Part 10

The clerk of the peace, Mr. Cobb, was sent by the justices to persuade him to conform, and had a very long and interesting conference with him in the prison. This shows that the magistrates were well convinced that he was a leader in nonconformity, who, if brought over, would afford them a signal triumph. In fact, he was called, by a beneficed clergyman, ‘the most notorious schismatic in all the county of Bedford.’ It is perhaps to the arguments of Cobb that he refers in his Advice to Sufferers. ‘The wife of the bosom lies at him, saying, O do not cast thyself away; if thou takest this course, what shall I do? Thou hast said thou lovest me; now make it manifest by granting this my small request—Do not still remain in thine integrity. Next to this come the children, which are like to come to poverty, to beggary, to be undone, for want of wherewithal to feed, and clothe, and provide for them for time to come. Now also come kindred, and relations, and acquaintance; some chide, some cry, some argue, some threaten, some promise, some flatter, and some do all to befool him for so unadvised an act as to cast away himself, and to bring his wife and children to beggary for such a thing as religion. These are sore temptations.’ It was during this period of his imprisonment that the mad attempt was made, by Venner and his rabble, to overturn the government. This was pressed upon Bunyan as a reason why he should not hold meetings for religious exercises, but rely upon his more private opportunities of exhorting his neighbours. In reply to this, Mr. Cobb is reminded of Bunyan’s well-known loyalty, which would become useful in proportion to his public teaching. It was a pleasing interview, which, while it did not for a moment shake his determination, led him to thank Mr. Cobb for his civil and meek discourse, and to ejaculate a heartfelt prayer—‘O that we might meet in heaven.’ The whole of it is reprinted at the end of the Grace Abounding, and it shows that God gave him favour even with his persecutors. It Is not surprising that such a prisoner should have won the good opinion of his jailer, so that he was permitted the consolation of seeing his relatives and friends, who ministered to his comforts.

When the time arrived for the execution of the bitterest part of his sentence, God, in his providence, interposed to save the life of his servant. He had familiarized his mind with all the circumstances of a premature and appalling death; the gibbet, the ladder, the halter, had lost much of their terrors; he had even studied the sermon he would then have preached to the concourse of spectators. At this critical time the king’s coronation took place, on April 23, 1661. To garnish this grand ceremony, the king had ordered the release of numerous prisoners of certain classes, and within that description of offences was that for which Bunyan was confined. The proclamation allowed twelve months’ time to sue out the pardon under the great seal, but without this expensive process thousands of vagabonds and thieves were set at liberty, while, alas, an offence against the church was not to be pardoned upon such easy terms. Bunyan and his friends were too simple, honest, and virtuous, to understand why such a distinction should be made. The assizes being held in August, he determined to seek his liberty by a petition to the judges. The court sat at the Swan Inn, and as every incident in the life of this extraordinary man excites our interest, we are gratified to have it in our power to exhibit the state of this celebrated inn at that time.

Having written his petition, and made some fair copies of it, his modest, timid wife determined to present them to the judges. Her heroic achievements—for such they deserve to be called—on behalf of her husband, are admirably narrated by Bunyan, the whole of which is reprinted in our first volume, and deserves a most attentive perusal. Want of space prevents us repeating it here, or even making extracts from it. She had previously traveled to London with a petition to the House of Lords, and entrusted it to Lord Barkwood, who conferred with some of the peers upon it, and informed her that they could not interfere, the king having committed the release of the prisoners to the judges. When they came the circuit and the assizes were held at Bedford; Bunyan in vain besought the local authorities that he might have liberty to appear in person and plead for his release. This reasonable request was denied, and, as a last resource, he committed his cause to an affectionate wife. Several times she appeared before the judges; love to her husband, a stern sense of duty, a conviction of the gross injustice practiced upon one to whom she was most tenderly attached, overcame her delicate, modest, retiring habits, and forced her upon this strange duty. Well did she support the character of an advocate. This delicate, courageous, high-minded woman appeared before Judge Hale, who was much affected with her earnest pleading for one so dear to her, and whose life was so valuable to his children. It was the triumph of love, duty, and piety, over bashful timidity. Her energetic appeals were in vain. She returned to the prison with a heavy heart, to inform her husband that, while felons, malefactors, and men guilty of misdemeanours were, without any recantation or promise of amendment, to be let loose upon society to grace the coronation, the poor prisoners for conscience’ sake were to undergo their unjust and savage sentences. Or, in plain words, that refusing to go to church to hear the Common Prayer was an unpardonable crime, not to be punished in any milder mode than recantation, or transportation, or the halter. With what bitter feelings must she have returned to the prison, believing that it would be the tomb of her beloved husband! How natural for the distressed, insulted wife to have written harsh things against the judge! She could not have conceived that, under the stately robes of Hale, there was a heart affected by Divine love. And when the nobleman afterwards met the despised tinker and his wife, on terms of perfect equality, clothed in more glorious robes in the mansions of the blessed, how inconceivable their surprise! It must have been equally so with the learned judge, when, in the pure atmosphere of heaven, he found that the illiterate tinker, harassed by poverty and imprisonment, produced books, the admiration of the world. As Dr. Cheever eloquently writes—‘How little could he dream, that from that narrow cell in Bedford jail a glory would shine out, illustrating the grace of God, and doing more good to man, than all the prelates and judges of the kingdom would accomplish.’

