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.

The late Mr. Kilpin of Bedford considered the whole of this letter to be entered in the minutes in Bunyan's handwriting.

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 meetinghouse, 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 neighboring 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 of 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 Christianity, 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 rigor. 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 in Rhode Island, and the charter concludes with these words, 'All men may walk as their consciences persuade them, everyone 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 for 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 armor-bearer as he.' 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."' And the attempt was made to embroil Bunyan in a public disputation in London upon this subject, which he very wisely avoided. 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 to 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 with each other wrangle,

    And did, instead of work, not much but jangle.'[ 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.' 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 squeaking of men in a passion, caught and pinched in a sort of logical trap.'