Works of John Bunyan —BUNYAN IS BAPTIZED, AND ENTERS INTO COMMUNION WITH A CHRISTIAN CHURCH AT BEDFORD- PERIOD SIXTH.

 

BUNYAN IS DELIVERED FROM PRISON—CONTROVERSY WITH THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH ON Works of John Bunyan —BUNYAN IS BAPTIZED, AND ENTERS INTO COMMUNION WITH A CHRISTIAN CHURCH AT BEDFORD- PERIOD SIXTH.THE SUBJECT OF THE LORD'S SUPPER—PUBLISHES THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS, AND MANY BOOKS, AND BECOMES EXTREMELY POPULAR—HIS DEATH AND CHARACTER.

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 honorable 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 Hawes, and at Gamlin gay, 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.

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 Rougher'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; reading the Bible is considered a 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. At the same time, 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 for twelve years, upon an ex-communication 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 had 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, referring 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'—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—