Works of John Bunyan —BUNYAN IS BAPTIZED, AND ENTERS INTO COMMUNION WITH A CHRISTIAN CHURCH AT BEDFORD- 2nd Period

 

 

Is this the regnant hypocrisy and rampant fanaticism which prevailed in England, and which Southey supposes to have influenced Bunyan and deranged his sober judgment? It is true that the Protector and his council discountenanced vice and folly, and that there was more piety and virtue in the kingdom at that time than it had ever before witnessed. But it would have been the greatest of miracles, had the people been suddenly moralized, after having been baptized in brutality for ages. Not a century had elapsed since the autos da fe had blazed throughout the country, burning the most pious, moral, and enlightened of her citizens. A century of misery for the professors of religions had passed, in which the persecutions of Papists and Puritans, hanging, transporting, murdering by frightful imprisonment all those who dared to dissent from the Church of England. All this must have produced a debasing effect on public morals. Even among professors, Bunyan discovered pride, covetousness, impiety, and uncleanness.

Bunyan's religious impressions did not, as Southey states, arise from his ignorance, brutal manners, low station, nor from the fanaticism of the age in which he lived. Did the similar feeling of Job or David spring from these polluted fountains? He is a stranger to Christ's school that confounds its discipline with mental drunkenness, or with the other depraved sources alluded to by Southey. The luxurious imagination which ruled over him must be curbed and brought into subjection to Christ. He must be weaned from reliance upon sudden impulses to rely upon Divine truth. The discovery of errors by the scriptural investigation was putting on the armor of proof. Self-confidence was gradually swallowed up by dependence upon the word—the result of the severest spiritual training. Those painful exercises produced a life of holiness and usefulness. Can the thistle grow grapes, or the noxious weeds corn?

Never! His experience came from heaven, in mercy to his soul, and to make him a blessing to millions of his race. By this, he was made truly wise, civilized, enlightened, and elevated. Every painful feeling was measured by Divine rule—weighed in the sanctuary balance—not one iota too much or too little to form his noble character. He has been compared with Lord Byron, one of our most impassioned thinkers and writers; but the noble poet's heart's griefs were on the wrong side. Judging his own feelings by those painted on his heroes—they fight for freedom only to gratify lust, pride, and ambition, while the future appeared in dark, dreary uncertainty. But Bunyan strives to be released from the slavery of sin and Satan so that he might enjoy the liberty of being a servant of Christ, whose service is perfect freedom, with a glorious vista of eternity occasionally breaking in upon his soul.

Well, may it be said of him:—Simple, enchanting man! what does not the world owe to thee and to the great Being who could produce such as thee? Teacher alike of the infant and of the aged; who canst direct the first thought and remove the last doubt of man; property alike of the peasant and the prince; welcomed by the ignorant and honored by the wise; thou hast translated Christianity into a new language, and that a universal one! Thou art the prose poet of all time!

In proportion as a man becomes a public character, especially if eminent for talent and usefulness in the church, so will his enemies increase. The envy of some and the malice of others will invent slanders, or, worse, put an evil construction upon the most innocent conduct, in the hope of throwing a shade over that brightness which reveals their own defects. In this, they are aided by all the craft, and cunning, and power of Satan, the archenemy of man. The purity of gospel truth carries with it the blessed fruits of the highest order of civilization; the atmosphere in which it lives is 'goodwill to man.' Salvation is a free gift, direct from God to the penitent sinner. It cannot be obtained by human aid, nor for all the gold in the universe.

It cannot possibly be traded in, bought, or sold, but is bestowed without money or price. Hence the opposition of the Antichrist. The cry or groan of the contrite enters heaven and brings down blessings, while the most elegant and elaborately-composed prayer, not springing from the heart, is read or recited in vain. Human monarchs must be approached by petitions drawn up in form, which may be accepted, although the perfection of insincerity and hypocrisy. The King of kings accepts no forms; he knows the heart, and requires the approach of those who worship him to be in sincerity and in truth; the heart may plead without words, God accepted the groans and sighs of those that fear him. These were the notions that Bunyan had drawn from the Holy Oracles, and his conversation soon made him a favorite with the Puritans, while it excited feelings of great hostility among the neighboring clergy and magistrates.

Works of John Bunyan —BUNYAN IS BAPTIZED, AND ENTERS INTO COMMUNION WITH A CHRISTIAN CHURCH AT BEDFORD- 2nd Period

 

 'A reason why delusions do so easily take place in the hearts of the ignorant, is, because those that pretend to be their teachers, do behave themselves so basely among them. And indeed I may say of these, as our Lord said of the Pharisees in another case, the blood of the ignorant shall be laid to their charge. They that pretend they are sent of the Lord, and come, saying, Thus saith the Lord; we are the servants of the Lord, our commission is from the Lord by succession; I say, these pretending themselves to be the preachers of truth, but are not, do, by their loose conversation, render the doctrine of God, and his Son Jesus Christ, by whom the saints are saved, contemptible, and do give the adversary mighty encouragement, to cry out against the truths of our Lord Jesus Christ, because of their wicked waling.

