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.
Man is naturally led
to seek the society of his fellow-men. His personal progress, and the great
interests of civilization, depend upon the nature of his friendly intercourse
and his proper associations. So is it with the Christian, but in a much higher
degree. Not only does he require companions with whom he can enjoy Christian communion—of
sufferings and of pleasures—in seasons of depressing trials, and in holy
elevations—but with whom he may also form plans to spread the genial influence
of Christianity, which has blessed and so boundlessly enriched his own soul.
Christian fellowship and communion has received the broad seal of heaven. 'The
Lord hearkened,' when they that feared him spake often to one another, 'and a
book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the Lord' (Mal
3:16).
Bunyan possessed a
soul with faculties capable of the highest enjoyment of the communion of saints
in church order. His ideas of mutual forbearance—that 'in lowliness of mind
should each esteem others better than themselves'—he enforces with very peculiar
power, and, at the same time, with delicate sensibility. After the pilgrims had
been washed by Innocence in the Interpreter's bath, he sealed them, which
'greatly added to their beauty,' and then arrayed them in white raiment of fine
linen; and 'when the women were thus adorned, they seemed to be a terror one to
the other, for that they could not see that glory each one on herself which
they could see in each other. Now, therefore, they began to esteem each other
better than themselves.' 'The Interpreter led them into his garden, where was a great variety of flowers.
Then said he, Behold,
the flowers are diverse in stature, in quality and colour, and smell and
virtue, and some are better than some; also, where the gardener hath set them,
there they stand, and quarrel not with one another.' 'When Christians stand
everyone in their places and do their relative work, then they are like the
flowers in the garden that grow where the gardener hath planted them, and both
honour the gardener and the garden in which they are planted.' In the same
treatise on Christian Behaviour, similar sentiments are expressed in language
extremely striking and beautiful. 'The doctrine of the gospel is like the dew
and the small rain that distilled upon the tender grass, wherewith it doth
flourish and is kept green (Deut 32:2).
Christians are like
the several flowers in a garden that have upon each of them the dew of heaven,
which, being shaken with the wind, they let fall their dew at each other's
roots, whereby they are jointly nourished, and become nourishers of one
another. For Christians to commune savory of God's matters one with another,
it is as if they opened to each other's nostrils boxes of perfume.' Similar
peaceful, heavenly principles, flow through Bunyan's Discourse of the Building,
&c., of the House of God and its inmates; and blessed would it be if in all
our churches every believer was baptized into such motives of forbearance and
brotherly love. These sentiments do honour to the head and heart of the prince
of allegorists and should be presented in letters of gold to every candidate
for church fellowship. A young man entertaining such opinions as these, however
rude his former conduct, being born again to spiritual enjoyments, would become
a treasure to the Christian society with which he might be connected.
In ordinary cases,
the minister or people who have been useful to a young convert, lead him in his
first choice of Christian associates; but here we have no ordinary man. Bunyan,
in all things pertaining to religion, followed no human authority but submitted
himself to the guidance of the inspired volume. Possessing a humble hope of
salvation, he would read with deep interest that 'the Lord added to the church
such as should be saved.' The question which has so much puzzled the learned,
as to a church or the church, would be solved without difficulty by one who was
as learned in the Scriptures as he was ignorant of the subtle distinctions and
niceties of the schools.
He found that there
was one church at Jerusalem (Acts 8:1), another at Corinth (1 Cor 1:2), seven
in Asia (Rev 1:4), and others distributed over the world; that 'the visible
church of Christ is a (or every) congregation of faithful men.' He well knew
that uniformity is a fool's paradise; that though man was made in the image of
God; it derogates not from the beauty of that image that no two men are alike.
The stars show forth God's handy work, yet 'one star different from another
star in glory' (1 Cor 15:41). Uniformity is opposed to every law of nature, for
no two leaves upon a majestic tree are alike.
Who but an idiot or a
maniac would attempt to reduce the mental powers of all men to uniformity?
Every church may have its own order of public worship while the Scriptures form
the standard of truth and morals. Where differences of opinion occur, as they
most certainly will, as to the observance of days or abstinence from
meats—whether to stand, or sit, or kneel, in prayer—whether to stand while
listening to some pages of the inspired volume, and to sit while others are
publicly read—whether to call Jude a saint, and refuse the title to Isaiah—are
questions which should bring into active exercise all the graces of Christian
charity; and, in obedience to the apostolic injunction, they must agree to
differ. 'Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind' (Rom 14:5). Human
arts have been exhausted to prevent that mental exercise or self-persuasion
which is essential to a Christian profession. The great object of Satan has
ever been to foster indifference, that deadly lethargy, by leading man to any
source of information rather than prayerful research into the Bible. Bunyan's
severe discipline in Christ's school would lead him to form a judgment for
himself; he was surrounded by a host of sects, and, with such a Bible-loving
man, it is interesting inquire what party he would join.
