jailer have me away.’ The hero answered—‘I am at a point with you: if I
were out of prison to-day, I would preach the gospel again to-morrow,
by the help of God.’[229]

The statutes, by virtue of which this awful sentence was pronounced,
together with the legal form of recantation used by those who were
terrified into conformity, are set forth in a note to the Grace
Abounding.[230] Bunyan was, if not the first, one of the first
Dissenters who were proceeded against after the restoration of Charles
II; and his trial, if such it may be called, was followed by a
wholesale persecution. The king, as head of the Church of England,
wreaked his vengeance upon all classes of Dissenters, excepting Roman
Catholics and Jews.

The reign of Charles II was most disgraceful and disastrous to the
nation, even the king being a pensioner upon the French court. The
Dutch swept the seas, and threatened to burn London; a dreadful plague
depopulated the metropolis—the principal part of which was, in the
following year, with its cathedral, churches, and public buildings,
destroyed by fire; plots and conspiracies alarmed the people; tyranny
was triumphant; even the bodies of the illustrious dead were exhumed,
and treated with worse than savage ferocity; while a fierce persecution
raged throughout the kingdom, which filled the jails with Dissenters.

In Scotland, the persecution raged with still more deadly violence.
Military, in addition to civil despotism, strove to enforce the use of
the Book of Common Prayer. The heroic achievements and awful suffering
of Scottish Christians saved their descendants from this yoke of
bondage.[231]

A short account of the extent of the sufferings of our pious ancestors
is given in the Introduction to the Pilgrim’s Progress[232]—a narrative
which would appear incredible did it not rest upon unimpeachable
authority. It would be difficult to believe the records of the brutal
treatment which the sufferers underwent had they not been handed down
to us in the State Trials, and in public registers, over which the
persecuted had no control. Two instances will show the extreme peril in
which the most learned and pious men held their lives. John James, the
pastor of a Baptist church in Whitechapel, was charged, upon the
evidence of a perjured drunken vagabond named Tipler, a pipe-maker’s
journeyman, who was not present in the meeting, but swore that he heard
him utter treasonable words. Notwithstanding the evidence of some most
respectable witnesses, who were present during the whole service, and
distinctly proved that no such words were used, Mr. James was
convicted, and sentenced to be hung. His distracted wife saw the king,
presented a petition, and implored mercy, when the unfeeling monarch
replied, ‘O! Mr. James; he is a sweet gentleman.’ Again, on the
following morning, she fell at his feet, beseeching his royal clemency,
when he spurned her from him, saying, ‘John James, that rogue, he shall
be hanged; yea, he shall be hanged.’ And, in the presence of his
weeping friends, he ascended from the gibbet to the mansions of the
blessed. His real crime was, that he continued to preach after having
been warned not to do so by John Robinson, lieutenant of the Tower,
properly called, by Mr. Crosby,[233] a devouring wolf, upon whose head
the blood of this and other innocent Dissenters will be found. Another
Dissenting minister, learned, pious, loyal, and peaceful, was, during
Bunyan’s time, marked for destruction. Thomas Rosewell was tried before
the monster Jeffreys. He was charged, upon the evidence of two infamous
informers, with having doubted the power of the king to cure the kings’
evil, and with saying that they should overcome their enemies with
rams’ horns, broken platters, and a stone in a sling. A number of most
respectable witnesses deposed to their having been present; that no
such words were uttered, and that Mr. Rosewell was eminent for loyalty
and devoted attachment to the Government. Alas! he was a Dissenting
teacher of high standing, of extensive acquirements, and of great
earnestness in seeking the salvation of sinners; and, under the
direction of that brutal judge, the venal jury found him guilty, and he
was sentenced to be hung. This frightful sentence would have been
executed but from a singular interposition of Providence. Sir John
Talbot was present during the trial, and a stranger to Mr. Rosewell;
but he was so struck with the proceedings, that he hastened to the
king, related the facts, and added, ‘that he had seen the life of a
subject, who appeared to be a gentleman and a scholar, in danger, upon
such evidence as he would not hang his dog on.’ And added, ‘Sire, if
you suffer this man to die, we are none of us safe in our own houses.’
At this moment Jeffreys came in, gloating over his prey, exulting in
the innocent blood he was about to shed, when, to his utter confusion,
the king said, ‘Mr. Rosewell shall not die’; and his pardon was issued
under the great seal.[234] Every Englishman should read the state
trials of that period, recording the sufferings of Richard Baxter,
William Penn, Sir H. Vane, and many others of our most pious
forefathers; and they must feel that it was a miracle of mercy that
saved the life of Bunyan, and gave him leisure to write not only his
popular allegories, but the most valuable treatises in the English
language upon subjects of the deepest importance.

When he entered the prison, his first and prayerful object was to levy
a tax upon his affliction—to endeavour to draw honey from the carcass
of the lion. His care was to render his imprisonment subservient to the
great design of showing forth the glory of God by patient submission to
His will. Before his commitment, he had a strong presentiment of his
sufferings; his earnest prayer, for many months, was that he might,
with composure, encounter all his trials, even to an ignominious death.
This led him to the solemn consideration of reckoning himself, his
wife, children, health, enjoyments, all as dying, and in perfect
uncertainty, and to live upon God, his invisible but ever-present
Father.

Like an experienced military commander, he wisely advises every
Christian to have a reserve for Christ in case of dire emergency. ‘We
ought to have a reserve for Christ, to help us at a dead lift. When
profession and confession will not do; when loss of goods and a prison
will not do; when loss of country and of friends will not do; when
nothing else will do, then willingly to lay down our lives for his
name.’[235] In the midst of all these dread uncertainties, his soul was
raised to heavenly contemplations of the future happiness of the saints
of God.

It is deeply impressive to view a man, with gigantic intellect,
involved in the net which was laid to trammel his free spirit,
disregarding his own wisdom; seeking guidance from heaven in earnest
prayer, and in searching the sacred Scriptures; disentangling himself,
and calmly waiting the will of his heavenly Father. Still he severely
felt the infirmities of nature. Parting with his wife and children, he
described as ‘the pulling the flesh from the bones. I saw I was as a
man who was pulling down his house upon the head of his wife and
children; yet, thought I, I must do it.’[236] His feelings were
peculiarly excited to his poor blind Mary.[237] ‘O! the thoughts of the
hardships my poor blind one might go under, would break my heart in
pieces.’ It is one of the governing principles of human nature, that
the most delicate or afflicted child excites our tenderest feelings. ‘I
have seen men,’ says Bunyan, ‘take most care of, and best provide for
those of their children that have been most infirm and helpless; and
our Advocate “shall gather his lambs with his arms, and carry them in
his bosom.”’[238] While in this state of distress, the promise came to
his relief—‘Leave thy fatherless children, I will preserve them alive;
and let thy widows trust in me.’ He had heard of the miseries of those
banished Christians who had been sold into slavery, and perished with
cold and calamities, lying in ditches like poor, forlorn, desolate
sheep.

At the end of three months he became anxious to know what the enemies
of the cross intended to do with him. His sentence was transportation
and death, unless he conformed. To give up or shrink from his
profession of Christ, by embracing the national forms and submitting
his conscience to human laws, he dared not. He resolved to persevere
even at the sacrifice of his life. To add to his distress, doubts and
fears clouded his prospects of futurity; ‘Satan,’ said he, ‘laid hard
at me to beat me out of heart.’ At length he came to the determination
to venture his eternal state with Christ, whether he had present
comfort or not. His state of mind he thus describes—‘If God doth not
come in (to comfort me) I will leap off the ladder, even blindfold,
into eternity, sink or swim, come heaven, come hell. Lord Jesus, if
thou wilt catch me, do; I will venture all for thy name.’ From this
time he felt a good hope and great consolation.

The clerk of the peace, Mr. Cobb, was sent by the justices to persuade
him to conform, and had a very long and interesting conference with him
in the prison. This shows that the magistrates were well convinced that
he was a leader in nonconformity, who, if brought over, would afford
them a signal triumph. In fact, he was called, by a beneficed
clergyman, ‘the most notorious schismatic in all the county of
Bedford.’[239] It is perhaps to the arguments of Cobb that he refers in
his Advice to Sufferers. ‘The wife of the bosom lies at him, saying, O
do not cast thyself away; if thou takest this course, what shall I do?
Thou hast said thou lovest me; now make it manifest by granting this my
small request—Do not still remain in thine integrity. Next to this come
the children, which are like to come to poverty, to beggary, to be
undone, for want of wherewithal to feed, and clothe, and provide for
them for time to come. Now also come kindred, and relations, and
acquaintance; some chide, some cry, some argue, some threaten, some
promise, some flatter, and some do all to befool him for so unadvised
an act as to cast away himself, and to bring his wife and children to
beggary for such a thing as religion. These are sore temptations.’[240]
It was during this period of his imprisonment that the mad attempt was
made, by Venner and his rabble, to overturn the government. This was
pressed upon Bunyan as a reason why he should not hold meetings for
religious exercises, but rely upon his more private opportunities of
exhorting his neighbours. In reply to this, Mr. Cobb is reminded of
Bunyan’s well-known loyalty, which would become useful in proportion to
his public teaching. It was a pleasing interview, which, while it did
not for a moment shake his determination, led him to thank Mr. Cobb for
his civil and meek discourse, and to ejaculate a heartfelt prayer—‘O
that we might meet in heaven.’[241] The whole of it is reprinted at the
end of the Grace Abounding, and it shows that God gave him favour even
with his persecutors. It Is not surprising that such a prisoner should
have won the good opinion of his jailer, so that he was permitted the
consolation of seeing his relatives and friends, who ministered to his
comforts.

When the time arrived for the execution of the bitterest part of his
sentence, God, in his providence, interposed to save the life of his
servant. He had familiarized his mind with all the circumstances of a
premature and appalling death; the gibbet, the ladder, the halter, had
lost much of their terrors; he had even studied the sermon he would
then have preached to the concourse of spectators. At this critical
time the king’s coronation took place, on April 23, 1661. To garnish
this grand ceremony, the king had ordered the release of numerous
prisoners of certain classes, and within that description of offences
was that for which Bunyan was confined. The proclamation allowed twelve
months’ time to sue out the pardon under the great seal, but without
this expensive process thousands of vagabonds and thieves were set at
liberty, while, alas, an offence against the church was not to be
pardoned upon such easy terms. Bunyan and his friends were too simple,
honest, and virtuous, to understand why such a distinction should be
made. The assizes being held in August, he determined to seek his
liberty by a petition to the judges. The court sat at the Swan Inn, and
as every incident in the life of this extraordinary man excites our
interest, we are gratified to have it in our power to exhibit the state
of this celebrated inn at that time.

Having written his petition, and made some fair copies of it, his
modest, timid wife determined to present them to the judges. Her heroic
achievements—for such they deserve to be called—on behalf of her
husband, are admirably narrated by Bunyan, the whole of which is
reprinted in our first volume,[243] and deserves a most attentive
perusal. Want of space prevents us repeating it here, or even making
extracts from it. She had previously traveled to London with a petition
to the House of Lords, and entrusted it to Lord Barkwood, who conferred
with some of the peers upon it, and informed her that they could not
interfere, the king having committed the release of the prisoners to
the judges. When they came the circuit and the assizes were held at
Bedford; Bunyan in vain besought the local authorities that he might
have liberty to appear in person and plead for his release. This
reasonable request was denied, and, as a last resource, he committed
his cause to an affectionate wife. Several times she appeared before
the judges; love to her husband, a stern sense of duty, a conviction of
the gross injustice practiced upon one to whom she was most tenderly
attached, overcame her delicate, modest, retiring habits, and forced
her upon this strange duty. Well did she support the character of an
advocate. This delicate, courageous, high-minded woman appeared before
Judge Hale, who was much affected with her earnest pleading for one so
dear to her, and whose life was so valuable to his children. It was the
triumph of love, duty, and piety, over bashful timidity. Her energetic
appeals were in vain. She returned to the prison with a heavy heart, to
inform her husband that, while felons, malefactors, and men guilty of
misdemeanours were, without any recantation or promise of amendment, to
be let loose upon society to grace the coronation, the poor prisoners
for conscience’ sake were to undergo their unjust and savage sentences.
Or, in plain words, that refusing to go to church to hear the Common
Prayer was an unpardonable crime, not to be punished in any milder mode
than recantation, or transportation, or the halter. With what bitter
feelings must she have returned to the prison, believing that it would
be the tomb of her beloved husband! How natural for the distressed,
insulted wife to have written harsh things against the judge! She could
not have conceived that, under the stately robes of Hale, there was a
heart affected by Divine love. And when the nobleman afterwards met the
despised tinker and his wife, on terms of perfect equality, clothed in
more glorious robes in the mansions of the blessed, how inconceivable
their surprise! It must have been equally so with the learned judge,
when, in the pure atmosphere of heaven, he found that the illiterate
tinker, harassed by poverty and imprisonment, produced books, the
admiration of the world. As Dr. Cheever eloquently writes—‘How little
could he dream, that from that narrow cell in Bedford jail a glory
would shine out, illustrating the grace of God, and doing more good to
man, than all the prelates and judges of the kingdom would
accomplish.’[244]

