Works of John Bunyan —BUNYAN IS BAPTIZED, AND ENTERS INTO COMMUNION WITH A CHRISTIAN CHURCH AT BEDFORD 4

 

Letter continued...

Letter from the people of Bedfordshire to Lord General Cromwell, and the Council of the army.

May 13th, 1653.

To the Church over which God made me an overseer when I was in the world.

I beseech you, brethren beloved, let these following words (wrote in my love to you, and care over you, when our heavenly Father was removing me to the kingdom of his dear Son), be read in your church gatherings together. I shall not now, dearly beloved, write unto you about that which is the first, and without which all other things are as nothing in the sight of God, viz., the keeping the mystery of the faith in a pure conscience; I shall not, I say, write of these things, though the greatest, having spent my labours among you, to root you and build you up in Christ through the grace you have received; and to press you to all manner of holiness in your conversations, that you may be found of the Lord, without spot, and blameless, at His coming.

But the things I shall speak to you of, are about your CHURCH AFFAIRS, which I fear have been little considered by most of you; which things, if not mended aright, and submitted unto, according to the will of God, will by degrees bring you under divisions, distractions, and at last, to the confusion of that gospel order and fellowship which now, through grace, you enjoy. Therefore, my brethren, in the first place, I would not have any of you ignorant of this, that every one of you is as much bound now to walk with the church in all love; and in the ordinances of Jesus Christ our Lord, as when I was present among you: neither have any of you liberty to join yourselves to any other society, because your pastor is removed from you; for you were not joined to the ministry, but to Christ, and the church; and this is and was the will of God in Christ to all the churches of the saints, read Acts 2:42; and compare it with Acts 1:14, 15. And I charge you before the Lord, as you will answer it at the coming of our Lord Jesus, that none of you be found guilty herein.

Secondly. Be constant in your church assemblies. Let all the work which concerns the church be done faithfully among you; as admission of members, exercising of gifts, election of officers, as need requires, and all other things as if named, which the Scriptures being searched, will lead you into, through the Spirit; which things, if you do, the Lord will be with you, and you will convince others that Christ is your head, and your dependency is not upon man; but if you do the work of the Lord negligently if you mind your own things and not the things of Christ, if you grow of indifferent spirits, whether you mind the work of the Lord in his church or no, I fear the Lord by degrees will suffer the comfort of your communion to be dried up, and the candlestick which is yet standing to be broken in pieces; which God forbid.

Now, concerning your admission of members, I shall leave you to the Lord for counsel, who hath hitherto been with you; only thus much I think expedient to stir up your remembrance in; that after you are satisfied in the work of grace in the party you are to join with, the said party do solemnly declare (before some of the church at least), That Union with Christ is the foundation of all saints' communion; and not any ordinances of Christ, or any judgment or opinion about externals; and the said party ought to declare, whether a brother or sister, that through grace they will walk in love with the church, though there should happen any difference in judgment about other things.

Concerning separation from the church about baptism, laying on of hands, anointing with oil, psalms, or any externals, I charge every one of you respectively, as you will give an account for it to our Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge both quick and dead at his coming, that none of you be found guilty of this great evil; which, while some have committed, and that through zeal for God, yet not according to knowledge, they have erred from the law of the love of Christ, and have made a rent from the true church, which is but one. I exhort you, brethren, in your comings together, Let all things be done decently, and in order, according to the Scriptures. Let all things be done among you without strife and envy, without self-seeking and vain glory. Be clothed with humility, and submit to one another in love.

Let the gifts of the church be exercised according to order. Let no gift be concealed which is for edification; yet let those gifts be chiefly exercised which are mostly for the perfecting of the saints. Let your discourses be to build up one another in your most holy faith, and to provoke one another to love and good works: if this be not well-minded, much time may be spent and the church reap little or no advantage.

 Let there be strong meat for the strong, and milk for babes. In your assemblies avoid all disputes which gender to strife, as questions about externals, and all doubtful disputations. If any come among you who will be contentious in these things, let it be declared that you have no such order, nor any of the churches of God. If any come among you with any doctrine contrary to the doctrine of Christ, you must not treat with such a one as with a brother, or enter into dispute of the things of faith with reasonings (for this is contrary to the Scriptures); but let such of the brethren who are the fullest of the Spirit, and the word of Christ, oppose such a one steadfastly face to face, and lay open his folly to the church, from the Scriptures. 