Bunyan was thus left in a dreary and hopeless state of imprisonment, in which he continued for somewhat more than twelve years, and it becomes an interesting inquiry how he spent his time and managed to employ his great talent in his Master’s service. The first object of his solicitude would be to provide for his family, according to 1 Timothy 5:8. How to supply his house with bare necessaries to meet the expenses of a wife and four children, must have filled him with anxiety. The illness, death, and burial of his first beloved wife, had swept away any little reserve which otherwise might have accumulated, so that, soon after his imprisonment commenced, before he could resume any kind of labour, his wife thus pleaded with the judge for his liberty, ‘My lord, I have four small children that cannot help themselves, of which one is blind, and have nothing to live upon but the charity of good people.’ How inscrutable are the ways of Providence; the rich reveling in luxury while using their wealth to corrupt mankind, while this eminent saint, with his family, were dependent upon charity! As soon as he could get his tools in order he set to work; and we have the following testimony to his industry by a fellow-prisoner, Mr. Wilson, the Baptist minister, and of Charles Doe, who visited him in prison:—‘Nor did he, while he was in prison, spend his time in a supine and careless manner, nor eat the bread of idleness; for there have I been witness that his own hands have ministered to his and his family’s necessities, making many hundred gross of long tagged laces, to fill up the vacancies of his time, which he had learned to do for that purpose, since he had been in prison. There, also, I surveyed his library, the least, but yet the best that e’er I saw—the Bible and the Book of Martyrs. And during his imprisonment (since I have spoken of his library), he writ several excellent and useful treatises, particularly The Holy City, Christian Behaviour, The Resurrection of the Dead, and Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners.’ Besides these valuable treatises, Charles Doe states that, of his own knowledge, in prison Bunyan wrote The Pilgrim’s Progress, the first part, and that he had this from his own mouth. In addition to the demonstration of this important fact contained in the introduction to The Pilgrim’s Progress, there ought to have been added, Bunyan’s statement made in introducing his second part:—‘Now, having taken up my lodgings in a wood about a mile off the place’: no longer in ‘a den,’ but sheltered, in a wood, in a state of comparative, but not of perfect liberty, about a mile distant from the den in which he wrote his first part. Whether this may refer to his former cottage at Elstow, of which there is great doubt, or to the house he occupied in Bedford after his release, they were equally about a mile from the jail. He certainly means that the two parts were not written in the same place, nor is there a shadow of a doubt as to the fact that in prison the great allegory was conceived and written. Well might Mr. Doe say, ‘What hath the devil or his agents got by putting our great gospel minister in prison?’ They prevented his preaching to a few poor pilgrims in the villages round Bedford, and it was the means of spreading his fame, and the knowledge of the gospel, by his writings, throughout the world. Thus does the wrath of man praise God. In addition to the works above enumerated, he also published some extremely valuable tracts, several editions of a work which ought to be read by all young Christians—A Treatise on the Covenants of the Law and of Grace; several editions of Sighs from Hell; A Map of Salvation and Damnation; The Four Last Things, a poem; Mount Ebal and Gerizim, or, Redemption from the Curse, a poem; Prison Meditations, a poem: the four last are single sheets, probably sold by his children or friends to assist him in obtaining his livelihood: Justification by Faith in Jesus Christ, 4to; Confession of His Faith and Reason of His Practice. The most remarkable treatise which he published while in confinement, is on prayer, from the words of the apostle, ‘I will pray with the spirit and with the understanding also.’ His attention had been fixed on this subject when his free-born spirit was roused by the threat of Justice Keeling, ‘Take heed of speaking irreverently of the Book of Common Prayer, for if you do you will bring great damage upon yourself.’