Bunyan was thus left in a dreary and hopeless state of imprisonment, in
which he continued for somewhat more than twelve years, and it becomes
an interesting inquiry how he spent his time and managed to employ his
great talent in his Master’s service. The first object of his
solicitude would be to provide for his family, according to 1 Timothy
5:8. How to supply his house with bare necessaries to meet the expenses
of a wife and four children, must have filled him with anxiety. The
illness, death, and burial of his first beloved wife, had swept away
any little reserve which otherwise might have accumulated, so that,
soon after his imprisonment commenced, before he could resume any kind
of labour, his wife thus pleaded with the judge for his liberty, ‘My
lord, I have four small children that cannot help themselves, of which
one is blind, and have nothing to live upon but the charity of good
people.’ How inscrutable are the ways of Providence; the rich reveling
in luxury while using their wealth to corrupt mankind, while this
eminent saint, with his family, were dependent upon charity! As soon as
he could get his tools in order he set to work; and we have the
following testimony to his industry by a fellow-prisoner, Mr. Wilson,
the Baptist minister, and of Charles Doe, who visited him in
prison:—‘Nor did he, while he was in prison, spend his time in a supine
and careless manner, nor eat the bread of idleness; for there have I
been witness that his own hands have ministered to his and his family’s
necessities, making many hundred gross of long tagged laces, to fill up
the vacancies of his time, which he had learned to do for that purpose,
since he had been in prison. There, also, I surveyed his library, the
least, but yet the best that e’er I saw—the Bible and the Book of
Martyrs.[245] And during his imprisonment (since I have spoken of his
library), he writ several excellent and useful treatises, particularly
The Holy City, Christian Behaviour, The Resurrection of the Dead, and
Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners.’[246] Besides these valuable
treatises, Charles Doe states that, of his own knowledge, in prison
Bunyan wrote The Pilgrim’s Progress, the first part, and that he had
this from his own mouth.[247] In addition to the demonstration of this
important fact contained in the introduction to The Pilgrim’s Progress,
there ought to have been added, Bunyan’s statement made in introducing
his second part:—‘Now, having taken up my lodgings in a wood about a
mile off the place’: no longer in ‘a den,’ but sheltered, in a wood, in
a state of comparative, but not of perfect liberty, about a mile
distant from the den in which he wrote his first part. Whether this may
refer to his former cottage at Elstow, of which there is great doubt,
or to the house he occupied in Bedford after his release, they were
equally about a mile from the jail. He certainly means that the two
parts were not written in the same place, nor is there a shadow of a
doubt as to the fact that in prison the great allegory was conceived
and written. Well might Mr. Doe say, ‘What hath the devil or his agents
got by putting our great gospel minister in prison?’ They prevented his
preaching to a few poor pilgrims in the villages round Bedford, and it
was the means of spreading his fame, and the knowledge of the gospel,
by his writings, throughout the world. Thus does the wrath of man
praise God. In addition to the works above enumerated, he also
published some extremely valuable tracts, several editions of a work
which ought to be read by all young Christians—A Treatise on the
Covenants of the Law and of Grace; several editions of Sighs from Hell;
A Map of Salvation and Damnation; The Four Last Things, a poem; Mount
Ebal and Gerizim, or, Redemption from the Curse, a poem; Prison
Meditations, a poem: the four last are single sheets, probably sold by
his children or friends to assist him in obtaining his livelihood:
Justification by Faith in Jesus Christ, 4to; Confession of His Faith
and Reason of His Practice. The most remarkable treatise which he
published while in confinement, is on prayer, from the words of the
apostle, ‘I will pray with the spirit and with the understanding also.’
His attention had been fixed on this subject when his free-born spirit
was roused by the threat of Justice Keeling, ‘Take heed of speaking
irreverently of the Book of Common Prayer, for if you do you will bring
great damage upon yourself.’

Bunyan had formed his ideas of prayer from heartfelt experience; it is
the cry of the burthened, sinking sinner, ‘Lord save us, we perish’; or
adoration rising from the heart to the throne of grace, filled with
hopes of pardon and immortality. In his estimation, any form of human
invention was an interference with the very nature of prayer, and with
the work of the Holy Spirit, who alone can inspire our souls with
acceptable prayer.

In expressing his views upon this all-important subject, Bunyan was
simply guided by a sense of duty. Fear of the consequences, or of
offending his enemies, never entered his mind. He felt that they were
in the hands of his heavenly Father, and that all their malice must be
over-ruled for good. Notwithstanding his solemn warning not to speak
irreverently of the book, his refusal to use which had subjected him to
severe privations and the fear of a halter, this Christian hero was not
daunted, but gives his opinion of it with all that freedom and liberty
which he considered essential to excite in his fellow-men inquiries as
to its origin and imposition.

It is not my province to enter into the controversy whether in public
worship a form of prayer ought to be used. Let every one be persuaded
in his own mind; but to pass a law denouncing those that refuse to use
a prescribed form as worthy of imprisonment, transportation, or death,
is an attack upon the first principles of Christianity. To punish those
who spoke irreverently of it, was almost an acknowledgment that it
would not bear investigation. To speak of the book as in his serious
judgment it deserved, was not that mark of sectarianism which Romaine
exhibited when he called the beautiful hymns of Dr. Watts, which are
used so much in public worship among Dissenters, ‘Watts’ jingle,’ and
‘Watts’ whims!’[248] No answer appears to have been published to
Bunyan’s extremely interesting volume until twelve years after the
author’s death, when a reply appeared under the title of Liturgies
Vindicated by the Dissenters, or the Lawfulness of Forms of Prayer
proved against John Bunyan and the Dissenters. 1700. This is a very
rare and curious volume. The author, as usual in such controversies,
deals wholesale in invective, and displays all the ability of a
sophist.

The Christian world is indebted to Dr. Cheever for a beautiful picture
of Bunyan’s devotional exercise in his cell. ‘It is evening; he
finishes his work, to be taken home by his dear blind child. He reads a
portion of Scripture, and, clasping her small hands in his, kneels on
the cold stone floor, and pours out his soul to God; then, with a
parting kiss, dismisses her to her mother. The rude lamp glimmers on
the table; with his Bible, pen, and paper, he writes as though joy did
make him write. His face is lighted as from the radiant jasper walls of
the celestial city. He clasps his hands, looks upward, and blesses God
for his goodness. The last you see of him—is alone, kneeling on the
prison floor; he is alone with God.’

Charles Doe, who manifested most laudable anxiety to hand down the
works of Bunyan to posterity, bears honourable testimony to his conduct
while in prison. ‘It was by making him a visit in prison that I first
saw him, and became acquainted with him; and I must profess I could not
but look upon him to be a man of an excellent spirit, zealous for his
master’s honour, and cheerfully committing all his own concernments
unto God’s disposal. When I was there, there were about sixty
Dissenters besides himself there, taken but a little before at a
religious meeting at Kaistoe, in the county of Bedford; besides two
eminent Dissenting ministers, Mr. Wheeler and Mr. Dun (both very well
known in Bedfordshire, though long since with God[249]), by which means
the prison was very much crowded; yet, in the midst of all that hurry
which so many new-comers occasioned, I have heard Mr. Bunyan both
preach and pray with that mighty spirit of faith and plerophory of
divine assistance that has made me stand and wonder.’[250] Here they
could sing, without fear of being overheard; no informers prowling
round. The world was shut out; and, in communion with heaven, they
could forget their sorrows, and have a rich foretaste of the
inconceivable glory of the celestial city. It was under such
circumstances that Bunyan preached one of his most remarkable sermons,
afterwards published under the title of The Holy City or the New
Jerusalem, 1665. ‘Upon a certain first-day, being together with my
brethren in our prison-chamber, they expected that, according to our
custom, something should be spoken out of the Word for our mutual
edification. I felt myself, it being my turn to speak, so empty,
spiritless, and barren, that I thought I should not have been able to
speak among them so much as five words of truth with life and evidence.
At last I cast mine eye upon this prophecy, when, after considering
awhile, methought I perceived something of that jasper in whose light
you find this holy city descended; wherefore, having got some dim
glimmering thereof, and finding a desire to see farther thereinto, I
with a few groans did carry my meditations to the Lord Jesus for a
blessing, which he did forthwith grant, and helping me to set before my
brethren, we did all eat, and were well refreshed; and behold, also,
that while I was in the distributing of it, it so increased in my hand,
that of the fragments that we left, after we had well dined, I gathered
up this basketful. Wherefore, setting myself to a more narrow search,
through frequent prayer, what first with doing and then with undoing,
and after that with doing again, I thus did finish it.’[251] To this
singular event the religious public are indebted for one of Bunyan’s
ablest treatises, full of the striking sparkles of his extraordinary
imagination. It was a subject peculiarly adapted to display his
powers—the advent of New Jerusalem, her impregnable walls and gates of
precious stones, golden streets, water of life, temple, and the
redeemed from all nations flocking into it.[252]

In these times of severe persecution, two of the church members, S.
Fenn and J. Whiteman, were ordained joint pastors. Fenn has just been
delivered out of prison; yet they ventured to brave the storm, and in
this year, although the lions prowled before the porch, a number were
added to the church. Thus was their little Jerusalem built ‘even in
troublous times.’

Bunyan’s popularity and fame for wisdom and knowledge had spread all
round the country, and it naturally brought him visitors, with their
doubts, and fears, and cases of conscience. Among these a singular
instance is recorded in the Life of Badman. ‘When I was in prison,’
says the narrator, ‘there came a woman to me that was under a great
deal of trouble. So I asked her, she being a stranger to me, what she
had to say to me? She said she was afraid she should be damned. I asked
her the cause of those fears. She told me that she had, some time
since, lived with a shopkeeper at Wellingborough, and had robbed his
box in the shop several times of money, and pray, says she, tell me
what I shall do? I told her I would have her go to her master, and make
him satisfaction. She said she was afraid lest he should hang her. I
told her that I would intercede for her life, and would make use of
other friends to do the like; but she told me she durst not venture
that. Well, said I, shall I send to your master, while you abide out of
sight, and make your peace with him before he sees you? and with that I
asked her master’s name. But all she said in answer to this was, pray
let it alone till I come to you again. So away she went, and neither
told me her master’s name nor her own; and I never saw here
again.’[253] He adds, ‘I could tell you of another, that came to me
with a like relation concerning herself, and the robbing of her
mistress.’

To his cruel imprisonment the world is indebted for the most surprising
narrative of a new birth that has ever appeared. It was there that he
was led to write the Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners. He
displays in the preface his deep interest in the spiritual welfare of
those who had been born under his ministry. He rejoices in their
happiness, even while he was ‘sticking between the teeth of the lions
in the wilderness. I now again, as before from the top of shenir and
Hermon, so now from the lions’ dens, from “the mountains of the
leopards,” do look yet after you all, greatly longing to see your safe
arrival into the desired haven.’[254] How natural it was that, while
narrating his own experience, he should be led to write a guide to
pilgrims through time to eternity, and that it should be dated from
‘the den!’

‘And thus it was: I writing of the way
And race of saints, in this our gospel-day,
Fell suddenly into an allegory
About their journey, and the way to glory.’[255]

Any one possessing powers of imagination, to whom the adventures of
Christian are familiar, would, on reading the Grace Abounding, be
continually struck with the likeness there drawn of the pilgrim—the
more he contemplates the two pictures of Christian experience, so much
the more striking is their similarity. The one is a narrative of facts,
the other contains the same facts allegorized. Thus, by an irresistible
impulse from heaven upon the mind of a prisoner for Christ, did a light
shine forth from the dungeon on Bedford bridge which has largely
contributed to enlighten the habitable globe. The Pilgrim has been
translated into most of the languages and dialects of the world. The
Caffrarian and Hottentot, the enlightened Greek and Hindoo, the remnant
of the Hebrew race, the savage Malay and the voluptuous Chinese—all
have the wondrous narrative in their own languages. Bunyan was
imprisoned by bigots and tyrants, to prevent his being heard or known;
and his voice, in consequence, reaches to the ends of the earth. Let
every wretched persecutor contemplate this instance of God’s
over-ruling power. You will surely plunge the avenging sword into your
own vitals if, by persecution, you vainly endeavour to wound the saints
of the living God. You may make hypocrites throw off their disguise.
The real Christian may be discouraged, but he perseveres. He feels the
truth of Bunyan’s quaint saying, ‘the persecutors are but the devil’s
scarecrows, the old one himself lies quat’; while the eye of God is
upon him to save the children of Zion.[256] His otherwise dreary
imprisonment was lightened, and the time beguiled by these delightful
writings. His fellow-prisoners were benefited by hearing him read his
pilgrim’s adventures. But this has been so fully displayed in the
introduction to the Pilgrim that any further notice is
unnecessary.[257]

While busily occupied with his Grace Abounding and Pilgrim’s Progress,
he wrote a poetical epistle in answer to the kind inquiries of his
numerous friends and visitors. After thanking them for counsel and
advice, he describes his feelings in prison. His feet stood on Mount
Zion; his body within locks and bars, while his mind was free to study
Christ, and elevated higher than the stars. Their fetters could not
tame his spirit, nor prevent his communion with God. The more his
enemies raged, the more peace he experienced. In prison he received the
visits of saints, of angels, and the Spirit of God. ‘I have been able
to laugh at destruction, and to fear neither the horse nor his rider. I
have had sweet sights of the forgiveness of my sins in this place, and
of my being with Jesus in another world.’[258] If his ears were to be
pierced in the pillory, it would be only ‘to hang a jewel there.’ The
source of his happy feelings is well expressed in one of the stanzas:—

‘The truth and I were both here cast
    Together, and we do
Lie arm in arm, and so hold fast
    Each other; this is true.’[259]

Yes, honest John Bunyan, the world at large now gives you credit for
the truth of that saying.

