Letter from the
people of Bedfordshire to the Lord General Cromwell, and the Council of the
army.
May 13th, 1653.
May it please your
Lordship, and the rest of the council of the army. We (we trust) servants of
Jesus Christ, inhabitants in the county of Bedford, having fresh upon our
hearts the sadde oppressions we have (a long while) groaned under from the late
parliament, and now eyeing and owning (through grace) the good hand of God in
this great turned of providence, being persuaded that it is from the Lord that
you should be instrument in his hand at such a time as this, for the electing
of such persons who may go in and out before his people in righteousness,
and govern these nations in judgment, we having sought the Lord for yow, and
hoping that God will still does great things by yow, understanding that it is
in your heart through the Lord's assistance, to establish an authority
consisting of men able, loving truth, fearing God, and hating covetousness;
and we having had some experience of men with us, we have judged it our duty to
God, to yow, and to the rest of his people, humbly to present two men, viz.,
Nathaniell Taylor, and John Croke, now Justices of Peace in our County, whom we
judge in the Lord qualified to manage a trust in the ensuing government. All
which we humbly refer to your serious considerations, and subscribe our names
this 13th day of May, 1653—
John Eston, Clement
Berridge, Isaac Freeman, John Grewe, John Bunyan, William Dell, John Gifford, William Baker, junr., William Wheelar, Ja. Rush, Anth. Harrington, John Gibbs, Tho. Varrse, Richard Spensley, John Donne, Michael Cooke, Edward Covinson, Tho.
Gibbs, John Ramsay, John Hogge, Edward White, Robert English, John Jeffard, John Browne, John Edridge, John Ivory, John White, George Gee, Daniell Groome, Charles Peirse, Ambrose Gregory, Luke Parratt, Thomas Cooke, William Page, Thomas Knott, Thomas Honnor. These to the Lord Generall Cromwell, and the rest of the councell of the
army, present.
Bunyan's daughter
Elizabeth was born at Elstow, April 14, 1654, and a singular proof of his
having changed his principles on baptism appears in the church register. His
daughter Mary was baptized in 1650, but his Elizabeth in 1654 is recorded as born,
but no mention is made of baptism.
The poor harassed
pilgrim having been admitted into communion with a Christian church, enjoyed
fully, for a short season, his new privileges. He thus expresses his
feelings:—'After I had propounded to the church that my desire was to walk in
the order and ordinances of Christ with them, and was also admitted by them:
while I thought of that blessed ordinance of Christ, which was his last supper
with his disciples before his death, that scriptures, "this do in remembrance
of me," was made a very precious word unto me; for by it the Lord came
down upon my conscience with the discovery of his death for my sins: and as I
then felt, did as if he plunged me in the virtue of the same.'
In this language we
have an expression that furnishes a good sample of his energetic feelings. He
had been immersed in water at his baptism, and doubtless believed it to be a
figure of his death to sin and resurrection to holiness; and when he sat at the
Lord's table he felt that he was baptized into the virtue of his Lord's death;
he is plunged into it, and feels the holy influence covering his soul with all
its powers.
His pastor, John Gifford, was a remarkably pious and sensible man, exactly fitted to assist in maturing the mind of his young member. Bunyan had, for a considerable time, sat under his ministry, and had cultivated acquaintance with the members of his church; and so prayerfully had he made up his mind as to this important choice of a church, with which he might enter into fellowship, that, although tempted by the most alluring prospects of greater usefulness, popularity, and emolument, he continued his church fellowship with these poor people through persecution and distress, imprisonment and the threats of transportation, or an ignominious death, until he crossed the river 'which has no bridge,' and ascended to the celestial city, a period of nearly forty years. Of the labours of his first pastor, John Gifford, but little is known, except that he founded the church of Christ at Bedford, probably the first, in modern times, which allowed to every individual freedom of judgment as to water baptism; receiving all those who decidedly appeared to have put on Christ, and had been received by him; but avoiding, with godly jealousy, any mixture of the world with the church.
Mr. Gifford's race was short, consistent, and successful. Bunyan calls
him by an appellation, very probably common in his neighborhood and among his
flock, 'holy Mr. Gifford'; a title infinitely superior to all the honors of
nobility, or of royalty. He was a miracle of mercy and grace, for a very few
years before he had borne the character of an impure and licentious man—an open
enemy to the saints of God. His pastoral letter, left upon record in the church book, written when drawing near the end of his pilgrimage, is most
admirable; it contains an allusion to his successors, Burton or Bunyan, and
must have had a tendency in forming their views of a gospel church. Even Mr.
Southey praises this puritanic epistle as exemplifying 'a wise and tolerant and
truly Christian spirit': and as it has not been published in any life of
Bunyan, I venture to introduce it without abridgement:—
