John Lothrop Motley - "History of the United Netherlands, 1588 89"

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John Lothrop Motley - "The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1577"

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Books: The Works of John Bunyan Volume 1

J >> John Bunyan >> The Works of John Bunyan Volume 1



This eBook was prepared by Charles Aldarondo based on a source from
www.johnbunyan.org.



THE WORKS OF JOHN BUNYAN

WITH AN

INTRODUCTION TO EACH TREATISE, NOTES,

AND A

SKETCH OF HIS LIFE, TIMES, AND CONTEMPORARIES.

VOLUME FIRST.

EXPERIMENTAL, DOCTRINAL, AND PRACTICAL.

EDITED BY

GEORGE OFFOR, ESQ.






MEMOIR OF JOHN BUNYAN

THE FIRST PERIOD.

THIS GREAT MAN DESCENDED FROM IGNOBLE PARENTS--BORN IN POVERTY--HIS
EDUCATION AND EVIL HABITS--FOLLOWS HIS FATHER'S BUSINESS AS A
BRAZIER--ENLISTS FOR A SOLDIER--RETURNS FROM THE WARS AND OBTAINS
AN AMIABLE, RELIGIOUS WIFE--HER DOWER.

'We have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of
the power may be of God, and not of us.'--2 Cor 4:7

'For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my
ways, saith the Lord.'--Isaiah 55:8.

'Though ye have lien among the pots, yet shall ye be as the
wings of a dove covered with silver, and her feathers with yellow
gold.'--Psalm 68:13.

When the Philistine giant, Goliath, mocked the host of Israel,
and challenged any of their stern warriors to single combat, what
human being could have imagined that the gigantic heathen would be
successfully met in the mortal struggle by a youth 'ruddy and of
a fair countenance?' who unarmed, except with a sling and a stone,
gave the carcases of the hosts of the Philistines to the fouls of
the air, and to the wild beasts of the earth.'

Who, upon seeing an infant born in a stable, and laid in a manger,
or beholding him when a youth working with his father as a carpenter,
could have conceived that he was the manifestation of the Deity
in human form, before whom every knee should bow, and every tongue
confess Him to be THE ETERNAL?

Father Michael, a Franciscan friar, on a journey to Ancona,
having lost his way, sought direction from a wretched lad keeping
hogs--deserted, forlorn, his back smarting with severe stripes,
and his eyes suffused with tears. The poor ragged boy not only went
cheerfully with him to point out his road, but besought the monk
to take him into his convent, volunteering to fulfill the most
degrading services, in the hope of procuring a little learning,
and escaping from 'those filthy hogs.' How incredulously would the
friar have listened to anyone who could have suggested that this
desolate, tattered, dirty boy, might and would fill a greater than
an imperial throne! Yet, eventually that swine-herd was clothed
in purple and fine linen, and, under the title of Pope Sixtus V.,
became one of those mighty magicians who are described in Rogers
Italy, as


'Setting their feet upon the necks of kings,
And through the worlds subduing, chaining down
The free, immortal spirit--theirs a wondrous spell.' [1]


A woman that was 'a loose and ungodly wretch' hearing a tinker lad
most awfully cursing and swearing, protested to him that 'he swore
and cursed at that most fearful rate that it made her tremble to
hear him,' 'that he was the ungodliest fellow for swearing that
ever she heard in all her life,' and 'that he was able to spoil
all the youth in a whole town, if they came in his company.' This
blow at the young reprobate made that indelible impression which all
the sermons yet he had heard had failed to make. Satan, by one of
his own slaves, wounded a conscience which had resisted all the
overtures of mercy. The youth pondered her words in his heart;
they were good seed strangely sown, and their working formed one
of those mysterious steps which led the foul-mouthed blasphemer
to bitter repentance; who, when he had received mercy and pardon,
felt impelled to bless and magnify the Divine grace with shining,
burning thoughts and words. The poor profligate, swearing tinker
became transformed into the most ardent preacher of the love of
Christ--the well-trained author of The Jerusalem Sinner Saved, or
Good News to the Vilest of Men.

