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<h1>LIFE OF BUNYAN</h1>
<p style="text-align: center">BY REV. JAMES HAMILTON</p>
<p style="text-align: center"><span class="GutSmall">SCOTCH
CHURCH, REGENT SQUARE, LONDON.</span></p>
<p><span class="smcap">After</span> the pleasant sketches of pens
so graceful as Southey&rsquo;s and Montgomery&rsquo;s; after the
elaborate biography of Mr Philip, whose researches have left few
desiderata for any subsequent devotee; indeed, after
Bunyan&rsquo;s own graphic and characteristic narrative, the task
on which we are now entering is one which, as we would have
courted it the less, so we feel that we have peculiar facilities
for performing it.&nbsp; Our main object is to give a simple and
coherent account of a most unusual man&mdash;and then we should
like to turn to some instructive purpose the peculiarities of his
singular history, and no less singular works.</p>

<div class="gapspace">&nbsp;</div>
<p>John Bunyan was born at Elstow, near Bedford, in 1628.&nbsp;
His father was a brazier or tinker, and brought up his son as a
craftsman of like occupation.&nbsp; There is no evidence for the
gipsy origin of the house of Bunyan; and though extremely poor,
John&rsquo;s father gave his son such an education as poor men
could then obtain for their children.&nbsp; He was sent to school
and taught to read and write.</p>
<p>There has been some needless controversy regarding
Bunyan&rsquo;s early days.&nbsp; Some have too readily taken for
granted that he was in all respects a reprobate; and
others&mdash;the chief of whom is Dr Southey&mdash;have laboured
to shew that there was little in the lad which any would censure,
save the righteous overmuch.&nbsp; The truth is, that considering
his rank of life, his conduct was not flagitious; for he never
was a drunkard, a libertine, or a lover of sanguinary sports: and
the profanity and sabbath-breaking and heart-atheism which
afterwards preyed on his awakened conscience, are unhappily too
frequent to make their perpetrator conspicuous.&nbsp; The thing
which gave Bunyan any notoriety in the days of his ungodliness,
and which made him afterwards appear to himself such a monster of
iniquity, was the energy which he put into all his doings.&nbsp;
He had a zeal for idle play, and an enthusiasm in mischief, which
were the perverse manifestations of a forceful character, and
which may have well entitled him to Southey&rsquo;s
epithet&mdash;&ldquo;a blackguard.&rdquo;&nbsp; The reader need
not go far to see young Bunyan.&nbsp; Perhaps there is near your
dwelling an Elstow&mdash;a quiet hamlet of some fifty houses
sprinkled about in the picturesque confusion, and with the easy
amplitude of space, which gives an old English village its look
of leisure and longevity.&nbsp; And it is now verging to the
close of the summer&rsquo;s day.&nbsp; The daws are taking short
excursions from the steeple, and tamer fowls have gone home from
the darkening and dewy green.&nbsp; But old Bunyan&rsquo;s donkey
is still browzing there, and yonder is old Bunyan&rsquo;s
self&mdash;the brawny tramper dispread on the settle, retailing
to the more clownish residents tap-room wit and roadside
news.&nbsp; However, it is young Bunyan you wish to see.&nbsp;
Yonder he is, the noisiest of the party, playing
pitch-and-toss&mdash;that one with the shaggy eyebrows, whose
entire soul is ascending in the twirling penny&mdash;grim enough
to be the blacksmith&rsquo;s apprentice, but his singed garments
hanging round him with a lank and idle freedom which scorns
indentures; his energetic movements and authoritative
vociferations at once bespeaking the ragamuffin ringleader.&nbsp;
The penny has come down with the wrong side uppermost, and the
loud execration at once bewrays young Badman.&nbsp; You have only
to remember that it is Sabbath evening, and you witness a scene
often enacted on Elstow green two hundred years ago.</p>
<p>The strong depraving element in Bunyan&rsquo;s character was
<i>ungodliness</i>.&nbsp; He walked according to the course of
this world, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind;
and conscious of his own rebellion, he said unto God,
&ldquo;Depart from me, for I desire not the knowledge of thy
ways.&rdquo;&nbsp; The only restraining influence of which he
then felt the power, was terror.&nbsp; His days were often gloomy
through forebodings of the wrath to come; and his nights were
scared with visions, which the boisterous diversions and
adventures of his waking-day could not always dispel.&nbsp; He
would dream that the last day had come, and that the quaking
earth was opening its mouth to let him down to hell; or he would
find himself in the grasp of fiends, who were dragging him
powerless away.&nbsp; And musing over these terrors of the night,
yet feeling that he could not abandon his sins, in his despair of
heaven his anxious fancy would suggest to him all sorts of
strange desires.&nbsp; He would wish that there had been no hell
at all; or that, if he must needs go thither, he might be a
devil, &ldquo;supposing they were only tormentors, and I would
rather be a tormentor than tormented myself.&rdquo;</p>
<p>These were the fears of his childhood.&nbsp; As he grew older,
he grew harder.&nbsp; He experienced some remarkable providences,
but they neither startled nor melted him.&nbsp; He once fell into
the sea, and another time out of a boat into Bedford river, and
either time had a narrow escape from drowning.&nbsp; One day in
the field with a companion, an adder glided across their
path.&nbsp; Bunyan&rsquo;s ready switch stunned it in a moment;
but with characteristic daring, he forced open the
creature&rsquo;s mouth, and plucked out the sting&mdash;a
foolhardiness which, as he himself observes, might, but for
God&rsquo;s mercy, have brought him to his end.&nbsp; In the
civil war he was &ldquo;drawn&rdquo; as a soldier to go to the
siege of Leicester; but when ready to set out, a comrade sought
leave to take his place.&nbsp; Bunyan consented.&nbsp; His
companion went to Leicester, and, standing sentry, was shot
through the head, and died.&nbsp; These interpositions made no
impression on him at the time.</p>
<p>He married very early: &ldquo;And my mercy was to light upon a
wife, whose father was counted godly.&nbsp; This woman and I,
though we came together as poor as poor might be&mdash;not having
so much household stuff as a dish or spoon betwixt us, yet this
she had for her portion, &lsquo;The Plain Man&rsquo;s Pathway to
Heaven,&rsquo; and &lsquo;The Practice of Piety,&rsquo; which her
father had left her when he died, in these two books I would
sometimes read with her; wherein I also found some things that
were somewhat pleasing to me.&nbsp; She also would be often
telling of me what a godly man her father was, and what a strict
and holy life he lived in his days, both in word and deeds.&nbsp;
Wherefore these books, with the relation, though they did not
reach my heart to awaken it about my soul and sinful state, yet
they did beget within me some desires to reform my vicious life,
and fall in very eagerly with the religion of the times&mdash;to
wit, to go to church twice a-day, and that, too, with the
foremost; and there should very devoutly both say and sing as
others did, yet retaining my wicked life.&nbsp; But, withal, I
was so overrun with the spirit of superstition, that I adored,
and that with great devotion, even all things&mdash;the
high-place, priest, clerk, vestment, service, and what else
belonging to the Church; counting all things holy that were
therein contained, and especially the priest and clerk, most
happy, and, without doubt, greatly blessed, because they were the
servants, as I then thought, of God, and were principal in the
temple to do his work therein.&rdquo;</p>
<p>So strong was this superstitious feeling&mdash;one shared by
the ignorant peasantry in many portions of England, even at the
present day&mdash;that &ldquo;had he but seen a priest, though
never so sordid and debauched in his life, his spirit would fall
under him; and he could have lain down at their feet and been
trampled upon by them&mdash;their name, their garb, and work, did
so intoxicate and bewitch him.&rdquo;&nbsp; It little matters
what form superstition takes&mdash;image-worship, priest-worship,
or temple-worship; nothing is transforming except Christ in the
heart, a Saviour realized, accepted, and enthroned.&nbsp; Whilst
adoring the altar, and worshipping the surplice, and deifying the
individual who wore it, Bunyan continued to curse and blaspheme,
and spend his Sabbaths in the same riot as before.</p>
<p>One day, however, he heard a sermon on the sin of
Sabbath-breaking.&nbsp; It fell heavy on his conscience; for it
seemed all intended for him.&nbsp; It haunted him throughout the
day, and when he went to his usual diversion in the afternoon,
its cadence was still knelling in his troubled ear.&nbsp; He was
busy at a game called &ldquo;Cat,&rdquo; and had already struck
the ball one blow, and was about to deal another, when &ldquo;a
voice darted from heaven into his soul, &lsquo;Wilt thou leave
thy sins and go to heaven, or have thy sins and go to
hell?&rsquo;&rdquo;&nbsp; His arm was arrested, and looking up to
heaven, it seemed as if the Lord Jesus was looking down upon him
in remonstrance and severe displeasure; and, at the same instant,
the conviction flashed across him, that he had sinned so long
that repentance was now too late.&nbsp; &ldquo;My state is surely
miserable&mdash;miserable if I leave my sins, and but miserable
if I follow them.&nbsp; I can but be damned; and if I must be so,
I had as good be damned for many sins as few.&rdquo;&nbsp; In the
desperation of this awful conclusion he resumed the game; and so
persuaded was he that heaven was for ever forfeited, that for
some time after he made it his deliberate policy to enjoy the
pleasures of sin as rapidly and intensely as possible.</p>
<p>To understand the foregoing incident, and some which may
follow, the reader must remember that Bunyan was made up of vivid
fancy and vehement emotion.&nbsp; He seldom believed; he always
felt and saw.&nbsp; And he could do nothing by halves.&nbsp; He
threw a whole heart into his love and his hatred; and when he
rejoiced or trembled, the entire man and every movement was
converted into ecstasy or horror.&nbsp; Many have experienced the
dim counterpart of such processes as we are now describing; but
will scarcely recognise their own equivalent history in the
bright realizations and agonizing vicissitudes of a mind so
fervent and ideal.</p>
<p>For a month or more he went on in resolute sinning, only
grudging that he could not get such scope as the madness of
despair solicited, when one day standing at a neighbour&rsquo;s
window, cursing and swearing, and &ldquo;playing the madman,
after his wonted manner,&rdquo; the woman of the house protested
that he made her tremble, and that truly he was the ungodliest
fellow for swearing that she ever heard in all her life, and
quite enough to ruin the youth of the whole town.&nbsp; The woman
was herself a notoriously worthless character; and so severe a
reproof, from so strange a quarter, had a singular effect on
Bunyan&rsquo;s mind.&nbsp; He was in a moment silenced.&nbsp; He
blushed before the God of heaven; and as he there stood with
hanging head, he wished with all his heart that he were a little
child again, that his father might teach him to speak without
profanity; for he thought it so inveterate now, that reformation
was out of the question.&nbsp; Nevertheless, so it was, from that
instant onward he was cured of his wicked habit, and people
wondered at the change.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Quickly after this I fell into company with one poor
man that made profession of religion; who, as I then thought, did
talk pleasantly of the Scriptures and of the matter of
religious.&nbsp; Wherefore, falling into some love and liking of
what he said, I betook me to my Bible, and began to take great
pleasure in reading, but especially with the historical part
thereof; for as for Paul&rsquo;s Epistles, and such like
Scriptures, I could not away with them, being as yet ignorant
either of the corruption of my nature, or of the want and worth
of Jesus Christ to save me.&nbsp; Wherefore I fell into some
outward reformation, both in my words and life, and did set the
commandments before me for my way to heaven; which commandments I
also did strive to keep, and, as I thought, did keep them pretty
well sometimes, and then I should have comfort; yet now and then
should break one, and so afflict my conscience; but then I should
repent, and say I was sorry for it, and promise God to do better
next time, and there got help again; for then I thought I pleased
God as well as any man in England.&nbsp; Thus I continued about a
year; all which time our neighbours did take me to be a very
godly man, a new and religious man, and did marvel much to see
such great and famous alteration in my life and manners; and
indeed so it was, though I knew not Christ, nor grace, nor faith,
nor hope; for, as I have well since seen, had I then died, my
state had been most fearful.&nbsp; But, I say, my neighbours were
amazed at this my great conversion, from prodigious profaneness
to something like a moral life; and so they well might; for this
my conversion was as great as for Tom of Bedlam to become a sober
man.&nbsp; Now, therefore, they began to speak well of me, both
before my face and behind my back.&nbsp; Now I was, as they said,
become godly; now I was become a right honest man.&nbsp; But oh!
