THE FOURTH PERIOD.
BUNYAN ENTERS INTO CONTROVERSY—BECOMES
AN AUTHOR—OFFENDS A PERSECUTING MAGISTRACY, AND IS PROCEEDED AGAINST AT THE
SESSIONS UNDER AN ACT OF THE COMMONWEALTH—IS ACCUSED OF REPORTING A STRANGE
CHARGE OF WITCHCRAFT—PUBLICLY DISPUTES WITH THE QUAKERS.
The employment of his
time in earning maintenance for his family, and his constant engagements to
preach, interfered with the proper fulfillment of his duties as a church deacon. His resignation of this important office is thus recorded in the
minutes of the church—'At a meeting held on the 27th of the 6th month, 1657,
the deacon's office was transferred from John Bunyan to John Pernie, because he
could no longer discharge its duties aright, in consequence of his being so
much employed in preaching.'
We cannot wonder that
his time was incessantly employed. His was no ordinary case. He had to recover
and improve upon the little education he had received, and lost again by
dissipated habits. He must have made every effort, by his diligent study of the
Bible, to gain that spiritual knowledge that alone could enable him to
proclaim the unsearchable riches of Christ, and that profound internal converse
with the throne of God which appears in all his writings. In addition to all
this, he was engaged in continual controversy with a variety of sects, which,
in his sober judgment, opposed the simplicity of the gospel.
Among these, the
Ranters, or Sweet Singers, were very conspicuous. It is difficult to discover
what were their opinions, but they appear to have been nearly like the Dutch
Adamites; they were severely persecuted, by public authority, under the
Commonwealth, for blasphemy. George Fox found some of them in prison at
Coventry in 1649 and held a short disputation with them. They claimed each one
to be GOD, founding their notion on such passages as 1 Corinthians 14:25, 'God
is in you of a truth.' Fox quaintly asked them whether it would rain the next
day; and upon their answering that they could not tell, 'Then said I unto them,
God can tell.' Strange as it may appear, the Ranters had many followers, while
numerous pious people were troubled by their impudence and perversion of
Scripture, but more especially by their being a persecuted people.
Taking advantage of
the inquiries that were excited by these strange doctrines, Bunyan determined
to become an author, that he might set forth more extensively than he could do
by preaching, the truths of the gospel in their native purity, simplicity, and
beauty, as an antidote to fanaticism. The learned and eloquent looked with
contempt upon the follies of the Ranters, Familists, and some loose Quakers,
'and only deigned to abuse them with raillery, while the poor unlettered tinker
wrote against them.' To indite, a work would be a pleasant recreation, but writing a book must have been extremely difficult and required
extraordinary patience. This will be better seen by a specimen of his
handwriting, now in the Bedford Library, found in Fox's Book of Martyrs, the
three volumes of which beguiled many of his tedious hours when in prison.
To write a volume,
containing about twenty-five thousand words, must have been a serious task to
such a scribe.
It is interesting to
trace his improvement in calligraphy while recovering his lost education, and
advancing in proficiency in an art so essential to his constantly extending
usefulness. The next is a more useful running hand, however defective in
orthography and grammar; it is from the first page of a copy of Bishop Andrews'
sermons
The inscription in a
copy of his Holy City, 1665, in Dr. Williams' or the Dissenter's Library, Red
Cross Street, is in a still more useful hand, as good as that of most authors
of that day
The autograph in
Powell's Concordance, in the library of the Baptist
Academy, Bristol, is in a fair hand
His autograph is in
possession of the Society of Antiquaries. The document to which it is
subscribed is written in a remarkably neat hand, addressed to the Lord
Protector. The signatures appear to be written in the writer's best
style.
Signature to the deed of gift
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