For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,
saith the Lord.’—Isaiah 55:8.
‘Though ye have lien among the pots, yet shall ye be as the wings of a
dove covered with silver, and her feathers with yellow gold.’—Psalm
68:13.
When the Philistine giant, Goliath, mocked the host of Israel, and
challenged any of their stern warriors to single combat, what human
being could have imagined that the gigantic heathen would be
successfully met in the mortal struggle by a youth ’ruddy and of a fair
countenance?’ who unarmed, except with a sling and a stone, gave the
carcases of the hosts of the Philistines to the fouls of the air, and
to the wild beasts of the earth.’
Who, upon seeing an infant born in a stable, and laid in a manger, or
beholding him when a youth working with his father as a carpenter,
could have conceived that he was the manifestation of the Deity in
human form, before whom every knee should bow, and every tongue confess
Him to be THE ETERNAL?
Father Michael, a Franciscan friar, on a journey to Ancona, having lost
his way, sought direction from a wretched lad keeping hogs—deserted,
forlorn, his back smarting with severe stripes, and his eyes suffused
with tears. The poor ragged boy not only went cheerfully with him to
point out his road, but besought the monk to take him into his convent,
volunteering to fulfill the most degrading services, in the hope of
procuring a little learning, and escaping from ’those filthy hogs.’ How
incredulously would the friar have listened to anyone who could have
suggested that this desolate, tattered, dirty boy, might and would fill
a greater than an imperial throne! Yet, eventually that swine-herd was
clothed in purple and fine linen, and, under the title of Pope Sixtus
V., became one of those mighty magicians who are described in Rogers
Italy, as
‘Setting their feet upon the necks of kings,
And through the worlds subduing, chaining down
The free, immortal spirit—theirs a wondrous spell.’ [1]
A woman that was ’a loose and ungodly wretch’ hearing a tinker lad most
awfully cursing and swearing, protested to him that ’he swore and
cursed at that most fearful rate that it made her tremble to hear him,’
’that he was the ungodliest fellow for swearing that ever she heard in
all her life,’ and ’that he was able to spoil all the youth in a whole
town, if they came in his company.’ This blow at the young reprobate
made that indelible impression which all the sermons yet he had heard
had failed to make. Satan, by one of his own slaves, wounded a
conscience which had resisted all the overtures of mercy. The youth
pondered her words in his heart; they were good seed strangely sown,
and their working formed one of those mysterious steps which led the
foul-mouthed blasphemer to bitter repentance; who, when he had received
mercy and pardon, felt impelled to bless and magnify the Divine grace
with shining, burning thoughts and words. The poor profligate, swearing
tinker became transformed into the most ardent preacher of the love of
Christ—the well-trained author of The Jerusalem Sinner Saved, or Good
News to the Vilest of Men.
How often have the Saints of God been made a most unexpected blessing
to others. The good seed of Divine truth has been many times sown by
those who did not go out to sow, but who were profitably engaged in
cultivating their own graces, enjoying the communion of Saints, and
advancing their own personal happiness! Think of a few poor, but pious
happy women, sitting in the sun one beautiful summer’s day, before one
of their cottages, probably each one with her pillow on her lap,
dexterously twisting the bobbins to make lace, the profits of which
helped to maintain their children. While they are communing on the
things of God, a traveling tinker draws near, and, over-hearing their
talk, takes up a position where he might listen to their converse while
he pursued his avocation. Their words distil into his soul; they speak
the language of Canaan; they talk of holy enjoyments, the result of
being born again, acknowledging their miserable state by nature, and
how freely and undeservedly God had visited their hearts with pardoning
mercy, and supported them while suffering the assaults and suggestions
of Satan; how they had been borne up in every dark, cloudy, stormy day;
and how they contemned, slighted, and abhorred their own righteousness
as filthy and insufficient to do them any good. The learned discourses
our tinker had heard at church had casually passed over his mind like
evanescent clouds, and left little or no lasting impression. But these
poor women, ’methought they spake as actually did make them speak; they
speak with such pleasant as 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 neighbors’ (Num 23:9).
O! how little did they imagine that their pious converse was to be the
means employed by the Holy Spirit in the conversion of that poor
tinker, and that, by their agency, he was to be transformed into one of
the brightest luminaries of heaven; who, when he had entered into rest
would leave his works to follow him as spiritual thunder to pierce the
hearts of the impenitent, and as heavenly consolation to bind up the
broken-hearted; liberating the prisoners of Giant Despair, and
directing the pilgrims to the Celestial City. Thus were blessings in
rich abundance showered down upon the church by the instrumentality, in
the first instance, of a woman that was a sinner, but most eminently by
the Christian converse of a few poor but pious women.