when I understood these were their words and opinions of me, it
pleased me mighty well.&nbsp; For though, as yet, I was nothing
but a poor painted hypocrite, yet I loved to be talked of as one
that was truly godly . . .&nbsp; And thus I continued for about a
twelvemonth or more.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Though not acting from enlightened <i>motives</i>, Bunyan was
now under the guidance of new <i>influences</i>.&nbsp; For just
as the Spirit of God puts forth a restraining influence on many
during the days of their carnality, which makes the change at
their conversion less conspicuous than if they had been lifted
from the depths of a flagitious reprobacy; so others he long
subjects to a preparatory process, during which some of the old
and most offensive things of their ungodliness pass away; and
when the revolution, effected by the entrance of the evangelic
motive, at last takes place, it is rather to personal
consciousness than to outward observation that the change is
perceptible.&nbsp; The real and final transformation is rather
within the man than upon him.&nbsp; So was it with John
Bunyan.&nbsp; One by one he abandoned his besetting sins, and
made many concessions to conscience, while as yet he had not
yielded his heart to the Saviour.&nbsp; It was slowly and
regretfully, however, that he severed the &ldquo;right
hand.&rdquo;&nbsp; One of his principal amusements was one which
he could not comfortably continue.&nbsp; It was
<i>bell-ringing</i>; by which he probably means the merry peals
with which they used to desecrate their Sabbath evenings.&nbsp;
It was only by degrees that he was able to abandon this favourite
diversion.&nbsp; &ldquo;What if one of the bells should
fall?&rdquo;&nbsp; To provide against this contingency, he took
his stand under a beam fastened across the tower.&nbsp;
&ldquo;But what if the falling bell should rebound from one of
the side walls, and hit me after all?&rdquo;&nbsp; This thought
sent him down stairs, and made him take his station, rope in
hand, at the steeple door.&nbsp; &ldquo;But what if the steeple
itself should come down?&rdquo;&nbsp; This thought banished him
altogether, and he bade adieu to bell-ringing.&nbsp; And by a
similar series of concessions, eventually, but with longer delay,
he gave up another practice, for which his conscience checked
him&mdash;dancing.&nbsp; All these improvements in his conduct
were a source of much complacency to himself, though all this
while he wanted the soul-emancipating and sin-subduing knowledge
of Jesus Christ.&nbsp; The Son had not made him free.</p>
<p>There is such a thing as cant.&nbsp; It is possible for
flippant pretenders to acquire a peculiar phraseology, and use it
with a painful dexterity; and it is also possible for genuine
Christians to subside into a state of mind so listless or
secular, that their talk on religious topics will have the inane
and heartless sound of the tinkling cymbal.&nbsp; But as there is
an experimental religion, so is it possible for those who have
felt religion in its vitality to exchange their thoughts
regarding it, and to relate what it&mdash;or rather, God in
it&mdash;has done for them.&nbsp; There are few things which
indicate a healthier state of personal piety than such a frank
and full-hearted Christian intercourse.&nbsp; It was a specimen
of such communings which impressed on the mind of Bunyan the need
of something beyond an outside reformation.&nbsp; He had gone to
Bedford in prosecution of his calling, when, passing along the
street, he noticed a few poor women sitting in a doorway, and
talking together.&nbsp; He drew near to listen to their
discourse.&nbsp; It surprised him; for though he had by this time
become a great talker on sacred subjects, their themes were far
beyond his reach.&nbsp; God&rsquo;s work in their souls, the
views they had obtained of their natural misery and of
God&rsquo;s love in Christ Jesus, what words and promises had
particularly refreshed them and strengthened them against the
temptations of Satan; it was of matters so personal and vital
that they spake to one another.&nbsp; &ldquo;And methough they
spake as if you had made them speak; they spoke with such
pleasantness 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&mdash;as if they were &lsquo;people that dwelt alone,
and were not to be reckoned among their
neighbours!&rsquo;&rdquo;</p>
<p>The conversation of these poor people made a deep impression
on Bunyan&rsquo;s mind.&nbsp; He saw that there was something in
real religion into which he had not yet penetrated.&nbsp; He
sought the society of these humble instructors, and learned from
them much that he had not known before.&nbsp; He began to read
the Bible with new avidity; and that portion which had formerly
been most distasteful, the Epistles of Paul, now became the
subject of his special study.&nbsp; A sect of Antinomians, who
boasted that they could do whatsoever they pleased without
sinning, now fell in his way.&nbsp; Professors of religion were
rapidly embracing their opinions, and there was something in
their wild fervour and apparent raptures, prepossessing to the
ardent mind of Bunyan.&nbsp; He read their books, and pondered
their principles; but prefaced his examination with the simple
prayer,&mdash;&ldquo;O Lord, I am a fool, and not able to know
the truths from error.&nbsp; Lord, leave me not to my own
blindness.&nbsp; If this doctrine be of God, let me not despise
it; if it be of the devil, let me not embrace it.&nbsp; Lord, in
this matter I lay my soul only at thy foot: let me not be
deceived, I humbly beseech thee.&rdquo;&nbsp; His prayer was
heard, and he was saved from this snare of the devil.</p>
<p>The object to which the eye of an inquiring sinner should be
turned, is <span class="smcap">Christ</span>&mdash;the finished
work and the sufficient Saviour.&nbsp; But, in point of fact, the
chief stress of the more evangelical instruction has usually been
laid on <span class="smcap">Faith</span>&mdash;on that act of the
mind which unites the soul to the Saviour, and makes salvation
personal; and it is only by studying faiths that many have come
at last to an indirect and circuitous acquaintance with
Christ.&nbsp; By some such misdirection Bunyan was misled.&nbsp;
In quest of faith he went a long and joyless journey, and was
wearied with the greatness of his way.&nbsp; It was secretly
urged upon his mind, that if he had faith he would be able to
work miracles; and passages of Scripture were borne in upon his
mind, which bespoke the omnipotence of faith.&nbsp; One day, on
the road from Elstow to Bedford, it was suggested to his mind to
try some miracle, and that miracle should be, &ldquo;to say to
the puddles which were in the horse-pads, &lsquo;Be dry,&rsquo;
and to the dry places, &lsquo;Be you puddles.&rsquo;&rdquo;&nbsp;
However, before doing this, he thought he should go over the
hedge and pray for faith, and then come and speak the word.&nbsp;
&ldquo;But what if, after you have prayed and tried to do it,
nothing happens?&rdquo;&nbsp; The dread of this alternative made
him postpone the anxious experiment, and left him still in
doubt.</p>
<p>Then he had a sort of waking vision, suggested by what he had
seen in his pious friends at Bedford.&nbsp; &ldquo;I saw as if
they were on the sunny side of some high mountain, there
refreshing themselves with the pleasant beams of the sun, while I
was shivering and shrinking in the cold, afflicted with frost,
snow, and dark clouds.&nbsp; Methought also, betwixt me and them,
I saw a wall that did compass about this mountain; now through
this wall my soul did greatly desire to pass, concluding that if
I could, I would even go into the very midst of them, and there
also comfort myself with the heat of their sun.&nbsp; About this
wall I thought myself to go again and again, still prying as I
went, to see if I could find some gap or passage to enter
therein.&nbsp; But none could I find for some time.&nbsp; At the
last I saw, as it were, a narrow gap, like a little doorway in
the wall, through which I attempted to pass.&nbsp; Now, the
passage being very strait and narrow, I made many offers to get
in, but all in vain, even until I was wellnigh quite beat out, by
striving to get in.&nbsp; At last, with great striving, methought
I at first did get in my head, and after that, by a sideling
striving, my shoulders and my whole body. <a
name="citation9"></a><a href="#footnote9"
class="citation">[9]</a>&nbsp; Then was I exceeding glad; went
and sat down in the midst of them, and so was comforted with the
light and heat of their sun.&nbsp; Now, this mountain and wall
were thus made out to me: The mountain signified the church of
the living God; the sun that shone thereon, the comfortable
shining of his merciful face on them that were therein: the wall,
I thought, was the world, that did make separation between the
Christians and the world; and the gap which was in the wall, I
thought was Jesus Christ, who is the way to God the Father.&nbsp;
But forasmuch as the passage was wonderful narrow, even so narrow
that I could not, but with great difficulty, enter in thereat, it
shewed me that none could enter into life but those that were in
downright earnest, and unless they left that wicked world behind
them; for here was only room for body and soul, but not for body
and soul and sin.&rdquo;&nbsp; The dream did him good, for,
though it brought him no absolute assurance, it inspirited his
efforts after it.</p>
<p>There is scarcely a fear which can assail an inquiring spirit
which did not at some stage of his progress arrest the mind of
Bunyan.&nbsp; At one time he was afflicted by an erroneous view
of the doctrine of election.&nbsp; Looking at them from the outer
and under side, those purposes of everlasting love which secure
their safety who have already got within the precincts of
salvation, appeared bristling and forbidding&mdash;a frowning
<i>chevaux de frise</i>, rather than a fence of protection and
preservation.&nbsp; And when somewhat relieved from this
perplexity, he fell into another.&nbsp; He feared that the day of
grace was gone; and so impressed on his mind was this mournful
conviction, that he could do little else than upbraid his own