How often have the Saints of God been made a most unexpected blessing
to others. The good seed of Divine truth has been many times sown
by those who did not go out to sow, but who were profitably engaged
in cultivating their own graces, enjoying the communion of Saints,
and advancing their own personal happiness! Think of a few poor,
but pious happy women, sitting in the sun one beautiful summer's
day, before one of their cottages, probably each one with her
pillow on her lap, dexterously twisting the bobbins to make lace,
the profits of which helped to maintain their children. While
they are communing on the things of God, a traveling tinker draws
near, and, over-hearing their talk, takes up a position where
he might listen to their converse while he pursued his avocation.
Their words distil into his soul; they speak the language of Canaan;
they talk of holy enjoyments, the result of being born again,
acknowledging their miserable state by nature, and how freely and
undeservedly God had visited their hearts with pardoning mercy,
and supported them while suffering the assaults and suggestions
of Satan; how they had been borne up in every dark, cloudy, stormy
day; and how they contemned, slighted, and abhorred their own
righteousness as filthy and insufficient to do them any good. The
learned discourses our tinker had heard at church had casually
passed over his mind like evanescent clouds, and left little or no
lasting impression. But these poor women, 'methought they spake as
actually did make them speak; they speak with such pleasant as of
Scripture language, and with such appearance of grace in all they
said, that they were to me as if they had found a new world, as
if they were people that dwelt alone, and were not to be reckoned
among their neighbors' (Num 23:9).

O! how little did they imagine that their pious converse was to
be the means employed by the Holy Spirit in the conversion of that
poor tinker, and that, by their agency, he was to be transformed
into one of the brightest luminaries of heaven; who, when he had
entered into rest would leave his works to follow him as spiritual
thunder to pierce the hearts of the impenitent, and as heavenly
consolation to bind up the broken-hearted; liberating the prisoners
of Giant Despair, and directing the pilgrims to the Celestial City.
Thus were blessings in rich abundance showered down upon the church
by the instrumentality, in the first instance, of a woman that was
a sinner, but most eminently by the Christian converse of a few
poor but pious women.

This poverty-stricken, ragged tinker was the son of a working
mechanic at Elstow, near Bedford. So obscure was his origin that
even the Christian name of his father is yet unknown:[2] he was
born in 1628, a year memorable as that in which the Bill of Rights
was passed. Then began the struggle against arbitrary power, which
was overthrown in 1688, the year of Bunyan's death, by the accession
of William III. Of Bunyan's parents, his infancy, and childhood,
little is recorded. All that we know is from his own account, and
that principally contained in his doctrine of the Law and Grace,
and in his extraordinary development of his spiritual life, under
the title of Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners. His birth would
have shed a luster on the wealthiest mansion, and have imparted
additional grandeur to any lordly palace. Had royal or noble
gossips, and a splendid entertainment attended his christening,
it might have been pointed to with pride; but so obscure was his
birth, that it has not been discovered that he was christened at
all; while the fact of his new birth by the Holy Ghost is known
over the whole world to the vast extent that his writings have
been circulated. He entered this world in a labourer's cottage of
the humblest class, at the village of Elstow, about a mile from
Bedford.[3] His pedigree is thus narrated by himself:--'My descent
was of a low and inconsiderable generation, my father's house being
of that rank that is meanest and most despised of all the families
in the land.'[4] Bunyan alludes to this very pointedly in the preface
to A Few Sighs from Hell:--'I am thine, if thou be not ashamed to
own me, because of my low and contemptible descent in the world.'[5]
His poor and abject parentage was so notorious, that his pastor,
John Burton, apologized for it in his recommendation to The Gospel
Truths Opened:--'Be not offended because Christ holds forth the
glorious treasure of the gospel to thee in a poor earthen vessel,
by one who hath neither the greatness nor the wisdom of this world
to commend him to thee.'[6] And in his most admirable treatise, on
The Fear of God, Bunyan observes--'The poor Christian hath something
to answer them that reproach him for his ignoble pedigree, and
shortness of the glory of the wisdom of this world. True may that
man say I am taken out of the dunghill. I was born in a base and
low estate; but I fear God. This is the highest and most noble; he
hath the honour, the life, and glory that is lasting.'[7] In his
controversy with the Strict Baptists, he chides them for reviling
his ignoble pedigree:--'You closely disdain my person because of
my low descent among men, stigmatizing me as a person of THAT rank
that need not be heeded or attended unto.'[8] He inquired of his
father--'Whether we were of the Israelites or no? for, finding in
the Scripture that they were once the peculiar people of God, thought
I, if I were one of this race, my soul must needs be happy.'[9]
This somewhat justifies the conclusion that his father was a Gipsy
tinker, that occupation being then followed by the Gipsy tribe.
In the life of Bunyan appended to the forged third part of the
Pilgrim's Progress, his father is described as 'an honest poor
labouring man, who, like Adam unparadised, had all the world before
him to get his bread in; and was very careful and industrious to
maintain his family.'[10]