Works of John Bunyan —BUNYAN IS BAPTIZED, AND ENTERS INTO COMMUNION WITH A CHRISTIAN CHURCH AT BEDFORD 3

 

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:—

 

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

 

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.

Works of John Bunyan —BUNYAN IS BAPTIZED, AND ENTERS INTO COMMUNION WITH A CHRISTIAN CHURCH AT BEDFORD 1

 

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.

 

Works of John Bunyan — THE INTERNAL CONFLICT, OR BUNYAN'S CONVICTIONS AND CONVERSION.13

 

Bunyan was one of those pioneers who are far in advance of the age in which they live, and the narrative of his birth and education adds to the innumerable contradictions which the history of man opposes to the system of Mr. Owen and the Socialists, and to every scheme for making the offspring of the poor follow in leading-strings the course of their parents, or for rendering them blindly submissive to the dictates of the rich, the learned, or the influential. It incontestably proves the gospel doctrine of individuality, and, that native talent will rise superior to all impediments. Our forefathers struggled for the right of private judgment in matters of faith and worship—their descendants will insist upon it, as essential to salvation, personally to examine every doctrine relative to the sacred objects of religion, limited only by Holy Writ.

This must be done with rigorous impartiality, throwing aside all the prejudices of education, and be followed by prompt obedience to Divine truth, at any risk of offending parents, or laws, or resisting institutions, or ceremonies which he discovers to be of human invention. All this, as we have seen in Bunyan, was attended with great mental sufferings, with painstaking labour, a simple reliance upon the Word of God, and with earnest prayer. If man impiously dares to submit his conscience to his fellow-man, or to any body of men called a church, what perplexity must he experience ere he can make up his mind which to choose! Instead of relying upon the ONE standard which God has given him in his Word; should he build his hope upon a human system he could be certain only that man is fallible and subject to err. How striking an instance have we, in our day, of the result of education, when the mind does not implicitly follow the guidance of the revealed Word of God.

Two brothers, named Newman, educated at the same school, trained in the same university, brought up under the same religious system—all human arts exhausted to mould their minds into strict uniformity, yet gradually receding from the same point in opposite directions, but in equally downward roads; one to embrace the most puerile legends of the middle ages, the other to open infidelity. Not so with those who follow the teachings of the Word of God, by which, and not by any church, they are to be individually judged at the great day: no pontiff, no priest, no minister, can intervene or mediate for them at the bar of God.

There it will be said, 'I know you, by your prayers for Divine guidance and your submission to my revealed will'; or, 'I know you not,' for you preferred the guidance of frail, fallible men, to me, and to my Word—a solemn consideration, which, as it proved a source of solid happiness and extensive usefulness to Bunyan in his pilgrimage, so it insured to him, as it will to all who follow his course, a solid foundation on which to stand at the great and terrible day, and thus enable them to live as well as die in the sure and certain hope of a triumphant entry into the celestial city.

Works of John Bunyan — THE INTERNAL CONFLICT, OR BUNYAN'S CONVICTIONS AND CONVERSION.12

 

 

By these trials, the promises became more apparent and more invaluable than ever. He never saw those heights and depths in grace and love, and mercy, as he saw them after this severe trial—'great sins drew out great grace'; and the more terrible and fierce guilt was, the more high and mighty did the mercy of God in Christ appear. These are Bunyan's own reflections; but may we not add to them, that while he was in God's school of trial, every groan, every bitter pang of anguish, and every gleam of hope, were intended to fit him for his future work as a preacher and writer? Weighed in the balances of the sanctuary, there was not a jot too little, or an iota too much.

Every important subject which embarrasses the convert was most minutely investigated, especially faith, the sin against the Holy Ghost, the divinity of Christ, and such essential truths. He well knew every dirty lane, and nook, and corner of Mansoul, in which the Diabolonians found shelter, and well he knew the frightful sound of Diabolus' drum. Well did his pastor, John Burton, say of him, 'He hath through grace taken these three heavenly degrees, to wit, union with Christ, the anointing of the Spirit, and experience of the temptations of Satan, which do more fit a man for that mighty work of preaching the gospel, than all the university learning and degrees that can be had.'