How strange must it seem to the luxurious worldling, with his bed of
down and splendid hangings, but aching heart, to hear of the exquisite
happiness of the prisoner for Christ on his straw pallet! ‘When God
makes the bed,’ as Bunyan says, ‘he must needs be easy that is cast
thereon; a blessed pillow hath that man for his head, though to all
beholders it is hard as a stone.’[260] In the whole course of his
troubles, he enjoyed the sympathy of his family and friends. his food
was brought daily, and such was the veneration in which his memory was
embalmed, that the very jug in which his broth was taken to the prison
has been preserved to this day.[261]

In the midst of all his sufferings he murmurs not nor for a moment
gives way to revenge; he leaves the persecutor in the hands of God.
Stand off, Christian; pity the poor wretch that brings down upon
himself the vengeance of God. Your pitiful arm must no strike him—no,
stand by, ‘that God may have his full blow at him in his time.
Wherefore he saith avenge not yourself—“Vengeance is mine, saith the
Lord.” Give place, leave such an one to be handled by me.’[262]

‘There are several degrees of suffering for righteousness—the scourge
of the tongue, the ruin of an estate, the loss of liberty, a gaol, a
gibbet, a stake, a dagger. Now answerable to these are the comforts of
the Holy Ghost, prepared like to like, part proportioned to part, only
the consolations are said to abound.’[263] The mind of Bunyan was
imbued with these sentiments; baptized into them, and consequently
elevated far above the fear of what man could do unto him. Yes, he knew
the power of God. ‘He can make those things that in themselves are most
fearful and terrible to behold, the most delightful and most desirable
things. He can make a gaol more beautiful than a palace, restraint more
sweet by far than liberty, and the reproach of Christ greater riches
than the treasures of Egypt.’[264]

The Bible, that heavenly storehouse, was opened to him: ‘I never had,
in all my life, so great an inlet into the Word of God as now.’[265] ‘I
have had sweet sights of forgiveness and of the heavenly Jerusalem. I
have seen here that which, while in this world, I shall never be able
to express.’

About a year before he was set at liberty he received a very popular
work, written by Edward Fowler, a Bedfordshire clergyman, who was soon
after elevated to the see of Gloucester. It was entitled The Design of
Christianity, and professed to prove that the object of the Saviour was
merely to place man in a similar position to that of Adam before the
fall. It is an extremely learned production, full of Greek and Latin
quotations; but, in Bunyan’s estimation, it aimed a deadly blow at the
foundations of Christianity. To restore man to Adam’s innocency, and
then to leave him to cope with Satanic subtlety, was to cut off all
hopes of salvation. It was brought to him in February 1672, and in the
very short period of forty-two days, Fowler’s theory was most
completely demolished by Bunyan’s Defence of the Doctrine of
Justification, 4to, dated from prison, the 27th of the 12th Month, 1671
(27th March, 1672). This was answered by a small 4to volume, entitled
Dirt Wiped Off. Bunyan had used some harsh epithets; but the clergyman,
or his curate, beat the tinker in abusive language. He had been by this
time promoted to the rectory of Cripplegate. For an account of this
controversy, the reader is referred to the introduction to Bunyan’s
work on Justification, and to that to the Pilgrim’s Progress.[266] The
impression it made upon the public mind is well expressed in a rude
rhyme, made by an anonymous author, in his Assembly of Moderate
Divines:

‘There’s a moderate Doctour at Cripplegate dwells,
Whom Smythes his curate in trimming excells;
But Bunyan a tinker hath tickled his gills.’

The last work that he wrote in prison was the confession of his faith,
and reason of his practice as to mixed communion, not with the world,
but with saints of other denominations. As this plunged him into a
fearful controversy with his Dissenting brethren (Baptists,
Independents, and Presbyterians), a notice of it will more properly be
introduced in our account of that conflict. He had been incarcerated
nearly twelve years, and had determined to suffer to the end. Here he
found time ‘to weigh, and pause, and pause again, the grounds and
foundations of those principles for which he suffered,’ and he was a
Nonconformist still. ‘I cannot, I dare not now revolt or deny my
principles, on pain of eternal damnation,’[267] are his impressive
words. ‘Faith and holiness are my professed principles, with an
endeavour to be at peace with all men. Let they themselves be judges,
if aught they find in my writing or preaching doth render me worthy of
almost twelve years’ imprisonment, or one that deserveth to be hanged
or banished for ever, according to their tremendous sentence. If
nothing will do unless I make of my conscience a continual butchery and
slaughter-shop, unless putting out my own eyes, I commit me to the
blind to lead me, I have determined, the Almighty God being my help and
shield, yet to suffer, if frail life might continue so long, even until
the moss shall grow over mine eye-brows, rather than to violate my
faith and principles.’[268] The allusion to moss growing on his
eye-brows most probably referred to the damp state of his den or
dungeon.

The continuation to the Grace Abounding, written by a friend, and
published four years after his decease, divides his imprisonment into
three periods; but as Bunyan makes it one continued imprisonment, there
can be no doubt but that it was a long, dreary confinement; during
which the testimony of his friend, Samuel Wilson, is, that it was ‘an
uncomfortable and close prison, and sometimes under cruel and
oppressive jailers.’ The division into three parts most probably
alludes to the severity or liberality of his jailers. He had at times,
while a prisoner, an extraordinary degree of liberty; like Joseph in
Egypt, some of his jailers committed all to his hands. There can be
little doubt but that he went from the prison to preach in the villages
or woods, and at one time went to London to visit his admiring[269]
friends; but this coming to the ears of the justices, the humane jailer
had well nigh lost his place, and for some time he was not permitted to
look out at the door. When this had worn off, he had again
opportunities of visiting his church and preaching by stealth. It is
said that many of the Baptist congregations in Bedfordshire owe their
origin to his midnight preaching.

Upon one occasion, having been permitted to go out and visit his
family, with whom he intended to spend the night, long before morning
he felt so uneasy that at a very late hour he went back to the prison.
Information was given to a neighbouring clerical magistrate that there
was strong suspicion of Bunyan having broke prison. At midnight, he
sent a messenger to the jail, that he might be a witness against the
merciful keeper. On his arrival, he demanded, ‘Are all the prisoners
safe?’ the answer was, ‘Yes.’ ‘Is John Bunyan safe?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Let me see
him.’ He was called up and confronted with the astonished witness, and
all passed off well. His kind-hearted jailer said to him, ‘You may go
out when you will, for you know much better when to return than I can
tell you.’[270]

During these twelve terrible years, and particularly towards the end of
his imprisonment, the members and elders of his church at Bedford
suffered most severely, a very abridged account of which is given in
the introduction to the Pilgrim’s Progress.[271] The set time for his
liberation was now drawing near, but the singular means by which it was
accomplished must be reserved for our next chapter.

PERIOD SIXTH.

BUNYAN IS DELIVERED FROM PRISON—CONTROVERSY WITH THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH
ON THE SUBJECT OF THE LORD’S SUPPER—PUBLISHES THE PILGRIM’S PROGRESS,
AND MANY BOOKS, AND BECOMES EXTREMELY POPULAR—HIS DECEASE AND
CHARACTER.

As Charles II felt himself securely seated on his throne, his design to
establish an absolute monarchy became more and more apparent. The
adulation of his professed friends, and the noisy popularity with which
he was greeted, appear to have fostered his crafty designs to rid
himself of parliamentary government. His whole conduct was that of a
Papist, who keeps no faith with Protestants; or of a statesman, whose
religion, honour, and truthfulness, were wholly subservient to
expediency. To further his object, he formed a council of five
noblemen, two of whom were Roman Catholics, and the other three either
careless as to religion or professed infidels. The first letter of
their names formed the word CABAL. Aided by these he sought to
extinguish liberty, and extirpate the Protestant faith.[272] To furnish
himself with the means of indulging his unbridled passions, he, like a
buccaneer, seized the Dutch merchantmen returning from India and
Smyrna, without any declaration of war, and laid his hands upon all the
money borrowed of his merchants which had been deposited in the
exchequer. He then united himself with France to destroy Holland, the
stronghold of liberty. To gratify the Roman Catholics, and conciliate
the Dissenters, he issued a declaration in favour of liberty of
conscience, the seal to which he afterwards broke with his own
hands,[273] but he could not prevent a considerable degree of religious
liberty arising from such vacillating conduct.

Bunyan, who had secured the confidence and esteem of his jailer, now
found his prison more like a lodging-house, and enjoyed great
privileges. He frequently, if not regularly, attended the church
meetings, and preached with some degree of publicity. The church at
Bedford was at this time in want of a pastor, and their eyes were
naturally fixed upon Bunyan to succeed to that important office. There
were two weighty considerations that required Divine guidance in coming
to a conclusion. One was, whether it might injuriously affect the
prisoner’s comforts, and the other was, the propriety of making choice
of a Christian brother to be their ministering elder, while
incarcerated in a jail. Feeling these difficulties, the church held
several meetings on the subject, the minutes of which are very
interesting. The first was held at Hawnes, on the 24th of the eighth
month (October) 1671, when ‘the improvement of the gifts of the church,
and their disposal in an orderly way, were proposed to consideration,
that God might be sought for direction therein; and a time further to
consider and debate thereof, was appointed this day seven-night, at
evening, at Bedford, where the principal brethren were desired for that
purpose to come together, at brother John Fenn’s; and a church-meeting
was appointed to be there that day week. The church was also minded to
seek God about the choice of brother, Bunyan to the office of elder,
that their way in that respect may be cleared up to them.’ At a meeting
held at Bedford, on the last day of the ninth month (November), there
was appointed another meeting ‘to pray and consult about concluding the
affair before propounded, concerning gifts of the brethren to be
improved, and the choice of brother Bunyan to office, at Gamlingay, on
the 14th day, and at Hawnes, the 20th, and at Bedford, the 21st of the
same instant, which it was desired might be a general meeting.’ After
all this jealous care, and these fervent applications to the throne of
grace for divine guidance, the result was most gratifying. ‘At a full
assembly of the church at Bedford, the 21st of the tenth month,[274]
after much seeking God by prayer and sober conference formally had, the
congregation did at this meeting, with joynt consent, signified by
solemn lifting up of their hands, call forth and appoint our brother
John Bunyan to the pastoral office or eldership. And he accepting
thereof, gave himself up to serve Christ and his Church, in that
charge, and received of the elders the right hand of fellowship, after
having preached fifteen years.’ The choice thus solemnly made, was
ratified by the abundant blessings of heavenly union and great
prosperity—no stranger or novice, but one whose preaching and writings
had proved most acceptable to them for a series of years—on that had
been owned and blessed of his God, and whom the church delighted to
honour.

At the same church meeting, ‘The congregation having had long
experience of the faithfulness of brother John Fenn in his care for the
poor, did after the same manner solemnly choose him to the honourable
office of a deacon, and committed their poor and purse to him, and he
accepted thereof, and gave himself up to the Lord and them in that
service.’ The church did also determine to keep the 26th inst. as a day
of fasting and prayer, both here, and at Hawnes, and at Gamlingay,
solemnly to commend to the grace of God brother Bunyan and brother
Fenn, and to entreat his gracious assistance and presence with them in
their respective works, whereunto he hath called them.

The most extraordinary circumstance that took place at this time was,
that while Bunyan was a prisoner in a wretched dungeon for preaching
the glad tidings of salvation, or, in the mysterious legal jargon of
the period, ‘holding conventicles,’ he received his Majesty’s license
to preach, and thus to hold conventicles—it was one of the first that
was granted. His Majesty continued to keep him a prisoner for preaching
more than six months after he had licensed him to preach!! At the same
time that the permission to preach was granted to Bunyan, the house of
Josiah Roughed, Bedford, was licensed by his Majesty’s command, for the
use of such as do not conform to the Church of England. In this John
Bunyan was authorized to teach, or in any other licensed place.[275]
These were among the first licenses that were granted. The present
highly-respected pastor of the church considers that this license does
not refer to Roughed’s private dwelling, but rather to ‘an edifice or a
barn, purchased of Robert Crompton, Esq., with a piece of ground
adjoining it,’ in the parishes of St. Paul and Cuthbert, for £50, in
1672, by Roughed, Bunyan, Fenn, and others, and which was released by
Fenn to Bunyan and others, November 10, 1681, two days before Fenn’s
death. This building having been properly fitted up by voluntary
contribution, became permanently occupied by the church as its place of
meeting, until the old chapel was erected in 1707. From this we may
conclude that Bunyan was engaged in his worldly occupation as a
brazier, in the year that he obtained his release from prison, and to
1681.