This poverty-stricken, ragged tinker was the son of a working mechanic
at Elstow, near Bedford. So obscure was his origin that even the
Christian name of his father is yet unknown:[2] he was born in 1628, a
year memorable as that in which the Bill of Rights was passed. Then
began the struggle against arbitrary power, which was overthrown in
1688, the year of Bunyan’s death, by the accession of William III. Of
Bunyan’s parents, his infancy, and childhood, little is recorded. All
that we know is from his own account, and that principally contained in
his doctrine of the Law and Grace, and in his extraordinary development
of his spiritual life, under the title of Grace Abounding to the Chief
of Sinners. His birth would have shed a luster on the wealthiest
mansion, and have imparted additional grandeur to any lordly palace.
Had royal or noble gossips, and a splendid entertainment attended his
christening, it might have been pointed to with pride; but so obscure
was his birth, that it has not been discovered that he was christened
at all; while the fact of his new birth by the Holy Ghost is known over
the whole world to the vast extent that his writings have been
circulated. He entered this world in a labourer’s cottage of the
humblest class, at the village of Elstow, about a mile from Bedford.[3]
His pedigree is thus narrated by himself:—‘My descent was of a low and
inconsiderable generation, my father’s house being of that rank that is
meanest and most despised of all the families in the land.’[4] Bunyan
alludes to this very pointedly in the preface to A Few Sighs from
Hell:—‘I am thine, if thou be not ashamed to own me, because of my low
and contemptible descent in the world.’[5] His poor and abject
parentage was so notorious, that his pastor, John Burton, apologized
for it in his recommendation to The Gospel Truths Opened:—‘Be not
offended because Christ holds forth the glorious treasure of the gospel
to thee in a poor earthen vessel, by one who hath neither the greatness
nor the wisdom of this world to commend him to thee.’[6] And in his
most admirable treatise, on The Fear of God, Bunyan observes—‘The poor
Christian hath something to answer them that reproach him for his
ignoble pedigree, and shortness of the glory of the wisdom of this
world. True may that man say I am taken out of the dunghill. I was born
in a base and low estate; but I fear God. This is the highest and most
noble; he hath the honour, the life, and glory that is lasting.’[7] In
his controversy with the Strict Baptists, he chides them for reviling
his ignoble pedigree:—‘You closely disdain my person because of my low
descent among men, stigmatizing me as a person of THAT rank that need
not be heeded or attended unto.’[8] He inquired of his father—‘Whether
we were of the Israelites or no? for, finding in the Scripture that
they were once the peculiar people of God, thought I, if I were one of
this race, my soul must needs be happy.’[9] This somewhat justifies the
conclusion that his father was a Gipsy tinker, that occupation being
then followed by the Gipsy tribe. In the life of Bunyan appended to the
forged third part of the Pilgrim’s Progress, his father is described as
‘an honest poor labouring man, who, like Adam unparadised, had all the
world before him to get his bread in; and was very careful and
industrious to maintain his family.’[10]
Happily for Bunyan, he was born in a neighbourhood in which it was a
disgrace to any parents not to have their children educated. With
gratitude he records, that ‘it pleased God to put it into their hearts
to put me to school to learn both to read and to write.’ In the
neighbourhood of his birthplace, a noble charity diffused the blessings
of lettered knowledge.[11] To this charity Bunyan was for a short
period indebted for the rudiments of education; but, alas, evil
associates made awful havoc of those slight unshapen literary
impressions which had been made upon a mind boisterous and impatient of
discipline. He says—‘To my shame, I confess I did soon lose that little
I learned, and that almost utterly.’[12] This fact will recur to the
reader’s recollection when he peruses Israel’s Hope Encouraged, in
which, speaking of the all-important doctrine of justification, he
says—‘It is with many that begin with this doctrine as it is with boys
that go to the Latin school; they learn till they have learned the
grounds of their grammar, and then go home and forget all.’[13]
As soon as his strength enabled him, he devoted his whole soul and body
to licentiousness—‘As for my own natural life, for the time that I was
without God in the world, it was indeed according to the course of this
world, and the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience.
It was my delight to be taken captive by the devil at his will: being
filled with all unrighteousness; that from a child I had but few
equals, both for cursing, swearing, lying, and blaspheming the holy
name of God.’[14]
It has been supposed, that in delineating the early career of Badman,
‘Bunyan drew the picture of his own boyhood.’[15] But the difference is
broadly given. Badman is the child of pious parents, who gave him a
‘good education’ in every sense, both moral and secular;[16] the very
reverse of Bunyan’s training. His associates would enable him to draw
the awful character and conduct of Badman, as a terrible example to
deter others from the downward road to misery and perdition.
