THE FIFTH PERIOD.
BUNYAN SUFFERS PERSECUTION, AND A LONG AND DANGEROUS IMPRISONMENT, FOR REFUSING TO ATTEND THE COMMON PRAYER SERVICE, AND FOR PREACHING.
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 the 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 on 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 overruled 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 about whether in public worship a form of prayer ought to be used. Let everyone 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!' 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 Keystone, 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 ), 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.'
Here they could sing, without fear of being overheard; no informers prowling around. 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, afterward 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 my eye upon this prophecy, when, after considering awhile, I 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.' To this singular event, the religious public is indebted to 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, the water of life, temple, and the redeemed from all nations flocking into it.
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 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.
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