infatuation for allowing the one propitious season to pass for
ever away.&nbsp; But the words, &ldquo;Compel them to come in,
that my house may be filled;&rdquo; and those others, &ldquo;And
yet there is room,&rdquo; brought him relief.&nbsp; Then, again,
he saw that the call of Christ was needful to make a man a
disciple; and he feared that he should never get that call.&nbsp;
&ldquo;But oh! how I now loved those words that spake of a
Christian&rsquo;s calling as when the Lord said to one, Follow
me; and to another, Come after me: and oh! thought I, that he
would say so to me too: how gladly would I run after him!&nbsp;
How lovely now was every one in my eyes, that I thought to be
converted, whether man or woman!&nbsp; They shone, they walked
like a people that carried the broad seal of heaven upon
them.&nbsp; Oh! I saw the lot was fallen to them in pleasant
places, and they had a goodly heritage.&nbsp; But that which made
me sick, was that of Christ,&mdash;&lsquo;He went up into a
mountain, and called to him whom he would, and they came unto
him.&rsquo;&nbsp; This Scripture made me faint and fear, yet it
kindled fire in my soul.&nbsp; That which made me fear was this:
lest Christ should have no liking to me, for he called whom he
would.&nbsp; But oh! the glory that I saw in that condition did
still so engage my heart, that I could seldom read of any that
Christ did call but I presently wished, &lsquo;Would I had been
in their clothes! would I had been born Peter! would I had been
born John! or, would I had been bye, and had heard him when he
called them, how would I have cried, O Lord, call me also.&nbsp;
But oh! I feared he would not call me.&rsquo;&rdquo;</p>
<p>There was at that time a minister in Bedford whose history was
almost as remarkable as Bunyan&rsquo;s own.&nbsp; His name was
Gifford.&nbsp; He had been a staunch royalist, and concerned in
the rising in Kent.&nbsp; He was arrested, and, with eleven of
his comrades, was doomed to die.&nbsp; The night before the day
fixed for his execution his sister came to visit him.&nbsp; She
found the guard asleep, and, with her assistance, the prisoner
effected his escape.&nbsp; For three days he was hid in a field,
in the bottom of a deep ditch; but at last he contrived to get
away to a place of safety in the neighbourhood of Bedford.&nbsp;
Being there a perfect stranger, he ventured on the practice of
physic; but he was still abandoned to reckless habits and
outrageous vice.&nbsp; One evening he lost a large sum of money
at the gaming-table, and in the fierceness of his chagrin his
mind was filled with the most desperate thoughts of the
providence of God.&nbsp; In his vexation he snatched up a
book.&nbsp; It was a volume of Bolton, a solemn and forceful
writer then well known.&nbsp; A sentence in this book so fixed on
his conscience that for many weeks he could get no rest in his
spirit.&nbsp; When at last he found forgiveness through the blood
of Christ, his joy was extreme, and, except for two days before
his death, he never lost the comfortable persuasion of
God&rsquo;s love.&nbsp; For some time the few pious individuals
in that neighbourhood would not believe that such a reprobate was
really converted; but, nothing daunted by their distrust, like
his prototype of Tarsus, he began to preach the Word with
boldness, and, endowed with a vigorous mind and a fervent spirit,
remarkable success attended his ministry.&nbsp; A little church
was formed, and he was invited to become its pastor; and there he
continued till he died. <a name="citation11"></a><a
href="#footnote11" class="citation">[11]</a>&nbsp; It was to this
Mr Gifford that Bunyan was at this time introduced; and though
the conversations of this &ldquo;Evangelist&rdquo; brought him no
immediate comfort, it was well for him to enjoy the friendship
and sympathy of one whose own views were so clear and happy.</p>
<p>It is instructive to find, that, amid all the depression of
these anxious days, it was not any one sin, nor any particular
class of sins, which made him so fearful and unhappy.&nbsp; He
felt that he was a sinner, and as a sinner he wanted a perfect
righteousness to present him faultless before God.&nbsp; This
righteousness, he also knew, was nowhere to be found except in
the person of Jesus Christ.&nbsp; &ldquo;My original and inward
pollution,&mdash;that was my plague and affliction.&nbsp;
<i>That</i> I saw at a dreadful rate, always putting forth itself
within me,&mdash;that I had the guilt of to amazement; by reason
of that I was more loathsome in mine own eyes than a toad; and I
thought I was so in God&rsquo;s eyes too.&nbsp; Sin and
corruption, I said, would as naturally bubble out of my heart as
water would out of a fountain.&nbsp; I thought now that every one
had a better heart than I had.&nbsp; I could have changed hearts
with any body.&nbsp; I thought none but the devil himself could
equalize me for inward wickedness and pollution of mind.&nbsp; I
fell, therefore, at the sight of my own vileness, deeply into
despair; for I concluded that this condition that I was in could
not stand with a state of grace.&nbsp; Sure, thought I, I am
forsaken of God; sure I am given up to the devil and a reprobate
mind.&nbsp; And thus I continued a long while, even for some
years together.&rdquo;</p>
<p>During these painful apprehensions regarding his own state, it
is no marvel that he looked on secular things with an apathetic
eye.&nbsp; &ldquo;While thus afflicted with the fears of my own
damnation, there were two things would make me wonder: the one
was, when I saw old people hunting after the things of this life,
as if they should live here always; the other was, when I found
professors much distressed and cast down when they met with
outward losses, as of husband, wife, child, &amp;c.&nbsp; Lord,
thought I, what a-do is here about such little things as
these!&nbsp; What seeking after carnal things by some, and what
grief in others for the loss of them!&nbsp; If they so much
labour after, and shied so many tears for the things of this
present life, how am I to be bemoaned, pitied, and prayed
for!&nbsp; My soul is dying, my soul is damning.&nbsp; Were my
soul but in a good condition, and were I but sure of it, ah! how
rich would I esteem myself, though blessed but with bread and
water!&nbsp; I should count those but small afflictions, and bear
them as little burdens.&nbsp; A wounded spirit who can
bear?&rdquo;</p>
<p>This long interval of gloom was at last relieved by a brief
sunburst of joy.&nbsp; He heard a sermon on the text,
&ldquo;Behold, thou art fair, my love;&rdquo; in which the
preacher said, that a ransomed soul is precious to the Saviour,
even when it appears very worthless to itself,&mdash;that Christ
loves it when tempted, assaulted, afflicted, and mourning under
the hiding of God&rsquo;s countenance.&nbsp; Bunyan went home
musing on the words, till the truth of what the preacher said
began to force itself upon his mind; and half incredulous at
first, a hesitating hope dawned in upon his spirit.&nbsp;
&ldquo;Then I began to give place to the word, which, with power,
did over and over make this joyful sound within my
soul&mdash;&ldquo;Thou art my love, thou art my love; and nothing
shall separate thee from my love.&rdquo;&nbsp; And with that my
heart was filled full of comfort and hope; and now I could
believe that my sins should be forgiven me: yea, I was now so
taken with the love and mercy of God, that I remember I could not
tell how to contain till I got home.&nbsp; I thought I could have
spoken of his love, and have told 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.&nbsp; Wherefore, I said in my
soul, with much gladness, Well, I would I had pen and ink
here.&nbsp; I would write this down before I go any farther; for
surely I will not forget this forty years hence.&rdquo;</p>
<p>However, as he himself remarks, in less than forty days he had
forgotten it all.&nbsp; A flood of new and fierce temptations
broke over him, and had it not been for a strong sustaining arm
which unseen upheld him, his soul must have sunk in the deep and
angry waters.&nbsp; At one time he was almost overwhelmed in a
hurricane of blasphemous suggestions, and at another time his
faith had wellnigh made shipwreck on the shoals of infidelity or
deliberate atheism.&nbsp; But the very reluctance and dismay of
his spirit showed that a new nature was in him.&nbsp; &ldquo;I
often, when these temptations have been with force upon me, did
compare myself to the case of such a child whom some gipsy hath
by force took up in her arms, and is carrying from friend and
country; kick sometimes I did, and also shriek and cry; but yet I
was bound in the wings of the temptation, and the wind would
carry me away.&rdquo;&nbsp; It was all that he could do to
refrain from articulating such words as he imagined would amount
to the sin against the Holy Ghost; and for a year together he was
haunted with such diabolical suggestions that he was weary of his
life, and fain would have changed condition with a horse or a
dog.&nbsp; During this dreary term it is no wonder that his heart
felt hard.&nbsp; &ldquo;Though he should have given a thousand
pounds for a tear, he could not shed one; and often he had not
even the desire to shed one.&rdquo;&nbsp; Every ordinance was an
affliction.&nbsp; He could not listen to a sermon, or take up a
religious book, but a crowd of wild and horrid fancies rushed in
betwixt the subject and his bewildered mind, he could not assume
the attitude of prayer but he felt impelled to break off, almost
as if some one had been pulling him away; or, to mar his
devotion, some ridiculous object was sure to be presented to his
fancy.&nbsp; It is not surprising that he should have concluded
that he was possessed by the devil; and it is scarcely possible
to peruse his own and similar recitals without the forcible
conviction that they are more than the mere workings of the mind,
either in its sane or its disordered state.</p>
<p>Only relieved by some glimpses of comfort, &ldquo;which, like
Peter&rsquo;s sheet, were of a sudden caught up from him into
heaven again,&rdquo; this horrible darkness lasted no less than a
year.&nbsp; The light which first stole in upon it, and in which
it finally melted away, was a clear discovery of the person of