Happily for Bunyan, he was born in a neighbourhood in which it was
a disgrace to any parents not to have their children educated. With
gratitude he records, that 'it pleased God to put it into their
hearts to put me to school to learn both to read and to write.' In
the neighbourhood of his birthplace, a noble charity diffused the
blessings of lettered knowledge.[11] To this charity Bunyan was
for a short period indebted for the rudiments of education; but,
alas, evil associates made awful havoc of those slight unshapen
literary impressions which had been made upon a mind boisterous
and impatient of discipline. He says--'To my shame, I confess I
did soon lose that little I learned, and that almost utterly.'[12]
This fact will recur to the reader's recollection when he peruses
Israel's Hope Encouraged, in which, speaking of the all-important
doctrine of justification, he says--'It is with many that begin
with this doctrine as it is with boys that go to the Latin school;
they learn till they have learned the grounds of their grammar,
and then go home and forget all.'[13]

As soon as his strength enabled him, he devoted his whole soul and
body to licentiousness--'As for my own natural life, for the time
that I was without God in the world, it was indeed according to
the course of this world, and the spirit that now worketh in the
children of disobedience. It was my delight to be taken captive by
the devil at his will: being filled with all unrighteousness; that
from a child I had but few equals, both for cursing, swearing,
lying, and blaspheming the holy name of God.'[14]

It has been supposed, that in delineating the early career of
Badman, 'Bunyan drew the picture of his own boyhood.'[15] But the
difference is broadly given. Badman is the child of pious parents,
who gave him a 'good education' in every sense, both moral and
secular;[16] the very reverse of Bunyan's training. His associates
would enable him to draw the awful character and conduct of Badman,
as a terrible example to deter others from the downward road to
misery and perdition.

Bunyan's parents do not appear to have checked, or attempted to
counteract, his unbridled career of wickedness. He gives no hint
of the kind; but when he notices his wife's father, he adds that he
'was counted godly'; and in his beautiful nonsectarian catechism,
there is a very touching conclusion to his instructions to children
on their behaviour to their parents:--'The Lord, if it be his will,
convert our poor parents, that they, with us, may be the children
of God.'[17] These fervent expressions may refer to his own parents;
and, connecting them with other evidence, it appears that he was
not blessed with pious example. Upon one occasion, when severely
reproved for swearing, he says--'I wished, with all my heart, that
I might be a little child again, that my father might learn me to
speak without this wicked way of swearing.'[18] In his numerous
confessions, he never expresses pain at having, by his vicious
conduct, occasioned grief to his father or mother. From this
it may be inferred, that neither his father's example nor precept
had checked this wretched propensity to swearing, and that he owed
nothing to his parents for moral training; but, on the contrary,
they had connived at, and encouraged him in, a course of life which
made him a curse to the neighbourhood in which he lived.

In the midst of all this violent depravity, the Holy Spirit began
the work of regeneration in his soul--a long, a solemn, yea, an
awful work--which was to fit this poor debauched youth for purity
of conduct--for communion with heaven--for wondrous usefulness as
a minister of the gospel--for patient endurance of sufferings for
righteousness' sake--for the writing of works which promise to be
a blessing to the Church in all ages--for his support during his
passage through the black river which has no bridge--to shine all
bright and glorious, as a star in the firmament of heaven. 'Wonders
of grace to God belong.'