Bunyan had formed his ideas of prayer from heartfelt experience; it is the cry of the burthened, sinking sinner, ‘Lord save us, we perish’; or adoration rising from the heart to the throne of grace, filled with hopes of pardon and immortality. In his estimation, any form of human invention was an interference with the very nature of prayer, and with the work of the Holy Spirit, who alone can inspire our souls with acceptable prayer.

In expressing his views upon this all-important subject, Bunyan was simply guided by a sense of duty. Fear of the consequences, or of offending his enemies, never entered his mind. He felt that they were in the hands of his heavenly Father, and that all their malice must be over-ruled for good. Notwithstanding his solemn warning not to speak irreverently of the book, his refusal to use which had subjected him to severe privations and the fear of a halter, this Christian hero was not daunted, but gives his opinion of it with all that freedom and liberty which he considered essential to excite in his fellow-men inquiries as to its origin and imposition.

It is not my province to enter into the controversy whether in public worship a form of prayer ought to be used. Let every one be persuaded in his own mind; but to pass a law denouncing those that refuse to use a prescribed form as worthy of imprisonment, transportation, or death, is an attack upon the first principles of Christianity. To punish those who spoke irreverently of it, was almost an acknowledgment that it would not bear investigation. To speak of the book as in his serious judgment it deserved, was not that mark of sectarianism which Romaine exhibited when he called the beautiful hymns of Dr. Watts, which are used so much in public worship among Dissenters, ‘Watts’ jingle,’ and ‘Watts’ whims!’ No answer appears to have been published to Bunyan’s extremely interesting volume until twelve years after the author’s death, when a reply appeared under the title of Liturgies Vindicated by the Dissenters, or the Lawfulness of Forms of Prayer proved against John Bunyan and the Dissenters. 1700. This is a very rare and curious volume. The author, as usual in such controversies, deals wholesale in invective, and displays all the ability of a sophist.

The Christian world is indebted to Dr. Cheever for a beautiful picture of Bunyan’s devotional exercise in his cell. ‘It is evening; he finishes his work, to be taken home by his dear blind child. He reads a portion of Scripture, and, clasping her small hands in his, kneels on the cold stone floor, and pours out his soul to God; then, with a parting kiss, dismisses her to her mother. The rude lamp glimmers on the table; with his Bible, pen, and paper, he writes as though joy did make him write. His face is lighted as from the radiant jasper walls of the celestial city. He clasps his hands, looks upward, and blesses God for his goodness. The last you see of him—is alone, kneeling on the prison floor; he is alone with God.’