Christ, more especially a distinct perception of the dispositions
which he manifested while here on earth.&nbsp; And one thing
greatly helped him.&nbsp; He alighted on a congenial mind, and an
experience almost identical with his own.&nbsp; From the
emancipation which this new acquaintance gave to his spirit, as
well as the tone which he imparted to Bunyan&rsquo;s theology, we
had best relate the incident in his own words.&nbsp;
&ldquo;Before I had got thus far out of my temptations, I did
greatly long to see some ancient godly man&rsquo;s experience,
who had writ some hundreds of years before I was born; for those
who had writ in our days, I thought (but I desire them now to
pardon me) that they had writ only that which others felt; or
else had, through the strength of their wits and parts, studied
to answer such objections as they perceived others perplexed
with, without going down themselves into the deep.&nbsp; Well,
after many such longings in my mind, the God in whose hands are
all our days and ways, did cast into my hands one day a book of
Martin Luther&rsquo;s: it was his Comment on the Galatians; it
also was so old that it was ready to fall piece from piece if I
did but turn it over.&nbsp; Now I was pleased much that such an
old book had fallen into my hands; the which, when I had but a
little way perused, I found my condition in his experience so
largely and profoundly handled, as if his book had been written
out of my heart.&nbsp; This made me marvel: for thus, thought I,
this man could not know anything of the state of Christians now,
but must needs write and speak the experience of former
days.&nbsp; Besides, he doth most gravely also, in that book,
debate of the sin of these temptations, namely, blasphemy,
desperation, and the like; shewing that the law of Moses, as well
as the devil, death, and hell, hath a very great hand therein:
flee which, at first, was very strange to me; but considering and
watching, I found it so indeed.&nbsp; But of particulars here I
intend nothing; only this, methinks, I must let fall before all
men, I do prefer this book of Martin Luther upon the
Galatians&mdash;excepting the Holy Bible&mdash;before all the
books that ever I have seen, as most fit for a wounded
conscience.&rdquo;</p>
<p>There was one thing of which Bunyan was very
conscious&mdash;that his extrication from the fearful pit was the
work of an almighty hand.&nbsp; The transition was very blissful;
but just because his present views were so bright and assuring,
he knew that flesh and blood had not revealed them.&nbsp;
&ldquo;Now I had an evidence, as I thought, of my salvation from
heaven, with many golden seals thereon, all hanging in my
sight.&nbsp; Now could I remember this manifestation and the
other discovery of grace with comfort, and should often long and
desire that the last day were come, that I might be for ever
inflamed with the sight and joy and communion with him, whose
head was crowned with thorns, whose face was spit on and body
broken, and soul made an offering for my sins: for, whereas
before I lay continually trembling at the mouth of hell, now
methought I was got so far therefrom, that I could not, when I
looked back, scarce discern it.&nbsp; And oh! thought I, that I
were fourscore years old now, that I might die quickly, that my
soul might be gone to rest.&rdquo;&nbsp; &ldquo;And now I found,
as I thought, that I loved Christ dearly.&nbsp; Oh! methought
that my soul cleaved unto him, my affections cleaved unto
him.&nbsp; I felt love to him as hot as fire; and new, as Job
said, I thought I should die in my nest.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Another period of fearful agony, however, awaited him, and,
like the last, it continued for a year.&nbsp; In perusing his own
recital of these terrible conflicts, the first relief to our
tortured sympathy is in the recollection that it is all over now,
and that the sufferer, escaped from his great tribulation, is
long ago before the throne.&nbsp; But in the calmer, because
remoter, contemplation of this fiery trial, it is easy to see
&ldquo;the end of the Lord.&rdquo;&nbsp; When He permitted Satan
to tempt his servant Job, it was not for Job&rsquo;s sake merely,
nor for the sake of the blessed contrast which surprised his
latter days, that he allowed such thick-coming woes to gather
round the patriarch; but it was to provide in his parallel
experience a storehouse of encouragement and hope for the future
children of sorrow.&nbsp; And when the Lord permitted the
adversary so violently to assail our worthy, and when he caused
so many of his own waves and billows to pass over him, it was not
merely for the sake of Bunyan; it was for the sake of
Bunyan&rsquo;s readers down to the end of time.&nbsp; By
selecting this strong spirit as the subject of these trials, the
Lord provided, in his intense feelings and vivid realizations, a
normal type&mdash;a glaring instance of those experiences which,
in their fainter modifications, are common to most Christians;
and, through his graphic pen, secured a guidebook for
Zion&rsquo;s pilgrims in ages yet to come.&nbsp; In the
temptations we are now called to record, there is something so
peculiar, that we do not know if Christian biography supplies any
exact counterpart; but the time and manner of its occurrence have
many and painful parallels.&nbsp; It was after he had entered
into &ldquo;rest&rdquo;&mdash;when he had received joyful
assurance of his admission into God&rsquo;s family, and was
desiring to depart and be with Christ&mdash;it was then that this
assault was made on his constancy, and it was a fiercer assault
than any.&nbsp; If we do not greatly err, it is not uncommon for
believers to be visited after conversion with temptations from
which they were exempt in the days of their ignorance; as well as
temptations which, but for their conversion, could not have
existed.</p>
<p>The temptation to which we have alluded, took this strange and
dreadful form&mdash;to sell and part with his Saviour, to
exchange him for the things of this life&mdash;for
anything.&nbsp; This horrid thought he could not shake out of his
mind, day nor night, for many months together.&nbsp; It
intermixed itself with every occupation, however sacred, or
however trivial.&nbsp; &ldquo;He could not eat his food, stoop
for a pin, chop a stick, nor cast his eye to look on this or
that, but still the temptation would come, &lsquo;Sell Christ for
this, sell Christ for that, sell him, sell him.&rsquo;&nbsp;
Sometimes it would run in my thoughts not so little as a hundred
times together, Sell him, sell him, sell him: Against which, I
may say, for whole hours together, I have been forced to stand as
continually leaning and forcing my spirit against it; lest haply,
before I was aware, some wicked thought might arise in my heart
that might consent thereto: and sometimes the tempter would make
me believe I had consented to it; but then should I be as
tortured on a rack for whole days
together.&rdquo;&mdash;&ldquo;But, to be brief, one morning as I
did lie in my bed, I was, as at other times, most fiercely
assaulted with this temptation to sell and part with
Christ&mdash;the wicked suggestion still running in my mind, Sell
him, sell him, sell him, sell him, as fast as a man could speak,
against which I also, as at other times, answered, No, no; not
for thousands, thousands, thousands, at least twenty times
together.&nbsp; But at last, after much striving, even until I
was almost out of breath, I felt this thought pass through my
heart, Let him go, if he will; and I thought also that I felt my
heart freely consent thereto.&nbsp; Oh, the diligence of
Satan!&nbsp; Oh, the desperateness of man&rsquo;s heart!&nbsp;
Now was the battle won, and down fell I, as a bird that is shot
from the top of a tree, into great guilt and fearful
despair.&nbsp; Thus getting out of my bed, I went moping into the
field, but, God knows, with as heavy a heart as mortal man, I
think, could bear.&nbsp; Where, for the space of two hours, I was
like a man bereft of life, and as now past all recovery, and
bound over to eternal punishment.&nbsp; And withal, that
scripture did seize upon my soul, &lsquo;O profane person, as
Esau, who, for one morsel of meat, sold his birth-right; for ye
know how that afterwards, when he would have inherited the
blessing, he was rejected; for he found no place of repentance,
though he sought it carefully with tears.&rsquo;&nbsp; These
words were to my soul like fetters of brass, in the continual
sound of which I went for several months together.&rdquo;</p>
<p>The anxious casuistry in which he sought relief, and the
alternation of wistful hope and blank despair, in which for many
a dismal day he was tossed to and fro, none but himself can
properly describe.&nbsp; They are deeply affecting, and to some
may prove instructive.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Then began I, with sad and careful heart, to consider
of the nature and largeness of my sin, and to search into the
word of God, if in any place I could espy a word of promise, or
any encouraging sentence by which I might take relief.&nbsp;
Wherefore I began to consider that of Mark iii., &lsquo;All
manner of sins and blasphemies shall be forgiven unto the sons of
men, wherewith soever they shall blaspheme:&rsquo; which place,
methought, at a blush, did contain a large and glorious promise
for the pardon of high offences.&nbsp; But considering the place
more fully, I thought it was rather to be understood as relating
more chiefly to those who had, while in a natural state,
committed such things as there are mentioned; but not to me, who
had not only received light and mercy, but that had, both after
and also contrary to that, so slighted Christ as I had
done.&nbsp; I feared, therefore, that this wicked sin of mine
might be that sin unpardonable, of which he there thus speaketh,
&lsquo;But he that blasphemeth against the Holy Ghost hath never
forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;And now was I both a burden and a terror to myself; nor
did I ever so know as now what it was to be weary of my life and
yet afraid to die.&nbsp; O how gladly would I have been anybody
but myself! anything but a man! and in any condition but my own!