During the period of his open profligacy, his conscience was ill
at ease; at times the clanking of Satan's slavish chains in which
he was hurrying to destruction, distracted him. The stern reality
of a future state clouded and embittered many of those moments
employed in gratifying his baser passions. The face of the eventful
times in which he lived was rapidly changing; the trammels were
loosened, which, with atrocious penalties, had fettered all free
inquiry into religious truth. Puritanism began to walk upright; and
as the restraints imposed upon Divine truths were taken off, in the
same proportion restraints were imposed upon impiety, profaneness,
and debauchery. A ringleader in all wickedness would not long
continue without reproof, either personally, or as seen in the holy
conduct of others. Bunyan very properly attributed to a gracious
God, those checks of conscience which he so strongly felt even while
he was apparently dead in trespasses and sins. 'The Lord, even in
my childhood, did scare and affright me with fearful dreams, and did
terrify me with dreadful visions.'[19] 'I often wished that there
had been no hell, or that I had been a devil to torment others.'
A common childish but demoniac idea. His mind was as 'the troubled
sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt.'
'A while after, these terrible dreams did leave me; and with more
greediness, according to the strength of nature, I did let loose
the reins of my lusts, and delighted in all transgression against
the law of God.' 'I was the very ringleader of all the youth that
kept me company, into ALL MANNER of vice and ungodliness.'[20]

Dr. Southey and others have attempted to whiten this blackamore, but
the veil that they throw over him is so transparent that it cannot
deceive those who are in the least degree spiritually enlightened.
He alleges that Bunyan, in his mad career of vice and folly, 'was
never so given over to a reprobate mind,'[21] as to be wholly
free from compunctions of conscience. This is the case with every
depraved character; but he goes further, when he asserts that
'Bunyan's heart never was hardened.'[22] This is directly opposed
to his description of himself:--'I found within me a great desire
to take my fill of sin, still studying what sin was yet to be
committed; and I made as much haste as I could to fill my belly
with its delicates, lest I should die before I had my desire.' He
thus solemnly adds, 'In these things, I protest before God, I lie
not, neither do I feign this sort of speech; these were really,
strongly, and with all my heart, my desires; the good Lord, whose
mercy is unsearchable, forgive me my transgressions.' The whole
of his career, from childhood to manhood, was, 'According to the
course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the
air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience'
(Eph 2:2).

These reminiscences are alluded to in the prologue of the Holy
War:--


'When Mansoul trampled upon things Divine,
And wallowed in filth as doth a swine,
Then I was there, and did rejoice to see
Diabolus and Mansoul so agree.'


The Laureate had read this, and yet considers it the language of
a heart that 'never was hardened.' He says that 'the wickedness
of the tinker has been greatly overcharged, and it is taking the
language of self-accusation too literally to pronounce of John
Bunyan, that he was at any time depraved. The worst of what he was
in his worst days is to be expressed in a single word, the full
meaning of which no circumlocution can convey; and which, though
it may hardly be deemed presentable in serious composition, I shall
use, as Bunyan himself (no mealy-mouthed writer) would have used
it, had it in his days borne the same acceptation in which it is now
universally understood;--in that word then, he had been a blackguard.


The very head and front of his offending
Hath this extent--no more.'[23]


The meaning of the epithet is admirably explained; but what could
Dr. Southey imagine possible to render such a character more vile
in the sight of God, or a greater pest to society? Is there any
vicious propensity, the gratification of which is not included in
that character? Bunyan's estimate of his immorality and profaneness
prior to his conversion, was not made by comparing himself with
the infinitely Holy One, but he measured his conduct by that of
his more moral neighbours. In his Jerusalem Sinner Saved, he pleads
with great sinners, the outwardly and violently profane and vicious,
that if HE had received mercy, and had become regenerated, they
surely ought not to despair, but to seek earnestly for the same
grace. He thus describes himself:--'I speak by experience; I was
one of those great sin-breeders; I infected all the youth of the
town where I was born; the neighbours counted me so, my practice
proved me so: wherefore, Christ Jesus took me first; and, taking
me first, the contagion was much allayed all the town over. When
God made me sigh, they would hearken, and inquiringly say, What's
the matter with John? When I went out to seek the bread of life,
some of them would follow, and the rest be put into a muse at home.
Some of them, perceiving that God had mercy upon me, came crying to
him for mercy too.'[24] Can any one, in the face of such language,
doubt that he was most eminently 'a brand snatched from the fire';
a pitchy burning brand, known and seen as such by all who witnessed
his conduct? He pointedly exemplified the character set forth by
James, 'the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity, set on fire of
hell' (James 3:6). This was as publicly known before his conversion,
as the effects of the wondrous change were openly seen in his
Christian career afterwards. He who, when convinced of sin, strained
his eyes to see the distant shining light over the wicket-gate,
after he had gazed upon