Bunyan’s parents do not appear to have checked, or attempted to
counteract, his unbridled career of wickedness. He gives no hint of the
kind; but when he notices his wife’s father, he adds that he ‘was
counted godly’; and in his beautiful nonsectarian catechism, there is a
very touching conclusion to his instructions to children on their
behaviour to their parents:—‘The Lord, if it be his will, convert our
poor parents, that they, with us, may be the children of God.’[17]
These fervent expressions may refer to his own parents; and, connecting
them with other evidence, it appears that he was not blessed with pious
example. Upon one occasion, when severely reproved for swearing, he
says—‘I wished, with all my heart, that I might be a little child
again, that my father might learn me to speak without this wicked way
of swearing.’[18] In his numerous confessions, he never expresses pain
at having, by his vicious conduct, occasioned grief to his father or
mother. From this it may be inferred, that neither his father’s example
nor precept had checked this wretched propensity to swearing, and that
he owed nothing to his parents for moral training; but, on the
contrary, they had connived at, and encouraged him in, a course of life
which made him a curse to the neighbourhood in which he lived.
In the midst of all this violent depravity, the Holy Spirit began the
work of regeneration in his soul—a long, a solemn, yea, an awful
work—which was to fit this poor debauched youth for purity of
conduct—for communion with heaven—for wondrous usefulness as a minister
of the gospel—for patient endurance of sufferings for righteousness’
sake—for the writing of works which promise to be a blessing to the
Church in all ages—for his support during his passage through the black
river which has no bridge—to shine all bright and glorious, as a star
in the firmament of heaven. ‘Wonders of grace to God belong.’
During the period of his open profligacy, his conscience was ill at
ease; at times the clanking of Satan’s slavish chains in which he was
hurrying to destruction, distracted him. The stern reality of a future
state clouded and embittered many of those moments employed in
gratifying his baser passions. The face of the eventful times in which
he lived was rapidly changing; the trammels were loosened, which, with
atrocious penalties, had fettered all free inquiry into religious
truth. Puritanism began to walk upright; and as the restraints imposed
upon Divine truths were taken off, in the same proportion restraints
were imposed upon impiety, profaneness, and debauchery. A ringleader in
all wickedness would not long continue without reproof, either
personally, or as seen in the holy conduct of others. Bunyan very
properly attributed to a gracious God, those checks of conscience which
he so strongly felt even while he was apparently dead in trespasses and
sins. ‘The Lord, even in my childhood, did scare and affright me with
fearful dreams, and did terrify me with dreadful visions.’[19] ‘I often
wished that there had been no hell, or that I had been a devil to
torment others.’ A common childish but demoniac idea. His mind was as
‘the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and
dirt.’ ‘A while after, these terrible dreams did leave me; and with
more greediness, according to the strength of nature, I did let loose
the reins of my lusts, and delighted in all transgression against the
law of God.’ ‘I was the very ringleader of all the youth that kept me
company, into ALL MANNER of vice and ungodliness.’[20]
Dr. Southey and others have attempted to whiten this blackamore, but
the veil that they throw over him is so transparent that it cannot
deceive those who are in the least degree spiritually enlightened. He
alleges that Bunyan, in his mad career of vice and folly, ‘was never so
given over to a reprobate mind,’[21] as to be wholly free from
compunctions of conscience. This is the case with every depraved
character; but he goes further, when he asserts that ‘Bunyan’s heart
never was hardened.’[22] This is directly opposed to his description of
himself:—‘I found within me a great desire to take my fill of sin,
still studying what sin was yet to be committed; and I made as much
haste as I could to fill my belly with its delicates, lest I should die
before I had my desire.’ He thus solemnly adds, ‘In these things, I
protest before God, I lie not, neither do I feign this sort of speech;
these were really, strongly, and with all my heart, my desires; the
good Lord, whose mercy is unsearchable, forgive me my transgressions.’
The whole of his career, from childhood to manhood, was, ‘According to
the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the
air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience’ (Eph
2:2).
These reminiscences are alluded to in the prologue of the Holy War:—
‘When Mansoul trampled upon things Divine,
And wallowed in filth as doth a swine,
Then I was there, and did rejoice to see
Diabolus and Mansoul so agree.’
The Laureate had read this, and yet considers it the language of a
heart that ‘never was hardened.’ He says that ‘the wickedness of the
tinker has been greatly overcharged, and it is taking the language of
self-accusation too literally to pronounce of John Bunyan, that he was
at any time depraved. The worst of what he was in his worst days is to
be expressed in a single word, the full meaning of which no
circumlocution can convey; and which, though it may hardly be deemed
presentable in serious composition, I shall use, as Bunyan himself (no
mealy-mouthed writer) would have used it, had it in his days borne the
same acceptation in which it is now universally understood;—in that
word then, he had been a blackguard.
The very head and front of his offending
Hath this extent—no more.’[23]
The meaning of the epithet is admirably explained; but what could Dr.
