THE THIRD PERIOD. - BUNYAN IS BAPTIZED, AND ENTERS INTO COMMUNION WITH A CHRISTIAN CHURCH AT BEDFORD—IS SET APART TO FILL THE DEACON'S OFFICE, AND SENT OUT AS AN ITINERANT PREACHER IN THE NEIGHBOURING VILLAGES.
He lived in times of extraordinary excitement. England was in a transition state. A long chain of events brought on a crisis that involved the kingdom in tribulation. It was the struggle between the unbridled despotism of Episcopacy, and the sturdy liberty of Puritanism. For although the immediate cause of the civil wars was gross misgovernment—arbitrary taxation without the intervention of Parliament, monopolies and patents, to the ruin of trade; in fact, every abuse of the royal power—still, without the additional spur of religious persecution, the spirit of the people would never have proved invincible and overpowering. The efforts of Archbishop Laud, aided by the queen and her popish confessor, Panzani, to subjugate Britain to the galling yoke of Rome, signally failed, involving in the ruin the life of the king and his archbishop, and all the desolating calamities of intestine wars, strangely called 'civil.' In this strife many of the clergy and most of the bishops took a very active part, aiding and abetting the king's party in their war against the parliament—and they thus brought upon themselves great pains and penalties.
The people became suddenly released from mental
bondage; and if the man who had been born blind, when he first received the
blessing of sight, 'saw men as trees walking,' we cannot be surprised that
religious speculations were indulged in, some of which proved to be crude and
wild, requiring much vigorous persuasive pruning before they produced good
fruit. Bunyan was surrounded by all these parties; for although the rights of
conscience were not recognized—the Papists and Episcopalians, the Baptists and
Unitarians, with the Jews, being proscribed—yet the hand of persecution was
comparatively light. Had Bunyan chosen to associate with the Episcopalians, he
would not have passed through those severe sufferings on which are founded his
lasting honours. The Presbyterians and Independents received the patronage of
the state under the Commonwealth, and the great mass of the clergy conformed to
the directory, many of them reciting the prayers they had formerly read; while
a considerable number, whose conscience could not submit to the system then
enforced by law, did, to their honour, resign their livings, and suffer the
privations and odium of being Dissenters. Among these were necessarily included
the bishops.
Of all sects that of the Baptists had been the most bitterly written against and persecuted. Even their first cousins, the Quakers, attacked them in language that would, in our peaceful days, be considered outrageous. 'The Baptists used to meet in garrets, cheese-lofts, coal-holes, and such like mice walks,'—'theses tumultuous, blood-thirsty, covenant-breaking, government-destroying Anabaptists.' The offense that called forth these epithets was, that in addressing Charles II on his restoration, they stated that "they were no abettors of the Quakers."
Had royal authority possessed the slightest influence over Bunyan's religious opinions, the question as to his joining the Baptists would have been settled without investigation. Among other infatuations of Charles I, had been his hatred of any sect that professed the right and duty of man to think for himself in choosing his way to heaven. In 1639 he published his 'Declaration concerning the tumults in Scotland,' when violence was resorted to against the introduction of the Common Prayer in which he denounced voluntary obedience because it was not of constraint, and called it 'damnable'; he calls the principles of the Anabaptists, in not submitting their consciences to human laws, 'furious frenzies,' and 'madness'; all Protestants are 'to detest and persecute them'; 'these Anabaptists raged most in their madness'; 'the scandal of their frenzies'; 'we are amazed at, and aggrieved at their horrible impudence'; 'we do abhor and detest them all as rebellious and treasonable.'
This whole volume is amusingly assuming. The king claims his subjects as personal chattels, with whose bodies and minds he had a right to do as he pleased. Bunyan owed no spiritual submission to man, 'whose breath is in his nostrils'; and risking all hazards, he became one of the denounced and despised sect of Baptists. To use the language of his pilgrim, he passed the lions, braving all the dangers of an open profession of faith in Christ, and entered the house called Beautiful, which 'was built by the Lord of the hill, on purpose to entertain such pilgrims in.' He first gains permission of the watchman, or minister, and then of the inmates, or church members. This interesting event is said to have taken place about the year 1653.
Mr.
Doe, in The Struggler, thus refers to it, Bunyan 'took all advantages to ripen
his understanding in religion, and so he lit on the dissenting congregation of
Christians at Bedford, and was, upon confession of faith, baptized about the
year 1653,' when he was in the twenty-fifth year of his age. No minutes of
the proceedings of this church, prior to the death of Mr. Gifford in 1656, are extant, or they would identify the exact period when Bunyan's baptism and
admission to the church took place. The spot where he was baptized is a creek
by the river Ouse, at the end of Duck Mill Lane. It is a natural baptistery, a
proper width and depth of water constantly fresh; pleasantly situated;
sheltered from the public highway near the High Street. The Lord's Supper was
celebrated in a large room in which the disciples met, the worship consecrating
the place.
Religious feelings
and conduct have at all times a tendency to promote the comfort, and elevate
the character of the poor. How often have we seen them thus blessed; the ragged
family comfortably clothed, the hungry fed, and the inmates of a dirty
miserable cottage or hovel become a pattern of cleanly happiness. One of
Bunyan's biographers, who was an eye-witness, bears this testimony. 'By this
time his family was increased, and as that increased God increased his stores,
so that he lived now in great credit among his neighbours.' He soon became a
respectable member of civil as well as religious society; for, by the time that
he joined the church, his Christian character was so fully established, that,
notwithstanding the meanness of his origin and employment, he was considered
worthy of uniting in a memorial to the Lord Protector. It was to recommend two
gentlemen to form part of the council, after Cromwell had dissolved the Long
Parliament. It is a curious document, very little known, and illustrative of
the peculiar style of these eventful times.