How utterly contemptible does any Government become when they tamper
with spiritual worship. At one period they punished Dissenters with
imprisonment, transportation, and, to use Judge Keeling’s elegant
expression in his sentence on Bunyan, ‘to stretch by the neck for it’;
and anon, the very same Government, under the same king, gives them
license to dissent! Human laws affecting religion can never be the
standard of morality; to read the Bible is considered to be sin in
Tuscany, and righteousness in Britain. The release of this great and
pious man from his tedious imprisonment, has been hitherto involved in
a cloud of mystery, which it will be our happiness to disperse, while
we record that event in a clear, indisputable narrative of facts. His
earlier biographer, Mr. Doe, not having access to archives which the
lapse of time has now rendered available, attributed his release to the
influence of Bishop Barlow, by the interference of Dr. Owen. It is
narrated in the life of Dr. Owen, published in 1721:—‘The doctor had
some friends also among the bishops, Dr. Barlow, formerly his tutor,
then bishop of Lincoln, who yet upon a special occasion failed him,
when he might have expected the service of his professed friendship.
The case was this, Mr. John Bunyan had been confined to a jail twelve
years, upon an excommunication for Nonconformity. Now there was a law,
that if any two persons will go to the bishop of the diocese, and offer
a cautionary bond, that the prisoner shall conform in half a year, the
bishop may release him upon that bond; whereupon a friend of this poor
man desired Dr. Owen to give him his letter to the bishop in his
behalf, which he readily granted. It was soon after the discovery of
the Popish plot, when this letter was carried to the bishop, who having
read it, desired “a little time to consider of it, and if I can do it,
you may be assured of my readiness.” He was waited upon again in about
a fortnight, and his answer was, “I would desire you to move the Lord
Chancellor in the case, and, upon his order, I will do it.” To which it
was replied, “this method would be chargeable, and the man was poor,
not able to expend so much money; and, being satisfied he could do it
legally, it was hoped his Lordship would remember his promise, there
being no straining a point in the case. But he would do it upon no
other terms, which at last was done, and the poor man released.” And
for this we are told that “Mr. Bunyan returned him his unfeigned
thanks, and often remembered him in his prayers, as, next to God, his
deliverer.”’ The whole of this story, so far as it relates to Bunyan,
is not only improbable, but utterly impossible. Bunyan was never
excommunicated, and he was certainly released from prison two or three
years previous to Dr. Barlow becoming a bishop. The critical times to
which he alludes, refer doubtless to the Popish plot, which took place
in 1678, Bunyan having been released in 1672. The probability is, that
Dr. Owen did about 1678 apply to the bishop of Lincoln for the release
of some poor prisoner under sentence of excommunication, it being his
province to release such prisoners upon their making peace with the
Church. If this person was a friend of Bunyan’s, his prayers for the
bishop, and acknowledgments for this act of kindness, are readily
accounted for. That Barlow had nothing to do with Bunyan’s release is
now perfectly clear; because all, even the minutest particulars
relative to it, have been discovered. This is a very romantic history,
and necessarily leads us back to the battle of Worcester. At this
battle, the republicans were numerous, well disciplined, and led by
experienced officers; the royal army was completely routed, and its
leaders, who survived the battle, were subject to the severest
privations. Charles found refuge at Boscobel House, and, disguised as a
woodcutter, was hid in an oak. His adventures and hair-breadth escapes
fill a volume:—the parliament offered one thousand pounds reward for
his apprehension. At length, after wandering in various disguises forty
days, he arrived at Brighton, then a small fishing town, and here his
friends succeeded in hiring a fishing boat to take him to France.
Numerous histories of this extraordinary escape were published, but no
two of them agree, excepting that, to please the king, all the credit
was given to Roman Catholics. Of these narratives, that by Dr. Lingard
has the strangest blunder. When they left Shoreham, ‘The ship stood
with easy sail towards the Isle of Wight, as if she were on her way to
Deal, to which port she was bound’[276]—Deal being exactly in the
contrary direction! Carte has the best account. The vessel was bound
for Poole, coal-laden; they left Shoreham at seven a.m. under easy
sail; and at five, being off the Isle of Wight, with the wind north,
she stood over to France, and returned to Poole, no one discovering
that they had been out of their course. A letter recently discovered
among the archives of the Society of Friends at Devonshire House solves
every difficulty. It is written by Ellis Hookes to the wife of George
Fox, dated January, 1670—

‘Yesterday there was a friend (a quaker) wth the king, one that is John
Groves mate, he was the may yt. was mate to the master of the
fisher-boat yt carried the king away when he went from Worcester fight,
and only this friend and the master knew of it in the ship, and the
friend carried him (the king) ashoare on his shoulders. the king knew
him again, and was very friendly to him, and told him he remembered him
and of severall tings yt was done in ye ship att the same time. the
friend told him the reason why he did not come all this while was yt he
was satisfied in yt he had peace and satisfaction in himself yt he did
what he did to releiue a man in distresse and now he desired nothing of
him (the king) but that he would sett friends at libertie who were
great sufferers or to that purpose and told the king he had a paper of
110 that were premunired yt had lain in prison about 6 years and none
can release ym but him. Soe the king took the paper and said there was
many of ym and yt they would be in again in a monthes time and yt the
country gentlemen complained to him yt they were so troubled wth the
quakers. So he said he would release him six. but ye friend thinkes to
goe to him again, for he had not fully cleared himselfe.’

This letter is endorsed by Fox himself, ‘E Hookes to M F of passages
consering Richard Carver, that cared the King of his backe.’

E. Hooke’s next letter, addressed to George Fox, thus continues the
narrative—

‘February, 1669-70.

‘Dear G. F. As for the friend that was with the King, his love is to
thee. He has been with the King lately, and Thomas Moore was with him,
and the King was very loving to them. He had a fair and free
opportunity to open his mind to the King, and the King has promised to
do for him, but willed him to wait a month or two longer. I rest thy
faithful friend to serve thee,

‘E.H.’[277]

The captain of the fisher-boat was Nicholas Tattersall, whose grave,
covered with a slab of black marble, is still to be seen in Brighton
church-yard, with a long poetical inscription, now scarcely legible. On
the Restoration, he applied for his reward, and was made a commander in
the royal navy, with an annuity to him and his heirs for ever of £100.
The family have recently become extinct. His fisher-boat was moored for
a considerable time in the Thames, opposite Whitehall. Years had rolled
on, but the Quaker mate who had so materially assisted the flying
prince—by keeping the secret—arranging the escape with the crew, and
when, in fear of danger from a privateer, rowing the prince ashore, and
in shoal water carrying him on his shoulders to the land, near the
village of Fecamp, in Normandy, yet he had not been with the king to
claim any reward. This escape took place in 1651, and nearly twenty
years had elapsed, ten of which were after the Restoration; so that in
all probability the king, who with all his faults was not ungrateful,
was agreeably surprised with his appearance at the palace. Whatever
alteration the rough life of a sailor had made on his appearance, the
king at once recognized him. All the progress he had made as to worldly
prosperity was from being mate of a fisher-boat, under Tattersall, to
becoming mate of a West Indiaman, under Captain Grove. His Majesty, who
had passed his time more with courtiers than with Quakers, was
doubtless astonished that a poor man, having such a claim on his
bounty, should have been so many years without seeking his recompense.
On asking the reason, the Quaker nobly answered to this effect, That
the performance of his duty in saving the life of the hunted prince,
was only a moral obligation, for the discharge of which God had amply
repaid him by peace and satisfaction in his mind and conscience. And
now, Sire, I ask nothing for myself, but that your Majesty would do the
same to my friends that I did for you—set the poor pious sufferers at
liberty, that they may bless you, and that you may have that peace and
satisfaction which always follows good and benevolent actions. The king
attempted feebly to argue, that they would soon offend again, and that
they were much complained of by the country gentlemen. How readily the
sailor might have said to his sailor king, Alter the ship’s articles,
let all the crew fare alike as to their free choice in religion, and
there will be no grumbling in your noble ship; every subject will do
his duty. The king offered to release any six, and we may imagine the
sailor’s blunt answer, What, six poor Quakers for a king’s ransom!! His
Majesty was so pleased as to invite him to come again, when he
introduced another member of the Society of Friends, Thomas Moore. At
this period an amazing number of Friends, men and women, were in the
jails throughout the kingdom, torn from their families, and suffering
most severe privations, under which great numbers had perished. The
application for the release of the survivors, thus happily commenced,
was followed up with zeal and energy, and crowned with great success.
This narrative solves all those difficulties which rendered that
remarkable event extremely mysterious. The question naturally arises
why so debauched and dissolute a king should prefer such tight-laced
Christians to be the peculiar objects of his mercy. The reason is
perfectly obvious, he owed his life to one of their members, who,
however poor as to this world, possessed those riches of piety which
prevented his taking any personal reward for an act of duty. Shade of
the noble sailor, thy name, Richard Carver, is worthy of all honour!
And the more so, because thy gallant bearing has been studiously
concealed in all the histories of these important transactions. Had he
been a mischief-making Jesuit, like Father Huddleston, his noble deed
would have been trumpeted forth for the admiration of the world in all
ages. His name was left to perish in oblivion, because he was of a
despised sect. It is an honour to Christianity that a labouring man
preferred the duty of saving the life of a human being, and that of an
enemy, to gaining so easily heaps of glittering gold. And when all the
resources of royalty were ready munificently to reward him, he, like
Moses, preferred the rescue of his suffering friends to personal
honours or emoluments—even to all the riches of England!

The efforts of Carver and Moore were followed by most earnest appeals
for mercy by George Whitehead, who with Moore appeared before the king
in council several times, until at length the royal word sanctioned
this act of mercy. The Quakers were then appealed to by sufferers of
other denominations, and advised them to obtain the permission of the
king in council, that their names might be inserted in the deed;
rendering them all the assistance that was in their power. Great
difficulties were encountered in passing the cumbrous deed through the
various offices, and then in pleading it in all parts of the country.
The number of Quakers thus released from imprisonment was 471, being
about the same number as those who had perished in the jails. The rest
of the prisoners liberated by this deed were Baptists and Independents,
and among the former was JOHN BUNYAN.

A very circumstantial narrative of these proceedings, copies of the
minutes of the privy council, and other documents, will be found in the
introduction to The Pilgrim’s Progress.[278] One of these official
papers affords an interesting subject of study to an occasional
conformist. It is the return of the sheriff of Bedfordshire, stating
that ALL the sufferings of Bunyan—his privation of liberty, sacrifice
of wife, children, and temporal comforts, with the fear of an
ignominious death—were for refusing to attend his parish church and
hear the Common Prayer service.

When it is considered that Bunyan was very severe in his remarks upon
the Quakers, the event reflects no ordinary degree of honour upon the
Society of Friends, at whose sole charge, and entirely by their own
exertions, this great deed of benevolence was begun, carried on, and
completed. It is difficult to ascertain the exact duration of this sad
imprisonment, because we cannot discover any record of the day of his
release. His imprisonment commenced November 13, 1660, and his pardon
under the great seal is dated September 13, 1672. As the pardon
included nearly 500 sufferers, it occupied some time to obtain official
duplicates to be exhibited at the assizes and sessions for the various
counties. A letter from E. Hooks to Mrs. Fox intimates that none were
released on the 1st November 1672. Another letter shows that the
Bedfordshire prisoners were discharged before January 10, 1673;[279]
confirming Bunyan’s own account, published by him in the Grace
Abounding, 1680, that his imprisonment lasted complete twelve
years.[280]

During the latter period of his imprisonment, probably from the time of
his receiving the royal license to preach, May 15, 1672, he enjoyed
extraordinary liberty—visiting those who had been kind to his family,
and preaching in the surrounding counties. An entry in the records of
the city of Leicester proves that he was there, and claimed the liberty
of preaching—‘John Bunyan’s license bears date the 15th of May 1672, to
teach as a Congregational person, being of that persuasion, in the
house of Josias Roughed, Bedford, or in any other place, room, or
house, licensed by his Majestie’s memorand. The said Bunyan shewed his
license to Mr. Mayor, Mr. Overinge, Mr. Freeman, and Mr. Browne, being
then present, the 6th day of October, 1672, that being about two months
before his final release from jail.’[281]

His first object, upon recovering his liberty, appears to have been the
proper arrangement of his worldly business, that he might provide for
the wants of his family, a matter of little difficulty with their
frugal habits. He, at the same time, entered with all his soul into his
beloved work of preaching and writing, to set forth the glories of
Immanuel. The testimony of one who was his ‘true friend and long
acquaintance,’ is, that one of the first fruits of his liberation was
to visit those who had assisted him and comforted his family during his
incarceration, encouraging those who were in fear of a prison, and
collecting means of assistance to those who still remained prisoners;
traveling even to remote counties to effect these merciful
objects.[282]

While the premises occupied by Mr. Roughed were being converted into a
capacious meeting-house, the pastor was indefatigable in visiting the
sick, and preaching from house to house, settling churches in the
villages, reconciling differences, and extending the sacred influences
of the gospel, so that in a very short time he attained the appellation
of Bishop Bunyan—a title much better merited by him than by the downy
prelates who sent him to jail for preaching that which they ought to
have preached.

He formed branch churches at Gamlingay, Hawnes, Cotton-end, and
Kempston, in connection with that at Bedford. When he opened the new
meeting-house, it was so thronged that many were constrained to stay
without, though it was very spacious, every one striving to partake of
his instructions. Here he lived, in much peace and quiet of mind,
contenting himself with that little God had bestowed upon him, and
sequestering himself from all secular employments to follow that of his
call to the ministry.[283] The word ‘sequestering’ would lead us to
conclude, that his business was continued by his family, under his
care, but so as to allow him much time for his Christian duties, and
his benevolent pursuits. His peaceful course was interrupted by a
severe controversy with the Christian world upon the subject of
communion at the Lord’s Table, which had commenced while he was in
prison. He would admit none but those who, by a godly conversation,
brought forth fruits meet for repentance, nor dared he to refuse any
who were admitted to spiritual communion with the Redeemer. Every sect
which celebrated the Lord’s Supper, fenced the table round with ritual
observances, except the Baptist church at Bedford, which stood
preeminent for non-sectarianism. A singular proof of this is, that the
catechism called Instruction of the Ignorant, written and published by
Bunyan, is admirably adapted for the use, not only of his own church,
but of Christians of all denominations.