for there was nothing did pass more frequently over my mind, than
that it was impossible for me to be forgiven my transgression,
and to be saved from wrath to come.&rdquo;</p>
<p>He set himself to compare his sin with that of David and
Peter, but saw that there were specialties in his guilt which
made it far greater.&nbsp; The only case which he could compare
to his own was that of Judas.</p>
<p>&ldquo;About this time I did light on the dreadful story of
that miserable mortal, Francis Spira.&nbsp; Every sentence in
that book, every groan of that man, with all the rest of his
actions in his dolors, as his tears, his prayers, his gnashing of
teeth, his wringing of hands, his twisting, and languishing, and
pining away, under the mighty hand of God that was upon him, was
as knives and daggers to my soul; especially that sentence of his
was frightful to me, &lsquo;Man knows the beginning of sin, but
who bounds the issues thereof!&rsquo;&nbsp; Then would the former
sentence, as the conclusion of all, fall like a hot thunderbolt
again upon my conscience, &lsquo;For you know how, that
afterwards, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was
rejected; for he found no place of repentance, though he sought
it carefully with tears.&rsquo;&nbsp; Then should I be struck
into a very great trembling, insomuch that at sometimes I could,
for whole days together, feel my very body, as well as my mind,
to shake and totter under the sense of this dreadful judgment of
God.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Now I should find my mind to flee from God as from the
face of a dreadful judge; yet this was my torment, I could not
escape his hand.&nbsp; &lsquo;It is a fearful thing to fall into
the hands of the hiving God.&rsquo;&nbsp; But blessed be his
grace, that scripture in these flying fits would call as running
after me,&mdash;&lsquo;I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, thy
transgressions, and as a cloud thy sins; return unto me, for I
have redeemed thee.&rsquo;&nbsp; This, I say, would come in upon
my mind when I was fleeing from the face of God; for I did flee
from his face, that is, my mind and spirit fled before him: by
reason of his highness I could not endure.&nbsp; Then would that
text cry, Return unto me; it would cry aloud, with a very great
voice, Return unto me, for I have redeemed thee.&nbsp; Indeed
this would make me make a little stop, and, as it were, look over
my shoulder behind me, to see if I could discern that the God of
grace did follow me with a pardon in his hand.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Once as I was walking to and fro in a good man&rsquo;s
shop, bemoaning of myself in my sad and doleful state, afflicting
myself with self-abhorrence for this wicked and ungodly thought;
lamenting also this hard hap of mine, for that I should commit so
great a sin, greatly fearing I should not be pardoned; praying
also in my heart, that if this sin of mine did differ from that
against the Holy Ghost, the Lord would shew it me; and being now
ready to sink with fear, suddenly there was as if there had
rushed in at the window the noise of wind upon me, but very
pleasant, and as if I heard a voice speaking,&mdash;&lsquo;Didst
ever refuse to be justified by the blood of Christ?&rsquo;&nbsp;
And withal my whole life of profession past was in a moment
opened to me, wherein I was made to see that designedly I had
not; so my heart answered groaningly, No.&nbsp; Then fell with
power that word of God upon me, See that ye refuse not him that
speaketh.&nbsp; This made a strange seizure upon my spirit: it
brought light with it, and commanded a silence in my heart of all
those tumultuous thoughts that before did rise, like masterless
hell-hounds, to roar and bellow, and make a hideous noise within
me.&nbsp; It shewed me also that Jesus Christ had yet a word of
grace and mercy for me that he had not, as I feared, quite
forsaken and cast off my soul: Yea, this was a kind of check for
my proneness to desperation; a kind of threatening of me if I did
not, notwithstanding my sins and the heinousness of them, venture
my salvation upon the Son of God.&nbsp; But as to my determining
about this strange dispensation, what it was, I know not.&nbsp; I
have not yet in twenty years&rsquo; time been able to make a
judgment of it.&nbsp; I thought then what here I should be loath
to speak.&nbsp; But verily, that sudden rushing wind was as if an
angel had come upon me; but both it and the salvation, I will
leave until the day of judgment.&nbsp; Only this I say, it
commanded a great calm in my soul.&nbsp; It persuaded me there
might be hope; it shewed me, as I thought, what the sin
unpardonable was, and that my soul had yet the blessed privilege
to flee to Jesus Christ for mercy.&nbsp; But I say concerning
this dispensation, I know not what yet to say unto it.&nbsp; I
leave it to be thought on by men of sound judgment.&nbsp; I lay
not the stress of my salvation thereupon, but upon the Lord Jesus
in the promise; yet seeing I am here unfolding of my secret
things, I thought it might not be altogether inexpedient to let
this also shew itself, though I cannot now relate the matter as
then I did experience it.&nbsp; This lasted in the savour thereof
about three or four days, and then I began to mistrust and
despair again.&rdquo;</p>
<p>No solid peace can enter the soul except that which is brought
by the Comforter.&nbsp; It is not the word read and heard, but
the word revealed by the Spirit, which is saving and
assuring.&nbsp; There is undoubtedly a divine operation on the
mind wherever any special impression is produced by the truths of
God; and whether that impression should be made with audible and
visible manifestations accompanying it&mdash;as on the day of
Pentecost&mdash;or should be so vivid as to convert a mental
perception into a bodily sensation, as we are disposed to think
was the case with some of the remarkable sights and heavenly
voices which good men have recorded, is really of little
moment.&nbsp; In Bunyan&rsquo;s case, so warm was his
imagination, that every clear perception was sure to be
instantaneously sounding in his ear, or standing out a bright
vision before his admiring eyes.&nbsp; This feature of his mental
conformation has been noticed already; but this may be the proper
place to allude to it again.</p>
<p>After the short breathing time we just noticed, Bunyan began
to sink in the deep waters again.&nbsp; It was in vain that he
asked the prayers of God&rsquo;s people, and equally in vain that
he imparted his grief to those who had passed through the same
conflicts with the devil.&nbsp; One &ldquo;ancient
Christian,&rdquo; to whom he stated his fear that he had
committed the sin for which there is no forgiveness, thought so
too.&nbsp; &ldquo;Thus was I always sinking, whatever I did think
or do.&nbsp; So one day I walked to a neighbouring town, and sat
down upon a settle in the street, and fell into a very deep panic
about the most fearful state my sin had brought me to; and after
long musing, I lifted up my head; but 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: methought that they all combined
together to banish me out of the world; I was abhorred of them,
and unfit to dwell among them, or be partaker of their benefits,
because I had sinned against the Saviour.&nbsp; Then breaking out
in the bitterness of my soul, I said to my soul, with a grievous
sigh, &lsquo;How can God comfort such a wretch as I
am?&rsquo;&nbsp; I had no sooner said it, but this returned upon
me, as an echo doth answer a voice, &lsquo;This sin is not unto
death.&rsquo;&nbsp; At which I was as if raised out of the grave,
and cried out again, &lsquo;Lord, how couldst thou find out such
a word as this?&rsquo; for I was filled with admiration at the
fitness and at the unexpectedness of the sentence.&nbsp; The
fitness of the word; the rightness of the timing of it; the power
and sweetness and light and glory that came with it also, were
marvellous to me to find.&nbsp; I was now for the time out of
doubt as to that about which I was so much in doubt before.&nbsp;
I seemed now to stand upon the same ground with other sinners,
and to have as good right to the word and prayer as any of
them.&rdquo;</p>
<p>In coming to this conclusion, he had made a great step in
advance.&nbsp; His misery had hitherto been occasioned by a
device of the devil, which keeps many anxious souls from
comfort.&nbsp; He regarded his own case as a special exception to
which a gospel, otherwise general, did not apply; but this snare
was now broken, and, though with halting pace, he was on the way
to settled rest and joy.&nbsp; Frequently he would feel that his
transgressions had cut him off from Christ, and left him
&ldquo;neither foot-hold nor handhold among all the props and
stays in the precious word of life;&rdquo; but presently he would
find some gracious assurance&mdash;he knew not
how&mdash;sustaining him.&nbsp; At one time he would appear to
himself like a child fallen into a mill-pond, &ldquo;who thought
it could make some shift to sprawl and scramble in the
water,&rdquo; yet, as it could find nothing to which to cling,
must sink at last; but by and by he would perceive that an unseen
power was buoying him up, and encouraging him to cry from the
depths.&nbsp; At another time he would be so discouraged and
daunted, that he scarcely dared to pray, and yet in a sort of
desperation beginning, he found it true that &ldquo;men ought
always to pray and not to faint.&rdquo;&nbsp; On one occasion,
whilst endeavouring to draw near the throne of grace, the tempter
suggested &ldquo;that neither the mercy of God, nor yet the blood
of Christ, at all concerned him, nor could they help him by
reason of his sin; therefore it was vain to pray.&rdquo;&nbsp;
Yet he thought with himself, &ldquo;I will pray.&rdquo;&nbsp;
&ldquo;But,&rdquo; said the tempter, &ldquo;your sin is
unpardonable.&rdquo;&nbsp; &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;I
will pray.&rdquo;&nbsp; &ldquo;It is to no boot,&rdquo; said the
adversary.&nbsp; And still he answered, &ldquo;I will
pray.&rdquo;&nbsp; And so he began his prayer, &ldquo;Lord, Satan
tells me that neither they mercy, nor Christ&rsquo;s blood, is
sufficient to save my soul.&nbsp; Lord, shall I honour thee most
by believing thou wilt and canst? or him, by believing thou
neither wilt nor canst?&nbsp; Lord, I would fain honour thee by
believing thou canst and thou wiliest.&rdquo;&nbsp; And whilst he
was thus speaking, &ldquo;as if some one had clapped him on the
back,&rdquo; that scripture fastened on his mind, &ldquo;O man
great is thy faith.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Relief came slowly but steadily, and was the more abiding,
because he had learned by experience to distrust any comfort
which did not come from the word of God.&nbsp; Such passages as
these, &ldquo;My grace is sufficient for thee,&rdquo; and
&ldquo;Him that cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out,&rdquo;
greatly lightened his burden; but he derived still stronger
encouragement from considering that the Gospel, with its
benignity, is much more expressive of the mind and disposition of
God than the law with its severity.&nbsp; &ldquo;Mercy rejoiceth
over judgment.&nbsp; How shall not the ministration of the Spirit
be rather glorious?&nbsp; For if the ministration of condemnation
be glory, much more doth the ministration of righteousness exceed
in glory.&nbsp; For even that which was made glorious, had no
glory in this respect, by reason of the glory that
excelleth.&rdquo;&nbsp; Or, as the same truth presented itself to
his mind in an aspect more arresting to a mind like his,
&ldquo;And Peter said unto Jesus, Master, it is good for us to be
here; and let us make three tabernacles, one for thee, and one
for Moses, and one for Elias.&nbsp; For he wist not what to say,
for he was sore afraid.&nbsp; And there was a cloud overshadowed
them, and a voice came out of the cloud, saying, This is my
beloved Son, hear him.&rdquo;&nbsp; &ldquo;Then I saw that Moses
and Elias must both vanish, and leave Christ and his saints
alone.&rdquo;</p>
<p>We have now arrived at the happy time when these doubts and
distractions were exchanged for songs of deliverance.&nbsp; We
relate it in the words of Bunyan&rsquo;s own narrative:
&ldquo;One day as I was passing into the field, and that too with
some dashes on my conscience, fearing lest yet all was not right,
suddenly this sentence fell upon my soul, &lsquo;Thy
righteousness is in heaven;&rsquo; and methought withal, I saw
with the eyes of my soul, Jesus Christ at God&rsquo;s right hand;
there, I say, was my righteousness; so that wherever I was, or
whatever I was doing, God could not say of me, &lsquo;He wants my
righteousness,&rsquo; for that was just before him.&nbsp; I also
saw, moreover, that it was not my good frame of heart that made
my righteousness better, nor my bad frame that made my
righteousness worse; for my righteousness was Jesus Christ
himself, &lsquo;the same yesterday, to-day, and for
ever.&rsquo;&nbsp; Now did my chains fall off my legs indeed; I
was loosed from my afflictions and my irons; my temptations also
fled away; so that from that time those dreadful scriptures of
God left off to trouble me.&nbsp; Now went I also home rejoicing
for the grace and love of God; so when I came home I looked to
see if I could find that sentence, &lsquo;Thy righteousness is in
heaven,&rsquo; but could not find such a saying; wherefore my
heart began to sink again, only that was brought to my
remembrance, &lsquo;He is made unto us of God, wisdom,
righteousness, sanctification, and redemption;&rsquo; by this
word I saw the other sentence true.&nbsp; For, by this scripture,
I saw that the man Christ Jesus, as he is distinct from us as
touching his bodily presence, so he is our righteousness and
sanctification before God.&nbsp; Here, therefore, I lived for
some time very sweetly at peace with God through Christ.&nbsp;
Oh! methought, Christ, Christ!&nbsp; There was nothing but Christ
that was before my eyes.&nbsp; I was not now for looking upon
this and the other benefits of Christ apart, as of his blood,
burial, or resurrection, but considering him as a whole Christ,
as he is when all these, and all other his virtues, relations,
offices, and operations met together, and that he sat on the
right hand of God in heaven.&nbsp; &rsquo;Twas glorious to me to
see his exaltation, and the worth and prevalency of all his
benefits; and that because now I could look from myself to him,
and would reckon that all those graces of God that now were green
on me, were yet but like those cracked groats and
fourpence-halfpennies that rich men carry in their purses, when
their gold is in their trunks at home: Oh! I saw my gold was in
my trunk at home! in Christ my Lord and Saviour.&nbsp; Now Christ
was all; all my <i>righteousness</i>, all my
<i>sanctification</i>, and all my <i>redemption</i>.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Further, the Lord did also lead me into the mystery of
union with the Son of God; that I was joined to him, that I was
&lsquo;flesh of his flesh, and bone of his bone&rsquo; (Eph. v.