Preserved in Christ Jesus, and called—selected from his associates in sin, he was taken into this school, and underwent the strictest religious education. It was here alone that his rare talent could be cultivated, to enable him, in two immortal allegories, to narrate the internal discipline he underwent. It was here he attained that habitual access to the throne of grace, and that insight into the inspired volume, which filled his writings with those solemn realities of the world to come; while it enabled him to reveal the mysteries of communion with the Father of spirits, as he so wondrously does in his treatise on prayer.

To use the language of Milton—'These are works that could not be composed by the invocation of Dame Memory and her Siren daughters, but by devout prayer to that eternal Spirit, who can enrich with all utterance and knowledge, and send out his seraphim, with the hallowed fire of his altar, to touch and purify the lips of whom he pleases, without reference to station, birth, or education.' The tent-maker and tinker, the fisherman and publican, and even a friar or monk, became the honoured instruments of his choice.

Throughout all of Bunyan's writings, he never murmurs at his want of education, although it is often a source of humble apology. He honored the learned godly as Christians but preferred the Bible before the library of the two universities. He saw, what every pious man must see and lament, that there is much idolatry in human learning and that it was frequently applied to confuse and impede the gospel. Thus he addresses the reader of his treatise on The Law and Grace—'If thou find this book empty of fantastical expressions, and without light, vain, whimsical, scholar-like terms, it is because I never went to school, to Aristotle or Plato, but was brought up at my father's house, in a very mean condition, among a company of poor countrymen. But if thou do find a parcel of plain, yet sound, true, and home sayings, attribute that to the Lord Jesus his gifts and abilities, which he hath bestowed upon such a poor creature as I am and have been.'

His maxim was—' Words easy to be understood do often hit the mark, when high and learned ones do only pierce the air. He also that speaks to the weakest may make the learned understand him; when he that strives to be high, is not only of the most part understood but of a sort, but also many times is neither understood by them nor by himself!' This is one of Bunyan's maxims, well worth the consideration of the most profoundly learned writers and the most eloquent preachers and public speakers.

Works of John Bunyan — THE INTERNAL CONFLICT, OR BUNYAN'S CONVICTIONS AND CONVERSION.11

 

This misery was aggravated by reading the fearful estate of Francis Spira, who had been persuaded to return to a profession of Popery, and died in a state of awful despair. 'This book' was to his troubled spirit like salt rubbed into a fresh wound.

Bunyan now felt his body and mind shaking and tottering under the sense of the dreadful judgment of God; and he thought his sin—of a momentary and unwilling consent to giving up Christ—was a greater sin than all the sins of David, Solomon, Manasseh, and even than all the sins that had been committed by all God's redeemed ones. Was there ever a man in the world so capable of describing the miseries of Doubting Castle, or of the Slough of Despond, as poor John Bunyan?

He would have run from God in utter desperation; 'but, blessed be his grace, that Scripture, in these flying sins, would call, as running after me, "I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, thy transgressions, and, as a cloud, thy sins: return unto me, for I have redeemed thee"' (Isa 44:22). Still he was haunted by that scripture, 'You know how that afterward when he would have inherited the blessing, he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears.'

Thus was he tossed and buffeted, involved in cloudy darkness, with now and then a faint gleam of hope to save him from despair. 'In all these,' he says, 'I was but as those that justle against the rocks; more broken, scattered, and rent. Oh! the unthought of imaginations, frights, fears, and terrors, that are affected by a thorough application of guilt.' 'Methought I saw as if the sun that shineth in the heavens did grudge to give light, and as if the very stones in the street, and tiles upon the houses, did bend themselves against me. 'Here we find him in that doleful valley, where Christian was surrounded by enemies that 'cared not for his sword,' he put it up, and places his dependence upon the more penetrating weapon, 'All Prayer.'

Depending upon this last resource, he prayed, even when in this great darkness and distress. To whom could he go? his case was beyond the power of men or angels. His refuge, from a fear of having committed the unpardonable sin, was that he had never refused to be justified by the blood of Christ, but ardently wished it; this, in the midst of the storm, caused a temporary clam. At length, he was led to look prayerfully upon those scriptures that had tormented him, and to examine their scope and tendency, and then he 'found their visage changed, for they looked not so grimly on him as before he thought they did.' Still, after such a tempest, the sea did not at once become calm. Like one that had been scared with fire, every voice was fire, fire; every little touch hurt his tender conscience.