Southey imagine possible to render such a character more vile in the
sight of God, or a greater pest to society? Is there any vicious
propensity, the gratification of which is not included in that
character? Bunyan’s estimate of his immorality and profaneness prior to
his conversion, was not made by comparing himself with the infinitely
Holy One, but he measured his conduct by that of his more moral
neighbours. In his Jerusalem Sinner Saved, he pleads with great
sinners, the outwardly and violently profane and vicious, that if HE
had received mercy, and had become regenerated, they surely ought not
to despair, but to seek earnestly for the same grace. He thus describes
himself:—‘I speak by experience; I was one of those great sin-breeders;
I infected all the youth of the town where I was born; the neighbours
counted me so, my practice proved me so: wherefore, Christ Jesus took
me first; and, taking me first, the contagion was much allayed all the
town over. When God made me sigh, they would hearken, and inquiringly
say, What’s the matter with John? When I went out to seek the bread of
life, some of them would follow, and the rest be put into a muse at
home. Some of them, perceiving that God had mercy upon me, came crying
to him for mercy too.’[24] Can any one, in the face of such language,
doubt that he was most eminently ‘a brand snatched from the fire’; a
pitchy burning brand, known and seen as such by all who witnessed his
conduct? He pointedly exemplified the character set forth by James,
‘the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity, set on fire of hell’ (James
3:6). This was as publicly known before his conversion, as the effects
of the wondrous change were openly seen in his Christian career
afterwards. He who, when convinced of sin, strained his eyes to see the
distant shining light over the wicket-gate, after he had gazed upon
—‘The wondrous cross
On which the Prince of glory died,’
became a luminous beacon, to attract the vilest characters to seek
newness of life; and if there be hope for them, no one ought to
despair. Far be it from us to cloud this light, or to tarnish so
conspicuous an example. Like a Magdalene or a thief on the cross, his
case may be exhibited to encourage hope in every returning prodigal.
During this period of his childhood, while striving to harden his heart
against God, many were the glimmerings of light which from time to time
directed his unwilling eyes to a dread eternity. In the still hours of
the night ‘in a dream God opened’ his ears[25]—the dreadful vision was
that ‘devils and wicked spirits laboured to draw me away with them.’
These thoughts must have left a deep and alarming impression upon his
mind; for he adds, ‘of which I could never be rid.’[26]
The author of his life, published in 1692, who was one of his personal
friends, gives the following account of Bunyan’s profligacy, and his
checks of conscience:—‘He himself hath often, since his conversion,
confessed with horror, that when he was but a child or stripling, he
had but few equals for lying, swearing, and blaspheming God’s holy
name—living without God in the world; the thoughts of which, when he,
by the light of Divine grace, came to understand his dangerous
condition, drew many showers of tears from his sorrowful eyes, and
sighs from his groaning heart. The first thing that sensibly touched
him in this his unregenerate state, were fearful dreams, and visions of
the night, which often made him cry out in his sleep, and alarm the
house, as if somebody was about to murder him, and being waked, he
would start, and stare about him with such a wildness, as if some real
apparition had yet remained; and generally those dreams were about evil
spirits, in monstrous shapes and forms, that presented themselves to
him in threatening postures, as if they would have taken him away, or
torn him in pieces. At some times they seemed to belch flame, at other
times a continuous smoke, with horrible noises and roaring. Once he
dreamed he saw the face of the heavens, as it were, all on fire; the
firmament crackling and shivering with the noise of mighty thunders,
and an archangel flew in the midst of heaven, sounding a trumpet, and a
glorious throne was seated in the east, whereon sat one in brightness,
like the morning star, upon which he, thinking it was the end of the
world, fell upon his knees, and, with uplifted hands towards heaven,
cried, O Lord God, have mercy upon me! What shall I do, the day of
judgment is come, and I am not prepared! When immediately he heard a
voice behind him, exceeding loud, saying, Repent. At another time he
dreamed that he was in a pleasant place, jovial and rioting, banqueting
and feasting his senses, when a mighty earthquake suddenly rent the
earth, and made a wide gap, out of which came bloody flames, and the
figures of men tossed up in globes of fire, and falling down again with
horrible cries, shrieks, and execrations, whilst some devils that were
mingled with them, laughed aloud at their torments; and whilst he stood
trembling at this sight, he thought the earth sunk under him, and a
circle of flame enclosed him; but when he fancied he was just at the
point to perish, one in white shining raiment descended, and plucked
him out of that dreadful place; whilst the devils cried after him, to
leave him with them, to take the just punishment his sins had deserved,
yet he escaped the danger, and leaped for joy when he awoke and found
it was a dream.’
Such dreams as these fitted him in after life to be the glorious
dreamer of the Pilgrim’s Progress, in which a dream is told which
doubtless embodies some of those which terrified him in the night
visions of his youth.
