The Works of John Bunyan.
Volume 1.
by John Bunyan.
MEMOIR OF JOHN BUNYAN
THE FIRST PERIOD.
THIS GREAT MAN DESCENDED FROM IGn.o.bLE PARENTS--BORN IN POVERTY--HIS EDUCATION AND EVIL HABITS--FOLLOWS HIS FATHER"S BUSINESS AS A BRAZIER--ENLISTS FOR A SOLDIER--RETURNS FROM THE WARS AND OBTAINS AN AMIABLE, RELIGIOUS WIFE--HER DOWER.
"We have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of G.o.d, and not of us."--2 Cor 4:7
"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord."--Isaiah 55:8.
"Though ye have lien among the pots, yet shall ye be as the wings of a dove covered with silver, and her feathers with yellow gold."--Psalm 68:13.
When the Philistine giant, Goliath, mocked the host of Israel, and challenged any of their stern warriors to single combat, what human being could have imagined that the gigantic heathen would be successfully met in the mortal struggle by a youth "ruddy and of a fair countenance?" who unarmed, except with a sling and a stone, gave the carcases of the hosts of the Philistines to the fouls of the air, and to the wild beasts of the earth."
Who, upon seeing an infant born in a stable, and laid in a manger, or beholding him when a youth working with his father as a carpenter, could have conceived that he was the manifestation of the Deity in human form, before whom every knee should bow, and every tongue confess Him to be THE ETERNAL?
Father Michael, a Franciscan friar, on a journey to Ancona, having lost his way, sought direction from a wretched lad keeping hogs--deserted, forlorn, his back smarting with severe stripes, and his eyes suffused with tears. The poor ragged boy not only went cheerfully with him to point out his road, but besought the monk to take him into his convent, volunteering to fulfill the most degrading services, in the hope of procuring a little learning, and escaping from "those filthy hogs." How incredulously would the friar have listened to anyone who could have suggested that this desolate, tattered, dirty boy, might and would fill a greater than an imperial throne! Yet, eventually that swine-herd was clothed in purple and fine linen, and, under the t.i.tle of Pope Sixtus V., became one of those mighty magicians who are described in Rogers Italy, as
"Setting their feet upon the necks of kings, And through the worlds subduing, chaining down The free, immortal spirit--theirs a wondrous spell." [1]
A woman that was "a loose and unG.o.dly wretch" hearing a tinker lad most awfully cursing and swearing, protested to him that "he swore and cursed at that most fearful rate that it made her tremble to hear him," "that he was the unG.o.dliest fellow for swearing that ever she heard in all her life," and "that he was able to spoil all the youth in a whole town, if they came in his company." This blow at the young reprobate made that indelible impression which all the sermons yet he had heard had failed to make. Satan, by one of his own slaves, wounded a conscience which had resisted all the overtures of mercy. The youth pondered her words in his heart; they were good seed strangely sown, and their working formed one of those mysterious steps which led the foul-mouthed blasphemer to bitter repentance; who, when he had received mercy and pardon, felt impelled to bless and magnify the Divine grace with shining, burning thoughts and words. The poor profligate, swearing tinker became transformed into the most ardent preacher of the love of Christ--the well-trained author of The Jerusalem Sinner Saved, or Good News to the Vilest of Men.
How often have the Saints of G.o.d been made a most unexpected blessing to others. The good seed of Divine truth has been many times sown by those who did not go out to sow, but who were profitably engaged in cultivating their own graces, enjoying the communion of Saints, and advancing their own personal happiness! Think of a few poor, but pious happy women, sitting in the sun one beautiful summer"s day, before one of their cottages, probably each one with her pillow on her lap, dexterously twisting the bobbins to make lace, the profits of which helped to maintain their children. While they are communing on the things of G.o.d, a traveling tinker draws near, and, over-hearing their talk, takes up a position where he might listen to their converse while he pursued his avocation.
Their words distil into his soul; they speak the language of Canaan; they talk of holy enjoyments, the result of being born again, acknowledging their miserable state by nature, and how freely and undeservedly G.o.d had visited their hearts with pardoning mercy, and supported them while suffering the a.s.saults and suggestions of Satan; how they had been borne up in every dark, cloudy, stormy day; and how they contemned, slighted, and abhorred their own righteousness as filthy and insufficient to do them any good. The learned discourses our tinker had heard at church had casually pa.s.sed over his mind like evanescent clouds, and left little or no lasting impression. But these poor women, "methought they spake as actually did make them speak; they speak with such pleasant as of Scripture language, and with such appearance of grace in all they said, that they were to me as if they had found a new world, as if they were people that dwelt alone, and were not to be reckoned among their neighbors" (Num 23:9).