All this instructive history is pictured by a few words in the Pilgrim's Progress. At the Interpreter's house the pilgrim is shown 'a fire burning against a wall, and one standing by it, always casting much water upon it, to quench it; yet did the fire burn higher and hotter.' As Esau beat him down, Christ raised him again. The threatening and the promise were like glittering swords clashing together, but the promise must prevail.

His entire relief, at last, was sudden while meditating in the field upon the words, 'Thy righteousness is in heaven.' Hence he drew the conclusion, that his righteousness was in Christ, at God's right hand, ever before him, secure from all the powers of sin and Satan. Now his chains fell off; he was loosed from his affliction and irons; his temptation fled away. His present supply of grace he compared to the cracked groats and fourpence half-pennies, which rich men carry in their pockets, while their treasure is safe in their trunks at home, as he was in the storehouse of heaven.

This dreary night of awful conflict lasted more than two years; but when the day-spring from on high visited him, the promises spangled in his eyes, and he broke out into a song, 'Praise ye the Lord. Praise God in his sanctuary: praise him in the firmament of his power. Praise him for his mighty acts: praise him according to his excellent greatness.'

Bunyan's opinion as to the cause of this bitter suffering, was his want of watchfulness, his not coming boldly to the throne of grace, and that he had tempted God. The advantages he considered that he had gained by it were, that it confirmed his knowledge of the existence of God so that he lost all his temptations to unbelief, blasphemy, hardness of heart, Doubts as to the truth of the Word, and certainty of the world to come, were gone forever.

He found no difficulty as to the keys of the kingdom of heaven. 'Now I saw the apostles be the elders of the city of refuge, those that they were to receive in, were received to life, but those that they were to shut out, were to be slain by the avenger of blood.' Those were to enter who, with Peter, confessed to Jesus, 'Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God' (Matt 16:16). This is simply an authority to proclaim salvation or condemnation to those who receive or reject the Saviour. It is upon his shoulder the key of the house is laid (Isa 22:22). Christ only has the key, no MAN opens or shuts (Rev 1:18, 3:7). All that man can do, as to binding or loosening, is to warn the hardened and to invite the contrite

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He longed to compare his experience with that of some old and eminent convert, and 'God did cast into his hand' Luther On the Galatians, 'so old that it was ready to fall piece from piece if I did but turn it over.' The commentary of this enlightened man was a counterpart to his own feelings. 'I found,' says Bunyan, 'my condition, in his experience so largely and profoundly handled, as if his book had been written out of my own heart. I prefer the book before all others as most fit for a wounded conscience.' This was the 'voice of a man' that Christian 'heard as going before him in the Valley of the Shadow of Death,' and was glad that some who feared God were in this valley as well as himself, who could say, 'I will fear no evil for thou art with me.'

In many things, Luther and Bunyan were men of similar temperaments. Like Emmanuel's captains, in the Holy War, they were 'very stout rough-hewn men; men that were fit to break the ice, and to make their way by dint of sword.' They were animated by the same principles, and fought with the same weapons; and although Luther resided in a castle protected by princes, was furnished with profound scholastic learning, and became a terror to Popery; yet the voice of the unlettered tinker, issuing from a dreary prison, bids fair to be far more extensively heard and blessed than that of this most illustrious reformer.

Bunyan's happiness was now very great; his soul, with all its affections, clave unto Christ: but lest spiritual pride should exalt him beyond measure, and lest he should be scared to renounce his Saviour, by the threat of transportation and death, his heart was again wounded, and quickly after this his 'love was tried to purpose.'

The tempter came in upon him with a most grievous and dreadful temptation; it was to part with Christ, to exchange him for the things of this life; he was perpetually tormented with the words 'sell Christ.' At length, he thought that his spirit gave way to the temptation, and a dreadful and profound state of despair overpowered him for the dreary space of more than two years. This is the most extraordinary part of this wonderful narrative, that he, without apparent cause, should thus be tempted, and feel the bitterness of a supposed parting with Christ. There was, doubtless, a cause for every pang; his heavenly Father afflicted him for his profit.