In the interpreter’s house he is ‘led into a chamber where there was
one rising out of bed, and as he put on his raiment he shook and
trembled. Then said Christian, Why doth this man thus tremble? The
Interpreter then bid him tell to Christian the reason of his so doing.
So he began and said, This night, as I was in my sleep I dreamed, and
behold the heavens grew exceeding black; also it thundered and
lightened in most fearful wise, that it put me into an agony. So I
looked up in my dream, and saw the clouds rack at an unusual rate, upon
which I heard a great sound of a trumpet, and saw also a man sit upon a
cloud, attended with the thousands of heaven—they were all in flaming
fire; also the heavens were in a burning flame. I heard then a voice
saying, “Arise, ye dead, and come to judgment;” and with that the rocks
rent, the graves opened, and the dead that were therein came forth.
Some of them were exceeding glad, and looked upward; and some sought to
hide themselves under the mountains. Then I saw the man that sat upon
the cloud open the book, and bid the world draw near. Yet there was, by
reason of a fierce flame which issued out and came from before him, a
convenient distance betwixt him and them, as betwixt the judge and
prisoners at the bar. I heard it also proclaimed, “Gather together the
tares, the chaff, and stubble, and cast them into the burning lake”;
and with that the bottomless pit opened just whereabout I stood, out of
the mouth of which there came, in an abundant manner, smoke and coals
of fire, with hideous noises. It was also said, “Gather my wheat into
the garner”; and with that I saw many catched up and carried away into
the clouds, but I was left behind. I also sought to hide myself, but I
could not, for the man that sat upon the cloud still kept his eye upon
me; my sins also came into my mind, and my conscience did accuse me on
every side. Upon that I awaked from my sleep.’
No laboured composition could have produced such a dream as this. It
flows in such dream-like order as would lead us to infer, that the
author who narrates it had, when a boy, heard the twenty-fifth chapter
of Matthew read at church, and the solemn impression following him at
night assisted in producing a dream which stands, and perhaps will ever
stand, unrivalled.
Awful as must have been these impressions upon his imagination, they
were soon thrown off, and the mad youth rushed on in his desperate
career of vice and folly. Is he then left to fill up the measure of his
iniquities? No, the Lord has a great work for him to do. HIS hand is
not shortened that he cannot save. Bunyan has to be prepared for his
work; and if terrors will not stop him, manifested mercies in judgments
are to be tried.
‘God did not utterly leave me, but followed me still, not now with
convictions, but judgments; yet such as were mixed with mercy. For once
I fell into a creek of the sea, and hardly escaped drowning. Another
time I fell out of a boat into Bedford river, but mercy yet preserved
me alive. Besides, another time, being in the field with one of my
companions, it chanced that an adder passed over the highway, so I,
having a stick in my hand, struck her over the back; and having stunned
her, I forced open her mouth with my stick, and plucked her sting out
with my fingers; by which act, had not God been merciful unto me, I
might by my desperateness have brought myself to my end.
‘This also have I taken notice of, with thanksgiving. When I was a
soldier, I, with others, were drawn out to go to such a place to
besiege it; but when I was just ready to go, one of the company desired
to go in my room, to which, when I had consented, he took my place; and
coming to the siege, as he stood sentinel, he was shot into the head
with a musket bullet, and died.’[27]
In addition to these mercies recorded by his own pen, one of his
friends asserts that he acknowledged his deep obligations to Divine
mercy for being saved when he fell into an exceeding deep pit, as he
was traveling in the dark; for having been preserved in sickness; and
also for providential goodness that such a sinner was sustained with
food and raiment, even to his own admiration.
Bunyan adds, ‘Here were judgments and mercy, but neither of them did
awaken my soul to righteousness’; wherefore I sinned still, and grew
more and more rebellious against God, and careless of mine own
salvation.’[28]
That such a scape-grace should enter the army can occasion no surprise.
His robust, hardy frame, used to exposure in all weathers—his daring
courage, as displayed in his perilous dealing with the adder, bordering
upon fool-hardiness—his mental depravity and immoral habits, fitted him
for all the military glory of rapine and desolation. In his Grace
Abounding he expressly states that this took place before his marriage,
while his earliest biographer places this event some years after his
marriage, and even argues upon it, as a reason why he became a soldier,
that ‘when the unnatural civil war came on, finding little or nothing
to do to support himself and small family, he, as many thousands did,
betook himself to arms.’[29] The same account states that, ‘in June,
1645, being at the siege of Leicester, he was called out to be one who
was to make a violent attack upon the town, vigorously defended by the
King’s forces against the Parliamentarians, but appearing to the
officer who was to command them to be somewhat awkward in handling his
arms, another voluntarily, and as it were thrust himself into his
place, who, having the same post that was designed Mr. Bunyan, met his
fate by a carbine-shot from the wall; but this little or nothing
startled our too secure sinner at that time; for being now in an army
where wickedness abounded, he was the more hardened.’