30); and now was that word of St Paul sweet to me.&nbsp; By this
also was my faith in him as my righteousness the more confirmed
in me; for if he and I were one, then his righteousness was mine,
his merits mine, his victory also mine.&nbsp; Now could I see
myself in heaven and earth at once: in heaven by my Christ, by my
head, by my righteousness and life; though on earth by my body or
person.&nbsp; Now I saw Christ Jesus was looked upon of God, and
should also be looked upon by us, as that common or public
person, in whom all the whole body of his elect are always to be
considered and reckoned; that we fulfilled the law by him, rose
from the dead by him, got the victory over sin, death, the devil,
and hell by him; when he died, we died; and so of his
resurrection.&nbsp; &lsquo;Thy dead men shall live; together with
my dead body shall they arise,&rsquo; saith he: and again,
&lsquo;After two days he will revive us, and the third day we
shall live in his sight:&rsquo; which is now fulfilled by the
sitting down of the Son of Man on the right hand of the Majesty
in the heavens, according to that to the Ephesians, &lsquo;He
heath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly
places in Christ Jesus.&rsquo;&nbsp; Ah! these blessed
considerations and scriptures, with many others of like nature,
were in those days made to spangle in mine eye, so that I have
cause to say, &lsquo;Praise ye the Lord 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.&rsquo;&rdquo;</p>
<p>Extricated from the Slough of Despond, Bunyan went on his way
rejoicing; and though sometimes interrupted by disquieting
thoughts and strong temptations, his subsequent career was a path
of growing comfort and prevailing peace.&nbsp; At the age of
twenty-six he was admitted a member of that Baptist church of
which Mr Gifford was the faithful pastor,&mdash;a rare man, who,
in angry times, and in a small communion, preserved his
catholicity.&nbsp; Holding that &ldquo;union with Christ,&rdquo;
and not agreement concerning any ordinances or things external,
is the foundation of Christian fellowship, with his dying hand he
addressed a letter to his beloved people, in which the following
sentence occurs, the utterance of a heart enlarged by Christian
magnanimity, and bent on those objects which alone look important
when the believer is waiting on the top of
Pisgah:&mdash;&ldquo;Concerning separation from the Church about
baptism, laying on of hands, anointing with oil, psalms, or any
other externals, I charge every one of you respectively, as you
will give an account of it to our Lord Jesus Christ, who will
judge both quick and dead at his coming, that none of you be
found guilty of this great evil, which some have committed, and
that through a zeal for God, yet not according to
knowledge.&nbsp; They have erred from the law of the love of
Christ, and have made a rent in the true Church, which is but
one.&rdquo;&nbsp; If our Baptist brethren are justly proud that
the burning and shining light of Bunyan was set upon their
candlestick, they have equal reason to boast of the torch at
which his bland and diffussive light was kindled.&nbsp; John
Bunyan doubtless owed to John Gifford the peculiar type of his
Christianity, its comprehensiveness, and its sect-forgetting zeal
for the things of Jesus Christ.</p>
<p>He had not long been a member of the church when he was called
to exercise its actual ministry.&nbsp; Gifford was gone to his
everlasting rest; and as a substitute for his labours, it was put
upon a few of the brethren to speak the word of exhortation to
the rest.&nbsp; Of these Bunyan was one.&nbsp; At first he did
not venture farther than to address his friends in their more
private meetings, or to follow up, with a brief application, the
sermons delivered by others in their village-preaching.&nbsp; But
these exercises having afforded the utmost satisfaction to his
judicious though warm-hearted hearers, he was urged forward to
more public services.&nbsp; These he was too humble to covet, and
too earnest to refuse.&nbsp; Though his education was
sufficiently rude, God had given him from the first a strong
athletic mind and a glowing heart,&mdash;that downright logic and
teeming fancy, whose bold strokes and burning images heat the
Saxon temper to the welding point, and make the popular orator of
our English multitude.&nbsp; Then his low original and rough wild
history, however much they might have subjected him to scorn had
he exchanged the leathern apron for a silken one, or scrambled
from the hedge-side into the high-places of the church, entailed
no suspicion, and awakened much surprise, when the Bedford
townsmen saw their blaspheming neighbour a new man, and in a way
so disinterested preaching the faith which he once
destroyed.&nbsp; The town turned out to hear, and though there
was some mockery, many were deeply moved.&nbsp; His own account
of it is:&mdash;&ldquo;At first I could not believe that God
should speak by me to the heart of any man, still counting myself
unworthy; yet those who were thus touched, would love me, and
have a particular respect for me; and though I did put it from
me, that they should be awakened by me, still they would confess
it and affirm it before the saints of God . . . Wherefore, seeing
them in both their words and deeds to be so constant, and also in
their hearts so earnestly pressing after the knowledge of Jesus
Christ, rejoicing that ever God did send me where they were, then
I began to conclude it might be so, that God had owned in his
work such a foolish one as I; and then came that word of God to
my heart with such sweet refreshment: &lsquo;The blessing of them
that were ready to perish is come upon me; yea, I caused the
widow&rsquo;s heart to sing for joy.&rsquo;&nbsp; At this,
therefore, I rejoiced; yea, the tears of those whom God had
awakened by my preaching would be both solace and encouragement
to me.&nbsp; I thought on those sayings, &lsquo;Who is he that
maketh me glad, but the same that is made sorry by
me!&rsquo;&nbsp; And again, &lsquo;Though I be not an apostle to
others, yet doubtless I am unto you: for the seal of my
apostleship are ye in the Lord.&rsquo;&rdquo;</p>
<p>There was a solemnizing and subduing power in Bunyan&rsquo;s
ministry, because it was heart-felt.&nbsp; So far as the truths
he uttered were capable of becoming subjects of personal
consciousness, he had experienced them; and so far as they were
subjects of intellectual conviction, he was not only fully
persuaded of them, but saw them so clear and evident, that his
realizations were continually quickening into sensations.&nbsp;
He thus began with a John-Baptist ministry, to which succeeded a
Pentecostal evangel; and at last it grew into the Pauline
amplitude and completeness, &ldquo;the whole counsel of
God.&rdquo;&nbsp; &ldquo;In my preaching of the word, I took
special notice of this one thing, namely, that the Lord did lead
me to begin where the word begins with sinners; that is, to
condemn all flesh, and to open and allege that the curse of God
by the law doth belong to and lay hold on all men as they come
into the world, because of sin.&nbsp; Now this part of my work I
fulfilled with great sense; for the terrors of the law, and guilt
for my transgressions, lay heavy on my conscience.&nbsp; I
preached what I felt, what I smartingly did feel; even that under
which my poor soul did groan and tremble to astonishment.&nbsp;
Indeed I have been as one sent to them from the dead; I went
myself in chains to preach to them in chains; and carried that
fire in my own conscience that I persuaded them to be aware of .