 For the most part of them, they are the men that at this day do so harden their hearers in their sins by giving them such ill examples, that none goeth beyond them for impiety. As, for example, would a parishioner learn to be proud, he or she need look no farther than to the priest, his wife, and family; for there is a notable pattern before them. Would the people learn to be wanton? they may also see a pattern among their teachers. Would they learn to be drunkards? they may also have that from some of their ministers; for indeed they are ministers in this, to minister ill example to their congregations. Again, would the people learn to be covetous?

They need but look to their minister, and they shall have a lively, or rather a deadly resemblance set before them, in both riding and running after great benefices, and parsonages by night and by day. Nay, they among themselves will scramble for the same. I have seen, that so soon as a man hath but departed from his benefice as he calls it, either by death or out of covetousness of a bigger, we have had one priest from this town, and another from that, so run, for these tithe-cocks and handfuls of barley, as if it were their proper trade, and calling, to hunt after the same. O wonderful impiety and ungodliness! are you not ashamed of your doings?

Read Romans 1 towards the end. As it was with them, so, it is to be feared, it is with many of you, who knowing the judgments of God, that they who do such things are worthy of death, not only do the same but have pleasure also in them that do them. And now you pretend to be the teachers of the people in verity and truth, though we know that some of you are not, is it a small thing with you to set them such an example as this? Were ever the Pharisees so profane; to whom Christ said, Ye vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell? Doth not the ground groan under you? surely, it will favour you no more than it favoured your forerunners. Certainly, the wrath of God lies heavy at your doors, it is but a very little while, and your recompense shall be upon your own head. And as for you that are indeed of God among them, though not of them, separate yourselves. Why should the righteous partake of the same plagues with the wicked? O ye children of the harlot! I cannot well tell how to have done with you, your stain is so odious, and you are so senseless, as appears by your practices.'

The testimony of George Fox as to England's fashions in 1654, is very pointed and extremely droll:—Men and women are carried away with fooleries and vanities; gold and silver upon their backs, store of ribbands hanging about the waist, knees, and feet—red or white, black or yellow; women with their gold; their spots on their faces, noses, cheeks, foreheads; rings on their fingers, cuffs double, like a butcher's white sleeves; ribbands about their hands, and three or four gold laces about their clothes; men dressed like fiddlers' boys or stage players; see them playing at bowls, or at tables, or at shovel-board, or each one decking his horse with bunches of ribbands on his head, as the rider hath on his own. These are gentlemen, and brave fellows, that say pleasures are lawful, and in their sports, they should like wild asses. This is the generation carried away with pride, arrogance, lust, gluttony, and uncleanness; who eat and drink and rise up to play, their eyes full of adultery, and their bodies of the devil's adorning. Such quotations from the writings of men of undoubted veracity, and who lived during that period, might be multiplied to fill a volume.

 

Works of John Bunyan —BUNYAN IS BAPTIZED, AND ENTERS INTO COMMUNION WITH A CHRISTIAN CHURCH AT BEDFORD- 2nd Period

 

Before we bid a final farewell to Bunyan's extraordinary mental struggles with unbelief, it may be well to indulge in a few sober reflections. Are the narratives of these mighty tempests in his spirit plain matters of fact? No one can read the works of Bunyan and doubt for a moment his truthfulness. His language is that of the heart, fervent but not exaggerated, strong but a plain tale of real feelings. He says, and he believed it, 'My sins have appeared so big to me, that I thought one of my sins have been as big as all the sins of all the men in the nation; ay and of other nations too, reader; these things be not fancies, for I have started for this experience. It is true that Satan has the art of making the uttermost of every sin; he can blow it up, make it swell, make every hair of its head as big as a cedar; but yet the least stream of the heart blood of Jesus hath vanished all away and hath made it to fly, to the astonishment of such a poor sinner, and hath delivered me up into sweet and heavenly peace and joy in the Holy Ghost.'

 Some have supposed the narrative to be exaggerated, while others have attributed the disturbed state of his mind to disease; my humble belief is that the whole is a plain unvarnished account of facts; that those facts occurred while he was in full possession of all the faculties of his mind. To ascribe such powers to the invisible world by which we are constantly surrounded, does not agree with the doctrines of modern philosophers. Those holy or unholy suggestions suddenly injected, would by the world be set down as the hallucinations of a distempered imagination. Carnal relations attributed Christian's alarm to 'some frenzy distemper got into his head,' and Southey, following their example, ascribes Bunyan's hallowed feelings to his want of 'sober judgment,' 'his brutality and extreme ignorance,' a 'stage of burning enthusiasm,' and to 'an age in which hypocrisy was regnant, and fanaticism rampant throughout the land.'