O! how little did they imagine that their pious converse was to be the means employed by the Holy Spirit in the conversion of that poor tinker, and that, by their agency, he was to be transformed into one of the brightest luminaries of heaven; who, when he had entered into rest would leave his works to follow him as spiritual thunder to pierce the hearts of the impenitent, and as heavenly consolation to bind up the broken-hearted; liberating the prisoners of Giant Despair, and directing the pilgrims to the Celestial City.
Thus were blessings in rich abundance showered down upon the church by the instrumentality, in the first instance, of a woman that was a sinner, but most eminently by the Christian converse of a few poor but pious women.
This poverty-stricken, ragged tinker was the son of a working mechanic at Elstow, near Bedford. So obscure was his origin that even the Christian name of his father is yet unknown:[2] he was born in 1628, a year memorable as that in which the Bill of Rights was pa.s.sed. Then began the struggle against arbitrary power, which was overthrown in 1688, the year of Bunyan"s death, by the accession of William III. Of Bunyan"s parents, his infancy, and childhood, little is recorded. All that we know is from his own account, and that princ.i.p.ally contained in his doctrine of the Law and Grace, and in his extraordinary development of his spiritual life, under the t.i.tle of Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners. His birth would have shed a l.u.s.ter on the wealthiest mansion, and have imparted additional grandeur to any lordly palace. Had royal or n.o.ble gossips, and a splendid entertainment attended his christening, it might have been pointed to with pride; but so obscure was his birth, that it has not been discovered that he was christened at all; while the fact of his new birth by the Holy Ghost is known over the whole world to the vast extent that his writings have been circulated. He entered this world in a labourer"s cottage of the humblest cla.s.s, at the village of Elstow, about a mile from Bedford.[3] His pedigree is thus narrated by himself:--"My descent was of a low and inconsiderable generation, my father"s house being of that rank that is meanest and most despised of all the families in the land."[4] Bunyan alludes to this very pointedly in the preface to A Few Sighs from h.e.l.l:--"I am thine, if thou be not ashamed to own me, because of my low and contemptible descent in the world."[5]
His poor and abject parentage was so notorious, that his pastor, John Burton, apologized for it in his recommendation to The Gospel Truths Opened:--"Be not offended because Christ holds forth the glorious treasure of the gospel to thee in a poor earthen vessel, by one who hath neither the greatness nor the wisdom of this world to commend him to thee."[6] And in his most admirable treatise, on The Fear of G.o.d, Bunyan observes--"The poor Christian hath something to answer them that reproach him for his ign.o.ble pedigree, and shortness of the glory of the wisdom of this world. True may that man say I am taken out of the dunghill. I was born in a base and low estate; but I fear G.o.d. This is the highest and most n.o.ble; he hath the honour, the life, and glory that is lasting."[7] In his controversy with the Strict Baptists, he chides them for reviling his ign.o.ble pedigree:--"You closely disdain my person because of my low descent among men, stigmatizing me as a person of THAT rank that need not be heeded or attended unto."[8] He inquired of his father--"Whether we were of the Israelites or no? for, finding in the Scripture that they were once the peculiar people of G.o.d, thought I, if I were one of this race, my soul must needs be happy."[9]
This somewhat justifies the conclusion that his father was a Gipsy tinker, that occupation being then followed by the Gipsy tribe.
In the life of Bunyan appended to the forged third part of the Pilgrim"s Progress, his father is described as "an honest poor labouring man, who, like Adam unparadised, had all the world before him to get his bread in; and was very careful and industrious to maintain his family."[10]
Happily for Bunyan, he was born in a neighbourhood in which it was a disgrace to any parents not to have their children educated. With grat.i.tude he records, that "it pleased G.o.d to put it into their hearts to put me to school to learn both to read and to write." In the neighbourhood of his birthplace, a n.o.ble charity diffused the blessings of lettered knowledge.[11] To this charity Bunyan was for a short period indebted for the rudiments of education; but, alas, evil a.s.sociates made awful havoc of those slight unshapen literary impressions which had been made upon a mind boisterous and impatient of discipline. He says--"To my shame, I confess I did soon lose that little I learned, and that almost utterly."[12]
This fact will recur to the reader"s recollection when he peruses Israel"s Hope Encouraged, in which, speaking of the all-important doctrine of justification, he says--"It is with many that begin with this doctrine as it is with boys that go to the Latin school; they learn till they have learned the grounds of their grammar, and then go home and forget all."[13]
As soon as his strength enabled him, he devoted his whole soul and body to licentiousness--"As for my own natural life, for the time that I was without G.o.d in the world, it was indeed according to the course of this world, and the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience. It was my delight to be taken captive by the devil at his will: being filled with all unrighteousness; that from a child I had but few equals, both for cursing, swearing, lying, and blaspheming the holy name of G.o.d."[14]
It has been supposed, that in delineating the early career of Badman, "Bunyan drew the picture of his own boyhood."[15] But the difference is broadly given. Badman is the child of pious parents, who gave him a "good education" in every sense, both moral and secular;[16] the very reverse of Bunyan"s training. His a.s.sociates would enable him to draw the awful character and conduct of Badman, as a terrible example to deter others from the downward road to misery and perdition.