Charles Doe, who manifested most laudable anxiety to hand down the works of Bunyan to posterity, bears honourable testimony to his conduct while in prison. ‘It was by making him a visit in prison that I first saw him, and became acquainted with him; and I must profess I could not but look upon him to be a man of an excellent spirit, zealous for his master’s honour, and cheerfully committing all his own concernments unto God’s disposal. When I was there, there were about sixty Dissenters besides himself there, taken but a little before at a religious meeting at Kaistoe, in the county of Bedford; besides two eminent Dissenting ministers, Mr. Wheeler and Mr. Dun (both very well known in Bedfordshire, though long since with God), by which means the prison was very much crowded; yet, in the midst of all that hurry which so many new-comers occasioned, I have heard Mr. Bunyan both preach and pray with that mighty spirit of faith and plerophory of divine assistance that has made me stand and wonder.’ Here they could sing, without fear of being overheard; no informers prowling round. The world was shut out; and, in communion with heaven, they could forget their sorrows, and have a rich foretaste of the inconceivable glory of the celestial city. It was under such circumstances that Bunyan preached one of his most remarkable sermons, afterwards published under the title of The Holy City or the New Jerusalem, 1665. ‘Upon a certain first-day, being together with my brethren in our prison-chamber, they expected that, according to our custom, something should be spoken out of the Word for our mutual edification. I felt myself, it being my turn to speak, so empty, spiritless, and barren, that I thought I should not have been able to speak among them so much as five words of truth with life and evidence. At last I cast mine eye upon this prophecy, when, after considering awhile, methought I perceived something of that jasper in whose light you find this holy city descended; wherefore, having got some dim glimmering thereof, and finding a desire to see farther thereinto, I with a few groans did carry my meditations to the Lord Jesus for a blessing, which he did forthwith grant, and helping me to set before my brethren, we did all eat, and were well refreshed; and behold, also, that while I was in the distributing of it, it so increased in my hand, that of the fragments that we left, after we had well dined, I gathered up this basketful. Wherefore, setting myself to a more narrow search, through frequent prayer, what first with doing and then with undoing, and after that with doing again, I thus did finish it.’ To this singular event the religious public are indebted for one of Bunyan’s ablest treatises, full of the striking sparkles of his extraordinary imagination. It was a subject peculiarly adapted to display his powers—the advent of New Jerusalem, her impregnable walls and gates of precious stones, golden streets, water of life, temple, and the redeemed from all nations flocking into it.

In these times of severe persecution, two of the church members, S. Fenn and J. Whiteman, were ordained joint pastors. Fenn has just been delivered out of prison; yet they ventured to brave the storm, and in this year, although the lions prowled before the porch, a number were added to the church. Thus was their little Jerusalem built ‘even in troublous times.’

Bunyan’s popularity and fame for wisdom and knowledge had spread all round the country, and it naturally brought him visitors, with their doubts, and fears, and cases of conscience. Among these a singular instance is recorded in the Life of Badman. ‘When I was in prison,’ says the narrator, ‘there came a woman to me that was under a great deal of trouble. So I asked her, she being a stranger to me, what she had to say to me? She said she was afraid she should be damned. I asked her the cause of those fears. She told me that she had, some time since, lived with a shopkeeper at Wellingborough, and had robbed his box in the shop several times of money, and pray, says she, tell me what I shall do? I told her I would have her go to her master, and make him satisfaction. She said she was afraid lest he should hang her. I told her that I would intercede for her life, and would make use of other friends to do the like; but she told me she durst not venture that. Well, said I, shall I send to your master, while you abide out of sight, and make your peace with him before he sees you? and with that I asked her master’s name. But all she said in answer to this was, pray let it alone till I come to you again. So away she went, and neither told me her master’s name nor her own; and I never saw here again.’ He adds, ‘I could tell you of another, that came to me with a like relation concerning herself, and the robbing of her mistress.’

To his cruel imprisonment the world is indebted for the most surprising narrative of a new birth that has ever appeared. It was there that he was led to write the Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners. He displays in the preface his deep interest in the spiritual welfare of those who had been born under his ministry. He rejoices in their happiness, even while he was ‘sticking between the teeth of the lions in the wilderness. I now again, as before from the top of shenir and Hermon, so now from the lions’ dens, from “the mountains of the leopards,” do look yet after you all, greatly longing to see your safe arrival into the desired haven.’ How natural it was that, while narrating his own experience, he should be led to write a guide to pilgrims through time to eternity, and that it should be dated from ‘the den!’

‘And thus it was: I writing of the way And race of saints, in this our gospel-day, Fell suddenly into an allegory About their journey, and the way to glory.’