We shall soon have to follow him through fiery trials. Before the justices, allured by their arguments, and particularly by the sophistry of their clerk, Mr. Cobb, and then dragged from a beloved wife and from children to whom he was most fondly attached—all these fiery trials might be avoided if he would but 'sell Christ.' A cold damp dungeon was to incarcerate his body for twelve tedious years of the prime of his life unless he would 'sell Christ.' His ministering brother and friend, John Child, a Bedford man, who had joined in recommending Bunyan's Vindication of Gospel Truths, fell under this temptation, and fearing temporal ruin and imprisonment for life, conformed, and then fell into the most awful state of despair, suffering such agonies of conscience, that, to get rid of present trouble, he hurried himself into eternity.

Probably Bunyan alludes to this awful instance of fell despair in his Publican and Pharisee: 'Sin, when appearing in its monstrous shape and hue, frighted all mortals out of their wits, away from God; and if he stops them not, also out of the world.' To arm Bunyan against being overcome by a fear of the lions on the way to the house Beautiful—against giving way, under persecution—he was visited with terrors lest he should sell or part with Christ. During these sad years, he was not wholly sunk in despair but had at times some glimmerings of mercy. In comparing his supposed sin with that of Judas, he was constrained to find a difference between a deliberate intention to sell Christ and a sudden temptation.

Through all these searchings of heart and inquiries at the Word, he became fixed in the doctrine of the final perseverance of God's saints. 'O what love, what care, what kindness and mercy did I now see mixing itself with the most severe and dreadful of all God's ways to his people; he never let them fall into sin unpardonable.' 'But these thoughts added grief and horror to me; I thought that all things wrought for my eternal overthrow.' So ready is the tender heart to write bitter things against itself, and as ready is the tempter to whisper despairing thoughts. In the midst of this distress he 'saw a glory in walking with God,' although a dismal cloud enveloped him.

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 What makes those arrows more penetrating and distressing is, that Satan, with subtle art, tips them with sentences of Scripture. 'No place for repentance'; 'rejected'; 'hath never forgiveness,' and other passages which, by the malignant ingenuity of the fiend, are formed by his skill as the cutting and barbed points of his shafts. At one time Bunyan concluded that he was possessed by the devil; then he was tempted to speak and sin against the Holy Ghost. He thought himself alone in such a tempest, and that no one had ever felt such misery as he did. When in prayer, his mind was distracted by the thought that Satan was pulling his clothes; he was even tempted to fall down and worship him. Then he would cry after God, in awful fear that eventually Satan would overcome him.

During all this time he was struggling against the tempter; and, at length, the day-spring visited him in these words, 'I am persuaded that nothing shall separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.' Again he was cast down with a recollection of his former blasphemies. What reason can I have to hope for an inheritance in eternal life? The question was answered with that portion of Scripture, 'If God be for us, who can be against us?' These were visits which, like Peter's sheet, of a sudden were caught up to heaven again. At length, the Sun of Righteousness arose and shone upon him with healing influence.

 'He hath made peace through the blood of his cross,' came with power to his mind, followed by the consoling words of the apostle, 'Forasmuch, then, as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage' (Heb 2:14,15). This was the key that opened every lock in Doubting Castle. The prisoner escaped breathing the air of hope, and joy, and peace. 'This,' said he, 'was a good day to me, I hope I shall not forget it.' 'I thought that the glory of those words was then so weighty on me, that I was, both once and twice, ready to swoon as I sat, not with grief and trouble, but with solid joy and peace.'

His mind was now in a fit state to seek for church fellowship, as a further means of advance in his knowledge of Divine love. To effect this object, he was naturally led to the Baptist church at Bedford, to which those pious women belonged whose Christian communion had been blessed to him. I sat under the ministry of holy Mr. Gifford, whose doctrine, by God's grace, was much for my stability. Although his soul was led from truth to truth, his trials were not over—he passed through many severe exercises before he was received into communion with the church.

 At length, he determined to become identified with a body of professed Christians, who were treated with great scorn by other sects because they denied infant baptism, and he became engaged in the religious controversies which were fashionable in those days. We have noticed his encounter with the Ranters, and he soon had to give battle to persons called Quakers. Before the Society of Friends was formed, and their rules of discipline were published, many Ranters and others, some of whom were bad characters and held the wildest opinions, passed under the name of Quakers. Some of these denied that the Bible was the Word of God; and asserted that the death of Christ was not a full atonement for sin—that there is no future resurrection and other gross errors. The Quakers, who were afterward united to form the Society of Friends, from the first, denied all those errors.