What a display of reigning hypocrisy and rampant fanaticism was it to see the game at cat openly played by men on Sunday, the church bells calling them to their sport!!! Had Southey been poet-laureate to Charles II, he might with equal truth have concealed the sensuality, open profaneness, and debauchery of that profligate monarch and his court of concubines, and have praised him as 'the Lord's anointed.' Bunyan was an eye-witness of the state of the times in which he lived, and he associated with numbers of the poor in Bedfordshire and the adjoining counties. So truthful a man's testimony is of great value, and he proves that no miraculous reformation of manners had taken place; no regnant hypocrisy nor rampant fanaticism. 

In 1655, that being the brightest period of the Commonwealth, he thus 'sighs' over the state of his country:—' There are but a few places in the Bible but there are threatening's against one sinner or another; against drunkards, swearers, liars, proud persons, strumpets, whoremongers, covetous, railers, extortioners, thieves, lazy persons. In a word, all manner of sins are reproved, and there is a sore punishment to be executed on the committers of them, and all this is made mention of in the Scriptures. But for all this, how thick, and by heaps, do these wretches walk up and down our streets? Do but go into the alehouses, and you shall see almost every room besprinkled with them, so foaming out their own shame that it is enough to make the heart of a saint to tremble.' This was a true character of the great masses of the laboring and trading portions of the Commonwealth. Let us hear his testimony also as to the most sacred profession, the clergy, in 1654:—

Works of John Bunyan —BUNYAN IS BAPTIZED, AND ENTERS INTO COMMUNION WITH A CHRISTIAN CHURCH AT BEDFORD- 2nd Period

 

 'A wounded spirit who can bear.' Well, might the apostle say, 'If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable' (1 Cor 15:19). Bunyan had enjoyed holy emotions full of glory, and now the devil was threatening him, not only with the loss of heaven but the terrors of hell. The Puritan, Rogers, describes religious melancholy as 'the worst of all distempers, and those sinking and guilty fears which it brings along with it are inexpressibly dreadful; what anguish, what desolation! I dare not look to heaven; there I see the greatness of God, who is against me. I dare not look into his Word; for there I see all his threats, as so many barbed arrows to strike me to the heart. I dare not look into the grave; because thence I am like to have a doleful resurrection; in this doleful night the soul hath no evidence at all of its former grace.' Bunyan's experience reminds us of the impressive language of Job—a book full of powerful imagery and magnificent ideas, in which Bunyan delighted, calling it 'that blessed book.' 

Job goes on, from step to step, describing his mental wretchedness, until he rises to a climax, God 'runneth upon me like a giant' (16:7-22). 'Thou huntest me as a fierce lion' (10:16). 'The arrows of the Almighty are within me; they drink up my spirit: the terrors of God do set themselves in array against me' (6:4). Poor Bunyan, in the depth of his distress, cried unto God, and was heard and relieved from these soul troubles. He recollected the joyful ascent of Lazarus from the extreme of human misery to the height of celestial enjoyment. His spirit was sweetly revived, and he was enabled, with delight, to hope yet in God, when that word fell with great weight upon his mind, 'O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?' 'At this, he became both well in body and mind at once; his sickness did presently vanish, and he again walked comfortably in his work for God.' The words, 'by grace are ye saved,' followed him through the rest of his pilgrimage. His consolation was, that 'a little true grace will go a great way; yea, and do more wonders than we are aware of. If we have but grace enough to keep us groaning after God, it is not all the world that can destroy us.'

 He had now become deeply instructed in the school of Christ, and was richly furnished with the weapons of spiritual warfare; 'a scribe instructed into the kingdom of heaven, like unto a man that is a householder, which bringeth forth out of his treasure things new and old (Matt 13:12). Or, as 'the man of God, perfected, thoroughly furnished unto all good works' (2 Tim 3:17). It was powerfully impressed upon his mind that all his inward conflicts were to be made use of in preparing him to instruct others. All the events of his Saviour's life passed before his mind as if he had stood by as a witness to his birth—his walking with his disciples; his wondrous parables and stupendous miracles; his mental and bodily sufferings; his sacrifice, burial, ascension, intercession, and final judgment; all passed in vivid review before the eye of his mind; and then, he says, 'as I was musing with myself what these things should mean, methought I heard such a word in my heart as this, I have set thee down on purpose, for I have something more than ordinary for thee to do'; which made me the more to marvel, saying, 'What, my Lord, such a poor wretch as I?' Such was his inward call to the ministry; and it is attended with the three requisites usually insisted on among Dissenters—ability, inclination, and opportunity—he was sent out as an itinerant preacher in the surrounding villages in 1655 and laid the foundation of many churches, which now flourish to the praise of the glory of Divine grace. In some of these villages, the gospel had never before been preached; they were strongholds of Satan. These were fit places for the full display of his intrepid energy.