Thus we find Bunyan engaged in military affairs. There can be no doubt
but that he was a soldier prior to his marriage, and that he was
present at the siege of Leicester; but it is somewhat strange (if true)
that he should have preferred the Parliamentary to the Royal army.
Although this is a question that cannot be positively decided without
further evidence than has yet been discovered, there are strong reasons
for thinking that so loyal a man joined the Royal army, and not that of
the Republicans.
The army into which Bunyan entered is described as being ‘where
wickedness abounded,’ but, according to Hume, in this year the
Republican troops were generally pious men.
Bunyan’s loyalty was so remarkable as to appear to be natural to him;
for even after he had so severely suffered from the abuse of kingly
power, in interfering with the Divine prerogative of appointing modes
of worship, he, who feared the face of no man—who never wrote a line to
curry favour with any man or class of men—thus expresses his loyal
feelings—‘I do confess myself one of the old-fashioned professors, that
covet to fear God, and honour the king. I also am for blessing of them
that curse me, for doing good to them that hate me, and for praying for
them that despitefully use me and persecute me; and have had more peace
in the practice of these things than all the world are aware of.’ ‘Pray
for the long life of the king.’ ‘Pray that God would discover all plots
and conspiracies against his person and government.’[30] ‘Will you
rebel against the king? is a word that shakes the world.’[31] ‘Pray for
all that are in authority; reproach not the governor, he is set over
thee; all his ways are God’s, either for thy help or the trial of thy
graces—this is duty, will render thee lovely to thy friends, terrible
to thine enemies, serviceable as a Christian.’[32] ‘Let kings have that
fear, honour, reverence, worship that is due to their place, their
office and dignity.’ ‘I speak it to show my loyalty to the king, and my
love to my fellow-subjects.’[33] With such proofs of his peaceful
submission to government in all things that touched not the
prerogatives of God; it would have been marvelous indeed if he had
taken up arms against his king. His infatuated delight in swearing, and
roisterous habits, were ill suited to the religious restraints of the
Parliamentarians, while they would render him a high prize to Rupert’s
dragoons. Add to this, the remarkable fact, that Leicester was besieged
and stormed with terrible slaughter by the king, but not by the army of
the Parliament. The taking of Leicester by the king in person was
attended with great cruelties. The abbey was burnt by the cavaliers.
Rupert’s black flag was hoisted on the gate which had been
treacherously given up. Every Scotchman found in the town was murdered.
The mace and town seals were carried off as plunder; and, if the
account given by Thoresby in his History of Leicester is correct, the
scene of carnage was quite enough to sicken Bunyan of a military life.
He knew the mode in which plunder taken from the bodies of the slain
was divided by the conquerors:—
‘Or as the soldiers give unto
Each man the share and lot,
Which they by dint of sword have won,
From their most daring foe;
While he lies by as still as stone,
Not knowing what they do.’[34]
‘The king’s forces having made their batteries, stormed Leicester;
those within made stout resistance, but some of them betrayed one of
the gates; the women of the town laboured in making up the breaches,
and in great danger. The king’s forces having entered the town, had a
hot encounter in the market-place; and many of them were slain by shot
out of the windows, that they gave no quarter, but hanged some of the
committee, and cut others to pieces. Some letters say that the kennels
ran down with blood; Colonel Gray the governor, and Captain Hacker,
were wounded and taken prisoners, and very many of the garrison were
put to the sword, and the town miserably plundered. The king’s forces
killed divers who prayed quarter, and put divers women to the
sword,[35] and other women and children they turned naked into the
streets, and many they ravished. They hanged Mr. Reynor and Mr. Sawyer
in cold blood; and at Wighton they smothered Mrs. Barlowes, a
minister’s wife, and her children.’[36]
Lord Clarendon admits the rapine and plunder, and that the king
regretted that some of his friends suffered with the rest.[37] Humphrey
Brown deposed that he was present when the garrison, having surrendered
upon a promise of quarter, he saw the king’s soldiers strip and wound
the prisoners, and heard the king say—‘cut them more, for they are mine
enemies.’ A national collection was made for the sufferers, by an
ordinance bearing date the 28th October, 1645, which states
that—‘Whereas it is very well known what miseries befell the
inhabitants of the town and county of Leicester, when the king’s army
took Leicester, by plundering the said inhabitants, not only of their
wares in their shops, but also all their household goods, and their
apparel from their backs, both of men, women, and children, not
sparing, in that kind, infants in their cradles; and, by violent
courses and tortures, compelled them to discover whatsoever they had
concealed or hid, and after all they imprisoned their persons, to the
undoing of the tradesmen, and the ruin of many of the country.’