Any one possessing powers of imagination, to whom the adventures of Christian are familiar, would, on reading the Grace Abounding, be continually struck with the likeness there drawn of the pilgrim—the more he contemplates the two pictures of Christian experience, so much the more striking is their similarity. The one is a narrative of facts, the other contains the same facts allegorized. Thus, by an irresistible impulse from heaven upon the mind of a prisoner for Christ, did a light shine forth from the dungeon on Bedford bridge which has largely contributed to enlighten the habitable globe. The Pilgrim has been translated into most of the languages and dialects of the world. The Caffrarian and Hottentot, the enlightened Greek and Hindoo, the remnant of the Hebrew race, the savage Malay and the voluptuous Chinese—all have the wondrous narrative in their own languages. Bunyan was imprisoned by bigots and tyrants, to prevent his being heard or known; and his voice, in consequence, reaches to the ends of the earth. Let every wretched persecutor contemplate this instance of God’s over-ruling power. You will surely plunge the avenging sword into your own vitals if, by persecution, you vainly endeavour to wound the saints of the living God. You may make hypocrites throw off their disguise. The real Christian may be discouraged, but he perseveres. He feels the truth of Bunyan’s quaint saying, ‘the persecutors are but the devil’s scarecrows, the old one himself lies quat’; while the eye of God is upon him to save the children of Zion. His otherwise dreary imprisonment was lightened, and the time beguiled by these delightful writings. His fellow-prisoners were benefited by hearing him read his pilgrim’s adventures. But this has been so fully displayed in the introduction to the Pilgrim that any further notice is unnecessary.

While busily occupied with his Grace Abounding and Pilgrim’s Progress, he wrote a poetical epistle in answer to the kind inquiries of his numerous friends and visitors. After thanking them for counsel and advice, he describes his feelings in prison. His feet stood on Mount Zion; his body within locks and bars, while his mind was free to study Christ, and elevated higher than the stars. Their fetters could not tame his spirit, nor prevent his communion with God. The more his enemies raged, the more peace he experienced. In prison he received the visits of saints, of angels, and the Spirit of God. ‘I have been able to laugh at destruction, and to fear neither the horse nor his rider. I have had sweet sights of the forgiveness of my sins in this place, and of my being with Jesus in another world.’ If his ears were to be pierced in the pillory, it would be only ‘to hang a jewel there.’ The source of his happy feelings is well expressed in one of the stanzas:—

‘The truth and I were both here cast Together, and we do Lie arm in arm, and so hold fast Each other; this is true.’

Yes, honest John Bunyan, the world at large now gives you credit for the truth of that saying.

How strange must it seem to the luxurious worldling, with his bed of down and splendid hangings, but aching heart, to hear of the exquisite happiness of the prisoner for Christ on his straw pallet! ‘When God makes the bed,’ as Bunyan says, ‘he must needs be easy that is cast thereon; a blessed pillow hath that man for his head, though to all beholders it is hard as a stone.’ In the whole course of his troubles, he enjoyed the sympathy of his family and friends. his food was brought daily, and such was the veneration in which his memory was embalmed, that the very jug in which his broth was taken to the prison has been preserved to this day.

In the midst of all his sufferings he murmurs not nor for a moment gives way to revenge; he leaves the persecutor in the hands of God. Stand off, Christian; pity the poor wretch that brings down upon himself the vengeance of God. Your pitiful arm must no strike him—no, stand by, ‘that God may have his full blow at him in his time. Wherefore he saith avenge not yourself—“Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord.” Give place, leave such an one to be handled by me.’

‘There are several degrees of suffering for righteousness—the scourge of the tongue, the ruin of an estate, the loss of liberty, a gaol, a gibbet, a stake, a dagger. Now answerable to these are the comforts of the Holy Ghost, prepared like to like, part proportioned to part, only the consolations are said to abound.’ The mind of Bunyan was imbued with these sentiments; baptized into them, and consequently elevated far above the fear of what man could do unto him. Yes, he knew the power of God. ‘He can make those things that in themselves are most fearful and terrible to behold, the most delightful and most desirable things. He can make a gaol more beautiful than a palace, restraint more sweet by far than liberty, and the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt.’

The Bible, that heavenly storehouse, was opened to him: ‘I never had, in all my life, so great an inlet into the Word of God as now.’ ‘I have had sweet sights of forgiveness and of the heavenly Jerusalem. I have seen here that which, while in this world, I shall never be able to express.’