 Their earliest apologist, Barclay, in his theses on the Scriptures, says, 'They are the doctrines of Christ, held forth in precious declarations, spoken and written by the moving of God's Spirit.' Whoever it was that asserted the heresies, to Bunyan the investigation of them, in the light of Divine truth, was attended with great advantages. It was through 'this narrow search of the Scriptures that he was not only enlightened but greatly confirmed and comforted in the truth.'

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 'These suggestions, with many others, which at this time I may not, dare not utter, neither by word nor pen, did make such a seizure upon my spirit, and did so overweigh my heart, both with their number, continuance, and fiery force, that I felt as if there were nothing else but these from morning to night within me, and as though indeed there could be room for nothing else; and also concluded, that God had, in very wrath to my soul, given me up unto them, to be carried away with them as with a mighty whirlwind.

'Only by the distaste that they gave unto my spirit, I felt there was something in me that refused to embrace them.'

Here are the facts which are allegorized in the history of Christian, passing through the Valley of Humiliation, and fighting with the Prince of the power of the air. 'Then Apollyon, espying his opportunity, began to gather up close to Christian, and wrestling with him, gave him a dreadful fall; and with that Christian's sword flew out of his hand.' This was the effect of his doubts of the inspiration of the Scriptures—the sword of the Spirit. 'I am sure of thee now, said Apollyon; and with that he had almost pressed him to death, so that Christian began to despair of life; but as God would have it, while Apollyon was fetching of his last blow, Christian nimbly stretched out his hand for his sword, and caught it, saying, "Rejoice not against me, O mine enemy, when I fall I shall arise" (Matt 7:8), and with that gave him a deadly thrust, which made him give back as one that had received his mortal wound.

Christian perceiving that, made at him again, saying, "Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us"; and with that Apollyon spread forth his dragon wings, and sped him away.' What an awful moment, when he fell unarmed before his ferocious enemy! 'Faith now has but little time to speak to the conscience—it is now struggling for life—it is now fighting with angels—with infernals—all it can do now is to cry, groan, sweat, fear, fight, and gasp for life.'How desperate the conflict—the mouth of hell yawning to swallow him—man cannot aid the poor warrior, all his help is in God. Is it not a wonder to see a poor creature, who in himself is weaker than the moth, to stand against and overcome all devils—all the world—all his lusts and corruptions; or, if he fall, is it not a wonder to see him, when devils and guilt are upon him, to rise again, stand upon his legs, walk with God again, and persevere in faith and holiness?

This severe conflict lasted for about a year. He describes his feelings at times as resembling the frightful pangs of one broken on the wheel. The sources of his misery were fears that he had sinned against the Holy Ghost; and that through his hardness of heart and impatience in prayer—he should not persevere to the end. During all this time, occasional visits of mercy kept him from despair; and at some intervals filled him with transports of joy. At one time so delightfully was his burden removed that he could not tell how to contain himself. 'I thought I could have spoken of his love and of his mercy to me, even to the very crows that sat upon the ploughed lands before me, had they been capable to have understood me.'

Thus his feelings were controlled by reason, very different to the poor madman who, in olden time, is represented as preaching to the fish. With Bunyan it was a hallowed joy—a gush of holy gladness, in which he wished all creation to participate. his heart was baptized in hope. 'I know that my Redeemer liveth'; and with holy Job, he wished to perpetuate his joy by a memorial not in rock, but in a book of resemblance. 'I would I had a pen and ink here to write it down.' This is the first desire that he expressed to proclaim or publish to others the great Saviour he had found: but he was not yet prepared; he must pass through deeper depths, and possess a living knowledge of Divine truth, burnt into his soul by satanic fires.

Very soon after this, he was harassed with fear lest he should part with Christ. The tempter, as he did with Christian in the Valley of the Shadow of Death, suggested blasphemies to him, which he thought had proceeded from his own mind. 'Satan troubled him with his stinking breath. How many strange, hideous, and amazing blasphemies have some that are coming to Christ had injected upon their spirits against him.' 'The devil is indeed very busy at work during the darkness of a soul. He throws in his fiery darts to amazement, when we are encompassed with the terrors of a dismal night; he is bold and undaunted in his assaults and injects with a quick and sudden malice a thousand monstrous and abominable thoughts of God, which seem to be the motions of our own minds, and terribly grieve and trouble us.'