Can we wonder that ‘the king was abused as a barbarian and a murderer,
for having put numbers to death in cold blood after the garrison had
surrendered; and for hanging the Parliament’s committee, and some Scots
found in that town?’ The cruelties practiced in the king’s presence
were signally punished. He lost 709 men on that occasion, and it
infused new vigour into the Parliament’s army. The battle of Naseby was
fought a few days after; the numbers of the contending forces were
nearly equal; the royal troops were veterans, commanded by experienced
officers; but the God of armies avenged the innocent blood shed in
Leicester, and the royal army was cut to pieces; carriages, cannon, the
king’s cabinet, full of treasonable correspondence, were taken, and
from that day he made feeble fight, and soon lost his crown and his
life. The conquerors marched to Leicester, which surrendered by
capitulation. Heath, in his Chronicle, asserts that ‘no life was lost
at the retaking of Leicester.’ Many of Bunyan’s sayings and proverbs
are strongly tinged with the spirit of Rupert’s dragoons—‘as we say,
blood up to the ears.’[38] ‘What can be the meaning of this
(trumpeters), they neither sound boot and saddle, nor horse and away,
nor a charge?’[39] In his allegories when he alludes to fighting, it is
with the sword and not with the musket;[40] ‘rub up man, put on thy
harness.’[41] ‘The father’s sword in the hand of the sucking child is
not able to conquer a foe.’[42]
Considering his singular loyalty, which, during the French Revolution,
was exhibited as a pattern to Dissenters by an eminent Baptist
minister; [43] considering also his profligate character and military
sayings, it is very probable that Bunyan was in the king’s army in
1645, being about seventeen years of age. It was a finishing school to
the hardened sinner, which enabled him, in his account of the Holy War,
so well to describe every filthy lane and dirty street in the town of
Mansoul.
Whether Bunyan left the army when Charles was routed at the battle of
Naseby, or was discharged, is not known. He returned to his native town
full of military ideas, which he used to advantage in his Holy War. He
was not reformed, but hardened in sin, and, although at times alarmed
with convictions of the danger of his soul, yet in the end, the flesh
pleading powerfully, it prevailed; and he made a resolution to indulge
himself in such carnal delights and pleasures as he was accustomed to,
or that fell in his way. ‘His neglecting his business, and following
gaming and sports, to put melancholy thoughts out of his mind, which he
could not always do, had rendered him very poor and despicable.’[44]
In this forlorn and miserable state, he was induced, by the persuasion
of friends, under the invisible guidance of God, to enter into the
marriage state. Such a youth, then only twenty years of age, would
naturally be expected to marry some young woman as hardened as himself,
but he made a very different choice. His earliest biographer says, with
singular simplicity, ‘his poverty, and irregular course of life, made
it very difficult for him to get a wife suitable to his inclination;
and because none that were rich would yield to his allurements, he
found himself constrained to marry one without any fortune, though very
virtuous, loving, and conformably obedient and obliging, being born of
good, honest, godly parents, who had instructed her, as well as they
were able, in the ways of truth and saving knowledge.’[45] The idea of
his seeking a rich wife is sufficiently droll; he must have been
naturally a persuasive lover, to have gained so good a helpmate. They
were not troubled with sending cards, cake, or gloves, nor with the
ceremony of receiving the visits of their friends in state; for he
says, that ‘This woman and I came together as poor as poor might be,
not having so much household stuff as a dish or spoon betwixt us
both.’[46] His wife had two books, The Plain Man’s Pathway to Heaven,
and The Practice of Piety; but what was of more importance than wealth
or household stuff, she had that seed sown in her heart which no thief
could steal.[47] She enticed and persuaded him to read those books. To
do this he by application ‘again recovered his reading, which he had
almost lost.’ His wife became an unspeakable blessing to him. She
presents a pattern to any woman, who, having neglected the apostolic
injunction not to be unequally yoked, finds herself under the dominion
of a swearing dare devil. It affords a lovely proof of the insinuating
benign favour of female influence. This was the more surprising, as he
says, ‘the thoughts of religion were very grievous to me,’ and when
‘books that concerned Christian piety were read in my hearing, it was
as it were a prison to me.’ In spite of all obstacles, his rugged heart
was softened by her tenderness and obedience, he ‘keeping on the old
course,’[48] she upon every proper season teaching him how her father’s
piety secured his own and his family’s happiness. Here was no
upbraiding, no snubbing, no curtain lectures; all was affectionate,
amiable mildness. At first, he became occasionally alarmed for his
soul’s salvation; then with the thought of having sinned away the day
of grace, he plunged again into sin with greediness; anon a faint hope
of mercy would fill him with fear and trembling. But this leads us to
the wondrous narrative of his new birth.
THE SECOND PERIOD.
THE INTERNAL CONFLICT, OR BUNYAN’S CONVICTIONS AND CONVERSION.