. . Thus I went on for the space of two years, crying out against
men&rsquo;s sins, and their fearful state because of them.&nbsp;
After which the Lord came in upon my own soul with some sure
peace and comfort through Christ; for he did give me many sweet
discoveries of his blessed grace through him.&nbsp; Wherefore now
I altered in my preaching (for still I preached what I saw and
felt).&nbsp; Now, therefore, I did much labour to hold forth
Jesus Christ in all his offices, relations, and benefits, unto
the world, and did strive also to discover, to condemn, and
remove those false supports and props on which the world doth
both lean, and by them fall and perish.&nbsp; On these things
also I staid as long as on the other.&nbsp; After this, God led
me into something of the mystery of union with Christ; wherefore,
that I discovered and shewed to them also.&nbsp; And when I had
travelled through these three chief points of the word of God, I
was caught in my present practice, and cast into prison, where I
have lain alone as long again to confirm the truth by way of
suffering, as I was before in testifying of it, according to the
scriptures, in a way of preaching.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Bunyan&rsquo;s preaching was no incoherent rant.&nbsp; Words
of truth and soberness formed the staple of each sermon; and his
burning words and startling images were only the electric
scintillations along the chain of his scriptural eloquence.&nbsp;
Though the common people heard him most gladly, he had occasional
hearers of a higher class.&nbsp; Once on a week-day he was
expected to preach in a parish church near Cambridge, and a
concourse of people had already collected in the
churchyard.&nbsp; A gay student was riding past, when he noticed
the crowd, and asked what had brought them together.&nbsp; He was
told that the people had come out to hear one Bunyan, a tinker,
preach.&nbsp; He instantly dismounted, and gave a boy twopence to
hold his horse, for he declared he was determined to hear the
tinker <i>prate</i>.&nbsp; So he went into the church, and heard
the tinker; but so deep was the impression which that sermon made
on the scholar, that he took every subsequent opportunity to
attend Bunyan&rsquo;s ministry, and himself became a renowned
preacher of the gospel in Cambridgeshire.&nbsp; Still he felt
that his errand was to the multitude, and his great anxiety was
to penetrate the darkest places of the land, and preach to the
most abandoned people.&nbsp; In these labours of unostentatious
heroism, he sometimes excited the jealousy of the regular parish
ministers, and even under the tolerant rule of the Protector, was
in some danger of imprisonment.&nbsp; However, it was not till
the Restoration that he was in serious jeopardy; but thereafter
he was among the first victims of the grand combination betwixt
priests and rulers to exterminate the gospel in England.</p>
<p>On the 12th of November 1660, he had promised to meet a little
congregation in a private house at Samsell in Bedfordshire.&nbsp;
Before the hour of meeting he was apprised that a warrant was out
to seize him; but he felt that he owed it to the gospel not to
run away at such a time.&nbsp; Accordingly when the people were
assembled with no weapons but their Bibles, the constable entered
and arrested the preacher.&nbsp; He had only time to speak a few
words of counsel and encouragement to his hearers, &ldquo;You see
we are prevented of our opportunity to speak and hear the word of
God, and are likely to suffer for the same.&nbsp; But be not
discouraged.&nbsp; It is a mercy to suffer for so good a
cause.&nbsp; We might have been apprehended as thieves or
murderers, or for other wickedness; but blessed be God, it is not
so.&nbsp; We suffer as Christians for well doing; and better be
the persecuted than the persecutors.&rdquo;&nbsp; After being
taken before a justice, he was committed to gaol till the ensuing
sessions should be held at Bedford.&nbsp; There an indictment was
preferred&mdash;&ldquo;That John Bunyan, of the town of Bedford,
labourer, being a person of such and such conditions, he hath
since such a time devilishly and perniciously abstained from
coming to church to hear divine service; and is a common upholder
of several unlawful meetings and conventicles, to the great
disturbance and distraction of the good subjects of this kingdom,
contrary to the laws of our sovereign lord the King,&rdquo;
&amp;c.&nbsp; Of course he was convicted, and sentenced to
imprisonment, with certification, that if he did not conform
within a given period, he would he banished out of the
kingdom.</p>
<p>After Bunyan ceases to be his own biographer, our materials
become exceeding scanty.&nbsp; This is the less to be lamented
when we reflect that the history of his &ldquo;hidden life&rdquo;
is already told.&nbsp; The processes have now been related which
formed and developed the inner man; and the few external events
that befel him, and the few important things that he did, during
the remaining eight-and-twenty years of his mortal pilgrimage,
may be recorded in a single page.</p>
<p>His imprisonment was protracted from sessions to sessions,
till he had measured out twelve weary years in Bedford
gaol.&nbsp; Perhaps we should not call them <i>weary</i>.&nbsp;
They had their alleviations.&nbsp; His wife and children were
allowed to visit him.&nbsp; His blind and most beloved daughter
was permitted to cheer his solitude and her own.&nbsp; He had his
Bible, and his &ldquo;Book of Martyrs.&rdquo;&nbsp; He had his
imagination, and his pen.&nbsp; Above all, he had a good
conscience.&nbsp; He felt it a blessed exchange to quit the
&ldquo;iron cage&rdquo; of despair for a &ldquo;den&rdquo; oft
visited by a celestial comforter; and which, however cheerless,
did not lack a door to heaven.</p>
<p>Whether it was the man&rsquo;s own humanity, or whether it was
that God who assuaged Joseph&rsquo;s captivity, gave Bunyan
special favour in the eyes of the keeper of his prison, the fact
is certain, that he met with singular indulgence at the least
likely hands.&nbsp; Not only was he allowed many a little
indulgence in his cell, but he was suffered to go and come with a
freedom which could hardly have been exceeded had the county gaol
been his own hired house.&nbsp; For months together he was a
constant attender of the church-meetings of his brethren in
Bedford, and was actually chosen pastor during the period of his
incarceration.&nbsp; On one occasion some of the bishops who had
heard a rumour of the unusual liberty conceded to him, sent a
messenger from London to Bedford to ascertain the truth.&nbsp;
The officer was instructed to call at the prison during the
night.&nbsp; It was a night when Bunyan had received permission
to stay at home with his family; but so uneasy did he feel, that
he told his wife he must go back to his old quarters.&nbsp; So
late was it that the gaoler blamed him for coming at such an
untimely hour; but a little afterwards the messenger
arrived.&nbsp; &ldquo;Are all the prisoners safe?&rdquo;&nbsp;
&ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;&nbsp; &ldquo;Is John Bunyan safe?&rdquo;&nbsp;
&ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;&nbsp; &ldquo;Let me see him.&rdquo;&nbsp;
Bunyan was called, and the messenger went his way; and when he
was gone the gaoler told him, &ldquo;Well, you may go out again
just when you think proper; for you know when to return better
than I can tell you.&rdquo;</p>
<p>But the best alleviations of his captivity were those
wonderful works which he there projected or composed.&nbsp; Some
of these were controversial; but one of them was his own life,
under the title, &ldquo;Grace abounding to the Chief of
Sinners,&rdquo; and another was the &ldquo;<span
class="smcap">Pilgrim&rsquo;s Progress</span>.&rdquo;</p>
<p>In 1672 he obtained his liberty, and his friends immediately
built for him a large meeting-house, where he continued to preach
with little interruption till his death.&nbsp; Once a year he
visited London, and was there so popular, that twelve hundred
people would gather together at seven in the morning of a
winter&rsquo;s working-day to hear him.&nbsp; Amongst the
admiring listeners, Dr Owen was frequently found; and once when
Charles the Second asked how a learned man like him could sit
down to hear a tinker prate, the great theologian is said to have
answered, &ldquo;May it please your Majesty, could I possess the
tinker&rsquo;s abilities for preaching, I would most gladly
relinquish all my learning.&rdquo;&nbsp; But popular as he was,
he was not fond of praise.&nbsp; One day after he had concluded
an impressive discourse, his friends pressed round to thank him
for his &ldquo;sweet sermon.&rdquo;&nbsp; &ldquo;Aye,&rdquo; he
bluntly answered, &ldquo;you need not remind me of that; for the
devil told me as much before I left the pulpit.&rdquo;</p>
<p>He had numbered sixty years, and written as many books, when
he was released from his abundant labours.&nbsp; A young
gentleman, his neighbour, had fallen under his father&rsquo;s
displeasure, and was much concerned at his father&rsquo;s
estrangement as well as at the prospect of being
disinherited.&nbsp; He begged Mr Bunyan&rsquo;s friendly
interposition to propitiate his father, and prepare the way for
his return to parental favour and affection.&nbsp; The
kind-hearted man undertook the task, and having successfully
achieved it, was returning from Reading to London on horseback,
when he was thoroughly drenched with excessive rains.&nbsp; He
arrived cold and wet at the house of Mr Strudwick, a grocer on
Snow Hill.&nbsp; Here he was seized with fits of shivering, which
passed off in violent fever, and after ten days&rsquo; sickness,
on the 31st of August 1688, his pilgrimage ended, and he went in
by the gate into the city.</p>

<div class="gapmediumline">&nbsp;</div>
<p>As the most appropriate introduction to the following
selections from the practical writings of Bunyan, we would chose
this rapid history of the <span class="smcap">Man</span>, with a
few remarks on the <span class="smcap">Theologian</span> and the
<span class="smcap">Author</span>.</p>
<p>I.&nbsp; Bunyan&rsquo;s theological merits we rank very
high.&nbsp; No one can turn over his pages without noticing the
abundance of his Scriptural quotations; and these quotations no
one can examine without perceiving how minutely he had studied,
and how deeply he had pondered, the word of God.&nbsp; But it is
possible to be very <i>textual</i>, and yet by no means very
scriptural.&nbsp; A man may heave an exact acquaintance with the
literal Bible, and yet entirely miss the great Bible
message.&nbsp; He may possess a dexterous command of detached
passages and insulated sentences, and yet be entirely ignorant of
that peculiar scheme which forms the great gospel
revelation.&nbsp; But this was Bunyan&rsquo;s peculiar
excellence.&nbsp; He was even better acquainted with the Gospel
as the scheme of God, than he was familiar with the Bible-text;
and the consequence is, that though he is sometimes irrelevant in
his references, and fanciful in interpreting particular passages,
his doctrine is almost always according to the analogy of
faith.&nbsp; The doctrine of a free and instant justification by
the imputed righteousness of Christ, none even of the Puritans
could state with more Luther-like boldness, nor defend with an
affection more worthy of Paul.&nbsp; In his last and best days,
Coleridge wrote, &ldquo;I know of no book, the Bible excepted, as
above all comparison, which I, according to my judgment and
experience, could so safely recommend as teaching and enforcing
the whole saving truth, according to the mind that was in Christ
