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 necessities 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 grosses 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 ever I saw—the Bible and the Book of Martyrs. And during his imprisonment (since I have spoken of his library), he wrote several excellent and useful treatises, particularly The Holy City, Christian Behaviour,
The Resurrection of the Dead, and Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners.' 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. 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 around Bedford,
and it was the means of spreading his fame, and the knowledge of the gospel, through
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, to; 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.'
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