His spirit was greatly refreshed by finding that his precept and
example had been blessed to his son Thomas. On the 6th of the 11th
month, 1673, he passed the lions, and was welcomed into the house
called Beautiful, uniting in full communion with his father’s church.
There doubtless was, as Mercy expresses it, ‘music in the house, music
in the heart, and music also in heaven, for joy that he was here.’[284]
He afterwards became a village preacher.

Bunyan was by no means a latitudinarian. No one felt greater decision
than he did for the truths of our holy faith. When his Lord’s design in
Christianity was, as he thought, perverted by a beneficed clergyman,
then he sent forth from his prison an answer as from a son of thunder,
even at the risk of his life. His love for the pure doctrines of the
gospel was as decided as his aversion to sectarian titles. ‘As for
those factious titles of Anabaptists, Independents, Presbyterians, or
the like, I conclude that they came neither from Jerusalem, nor from
Antioch, but rather from hell and Babylon, for they naturally tend to
divisions.’[285] The only title that he loved was that of Christian.
‘It is strange to see how men are wedded to their own opinions, beyond
what the law of grace and love will admit. Here is a Presbyter—here an
Independent and a Baptist, so joined each man to his own opinions, that
they cannot have that communion one with another as by the testament of
the Lord Jesus they are commanded and enjoined.’[286] The meaning which
he attached to the word ‘sectarian’ is very striking—Pharisees are
sectarians, they who in Divine worship turn aside from the rule of the
written Word, and in their manner do it to be seen of men—these are
sectaries.[287] Bunyan was most decided as to the importance of baptism
and the Lord’s Supper. ‘Do you think that love letters are not desired
between lovers? Why these, God’s ordinances, they are his love letters,
and his love tokens, too. No marvel, then, if the righteous do so
desire them. “More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much
fine gold; sweeter also than honey, and the honey-comb.” Christ made
himself known to his disciples in breaking of bread; who would not,
then, that loves to know him, be present at such an ordinance? Ofttimes
the Holy Ghost, in the comfortable influence of it, has accompanied the
baptized in the very act of administering of it.’ His views of the
fellowship of the saints were equally explicit—‘Church fellowship,
rightly managed, is the glory of all the world. No place, no community,
no fellowship, is adorned and bespangled with those beauties, as is a
church rightly knit together to their Head, and lovingly serving one
another.’[288] Such he admitted to the table of their common Lord; but,
in his esteem, to communicate with the profane was all one with
sacrificing to the devil.

All this liberality was accompanied by very strict notions of church
fellowship, not allowing private judgment in the withdrawing of any
member, if the church withheld its approbation. Mary Tilney had been
cruelly robbed by the persecuting Justice Porter, for not attending the
parish church. He carted away all her goods, beds, and bedding, even to
the hangings of her rooms. She was a most benevolent widow, and was
more troubled with the crying and sighing of her poor neighbours, than
with the loss of her goods. Harassed by persecution at Bedford, she
removed to London, and requested her dismission to a church of which
her son-in-law was pastor, which was refused. As the letter announcing
this to her is a good example of Bunyan’s epistolary correspondence, it
is carefully extracted from the church book.

‘Our dearly-beloved sister Tilney.

‘Grace, mercy, and peace be with you, by Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.

‘I received your letter, and have presented it to the sight of the
brethren, who, after due consideration of your motion, have jointly
concluded to give you this answer. This for yourself (honoured sister),
you are of high esteem with the church of God in this place, both
because his grace hath been bestowed richly upon you, and because of
your faithful fellowship with us; for you have been rightly a daughter
of Abraham while here, not being afraid with any amazement. Your holy
and quiet behaviour, also, while with patience and meekness, and in the
gentleness of Christ, you suffered yourself to be robbed for his sake,
hath the more united our affections to you in the bowels of Jesus
Christ. Yea, it hath begotten you reverence, also, in the hearts of
them who were beholders of your meekness and innocency while you
suffered; and a stinging conviction, as we are persuaded, in the
consciences of those who made spoil for themselves; all which will
redound to the praise of God our Father, and to your comfort and
everlasting consolation by Christ, in the day he shall come to take
vengeance for his people, and to be glorified in them that believe.
Wherefore we cannot (our honoured sister) but care for your welfare,
and increase of all good in the faith and kingdom of Christ, whose
servant you are, and whose name is written in your forehead; and do
therefore pray God and our Father, that he would direct your way, and
open a door in his temple for you, that you may eat his fat and be
refreshed, and that you may drink the pure blood of the grape. And be
you assured that, with all readiness, we will help and forward you what
we can therein, for we are not ashamed to own you before all the
churches of Christ.

‘But, our dearly beloved, you know that, for our safety and your
profit, it is behoofful that we commit you to such, to be fed and
governed in the Word and doctrines as, we are sufficiently persuaded,
shall be able to deliver you up with joy at the coming of our Lord
Jesus Christ with all his saints: otherwise we (that we say not you)
shall receive blushing and shame before him and you; yea, and you also,
our honoured sister, may justly charge us with want of love, and a due
respect for your eternal condition, if, for want of care and
circumspection herein, we should commit you to any from whom you should
receive damage, or by whom you should not be succoured and fed with the
sincere milk of the incorruptible Word of God, which is able to save
your soul. Wherefore we may not, neither dare give our consent that you
feed and fold with such whose principles and practices, in matters of
faith and worship, we, as yet, are strangers to, and have not received
commendations concerning, either from works of theirs or epistles from
others. Yourself, indeed, hath declared that you are satisfied therein;
but, elect sister, seeing the act of delivering you up is an act of
ours and not yours, it is convenient, yea, very expedient, that we, as
to so weighty a matter, be well persuaded before. Wherefore we beseech
you, that, for the love of our Lord Jesus Christ, you give us leave to
inform ourselves yet better before we grant your request; and that you
also forbear to sit down at the table with any without the consent of
your brethren. You were, while with us, obedient, and we trust you will
not be unruly now. And for the more quick expedition of this matter, we
will propound before you our further thoughts. 1. Either we shall
consent to your sitting down with brother Cockain, brother Griffith,
brother Palmer, or other, who, of long continuance in the city, have
showed forth their faith, their worship, and good conversation with the
Word; 2. Or if you can get a commendatory epistle from brother Owen,
brother Cockain, brother Palmer, or brother Griffith, concerning the
faith and principles of the person and people you mention, with desire
to be guided and governed by, you shall see our readiness, in the fear
of God, to commit you to the doctrine and care of that congregation.
Choose you whether of these you will consent unto, and let us hear of
your resolution. And we beseech you, for love’s sake, you show, with
meekness, your fear and reverence of Christ’s institution; your love to
the congregation, and regard to your future good. Finally, we commit
you to the Lord and the Word of his grace, who is able to build you up,
and to give you an inheritance among them that are sanctified. To God,
the only wise, be glory and power everlasting. Amen.—Your affectionate
brethren, to serve you in the faith and fellowship of the gospel.

‘Sent from Bedford, the 19th of the Fourth Month, 1671.

As a farther illustration of Bunyan’s sentiments on this subject, we
give the following letter to the church at Braintree:—

‘The 7th of the Twelfth Month, 1676 (Feb. 1677).

‘The church of Christ in and about Bedford, to the church of Christ in
and about Braintree, sendeth greeting,

‘Holy and beloved—We, fellow-heirs with you of the grace of life,
having considered your request concerning our honoured and beloved
brother, Samuel Hensman: that he shall be given up to you for your
mutual edification, and his furtherance and joy of faith; and
considering also, in the capacity he now standeth by reason of his
habitation amongst you, his edification is to be from you, not from
us—he being, by God’s providence (by which he disposeth the world),
placed at such a distance from us. And considering, also, the great end
of Christ our Lord, in ordaining the communion of saints, is his glory
in their edification, and that all things are to be done by his command
to the edification of the body in general, and of every member in
particular, and that this we oft (ought?) to design in our receiving
him, and giving up to other churches, and not to please ourselves: do
as before God and the elect angels, grant and give up to you our elect
brother, to be received by you in the Lord, and to be nourished, in the
church at Braintree, with you as one that is dear to the Father and our
Lord Jesus Christ; and this we the willinger do, because, as we are
informed concerning you, beloved, you are not rigid in your principles,
but are for communion with saints as saints, and have been taught by
the Word to receive the brotherhood, because they are beloved, and
received of the Father and the Son, to whose grace we commend you, with
the brother of late a member with us, but now one of you. Grace be with
you all. Written by the appointment of the church here, and subscribed,
in her name, by your brethren, as followeth:—

John Bunyan

    Sam. Fenn. Oliver Stot.
    John Fenn. Thomas Cooper.
    Luke Astwood. John Croker.

The late Mr. Kilpin of Bedford considered the whole of this letter to
be entered in the minutes in Bunyan’s hand-writing.

There is also in the church book the copy of a letter, in 1674,
addressed to the ‘church sometime walking with our brother Jesse,’
refusing to dismiss to them Martha Cumberland, unless they were
certified that they continued in the practice of mixed communion. In
these sentiments Bunyan lived and died. His church remains the same to
the present day. In the new, commodious, and handsome meeting-house,
opened in 1850, there is a baptistery, frequently used. The present
minister, the amiable and talented John Jukes, baptizes infants, and
receives the assistance of a neighbouring Baptist minister to baptize
adults.

Not only had Bunyan clear, well-defined, and most decided views of the
ordinances of the gospel, but also of all its doctrines. His knowledge
upon those solemn subjects was drawn exclusively from the sacred pages;
nor dared he swerve in the slightest degree from the path of duty;
still he belonged to no sect, but that of Christian, and the same
freedom which had guided him in forming his principles, he cheerfully
allowed to others. Hitherto, water baptism had been considered a
pre-requisite to the Lord’s table by all parties. The Episcopalians,
Presbyterians, and Independents, had denounced the Baptists as guilty
of a most serious heresy, or blasphemy, in denying the right of infants
to baptism; not only did they exclude the Baptists from communion with
their churches, but they persecuted them with extreme rigour. When the
Independents made laws for the government of their colony in America,
in 1644, one of the enactments was, ‘That if any person shall either
openly condemn, or oppose the baptizing of infants, or seduce others,
or leave the congregation during the administration of the rite, they
shall be sentenced to banishment.’ The same year a poor man was tied up
and whipped, for refusing to have his child baptized. ‘The Rev. J.
Clarke, and Mr. O. Holmes, of Rhode Island, for visiting a sick Baptist
brother in Massachusetts, instead of being admitted to the Lord’s
table, they were arrested, fined, imprisoned, and whipped.’ At this
very time, the Baptists formed their colony at Rhode Island, and the
charter concludes with these words, ‘All men may walk as their
consciences persuade them, every one in the name of his God.’ This is
probably the only spot in the world where persecution was never known.
The Baptists considered that immersion in water was the marriage rite
between the believer and Saviour; that to sit at the Lord’s table
without it was spiritual adultery, to be abhorred and avoided, and
therefore refused to admit any person to the Lord’s table who had not
been baptized in water upon a personal profession of faith in the
Saviour. This was the state of parties when Bunyan, at the commencement
of his pastorate, entered into the controversy. He had been promised a
commendation to his book by the great, the grave, ‘the sober’ Dr. Owen,
but he withdrew his sanction. ‘And perhaps it was more for the glory of
God, that truth should go naked into the world,’ said Bunyan, ‘than as
seconded by so weighty an armour-bearer as he.’[289] Bunyan denied that
water could form a wedding garment, or that water baptism was a
pre-requisite for the Lord’s table, or that being immersed in water was
putting on our Lord’s livery, by which disciples may be known. ‘Away,
fond man, do you forget the text, “By this shall all men know that ye
are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.”’[290] And attempt
was made to embroil Bunyan in a public disputation in London upon this
subject, which he very wisely avoided.[291] This controversy will be
found in our second volume, and is deeply interesting, making allowance
for the esprit de corps manifested on all sides. A verse in the emblems
is very pertinent upon the violence of this dispute:—

‘Our gospel has had here a summer’s day,
But in its sunshine we, like fools, did play;
Or else fall out, and with each other wrangle,
And did, instead of work, not much but jangle.’[292]

After a lapse of nearly two centuries, Bunyan’s peaceable principles
have greatly prevailed; so that now few churches refuse communion on
account of the mode, in which water baptism has been administered. The
Baptists are no longer deemed heretics as they formerly were. Dr. Watts
aided this kindly feeling—‘A church baptized in infancy, or in adult
age, may allow communion to those that are of the contrary practice in
baptism.’[293] Robert Robinson praises Bunyan’s work, and advocates his
sentiments upon the most liberal principles. One of his remarks is very
striking:—‘Happy community! that can produce a dispute of one hundred
and fifty years unstained with the blood, and unsullied with the fines,
the imprisonments, and the civil inconveniences of the disputants. As
to a few coarse names, rough compliments, foreign suppositions, and
acrimonious exclamations, they are only the harmless squeakings of men
in a passion, caught and pinched in a sort of logical trap.’[294] To
this time, Bunyan was only known as an extraordinarily talented and
eloquent man, whose retentive memory was most richly stored with the
sacred Scriptures. All his sermons and writings were drawn from his own
mental resources, aided, while in prison, only by the Bible, the
Concordance, and Fox’s Book of Martyrs. Very emphatically he says, ‘I
am for drinking water out of my own cistern.’ ‘I find such a spirit of
idolatry in the learning of this world, that had I it at command I
durst not use it, but only use the light of the Word and Spirit of
God.’ ‘I will not take of it from a thread even to a shoe
latchet.’[295] It must not be understood that he read no other works
but his Bible and Book of Martyrs, but that he only used those in
composing his various treatises while in confinement. He certainly had
and read The Plain Man’s Pathway, Practice of Piety, Luther on the
Galatians, Clarke’s Looking-glass for Saints and Sinners, Dodd on the
Commandments, Andrews’ Sermons, Fowler’s Design of Christianity,
D’Anvers and Paul on Baptism, and doubtless all the books which were
within his reach, calculated to increase his store of knowledge.