About a year before he was set at liberty he received a very popular work, written by Edward Fowler, a Bedfordshire clergyman, who was soon after elevated to the see of Gloucester. It was entitled The Design of Christianity, and professed to prove that the object of the Saviour was merely to place man in a similar position to that of Adam before the fall. It is an extremely learned production, full of Greek and Latin quotations; but, in Bunyan’s estimation, it aimed a deadly blow at the foundations of Christianity. To restore man to Adam’s innocency, and then to leave him to cope with Satanic subtlety, was to cut off all hopes of salvation. It was brought to him in February 1672, and in the very short period of forty-two days, Fowler’s theory was most completely demolished by Bunyan’s Defence of the Doctrine of Justification, 4to, dated from prison, the 27th of the 12th Month, 1671 (27th March, 1672). This was answered by a small 4to volume, entitled Dirt Wiped Off. Bunyan had used some harsh epithets; but the clergyman, or his curate, beat the tinker in abusive language. He had been by this time promoted to the rectory of Cripplegate. For an account of this controversy, the reader is referred to the introduction to Bunyan’s work on Justification, and to that to the Pilgrim’s Progress. The impression it made upon the public mind is well expressed in a rude rhyme, made by an anonymous author, in his Assembly of Moderate Divines:

‘There’s a moderate Doctour at Cripplegate dwells, Whom Smythes his curate in trimming excells; But Bunyan a tinker hath tickled his gills.’

The last work that he wrote in prison was the confession of his faith, and reason of his practice as to mixed communion, not with the world, but with saints of other denominations. As this plunged him into a fearful controversy with his Dissenting brethren (Baptists, Independents, and Presbyterians), a notice of it will more properly be introduced in our account of that conflict. He had been incarcerated nearly twelve years, and had determined to suffer to the end. Here he found time ‘to weigh, and pause, and pause again, the grounds and foundations of those principles for which he suffered,’ and he was a Nonconformist still. ‘I cannot, I dare not now revolt or deny my principles, on pain of eternal damnation,’ are his impressive words. ‘Faith and holiness are my professed principles, with an endeavour to be at peace with all men. Let they themselves be judges, if aught they find in my writing or preaching doth render me worthy of almost twelve years’ imprisonment, or one that deserveth to be hanged or banished for ever, according to their tremendous sentence. If nothing will do unless I make of my conscience a continual butchery and slaughter-shop, unless putting out my own eyes, I commit me to the blind to lead me, I have determined, the Almighty God being my help and shield, yet to suffer, if frail life might continue so long, even until the moss shall grow over mine eye-brows, rather than to violate my faith and principles.’ The allusion to moss growing on his eye-brows most probably referred to the damp state of his den or dungeon.

The continuation to the Grace Abounding, written by a friend, and published four years after his decease, divides his imprisonment into three periods; but as Bunyan makes it one continued imprisonment, there can be no doubt but that it was a long, dreary confinement; during which the testimony of his friend, Samuel Wilson, is, that it was ‘an uncomfortable and close prison, and sometimes under cruel and oppressive jailers.’ The division into three parts most probably alludes to the severity or liberality of his jailers. He had at times, while a prisoner, an extraordinary degree of liberty; like Joseph in Egypt, some of his jailers committed all to his hands. There can be little doubt but that he went from the prison to preach in the villages or woods, and at one time went to London to visit his admiring friends; but this coming to the ears of the justices, the humane jailer had well nigh lost his place, and for some time he was not permitted to look out at the door. When this had worn off, he had again opportunities of visiting his church and preaching by stealth. It is said that many of the Baptist congregations in Bedfordshire owe their origin to his midnight preaching.

Upon one occasion, having been permitted to go out and visit his family, with whom he intended to spend the night, long before morning he felt so uneasy that at a very late hour he went back to the prison. Information was given to a neighbouring clerical magistrate that there was strong suspicion of Bunyan having broke prison. At midnight, he sent a messenger to the jail, that he might be a witness against the merciful keeper. On his arrival, he demanded, ‘Are all the prisoners safe?’ the answer was, ‘Yes.’ ‘Is John Bunyan safe?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Let me see him.’ He was called up and confronted with the astonished witness, and all passed off well. His kind-hearted jailer said to him, ‘You may go out when you will, for you know much better when to return than I can tell you.’

During these twelve terrible years, and particularly towards the end of his imprisonment, the members and elders of his church at Bedford suffered most severely, a very abridged account of which is given in the introduction to the Pilgrim’s Progress. The set time for his liberation was now drawing near, but the singular means by which it was accomplished must be reserved for our next chapter.

PERIOD SIXTH.