Bunyan"s parents do not appear to have checked, or attempted to counteract, his unbridled career of wickedness. He gives no hint of the kind; but when he notices his wife"s father, he adds that he "was counted G.o.dly"; and in his beautiful nonsectarian catechism, there is a very touching conclusion to his instructions to children on their behaviour to their parents:--"The Lord, if it be his will, convert our poor parents, that they, with us, may be the children of G.o.d."[17] These fervent expressions may refer to his own parents; and, connecting them with other evidence, it appears that he was not blessed with pious example. Upon one occasion, when severely reproved for swearing, he says--"I wished, with all my heart, that I might be a little child again, that my father might learn me to speak without this wicked way of swearing."[18] In his numerous confessions, he never expresses pain at having, by his vicious conduct, occasioned grief to his father or mother. From this it may be inferred, that neither his father"s example nor precept had checked this wretched propensity to swearing, and that he owed nothing to his parents for moral training; but, on the contrary, they had connived at, and encouraged him in, a course of life which made him a curse to the neighbourhood in which he lived.
In the midst of all this violent depravity, the Holy Spirit began the work of regeneration in his soul--a long, a solemn, yea, an awful work--which was to fit this poor debauched youth for purity of conduct--for communion with heaven--for wondrous usefulness as a minister of the gospel--for patient endurance of sufferings for righteousness" sake--for the writing of works which promise to be a blessing to the Church in all ages--for his support during his pa.s.sage through the black river which has no bridge--to shine all bright and glorious, as a star in the firmament of heaven. "Wonders of grace to G.o.d belong."
During the period of his open profligacy, his conscience was ill at ease; at times the clanking of Satan"s slavish chains in which he was hurrying to destruction, distracted him. The stern reality of a future state clouded and embittered many of those moments employed in gratifying his baser pa.s.sions. The face of the eventful times in which he lived was rapidly changing; the trammels were loosened, which, with atrocious penalties, had fettered all free inquiry into religious truth. Puritanism began to walk upright; and as the restraints imposed upon Divine truths were taken off, in the same proportion restraints were imposed upon impiety, profaneness, and debauchery. A ringleader in all wickedness would not long continue without reproof, either personally, or as seen in the holy conduct of others. Bunyan very properly attributed to a gracious G.o.d, those checks of conscience which he so strongly felt even while he was apparently dead in trespa.s.ses and sins. "The Lord, even in my childhood, did scare and affright me with fearful dreams, and did terrify me with dreadful visions."[19] "I often wished that there had been no h.e.l.l, or that I had been a devil to torment others."
A common childish but demoniac idea. His mind was as "the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt."
"A while after, these terrible dreams did leave me; and with more greediness, according to the strength of nature, I did let loose the reins of my l.u.s.ts, and delighted in all transgression against the law of G.o.d." "I was the very ringleader of all the youth that kept me company, into ALL MANNER of vice and unG.o.dliness."[20]
Dr. Southey and others have attempted to whiten this blackamore, but the veil that they throw over him is so transparent that it cannot deceive those who are in the least degree spiritually enlightened.
He alleges that Bunyan, in his mad career of vice and folly, "was never so given over to a reprobate mind,"[21] as to be wholly free from compunctions of conscience. This is the case with every depraved character; but he goes further, when he a.s.serts that "Bunyan"s heart never was hardened."[22] This is directly opposed to his description of himself:--"I found within me a great desire to take my fill of sin, still studying what sin was yet to be committed; and I made as much haste as I could to fill my belly with its delicates, lest I should die before I had my desire." He thus solemnly adds, "In these things, I protest before G.o.d, I lie not, neither do I feign this sort of speech; these were really, strongly, and with all my heart, my desires; the good Lord, whose mercy is unsearchable, forgive me my transgressions." The whole of his career, from childhood to manhood, was, "According to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience"
(Eph 2:2).