About this time he published a small quarto tract, in which he
scripturally treats the doctrine of eternal election and reprobation.
This rare book, published for sixpence, we were glad to purchase at a
cost of one guinea and a half, because a modern author rejected its
authenticity! It is included in every early list of Bunyan’s works, and
especially in that published by himself, in 1688, to guard his friends
from deception; for he had become so popular an author that several
forgeries had been published under his initials. These few pages on
election contain a scriptural treatise upon a very solemn subject,
written by one whose mind was so imbued by the fear of God, as to have
cast out the fear of man; which so generally embarrasses writers upon
this subject. It was translated into Welsh, and is worthy an attentive
perusal, especially by those who cannot see the difference between
God’s foreknowledge and his foreordination.

A new era was now dawning upon him, which, during the last ten years of
his life, added tenfold to his popularity. For many years his
beautifully simple, but splendid allegory, The Pilgrim’s Progress, lay
slumbering in his drawer.[296] Numerous had been his consultations with
his pious associates and friends, and various had been their opinions,
whether it was serious enough to be published. All of them had a solemn
sense of the impropriety of anything like trifling as to the way of
escape from destruction, and the road to the celestial city. It appears
strange to us, who have witnessed the very solemn impressions, in all
cases, made by reading that book, that there could have been a doubt of
the propriety of treating in a colloquial manner, and even under the
fashion of a dream, those most important truths. Some said, ‘John,
print it’; others said, ‘not so.’ Some said, ‘it might do good’; others
said, ‘no.’ The result of all those consultations was his
determination, ‘I print it will,’ and it has raised an imperishable
monument to his memory. Up to this time, all Bunyan’s popularity arose
from his earlier works, and his sermons. Leaving out of the question
those most extraordinary books, The Pilgrim’s Progress and Holy War,
his other writings ought to have handed down his name, with honour and
popularity, to the latest posterity. While the logical and ponderous
works of Baxter and Owen are well calculated to furnish instruction to
those who are determined to obtain knowledge, the works of Bunyan
create that very determination, and furnish that very knowledge, so
blended with amusement, as to fix it in the memory. Let one
illustration suffice. It is our duty to love our enemies, but it is a
hard lesson; we must learn it from the conduct of the Divine
Creator—‘There is a man hates God, blasphemes his name, despises his
being; yea, says there is no God. And yet the God that he carrieth it
thus towards doth give me his breakfast, dinner, and supper; clothes
him well, and, when night comes, has him to bed, gives him good rest,
blesses his field, his corn, his cattle, his children, and raises him
to high estate; yea, and this our God doth not only once or twice, but
until these transgressors become old; his patience is thus extended
years after years, that we might learn of him to do well.’[297] All the
works of Bunyan abound with such striking lessons, as to render them
extremely valuable, especially to Sunday-school teachers and ministers,
to enliven their addresses and sermons. But, in The Pilgrim’s Progress,
the world has acknowledged one train of beauties; picture after
picture, most beautifully finished, exhibiting the road from
destruction to the celestial city; our only difficulty in such a
display being to decide as to which is the most interesting and
striking piece of scenery.[298] The editor’s introduction to that
extraordinary book is intended to prove that it was written while the
author was imprisoned for refusing to submit his conscience to human
laws, and that it is a perpetual monument to the folly of persecution;
the peculiar qualifications of the author are displayed in its having
been a spontaneous effusion of his own mind, unaided by any previous
writer; an analysis is given of all prior pilgrimages, in which, more
especially in The Pilgrims, The Pylgremage of the Soule, Grande Amoure,
and in The Pilgrim of Loretto, the reader will find a faithful picture
of some of the singularities of Popery drawn by itself; an account of
the editions, forgeries, errors in printing, versions and translations
of this wonderful book; the opinions of the learned and pious of its
merits, principal scenes, and a synopsis. It has been the source of
very numerous courses of lectures by ministers of all denominations;
and has been turned into a handsome volume of hymns, adapted for public
worship, by the late Mr. Purday, a friend of John Wesley’s, and a
laborious preacher for more than half a century.

Great efforts have been made by the most popular artists to enliven the
scenes of the pilgrimage; but no colour glows like the enchanting words
of Bunyan. No figures are so true to nature, and so life-like. Those
eminent engravers, Sturt and Strut, Stothard and Martin, with the prize
efforts excited by the Art Union of England, and the curious outlines
by Mrs. M’Kenzie, the daughter of a British admiral, have endeavoured
to exhaust the scenes in this inexhaustible work of beautiful scenery.
The most elegant and correct edition is the large-paper, sumptuous
volume by Mr. Bogue, admirably illustrated with new designs, engraved
on wood in superior style—a volume worthy the drawing-room of queens
and emperors. The designs, also, of the late David Scott, recently
published at Edinburgh, are new, and peculiarly striking. His entrance
to the Valley of the Shadow of Death is mysteriously impressive, a fit
accompaniment to Bunyan’s description, which is not excelled by any
thing in Dante, Spencer, or Milton. In both parts of The Pilgrim’s
Progress this scene is full of terrific sublimity. But we must be
excused, if we most warmly recommend our own offspring—the present
edition—as combining accuracy, elegance, and cheapness, with the
addition of very numerous notes, which, we trust, will prove highly
illustrative and entertaining.

The carping criticisms of Mr. Dunlop, in his History of Fiction, and of
an author in the Penny Encyclopedia, are scarcely worth notice. The
complaint is, want of benevolence in the hero of the tale. How singular
it is, and what a testimony to its excellence, that an intelligent
writer upon fictions should have been so overpowered with this
spiritual narrative, as to confound it with temporal things. Christian
leaves his wife and children, instead of staying with them, to be
involved in destruction—all this relates to inward spiritual feelings,
and to these only. Visited by compunctions of heart, Christian strives
to inspire his wife and children with the same, but in vain; he attends
solitarily to his spiritual state, taunted by his family, while, as to
temporal things, he becomes a better husband and father than ever he
was—but this is not prominent, because it is entirely foreign to the
author’s object, which is to display the inward emotions of the new
birth, the spiritual journey alone, apart from all temporal affairs.
Multitudes read it as if it was really a dream, the old sleeping
portrait confirming the idea. In the story, Christian most mysteriously
embodies all classes of men, from the prince to the peasant—the
wealthiest noble, or merchant, to the humbles mechanic or labourer—and
it illustrates the most solemn, certain truth, that, with respect to
the salvation of the soul, the poorest creature in existence is upon
perfect equality with the lordly prelate, or magnificent emperor, with
this word ringing in their ears, ‘the POOR have the gospel preached to
them.’ The Grace Abounding, or Life of Bunyan, is a key to all the
mysteries of The Pilgrim’s Progress, and Holy War.

Bunyan’s singular powers are those of description, not of invention. He
had lived in the city of destruction—he had heard the distant
threatening of the awful storm that was shortly to swallow it up in
unutterable ruin—he had felt the load of sin, and rejoiced when it was
rolled away before a crucified Saviour—he knew every step of the way,
and before he had himself passed the black river, he had watched
prayerfully over those who were passing, and when the gate of the city
was opened to let them enter, he had strained his eyes to see their
glory.

The purifying influence of The Pilgrim’s Progress may be traced in the
writings of many imaginative authors. How does it in several parts
beautify the admirable tale of Uncle Tom, and his Cabin. In that
inimitable scene, the death of the lovely Eva, the distressed negro,
watching with intense anxiety the progress of death, says, ‘When that
blessed child goes into the kingdom, they’ll open the door so wide,
we’ll all get a look in at the glory.’ Whence came this strange
idea—not limited to the poor negro, but felt by thousands who have
watched over departing saints? It comes from the entrance of Christian
and Hopeful into the celestial city—‘I looked in after them, and,
behold, the city shone like the sun; the streets, also, were paved with
gold, and in them they walked with crowns on their heads, palms in
their hands, and golden harps to sing praises, which, when I had seen,
I wished myself among them.’[299] How often has Bunyan’s wit sparkled
in sermons, and even in speeches delivered in the senate. Recently, in
a speech on the collation ministry, the following reference was
introduced:—‘Mr. Facing-both-ways, of honest John Bunyan, is not a
creature mankind can regard with any complacency; nor will they likely
suffer any one to act with one party, and reserve his principles for
another.’ It has also been strangely quoted in novel writing—thus in
Bell’s Villette—visiting a God-mother in a pleasant retreat, is said
‘to resemble the sojourn of Christian and Hopeful, beside the pleasant
stream, with green trees on each bank, and meadows beautified with
lilies all the year round.’ It is marvelous that a picture of nature
should have been so beautifully and strikingly described by an
unlettered artisan, as to be used in embellishing an elegant novel,
written nearly two centuries after his decease.[300]

The Pilgrim was followed by a searching treatise on The Fear of God.
The value of this book led to its republication by the Tract Society,
and 4000 copies have been circulated. It is a neat and acceptable
volume, but why altered? and a psalm omitted.[301] Bunyan says, ‘Your
great ranting, swaggering, roysters’; this is modernized into ‘Your
ranting boasters.’[302] Then followed, the Come and Welcome to Jesus
Christ. This was frequently reprinted, and hundreds of thousands have
been circulated to benefit the world. His popularity increased with his
years; efforts were made, but in vain, to steal him from his beloved
charge at Bedford. ‘He hath refused a more plentiful income to keep his
station,’ is the language of his surviving friend, Charles Doe. It is
not surprising that he was thus tempted to leave his poor country
church, for we are told by the same biographer, that ‘When Mr. Bunyan
preached in London, if there were but one day’s notice given, there
would be more people come together to hear him preach, than the
meeting-house could hold. I have seen to hear him preach, by my
computation, about 1200 at a morning lecture, by seven o’clock, on a
working day, in the dark winter time. I also computed about 3000 that
came to hear him one Lord’s-day, at London, at a town’s end
meeting-house, so that half were fain to go back again for want of
room, and then himself was fain at a back door to be pulled almost over
people to get up stairs to his pulpit.’ This took place in a large
meeting-house, erected in Zoar Street, either on the site or near the
Globe Theatre, Southwark.[303] On this spot, the prince of dramatists
amused and corrupted crowded houses; while in the immediate vicinity
were the stews and bear garden, frequented by libertines of the lowest
caste. One Sunday, in 1582, many were killed or miserably wounded while
attending the brutal sport of bear-baiting. Here, in the heart of
Satan’s empire, the prince of allegorists attracted multitudes, to be
enlightened by his natural eloquence, and to be benefited by the fruits
of his prolific and vivid imagination, at all times curbed and directed
by the holy oracles. It was a spacious building, covering about 2000
feet of ground (50 by 40), with three galleries, quite capable of
holding the number computed by Mr. Doe. We have, from correct drawings,
furnished our subscribers with the plan and elevation of this ancient
meeting-house. Having preached with peculiar warmth and enlargement,
one of his friends took him by the hand, and could not help observing
what a sweet sermon he had delivered; ‘Ay,’ said he, ‘you need not
remind me of that, for the devil told me of it before I was out of the
pulpit!’[304] Amongst his hearers were to be found the learned and the
illiterate. It was well known that Dr. John Owen, when he had the
opportunity, embraced it with pleasure, and sat at the feet of the
unlearned, but eloquent tinker. Charles II, hearing of it, asked the
learned D.D., ‘How a man of his great erudition could sit to hear a
tinker preach?’ to which the doctor replied, ‘May it please your
Majesty, if I could possess the tinker’s abilities, I would gladly give
in exchange all my learning.’

He now pictured the downward road of the sinner to the realms of death
and darkness in the Life of Badman. This was published in 1680, and is
written in a language which fraudulent tradesmen at that period could
not misunderstand; using terms now obsolete or vulgar. It is full of
anecdotes, which reveal the state of the times, as superlatively
immoral, and profane. He incidentally notices that a labourer received
eightpence or tenpence per day.[305] At that time, bread and all the
necessaries of life, excepting meat, were dearer than they are at
present. In fact, our days are much happier for the poor than any
preceding ones in British history. Bunyan’s notions of conscientious
dealing, will make all traders who read them—blush.[306]

November 12, 1681, Bunyan’s friend and fellow-labourer Samuel Fenn, was
removed from this world, and in the following year persecution raged
severely. The church was, for a season, driven from the meeting-house,
and obliged to assemble in the fields. The Word of the Lord was
precious in those days.