All nature is progressive; if an infant was suddenly to arrive at
manhood, how idiotic and dangerous he would be! A long training is
essential to fit the human being for the important duties of life; and
just so is it in the new birth to spiritual existence—first a babe,
then the young man; at length the full stature, and at last the
experienced Christian.
The narrative of Bunyan’s progress in his conversion is, without
exception, the most astonishing of any that has been published. It is
well calculated to excite the profoundest investigation of the
Christian philosopher. Whence came those sudden suggestions, those
gloomy fears, those heavenly rays of joy? Much learning certainly did
not make him mad. The Christian dares not attribute his intense
feelings to a distempered brain. Whence came the invisible power that
struck Paul from his horse? Who was it that scared Job with dreams, and
terrified him with visions? What messenger of Satan buffeted Paul? Who
put ‘a new song’ into the mouth of David? We have no space in this
short memoir to attempt the drawing a line between convictions of sin
and the terrors of a distempered brain. Bunyan’s opinions upon this
subject are deeply interesting, and are fully developed in his Holy
War. The capabilities of the soul to entertain vast armies of thoughts,
strong and feeble, represented as men, women, and children, are so
great as almost to perplex the strongest understanding. All these
multitudes of warriors are the innumerable thoughts—the strife—in ONE
soul. Upon such a subject an interesting volume might be written. But
we must fix our attention upon the poor tinker who was the subject of
this wondrous war.
The tender and wise efforts of Mrs. Bunyan to reclaim her husband, were
attended by the Divine blessing, and soon led to many resolutions, on
his part, to curb his sinful propensities and to promote an outward
reformation; his first effort was regularly to attend Divine worship.
He says, ‘I fell 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 a spirit of
superstition, that I adored, and that with great devotion, even all
things, both 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,[49] of God, and were principal in the holy temple, to do
his work therein. This conceit grew so strong in little time upon my
spirit, that had I but seen a priest, though never so sordid and
debauched in his life,[50] I should find my spirit fall under him,
reverence him, and knit unto him; yea, I thought, for the love I did
bear unto them, supposing they were the ministers of God, I could have
lain down at their feet, and have been trampled upon by them; their
name, their garb, and work did so intoxicate and bewitch me.’
All this took place at the time when The Book of Common Prayer, having
been said to occasion ‘manifold inconveniency,’ was, by an Act of
Parliament, ‘abolished,’[51] and by a subsequent Act[52] prohibited,
under severe penalties, from being publicly used. The ‘manifold
inconveniences’ to which the Act refers, arose from differences of
opinion as to the propriety of the form which had been enforced,
heightened by the enormous cruelties practiced upon multitudes who
refused to use it. Opposition to the English Liturgy as more combined
in Scotland, by a covenant entered into, June 20, 1580, by the king,
lords, nobles, and people, against Popery; and upon Archbishop Laud’s
attempt, in 1637, to impose the service-book upon our northern
neighbours, tumults and bloodshed ensued; until, in 1643, a new and
very solemn league and covenant was entered into, which, in 1645,
extended its influence to England, being subscribed by thousands of our
best citizens, with many of the nobility—‘wherein we all subscribe, and
each with his own hands lifted up to the Most High God, doe swear’;
that being the mode of taking an oath, instead of kissing the cover of
a book, as is now practiced. To the cruel and intemperate measures of
Laud, and the zeal of Charles, for priestly domination over conscience,
may be justly attributed the wars which desolated the country, while
the solemn league and covenant brought an overwhelming force to aid the
Parliament in redressing the grievances of the kingdom. During the
Commonwealth there was substituted, in place of the Common Prayer, A
directory for the Publique Worship of God, and the uniformity which was
enjoined in it was like that of the Presbyterians and Dissenters of the
present day. The people having assembled, and been exhorted to
reverence and humility, joined the preacher in prayer. He then read
portions of Scripture, with or without an exposition, as he judged it
necessary, but not so as to render the service tedious. After singing a
psalm, the minister prayed, leading the people to mourn under a sense
of sin, and to hunger and thirst after the grace of God, in Jesus
Christ; an outline or abstract is given of the subject of public
prayer, and similar instructions are given as to the sermon or
paraphrase. Immediately after the sermon, prayer was again offered up,
and after the outline that is given of this devotional exercise, it is
noted, ‘And because the prayer which Christ taught his disciples, is
not only a pattern of prayer, but itself a most comprehensive prayer,
we recommend it also to be used in the prayers of the Church.’ This
being ended, a psalm was sung, and the minister dismissed the
congregation with a solemn blessing.[53] Some of the clergy continued
the use of prayers, contained in the liturgy, reciting, instead of
reading them—a course that was not objected to. This was the form of
service which struck Bunyan with such awe and reverence, leaving a very
solemn impression upon his mind, which the old form of common prayer
had never produced.