These reminiscences are alluded to in the prologue of the Holy War:--
"When Mansoul trampled upon things Divine, And wallowed in filth as doth a swine, Then I was there, and did rejoice to see Diabolus and Mansoul so agree."
The Laureate had read this, and yet considers it the language of a heart that "never was hardened." He says that "the wickedness of the tinker has been greatly overcharged, and it is taking the language of self-accusation too literally to p.r.o.nounce of John Bunyan, that he was at any time depraved. The worst of what he was in his worst days is to be expressed in a single word, the full meaning of which no circ.u.mlocution can convey; and which, though it may hardly be deemed presentable in serious composition, I shall use, as Bunyan himself (no mealy-mouthed writer) would have used it, had it in his days borne the same acceptation in which it is now universally understood;--in that word then, he had been a blackguard.
The very head and front of his offending Hath this extent--no more."[23]
The meaning of the epithet is admirably explained; but what could Dr. Southey imagine possible to render such a character more vile in the sight of G.o.d, or a greater pest to society? Is there any vicious propensity, the gratification of which is not included in that character? Bunyan"s estimate of his immorality and profaneness prior to his conversion, was not made by comparing himself with the infinitely Holy One, but he measured his conduct by that of his more moral neighbours. In his Jerusalem Sinner Saved, he pleads with great sinners, the outwardly and violently profane and vicious, that if HE had received mercy, and had become regenerated, they surely ought not to despair, but to seek earnestly for the same grace. He thus describes himself:--"I speak by experience; I was one of those great sin-breeders; I infected all the youth of the town where I was born; the neighbours counted me so, my practice proved me so: wherefore, Christ Jesus took me first; and, taking me first, the contagion was much allayed all the town over. When G.o.d made me sigh, they would hearken, and inquiringly say, What"s the matter with John? When I went out to seek the bread of life, some of them would follow, and the rest be put into a muse at home.
Some of them, perceiving that G.o.d had mercy upon me, came crying to him for mercy too."[24] Can any one, in the face of such language, doubt that he was most eminently "a brand s.n.a.t.c.hed from the fire"; a pitchy burning brand, known and seen as such by all who witnessed his conduct? He pointedly exemplified the character set forth by James, "the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity, set on fire of h.e.l.l" (James 3:6). This was as publicly known before his conversion, as the effects of the wondrous change were openly seen in his Christian career afterwards. He who, when convinced of sin, strained his eyes to see the distant shining light over the wicket-gate, after he had gazed upon
--"The wondrous cross On which the Prince of glory died,"
became a luminous beacon, to attract the vilest characters to seek newness of life; and if there be hope for them, no one ought to despair. Far be it from us to cloud this light, or to tarnish so conspicuous an example. Like a Magdalene or a thief on the cross, his case may be exhibited to encourage hope in every returning prodigal. During this period of his childhood, while striving to harden his heart against G.o.d, many were the glimmerings of light which from time to time directed his unwilling eyes to a dread eternity. In the still hours of the night "in a dream G.o.d opened"
his ears[25]--the dreadful vision was that "devils and wicked spirits laboured to draw me away with them." These thoughts must have left a deep and alarming impression upon his mind; for he adds, "of which I could never be rid."[26]
The author of his life, published in 1692, who was one of his personal friends, gives the following account of Bunyan"s profligacy, and his checks of conscience:--"He himself hath often, since his conversion, confessed with horror, that when he was but a child or stripling, he had but few equals for lying, swearing, and blaspheming G.o.d"s holy name--living without G.o.d in the world; the thoughts of which, when he, by the light of Divine grace, came to understand his dangerous condition, drew many showers of tears from his sorrowful eyes, and sighs from his groaning heart. The first thing that sensibly touched him in this his unregenerate state, were fearful dreams, and visions of the night, which often made him cry out in his sleep, and alarm the house, as if somebody was about to murder him, and being waked, he would start, and stare about him with such a wildness, as if some real apparition had yet remained; and generally those dreams were about evil spirits, in monstrous shapes and forms, that presented themselves to him in threatening postures, as if they would have taken him away, or torn him in pieces. At some times they seemed to belch flame, at other times a continuous smoke, with horrible noises and roaring. Once he dreamed he saw the face of the heavens, as it were, all on fire; the firmament crackling and shivering with the noise of mighty thunders, and an archangel flew in the midst of heaven, sounding a trumpet, and a glorious throne was seated in the east, whereon sat one in brightness, like the morning star, upon which he, thinking it was the end of the world, fell upon his knees, and, with uplifted hands towards heaven, cried, O Lord G.o.d, have mercy upon me! What shall I do, the day of judgment is come, and I am not prepared! When immediately he heard a voice behind him, exceeding loud, saying, Repent. At another time he dreamed that he was in a pleasant place, jovial and rioting, banqueting and feasting his senses, when a mighty earthquake suddenly rent the earth, and made a wide gap, out of which came b.l.o.o.d.y flames, and the figures of men tossed up in globes of fire, and falling down again with horrible cries, shrieks, and execrations, whilst some devils that were mingled with them, laughed aloud at their torments; and whilst he stood trembling at this sight, he thought the earth sunk under him, and a circle of flame enclosed him; but when he fancied he was just at the point to perish, one in white shining raiment descended, and plucked him out of that dreadful place; whilst the devils cried after him, to leave him with them, to take the just punishment his sins had deserved, yet he escaped the danger, and leaped for joy when he awoke and found it was a dream."