In 1682, while surrounded by persecution, he prepared and published his
most profound and beautiful allegory, The Holy War, made by Shaddai
upon Diabolus, for the Regaining of the Metropolis of the World; or,
The Losing and Taking again the Town of Mansoul.[307] The frontispiece
is the most accurate likeness of Bunyan that is extant; it is engraved
by White, from a drawing, also by him, now preserved in the print
department of the British Museum. From this drawing, carefully compared
with the print, we have furnished the expressive likeness which forms
the frontispiece to this volume. It has also a correct whole-length
portrait, with emblematical devices. This exceedingly beautiful and
most finished allegory has never been so popular as The Pilgrim’s
Progress, for reasons which are shown in the introduction to The Holy
War.[308] The whole narrative of this wondrous war appears to flow as
naturally as did that of the pilgrimage from the highly imaginative
mind of the author. Man, in his innocence, attracts the notice and
hatred of Apollyon. Nothing could be accomplished by force—all by
subtlety and deceit. He holds a council of war—selects his
officers—approaches—parleys, and gains admittance—then fortifies the
town against its king—Immanuel determines to recover it—vast armies,
under appropriate leaders, surround the town, and attack every gate.
The ear is garrisoned by Captain Prejudice and his deaf men. But he who
rides forth conquering and to conquer is victorious. All the pomp, and
parade, and horrors of a siege are as accurately told, as if by one who
had been at the sacking of many towns. The author had learnt much in a
little time, at the siege of Leicester. All the sad elements of war
appear, and make us shudder—masses of armed men with their slings and
battering-rams—clarions and shouts—wounded and slain, all appear as in
a panorama. The mind becomes entranced, and when sober reflection
regains her command, we naturally inquire, Can all this have taken
place in my heart? Then the armies of Diabolus, with his thousands of
Election Doubters, and as many Vocation Doubters, and his troops of
Blood-men—thousands slain, and yet thousands start into existence. And
all this in one man! How numberless are our thoughts—how crafty the
approaches of the enemy—how hopeless and helpless is the sinner, unless
Immanuel undertakes his recovery. The Holy War is a most surprising
narrative of the fall and of the recovery of man’s soul, as accurate as
it is most deeply interesting. It is one of the most perfect of
allegories.[309] There is as vast a superiority in Bunyan’s Holy War
over that by Chrysostom, as there is in the sun over a rush-light.

In 1684, he completed his Pilgrim’s Progress, with the Journey of a
Female Christian, her Children, and the Lovely Mercy; and now, as his
invaluable and active life drew towards its close, his labours were
redoubled. In his younger days, there appeared to have been no
presentiment on his part that the longest term of human life would with
him be shortened, but rather an expectation of living to old age,
judging from an expression in his Grace Abounding. when he enjoyed a
good hope, and bright anticipation of heavenly felicity, ‘I should
often long and desire that the last days were come. O! thought I, that
I were fourscore years old now, that I might die quickly and be gone to
rest.’[310] At that time he did not anticipate twelve years’
imprisonment in a wretched jail, nor the consequent effects it must
have upon his robust frame, well calculated to stand all weathers, but
easily sapped and undermined by a damp dungeon. Symptoms of decay,
after having enjoyed his liberty for about a year, led him to close his
Affectionate Advice to his Beloved Flock, on their Christian Behaviour;
with these words, ‘Thus have I written to you, before I die, to provoke
you to faith and holiness, and to love one another, when I am deceased,
and shall be in paradise, as through grace I comfortably believe; yet
it is not there, but here, I must do you good.’[311] It is remarkable
that Bunyan escaped all the dangers of the trying reign of James II,
who, at times, was a persecutor, and at times endeavoured, in vain, by
blandishments, to win the Nonconformists. His minions had their eyes
upon our pilgrim, but were foiled in every attempt to apprehend him;
all that he suffered was the occasional spoiling of his goods.[312]
Neither violence nor allurements induced him to deviate from his line
of duty. No fear of man appeared to agitate his breast—he richly
enjoyed that ‘perfect love,’ which ‘casteth out fear’ (1 John 4:18).
James did all that an unprincipled man could do to cajole the
Dissenters, that by their aid he might pull down the walls of
Protestantism, and give full sway to the Papacy. He attempted, among
many others, to bribe John Bunyan. He knew not how well he was read in
the Book of Martyrs; how well he was aware that ‘the instruments of
cruelty are in their habitations,’ and that the only advantage he could
have received, would have been the same that Polypheme, the monstrous
giant of Sicily, allowed to Ulysses, that he would eat his men first,
and do him the favour of being eaten last. Mr. Doe states that
‘Regulators were sent into all cities and towns corporate to new-model
the magistracy, by turning out some, and putting in others. Against
this Bunyan expressed his zeal with great anxiety, as foreseeing the
bad consequences that would attend it, and laboured with his
congregation to prevent their being imposed on in this kind. And when a
great man in those days, coming to Bedford upon some such errand, sent
for him, as it is supposed, to give him a place of public trust, he
would by no means come at him, but sent his excuse.’[313] He knew that
in his flesh he possessed what he calls ‘Adam’s legacy, a conduit pipe,
through which the devil conveys his poisoned spawn and venom,’[314] and
he wisely avoided this subtle temptation. He detested the ‘painted
Satan, or devil in fine clothes.’[315] It was one of these hypocritical
pretences to correct evil, while really meaning to increase it, and
which Bunyan calls, ‘the devil correcting vice.’ He was watchful, lest
‘his inward man should catch cold,’[316] and every attempt to entangle
him failed.

This godly jealousy led him to sacrifice worldly interests to an extent
not justifiable, if all the facts appear. When told that a very worthy
citizen of London would take his son Joseph apprentice without fee, and
advance his interests, he refused, saying, ‘God did not send me to
advance my family, but to preach the gospel.’

At this time he again manifested his lion heart, by writing and
preparing for the press a fearless treatise on Antichrist, and his
Ruin. In this he shows, that human interference with Divine worship, by
penal laws or constraint, is ‘Antichrist’—that which pretends to
regulate thought, and thus to reduce the kingdom of Christ to a level
with the governments of this world. In this treatise, he clearly
exhibits the meaning of that passage, so constantly quoted by the
advocates of tyranny and persecution (Ezra 7:26), and shows that the
laws interfered not with Divine worship, but that they upheld to the
fullest extent the principle of voluntary obedience (v 13); so that any
man putting constraint upon another in religious affairs, would be
guilty of breaking the law, and subject him to extreme punishment. This
was one of the last treatises which Bunyan prepared for the press, as
if in his dying moments he would aim a deadly thrust at Apollyon.
Reader, it is worthy your most careful perusal, as showing the certain
downfall of Antichrist, and the means by which it must be accomplished.

Feeling the extreme uncertainty of life, and that he might be robbed of
all his worldly goods, under a pretence of fines and penalties, he, on
the 23d of December, 1685, executed a deed of gift, vesting what little
he possessed in his wife. It is a singular instrument, especially as
having been sealed with a silver twopenny piece. The original is in the
church book, at Bedford:—

‘To all people to whom this present writing shall com, J. Bunyan of the
parish of St. Cuthbirt’s, in the towne of Bedford, in the county of
Bedford, Brazier send greeting. Know ye, that I the said John Bunyan as
well for, and in consideration of the natural affection and loue which
I have, and bear vnto my welbeloued wife, Elizabeth Bunyan, as also for
divers other good causes and considerations, me at this present
especially moneing, have given and granted, and by these presents, do
give, grant, and conferm vnto the said Elizabeth Bunyan, my said wife,
all and singuler my goods, chattels, debts, ready mony, plate, rings,
household stuffe, aparrel, vtensills, brass, peuter, beding, and all
other my substance, whatsoever moueable and immoueable, of what kinde,
nature, quality, or condition soever the same are or be, and in what
place or places soever the same be, shall or may be found as well in
mine own custodies, possession, as in the possession, hands, power, and
custody of any other person, or persons whatsoever. To have and to hold
all and singuler the said goods, chattels, debts, and all other, the
aforesaid premises vnto the said Elizabeth, my wife, her executors,
administerators, and assigns to her and their proper vses and behoofs,
freely and quietly without any matter of challinge, claime, or demand
of me the said John Bunyan, or of any other person, or persons,
whatsoever for me in my name, by my means cavs or procurement, and
without any mony or other thing, therefore to be yeeilded, paid or done
vnto me the said John Bunyan, my executors, administrators or assigns.
And I, the said John Bunyan, all and singular, the aforesaid goods,
chattels, and premises to the said Elizabeth my wife, her executors,
administrators, and assignes to the vse aforesaid, against all people
do warrant and forever defend by these presents. And further, know ye,
that I the said John Bunyan have put the said Elizabeth, my wife, in
peacable and quiet possession of all and singuler the aforesaid
premises, by the delivrye vnto her at the ensealing hereof one coyned
peece of silver, commonly called two pence, fixed on the seal of these
presents.[317]

‘In wittnes wherof, I the said John Bunyan have herevnto set my hand
and seall this 23d day of December, in the first year of the reigne of
our soueraigne lord, King James the Second of England, &c., in the year
of our lord and saviour, Jesus Christ, 1685.

John Bunyan

Sealed and delivered in the presence of vs, whos names are here vnder
written:—

John Bardolph. Willm Hawkes.
Nicholas Malin. Lewes Norman.

It appears from this deed that Bunyan continued in business as a
brazier, and it is very probable that he carried it on until his
decease. This deed secured to his wife what little he possessed,
without the trouble or expense of applying to the ecclesiastical courts
for probate of a will.

Among other opinions which then divided the Christian world, was a very
important one relative to the law of the ten commandments, whether it
was given to the world at large, or limited to the Jews as a peculiar
nation until the coming of Messiah, and whether our Lord altered or
annulled the whole or any part of that law. This question involves the
observance of the seventh-day Sabbath. An awful curse is denounced upon
those who do not continue in ALL things which are written in the book
of the law to do them (Gal 3:10; Deut 27:26). When an innovation upon
the almost universal practice of infant baptism had become an object of
inquiry only to be answered from the New Testament, it is not
surprising that the serious question, why God’s Sabbath-day had been
altered, should also be agitated with deep feeling. Generally, those
who advocated the restoration of the Jewish Sabbath were decidedly of
opinion that believers only were fit subjects for baptism, and that the
scriptural mode of administering it was by immersion; hence they were
called Seventh-day Baptists—Sabbatarians, or Sabbath-keepers.

Bunyan entered with very proper and temperate zeal into this
controversy. Popular feeling had no influence over him; nor could he
submit to the opinions of the ancient fathers. His storehouse of
knowledge was limited to the revealed will of God, and there he found
ample material to guide his opinion. His work upon this subject is
called, Questions about the Nature and Perpetuity of the Seventh-day
Sabbath; and proof that the First Day of the Week is the Christian
Sabbath. It is one of the smallest of his volumes, but so weighty in
argument as never to have been answered.

We now arrive at the last year of his eventful and busy life, during
which he published six important volumes, and left twelve others in
manuscript, prepared for publication. A list of these will be found in
The Struggler;[318] they are upon the most important subjects, which
are very admirably treated. We notice among these, The Jerusalem Sinner
Saved, or Good News for the Vilest of Men. It is a specimen of
preaching calculated to excite the deepest interest, and afford the
strongest consolation to a soul oppressed with the sense of sin. Great
sinner! thou art called to mercy by name. Arise! shoulder thy way into
court through any crowd,—‘say, Stand away, devil; stand away all
discouragements; my Saviour calls me to receive mercy.’ In this
treatise, Bunyan has repeated from memory what he had read in some book
when in prison, four and twenty years before. It is a curious legend,
which he doubtless believed to be true, and it displays his most
retentive memory.[319] His poetry, like his prose, was not written to
gain a name, but to make a deep impression. One of his professed
admirers made a strange mistake when he called them doggerel
rhymes.[320] His Caution to Watch Against Sin is full of solemn and
impressive thoughts, the very reverse of doggerel or burlesque. his
poem on the house of God is worthy of a most careful perusal; and
thousands have been delighted and improved with his emblems. One rhyme
in the Pilgrim can never be forgotten—

‘He that is down need fear no fall;
He that is low no pride;
He that is humble ever shall
Have God to be his guide,’ &c.

The careful perusal of every one of his treatises, has excited in my
mind a much livelier interest than any other religious works which, in
a long life, have come under my notice. In fact, the works of Bunyan to
a country minister may be compared to a vast storehouse, most amply
replenished with all those solemn subjects which call for his prayerful
investigation; well arranged, ready of access, striking in their
simplicity, full of vivid ideas conveyed in language that a novice may
understand. They are all so admirably composed that pious persons,
whether in houses of convocation or of parliament, or the inmates of a
workhouse, may equally listen to them with increasing delight and
instruction. No man ever more richly enjoyed the magnificent language
of Job. He called it ‘that blessed book.’[321] The deep interest that
he took in its scenery may be traced through all his writings. His
spirit, with its mighty powers, grasped the wondrous truths so
splendidly pourtrayed in that most ancient book. The inspired writings,
which so eminently give wisdom to the simple, expanded his mind, while
his mental powers were strengthened and invigorated by his so deeply
drinking into the spirit of the inspired volume.

The time was drawing near when, in the midst of his usefulness, and
with little warning, he was to be summoned to his eternal rest. He had
been seriously attacked with that dangerous pestilence which, in former
years, ravaged this country, called the sweating sickness, a malady as
mysterious and fatal as the cholera has been in later times. The
disease was attended by great prostration of strength; but, under the
careful management of his affectionate wife, his health became
sufficiently restored to enable him to undertake a work of mercy; from
the fulfillment of which, as a blessed close to his incessant earthly
labour, he was to ascend to his Father and his God to be crowned with
immortality. A father had been seriously offended with his son, and had
threatened to disinherit him. To prevent the double mischief of a
father dying in anger with his child, and the evil consequence to the
child of his being cut off from his patrimony, Bunyan again ventured,
in his weak state, on his accustomed work, to win the blessings of the
peace-maker. He made a journey on horseback to Reading, it being the
only mode of travelling at that time, and he was rewarded with success.
Returning home by way of London to impart the gratifying intelligence,
he was overtaken by excessive rains, and, in an exhausted state, he
found a kindly refuge in the house of his Christian friend Mr.
Strudwick, and was there seized with a fatal fever. His much-loved
wife, who had so powerfully pleaded for his liberty with the judges,
and to whom he had been united thirty years, was at a great distance
from him. Bedford was then two days’ journey from London. Probably at
first, his friends had hopes of his speedy recovery; but when the
stroke came, all his feelings, and those of his friends, appear to have
been absorbed, by the anticipated blessings of immortality, to such an
extent, that no record is left as to whether his wife, or any of his
children, saw him cross the river of death. There is abundant testimony
of his faith and patience, and that the presence of God was eminently
with him.