After this preaching and much suffering, for fifteen years, he was appointed to the pastoral office or eldership. Can a man enter upon the work of the ministry from a better school than this? Deeply versed in scriptural knowledge; thoroughly humbled by the assaults of sin and Satan; aware of his devices; with a keen perception of the value of the soul; its greatness; and, if lost, the causes and the unspeakable extent of its loss. Solemnly devout and fluent in prayer; ready in conversation upon heavenly things; speaking the truth without fear of consequences, yet avoiding unnecessary offense; first speaking in the church meeting, and then more extensively in barns, or woods, or dells, to avoid the informers. Such was his training; and the result was, that, when permitted to proclaim the gospel publicly, thousands hung upon his words with intense feeling; numerous converts were by his means added to the church; the proud became broken-hearted, and the lowly were raised, and blessings abounded; the drunkards were made sober; thieves and covetous were reclaimed; the blasphemers were made to sing the praises of God; the desert bid fair to blossom and bring forth fruit as a garden. But, alas! his early labours were contrary to acts of parliament; the spirit of intolerance and persecution soon troubled, and eventually consigned him to a prison.

Works of John Bunyan —BUNYAN IS BAPTIZED, AND ENTERS INTO COMMUNION WITH A CHRISTIAN CHURCH AT BEDFORD- 2nd Period

 

'Now was I as one awakened out of some troublesome sleep and dream; and listening to this heavenly sentence, I was as if I had heard it thus expounded to me:—"Sinner, thou thinkest, that because of thy sins and infirmities, I cannot save thy soul; but behold my Son is by me, and upon him, I look, and not on thee, and will deal with thee according as I am pleased with him." At this I was greatly lightened in my mind, and made to understand, that God could justify a sinner at any time; it was but his looking upon Christ and imputing of his benefits to us, and the work was forthwith done.'

'Now was I got on high, I saw myself within the arms of grace and mercy; and though I was before afraid to think of a dying hour, yet now I cried, Let me die. Now death was lovely and beautiful in my sight, for I saw that we shall never live indeed, till we are gone to the other world. I saw more in those words, "Heirs of God" (Rom 8:17) than ever I shall be able to express. "Heirs of God," God himself is the portion of his saints.'

As his mental agitation subsided into this delicious calm, his bodily health was restored; to use his own figure, Captain Consumption, with all his men of death, were routed, and his strong bodily health triumphed over disease; or, to use the more proper language of an eminent Puritan, 'When overwhelmed with the deepest sorrows, and that for many doleful months, he who is Lord of nature healed my body, and he who is the Father of mercies and God of all grace has proclaimed liberty to the captive, and given rest to my weary soul.' Here we have a key to the most eventful picture in the Pilgrim's Progress—The Valley of the Shadow of Death—which is placed in the midst of the journey. When in the prime of life, death looked at him and withdrew for a season. It was the shadow of death that came over his spirit.

The church at Bedford having increased, Bunyan was chosen to fill the honourable office of a deacon. No man could have been better fitted for that office than Bunyan was. He was honesty itself, had suffered severe privations, so as to feel for those who were pinched with want; he had great powers of discrimination, to distinguish between the poverty of idleness, and that distress which arises from circumstances over which human foresight has no control, so as to relieve with propriety the pressure of want, without encouraging the degrading and debasing habit of depending upon alms, instead of labouring to provide the necessaries of life. He had no fine clothes to be spoiled by trudging down the filthiest lanes and entering the meanest hovels to relieve suffering humanity. 

The poor—and that is the great class to whom the gospel is preached, and by whom it is received—would hail him as a brother. Gifted in prayer, full of sound and wholesome counsel drew from holy writ, he must have been a peculiar blessing to the distressed, and to all the members who stood in need of advice and assistance. Such were the men intended by the apostles, 'men of honest report, full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom' (Acts 6:3), whom the church was to select, to relieve the apostles from the duties of ministration to the wants of the afflicted members, in the discharge of which they had given offense.

While thus actively employed, he was again visited with a severe illness, and again was subject to a most searching and solemn investigation as to his fitness to appear before the judgment seat of God. 'All that time the tempter did beset me strongly, laboring to hide from me my former experience of God's goodness; setting before me the terrors of death, and the judgment of God, insomuch that at this time, through my fear of miscarrying forever, should I now die, I was as one dead before death came; I thought that there was no way but to hell I must.'