Jesus, as the Pilgrim&rsquo;s Progress.&nbsp; It is in my
conviction the best <i>Summa Theologi&aelig; Evangelic&aelig;</i>
ever produced by a writer not miraculously inspired.&rdquo; <a
name="citation30a"></a><a href="#footnote30a"
class="citation">[30a]</a>&nbsp; Without questioning this
verdict, we would include in the encomium some of his other
writings, which possibly Coleridge never saw.&nbsp; Such as the
Tracts contained in this volume. <a name="citation30b"></a><a
href="#footnote30b" class="citation">[30b]</a>&nbsp; They exhibit
Gospel-truths in so clear a light, and state them in such a frank
and happy tone, that he who runs may read, and he who reads in
earnest will rejoice.&nbsp; The Pilgrim is a peerless guide to
those who have already passed in at the wicket-gate; but those
who are still seeking peace to their troubled souls, will find
the best directory in &ldquo;The Jerusalem Sinner
Saved.&rdquo;</p>
<p>II.&nbsp; Invaluable as a theologian, Bunyan stands alone as a
contributor to theological literature.&nbsp; In recent times no
man has done so much to draw the world&rsquo;s delighted
attention to the subjects of supreme solicitude.&nbsp; No
production of a mortal pen has found so many readers as one work
of his; and none has awakened so frequently the sighing behest,
&ldquo;Let me die the death of the righteous.&rdquo;</p>
<p>None has painted the beauty of holiness in taints more lovely,
nor spoken in tones more thrilling to the heart of universal
humanity.&nbsp; At first the favourite of the vulgar, he is now
the wonder of the learned; and from the obscurity, not
inglorious, of smoky cupboards and cottage chimneys, he has been
escorted up to the highest places of classical renown, and duly
canonized by the pontiffs of taste and literature.&nbsp; The man,
whom Cowper praised anonymously,</p>
<blockquote><p>&ldquo;Lest so despised a name should move a
sneer,&rdquo;</p>
</blockquote>
<p>has at last extorted emulous plaudits from a larger host of
writers than ever conspired to praise a man of genius, who was
also a man of God.&nbsp; Johnson and Franklin, Scott, Coleridge,
and Southey, Byron and Montgomery, Macintosh and Macaulay, have
exerted their philosophical acumen and poetic feeling to analyze
his various spell, and account for his unequalled fame; and
though the round-cornered copies, with their diverting woodcuts,
have not disappeared from the poor man&rsquo;s ingle, illustrated
editions blaze from the shelves of every sumptuous library, new
pictures, from its exhaustless themes, light up the walls of each
annual exhibition; and amidst the graceful litter of the
drawing-room table, you are sure to take up designs from the
Pilgrim&rsquo;s Progress.&nbsp; So universal is the ascendancy of
the tinker-teacher, so world-wide the diocese of him whom
Whitefield created Bishop Bunyan, that probably half the ideas
which the outside-world entertains regarding experimental piety,
they have, in some form or other, derived from him.&nbsp; One of
the most popular preachers in his day, in his little treatises,
as well as in his longer allegories, he preaches to countless
thousands still.&nbsp; The cause of this unexampled popularity is
a question of great practical moment.</p>
<p>And, first of all, Bunyan speaks to the whole of man,&mdash;to
his imagination, his intellect, his heart.&nbsp; He had in
himself all these ingredients of full-formed humanity, and in his
books he lets all of them out.&nbsp; French writers and preachers
are apt to deal too exclusively in the one article&mdash;fancy;
and though you are amused for the moment with the rocket-shower
of brilliant and many-tinted ideas which fall sparkling around
you, when the exhibition is ended, you are disappointed to find
that the whole was momentary, and that from all the ruby and
emerald rain scarcely one gem of solid thought remains. <a
name="citation32a"></a><a href="#footnote32a"
class="citation">[32a]</a>&nbsp; Scottish writers and preachers
are apt to indulge the argumentative caco&euml;thes of their
country, and cramming into a tract or sermon as much
hard-thinking as the Bramah-pressure of hydrostatic intellects
can condense into the iron paragraphs, they leave no room for
such delicate materials as fancy or feeling, illustration,
imagery, or affectionate appeal; <a name="citation32b"></a><a
href="#footnote32b" class="citation">[32b]</a> whilst Irish
authors and pulpit-orators are so surcharged with their own
exuberant enthusiasm, that their main hope of making you think as
they think, is to make you feel as they feel.&nbsp; The heart is
their Aristotle; and if they cannot win you by a smile or melt
you by a tear, they would think it labour lost to try a
syllogism.&nbsp; Bunyan was neither French, nor Scotch, nor
Irish.&nbsp; He embodied in his person, though greatly magnified,
the average mind of England&mdash;playful, affectionate,
downright.&nbsp; His intellectual power comes chiefly out in that
homely self-commending sense&mdash;the brief business-like
reasoning, which might be termed Saxon logic, and of which Swift
in one century, and Cobbett in another, are obvious
instances.&nbsp; His premises are not always true, nor his
inferences always legitimate; but there is such evident absence
of sophistry, and even of that refining and hair-splitting which
usually beget the suspicion of sophistry&mdash;his statements are
so sincere, and his conclusions so direct, the language is so
perspicuous, and the appeal is made so honestly to each
reader&rsquo;s understanding, that his popularity as a reasoner
is inevitable.&nbsp; We need not say that the author of the
Pilgrim possessed imagination; but it is important to note the
service it rendered to his preaching, and the charm which it
still imparts to his miscellaneous works.&nbsp; The pictorial
power he possessed in a rare degree.&nbsp; His mental eye
perceived the truth most vividly.&nbsp; Some minds are moving in
a constant mystery.&nbsp; They see men like trees walking.&nbsp;
The different doctrines of the Bible all wear dim outlines to
them, jostling and jumbling; and after a perplexing morrice of
bewildering hints and half discoveries, they vanish into the
misty back-ground of nonentity.&nbsp; To Bunyan&rsquo;s bright
and broad-waking eye all things were clear.&nbsp; Thee men walked
and the trees stood still.&nbsp; Everything was seen in sharp
relief and definite outline&mdash;a <i>reality</i>.&nbsp; And
besides the pictorial, he possessed in highest perfection the
illustrative faculty.&nbsp; Not only did his own mind perceive
the truth most vividly, but he saw the very way to give others a
clear perception of it also.&nbsp; This is the great secret of
successful teaching.&nbsp; Like a man who has chambered his
difficult way to the top of a rocky eminence, but who, once he
has reached the summit, perceives an easier path, and directs his
companions along its gentler slopes, and gives them a
helping-hand to lift them over the final obstacles; it was by
giant struggles over the debris of crumbling hopes, and through
jungles of despair, and up the cliffs of apparent impossibility,
that Bunyan forced his way to the pinnacle of his eventual joy;
but no sooner was he standing there, than his eagle-eye detected
the easier path, and he made it the business of his benevolent
ministry to guide others into it.&nbsp; Though not the truth, an
illustration is a stepping-stone towards it; an indentation in
the rock which makes it easier to climb.&nbsp; No man had a
happier knack in hewing out these notches in the cliff, and no
one knew better where to place them, than this pilgrim&rsquo;s
pioneer.&nbsp; Besides, he rightly judged that the value of these
suggestive similes&mdash;these illustrative
stepping-stones&mdash;depends very much on their breadth and
frequency.&nbsp; But Bunyan appeals not only to the intellect and
imagination, but to the hearts of men.&nbsp; There was no
bitterness in Bunyan.&nbsp; He was a man of kindness and
compassion.&nbsp; How sorry he is for Mr Badman! and how he makes
you sympathize with Christian and Mr Ready-to-halt and Mr
Feeble-mind, and all the other interesting companions of that
eventful journey!&nbsp; And in his sermons how piteously he
pleads with sinners for their own souls! and how impressive is
the undisguised vehemency of his yearning affections!&nbsp; In
the same sentence Bunyan has a word for the man of sense, and
another for the man of fancy, and a third for the man of feeling;
and by thus blending the intellectual, the imaginative, and the
affectionate, he speaks home to the whole of man, and has made
his works a lesson-book for all mankind.</p>
<p>Another secret of Bunyan&rsquo;s popularity is the felicity of
his style.&nbsp; His English is vernacular, idiomatic, universal;
varying with the subject; homely in the continuous narrative;
racy and pungent in his lively and often rapid discourse; and,
when occasion requires, &ldquo;a model of unaffected dignity and
rhythmical flow;&rdquo; but always plain, strong, and
natural.&nbsp; However, in speaking of his style, we do not so
much intend his words as his entire mode of expression.&nbsp; A
thought is like a gem; but like a gem it may be spoiled in the
setting.&nbsp; A careless artist may chip it and grievously
curtail its dimensions; a clumsy craftsman, in his fear of
destroying it, may not sufficiently polish it; or in his
solicitude to show off its beauty, may overdo the accompanying
ornaments.&nbsp; Bunyan was too skilful a workman so to mismanage
the matter.&nbsp; His expression neither curtails nor encumbers
the thought, but makes the most of it; that is, presents it to
the reader as it is seen by the writer.&nbsp; Though there is a
great appearance of amplitude about his compositions, few of his
words could be wanted.&nbsp; Some styles are an ill-spun thread,
full of inequalities, and shaggy from beginning to end with
projecting fibres which spoil its beauty, and add nothing to its
strength; but in its easy continuousness and trim compactness,
the thread of Bunyan&rsquo;s discourse flows firm and smooth from
first to last.&nbsp; Its fulness regales the ear, and its
felicity aids the understanding.</p>
<h2>FOOTNOTES</h2>
<p><a name="footnote9"></a><a href="#citation9"
class="footnote">[9]</a>&nbsp; Those who are interested in the
historic parallels supplied by Christian biography, will find a
similar instructive dream in the Life of General Burn, vol. i.
pp. 127&ndash;130.</p>
<p><a name="footnote11"></a><a href="#citation11"
class="footnote">[11]</a>&nbsp; Ivimey&rsquo;s Life of Bunyan,
pp. 51&ndash;53.</p>
<p><a name="footnote30a"></a><a href="#citation30a"
class="footnote">[30a]</a>&nbsp; Remains, vol. iii. p. 391.</p>
<p><a name="footnote30b"></a><a href="#citation30b"
class="footnote">[30b]</a>&nbsp; The other items contained in the
book that this text comes from were: Jerusalem Sinner Saved;
Pharisee and the Publican; The Trinity and the Christian; The Law
and a Christian; Bunyan&rsquo;s Last Sermon; Bunyan&rsquo;s Dying
Sayings and An Exhortation to Peace and Unity.&nbsp; All of them
are available from Project Gutenberg&mdash;DP.</p>
<p><a name="footnote32a"></a><a href="#citation32a"
class="footnote">[32a]</a>&nbsp; Pascal was an exception.&nbsp;
D&rsquo;Aubign&eacute;, so far as writing in French makes a
Frenchman, is another.&nbsp; Their works are full of fancy, but
it is the fancy which gives to truth its wings.&nbsp; The rocket
is charged, not with coloured sparks, but burning jewels.</p>
<p><a name="footnote32b"></a><a href="#citation32b"
class="footnote">[32b]</a>&nbsp; Here, again, exceptions occur,
and the greatest of our Scottish preachers is a contradiction to
the characteristic style of his country.</p>
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