Such dreams as these fitted him in after life to be the glorious dreamer of the Pilgrim"s Progress, in which a dream is told which doubtless embodies some of those which terrified him in the night visions of his youth.
In the interpreter"s house he is "led into a chamber where there was one rising out of bed, and as he put on his raiment he shook and trembled. Then said Christian, Why doth this man thus tremble?
The Interpreter then bid him tell to Christian the reason of his so doing. So he began and said, This night, as I was in my sleep I dreamed, and behold the heavens grew exceeding black; also it thundered and lightened in most fearful wise, that it put me into an agony. So I looked up in my dream, and saw the clouds rack at an unusual rate, upon which I heard a great sound of a trumpet, and saw also a man sit upon a cloud, attended with the thousands of heaven--they were all in flaming fire; also the heavens were in a burning flame. I heard then a voice saying, "Arise, ye dead, and come to judgment;" and with that the rocks rent, the graves opened, and the dead that were therein came forth. Some of them were exceeding glad, and looked upward; and some sought to hide themselves under the mountains. Then I saw the man that sat upon the cloud open the book, and bid the world draw near. Yet there was, by reason of a fierce flame which issued out and came from before him, a convenient distance betwixt him and them, as betwixt the judge and prisoners at the bar. I heard it also proclaimed, "Gather together the tares, the chaff, and stubble, and cast them into the burning lake"; and with that the bottomless pit opened just whereabout I stood, out of the mouth of which there came, in an abundant manner, smoke and coals of fire, with hideous noises. It was also said, "Gather my wheat into the garner"; and with that I saw many catched up and carried away into the clouds, but I was left behind. I also sought to hide myself, but I could not, for the man that sat upon the cloud still kept his eye upon me; my sins also came into my mind, and my conscience did accuse me on every side. Upon that I awaked from my sleep."
No laboured composition could have produced such a dream as this.
It flows in such dream-like order as would lead us to infer, that the author who narrates it had, when a boy, heard the twenty-fifth chapter of Matthew read at church, and the solemn impression following him at night a.s.sisted in producing a dream which stands, and perhaps will ever stand, unrivalled.
Awful as must have been these impressions upon his imagination, they were soon thrown off, and the mad youth rushed on in his desperate career of vice and folly. Is he then left to fill up the measure of his iniquities? No, the Lord has a great work for him to do.
HIS hand is not shortened that he cannot save. Bunyan has to be prepared for his work; and if terrors will not stop him, manifested mercies in judgments are to be tried.
"G.o.d did not utterly leave me, but followed me still, not now with convictions, but judgments; yet such as were mixed with mercy. For once I fell into a creek of the sea, and hardly escaped drowning.
Another time I fell out of a boat into Bedford river, but mercy yet preserved me alive. Besides, another time, being in the field with one of my companions, it chanced that an adder pa.s.sed over the highway, so I, having a stick in my hand, struck her over the back; and having stunned her, I forced open her mouth with my stick, and plucked her sting out with my fingers; by which act, had not G.o.d been merciful unto me, I might by my desperateness have brought myself to my end.
"This also have I taken notice of, with thanksgiving. When I was a soldier, I, with others, were drawn out to go to such a place to besiege it; but when I was just ready to go, one of the company desired to go in my room, to which, when I had consented, he took my place; and coming to the siege, as he stood sentinel, he was shot into the head with a musket bullet, and died."[27]