He bore his trying sufferings with all the patience and fortitude that
might be expected from such a man. His resignation was most exemplary;
his only expressions were ‘a desire to depart, to be dissolved, to be
with Christ.’ His sufferings were short, being limited to ten days. He
enjoyed a holy frame of mind, desiring his friends to pray with him,
and uniting fervently with them in the exercise. His last words, while
struggling with death, were, ‘Weep not for me, but for yourselves. I go
to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will, no doubt, through the
mediation of his blessed Son, receive me, though a sinner; where I hope
we ere long shall meet, to sing the new song, and remain everlastingly
happy, world without end. Amen.’ He felt the ground solid under his
feet in passing the black river which has no bridge, and followed his
pilgrim into the celestial city in August, 1688, in the sixtieth year
of his age. There is some uncertainty as to the day of his decease:
Charles Doe, in the Struggler, 1692, has August 31, and this has been
copied in all his portraits. In the life appended to the Grace
Abounding, 1692, his death-day is stated as August 12; and in the
memoir appended to the third part of the Pilgrim, also in 1692, the
date is August 17. The circumstances of his peaceful decease are well
compared by Dr. Cheever to the experience of Mr. Standfast, when he was
called to pass the river: the great calm—the firm footing—the address
to by-standers—until his countenance changed, his strong man bowed
under him, and his last words were, ‘Take me, for I come to thee.’ Then
the joy among the angels while they welcomed the hero of such spiritual
fights, and conducted his wandering soul to the New Jerusalem, which he
had so beautifully described as ‘the holy city’; and then his wonder
and amazement to find how infinitely short his description came to the
blissful reality.

The deep affliction that his church was plunged into led to several
special meetings. Wednesday, the 4th of September, ‘was kept in prayer
and humiliation for this heavy stroke upon us—the death of dear brother
Bunyan; it was appointed also, that Wednesday next be kept in prayer
and humiliation on the same account. At the meeting held on the 11th,
it was appointed that all the brethren meet together on the 18th of
this month, September, to humble themselves for this heavy hand of God
upon us, and also to pray unto the Lord for counsel and direction what
to do, in order to seek out for a fit person to make choice of for an
elder. On the 18th, when the whole congregation met to humble
themselves before God, by fasting and prayer, for his heavy and severe
stroke upon us in taking away our honoured brother Bunyan by death, it
was agreed by the whole congregation that care be taken to seek out for
one suitably qualified to be chosen an elder among us, and that care
was committed by the whole to the brethren at Bedford.’ Thus did the
church manifest that they had improved in wisdom under his ministry by
flying, in their extreme distress, to the only source of consolation.

The saddest feelings of sorrow extended to every place where he had
been known. His friend, the Rev. G. Cockayn, of London, says, ‘it
pleased the Lord to remove him, to the great loss and inexpressible
grief of many precious souls.’ Numerous elegies, acrostics, and poems
were published on the occasion of his decease, lamenting the loss thus
sustained by his country—by the church at large, and particularly by
the church and congregation at Bedford. One of these, ‘written by a
dear friend of his,’ is a fair sample of the whole:—

A SHORT ELEGY IN MEMORY OF MR. JOHN BUNYAN, WRITTEN BY A DEAR FRIEND OF
HIS.

The pilgrim traveling the world’s vast stage,
At last does end his weary pilgrimage:
He now in pleasant valleys does sit down,
And, for his toil, receives a glorious crown.
The storms are past, the terrors vanish all,
Which in his way did so affrighting fall;
He grieves nor sighs no more, his race is run
Successfully, that was so well begun.
You’ll say he’s dead: O no, he cannot die,
He’s only changed to immortality—
Weep not for him, who has no cause of tears;
Hush, then, your sighs, and calm your needless fears.
If anything in love to him is meant,
Tread his last steps, and of your sins repent:
If knowledge of things here at all remains
Beyond the grave, to please him for his pains
And suffering in this world; live, then, upright,
And that will be to him a grateful sight.
Run such a race as you again may meet,
And find your conversation far more sweet;
When purged from dross, you shall, unmix’d, possess
The purest essence of eternal bliss

‘He in the pulpit preached truth first, and then
He in his practice preached it o’er again.’

His remains were interred in Bunhill Fields, in the vault of his friend
Mr. Strudwick, at whose house he died. His tomb[322] has been visited
by thousands of pilgrims, blessing God for his goodness in raising up
such a man, so signally fitted to be a blessing to the times in which
he lived. All the accounts of his decease, published at the time, agree
as to his place of burial. The words of Mr. Doe, who probably attended
the funeral, are, ‘he was buried in the new burying-place, near the
artillery ground, where he sleeps to the morning of the
resurrection.’[323] His Life and Actions, 1692, records that ‘his
funeral was performed with much decency, and he was buried in the new
burying-ground by Moorfields.’ The Struggler calls it ‘Finsbury
burying-ground, where many London Dissenting ministers are laid.’[324]
Bunhill Fields burying-ground for Dissenters was first opened in 1666.
The inscription upon the tomb to his memory was engraven many years
after his funeral. It is not contained in the list of inscriptions
published in 1717. His widow survived him four years. He had six
children by his first wife, three of whom survived him—Thomas, Joseph,
and Sarah. His son Thomas joined his church in 1673, and was a preacher
in 1692. He appears to have been usefully employed in visiting absent
members until December 1718. My kind friend, the Rev. J. P. Lockwood,
rector of South Hackney, recently discovered entries in the register of
Kimbolton, in Huntingdonshire, probably of the descendants of this son,
Thomas. November 26, 1698, John Bonion and Mary Rogers, married: she
was buried, September 7, 1706; and he again married Anne, and buried
her in 1712, leaving a son and two daughters. His death is not
recorded. One of the descendants, Hannah Bunyan, died in 1770, aged
seventy-six years, and lies in the burial-ground by the meeting-house
at Bedford. John Bunyan’s son, Joseph, settled at Nottingham, and
marrying a wealthy woman, conformed to the Church. A lineal descendant
of his was living, in 1847, at Islington, near London, aged
eighty-four, Mrs. Senegar, a fine hearty old lady, and a Strict
Baptist. She said to me, ‘Sir, excuse the vanity of an old woman, but I
will show you how I sometimes spend a very pleasant half-hour.’ She
took down a portrait on canvas of her great forefather, and propped it
up on the table with a writing-desk, with a looking-glass by its side.
‘There, Sir, I look at the portrait, and then at myself, and can trace
every feature; we resemble each other like two pins.’ ‘Excepting the
imperial and moustachios,’ I replied; to which she readily assented. It
was the fact that there was a striking family likeness between the
picture and her reflection in the looking-glass. Another descendant,
from the same branch of the family, is now living at Lincoln. He was
born in 1775, and possessed a quarto Bible, published by Barker and
Bill in 1641, given by John Bunyan to his son Joseph. This was
preserved in his family until the present year, when it came into the
editor’s possession, with the following relics, which were, and I trust
will yet be preserved with the greatest care:—An iron pencase, made by
Bunyan the brazier, with some stumps of old pens, with which it is said
he wrote some of his sermons and books; the buckles worn by him, and
his two pocket-knives, one of them made before springs were invented,
and which is kept open by turning a ferrule; his apple-scoop, curiously
carved, and a seal; his pocket-box of scales and weights for money,
being stamped with the figures on each side of the coins of James and
Charles I.[325] These were given by Robert Bunyan, in 1839, then
sixty-four years of age, to a younger branch of the family, Mr. Charles
Robinson, of Wilford, near Nottingham (his sister’s son), for safe
custody. He died in 1852; while his aged uncle remains in good health,
subject to the infirmities of his seventy-eighth year. On many of the
blank spaces in the Bible are the registers of births and deaths in the
family, evidently written at the time. Those relics are deposited in a
carved oak box. They were sold with the late Mr. Robinson’s effects,
January, 1853, and secured for me by my excellent friend James Dix,
Esq., of Bristol, who met with them immediately after the sale, on one
of his journeys at Nottingham. They are not worshipped as relics, nor
have they performed miracles, but as curiosities of a past age they are
worthy of high consideration. Everything that was used by him, and that
survives the ravages of time, possesses a peculiar charm; even the
chair in which he sat is preserved in the vestry of the new chapel, and
is shown to those who make the pilgrimage to the shrine of Bunyan.[326]

In the same vestry is also a curious inlaid cabinet, small, and highly
finished. It descended from Bunyan to a lady who lived to an advanced
age—Madam Bithray; from her to the Rev. Mr. Voley; and of his widow it
was purchased to ornament the vestry of Bunyan’s meeting-house.

The personal appearance and character of our pilgrim’s guide, drawn by
his friend Charles Doe, will be found at the end of his Grace
Abounding; to which is appended his Dying Sayings—‘of
sin—afflictions—repentance and coming to Christ—of prayer—of the Lord’s
day, sermons, and week days: “Make the Lord’s day the market for thy
soul”—of the love of the world—of suffering—of death and judgment—of
the joys of heaven—and the torments of hell.’

How inscrutable are the ways of God! Had Bunyan lived a month longer,
he would have witnessed the glorious Revolution—the escape of a great
nation. The staff and hope of Protestant Europe was saved from a
subtle—a Jesuitical attempt—to introduce Popery and arbitrary
government. The time of his death, as a release from the incumbrance of
a material body, was fixed by infinite wisdom and love at that
juncture, and it ought not to be a cause of regret. His interest in the
welfare of the church ceased not with his mortal life. How swiftly
would his glorified spirit fly to see the landing of William, and hover
with joy over the flight of the besotted James! He was now in a
situation to prove the truth of that saying, ‘the angels desire to look
into’ the truth and spread of the glad tidings. How he would prove the
reality of his opinion, expressed in The Holy War, of the interest
taken by the inhabitants of heaven in the prosperity of the church on
earth. When Mansoul was conquered, the spirits that witnessed the
victory ‘shouted with that greatness of voice, and sung with such
melodious notes, that they caused them that dwell in the highest orbs
to open their windows, and put out their heads and look down to see the
cause of that glory’ (Luke 15:7-10).[327] So may we imagine that the
happy, happy, glorified spirit of Bunyan would look down rejoicing,
when, a few years after he had yielded up his pastoral cares, the seed
which he had been instrumental in sowing produced its fruit in such
numbers, that the old meeting-house was pulled down, and in its place a
large and respectable one was erected. And again, on the 20th February,
1850, with what joy would he look down upon the opening of a still
larger, more commodious, and handsome meeting-house, bearing his name,
and capable of holding 1150 worshippers. One of Bunyan’s pungent,
alarming sayings to the careless was, ‘Once die, we cannot come back
and die better.’[328] If anything could tempt him, in his angelic body,
to re-visit this earth, it would be to address the multitude at the new
Bunyan Chapel with his old sermon on The Jerusalem Sinner Saved, or
Good News to the Vilest of Men. But we have Moses and the
prophets—Christ and his apostles; if we shut our ears to them, neither
should we listen to a messenger from the New Jerusalem.

When it is recollected that Bunyan received the most imperfect
rudiments of education in a charity school when very young, which were
‘almost entirely’ obliterated by bad habits—that he was a hard-working
man through life, maintaining himself, a wife, and four children, by
his severe labour as a brazier—and yet, by personal efforts, he
educated himself and wrote sixty-two valuable religious treatises,
numbering among them his inimitable allegories, The Pilgrim’s Progress
and Holy War, made a Concordance to the Bible, and conducted important
controversies. Preaching, while at liberty, almost innumerable sermons
on the Lord’s-days and week-days, early in the morning and late at
night. Visiting his flock with pastoral care—founding churches in the
villages, and even in towns and cities far distant from his
dwelling—constantly giving advice to promote peace and good will, and
rendering benevolent aid by long journeys! His whole life presents to
us a picture of most astonishing, energetic perseverance. Every moment
of time must have been employed as if he valued it as a precious trust,
which, if once lost, could never be regained. Who of us can compare our
life with his last thirty years, and not blush with shame!

The finest trait in Bunyan’s Christian character was his deep,
heartfelt humility. This is the more extraordinary from his want of
secular education, and his unrivalled talent. The more we learn, the
greater is the field for research that opens before us, insomuch that
the wisest philosophers have most seriously felt the little progress
they have made. He acknowledged to Mr. Cockayn, who considered him the
most eminent man, and a star of the first magnitude in the firmament of
the churches,[329] that spiritual pride was his easily besetting sin,
and that he needed the thorn in the flesh, lest he should be exalted
above measure. A sense of this weakness probably led him to peculiar
watchfulness against it. His self-abasement was neither tinctured with
affectation, nor with the pride of humility. His humble-mindedness
appeared to arise form his intimate communion with Heaven. In daily
communion with God, he received a daily lesson of deeper and deeper
humility. ‘I am the high and lofty One, I inhabit eternity! verily this