--'The wondrous cross
On which the Prince of glory died,'


became a luminous beacon, to attract the vilest characters to seek
newness of life; and if there be hope for them, no one ought to
despair. Far be it from us to cloud this light, or to tarnish so
conspicuous an example. Like a Magdalene or a thief on the cross,
his case may be exhibited to encourage hope in every returning
prodigal. During this period of his childhood, while striving to
harden his heart against God, many were the glimmerings of light
which from time to time directed his unwilling eyes to a dread
eternity. In the still hours of the night 'in a dream God opened'
his ears[25]--the dreadful vision was that 'devils and wicked
spirits laboured to draw me away with them.' These thoughts must
have left a deep and alarming impression upon his mind; for he
adds, 'of which I could never be rid.'[26]

The author of his life, published in 1692, who was one of his
personal friends, gives the following account of Bunyan's profligacy,
and his checks of conscience:--'He himself hath often, since his
conversion, confessed with horror, that when he was but a child or
stripling, he had but few equals for lying, swearing, and blaspheming
God's holy name--living without God in the world; the thoughts of
which, when he, by the light of Divine grace, came to understand his
dangerous condition, drew many showers of tears from his sorrowful
eyes, and sighs from his groaning heart. The first thing that
sensibly touched him in this his unregenerate state, were fearful
dreams, and visions of the night, which often made him cry out in
his sleep, and alarm the house, as if somebody was about to murder
him, and being waked, he would start, and stare about him with
such a wildness, as if some real apparition had yet remained;
and generally those dreams were about evil spirits, in monstrous
shapes and forms, that presented themselves to him in threatening
postures, as if they would have taken him away, or torn him in
pieces. At some times they seemed to belch flame, at other times
a continuous smoke, with horrible noises and roaring. Once he
dreamed he saw the face of the heavens, as it were, all on fire;
the firmament crackling and shivering with the noise of mighty
thunders, and an archangel flew in the midst of heaven, sounding a
trumpet, and a glorious throne was seated in the east, whereon sat
one in brightness, like the morning star, upon which he, thinking
it was the end of the world, fell upon his knees, and, with uplifted
hands towards heaven, cried, O Lord God, have mercy upon me! What
shall I do, the day of judgment is come, and I am not prepared! When
immediately he heard a voice behind him, exceeding loud, saying,
Repent. At another time he dreamed that he was in a pleasant
place, jovial and rioting, banqueting and feasting his senses, when
a mighty earthquake suddenly rent the earth, and made a wide gap,
out of which came bloody flames, and the figures of men tossed
up in globes of fire, and falling down again with horrible cries,
shrieks, and execrations, whilst some devils that were mingled
with them, laughed aloud at their torments; and whilst he stood
trembling at this sight, he thought the earth sunk under him, and
a circle of flame enclosed him; but when he fancied he was just at
the point to perish, one in white shining raiment descended, and
plucked him out of that dreadful place; whilst the devils cried
after him, to leave him with them, to take the just punishment his
sins had deserved, yet he escaped the danger, and leaped for joy
when he awoke and found it was a dream.'

Such dreams as these fitted him in after life to be the glorious
dreamer of the Pilgrim's Progress, in which a dream is told which
doubtless embodies some of those which terrified him in the night
visions of his youth.

In the interpreter's house he is 'led into a chamber where there
was one rising out of bed, and as he put on his raiment he shook
and trembled. Then said Christian, Why doth this man thus tremble?
The Interpreter then bid him tell to Christian the reason of his
so doing. So he began and said, This night, as I was in my sleep
I dreamed, and behold the heavens grew exceeding black; also it
thundered and lightened in most fearful wise, that it put me into
an agony. So I looked up in my dream, and saw the clouds rack at
an unusual rate, upon which I heard a great sound of a trumpet,
and saw also a man sit upon a cloud, attended with the thousands of
heaven--they were all in flaming fire; also the heavens were in a
burning flame. I heard then a voice saying, "Arise, ye dead, and
come to judgment;" and with that the rocks rent, the graves opened,
and the dead that were therein came forth. Some of them were exceeding
glad, and looked upward; and some sought to hide themselves under
the mountains. Then I saw the man that sat upon the cloud open the
book, and bid the world draw near. Yet there was, by reason of a
fierce flame which issued out and came from before him, a convenient
distance betwixt him and them, as betwixt the judge and prisoners
at the bar. I heard it also proclaimed, "Gather together the tares,
the chaff, and stubble, and cast them into the burning lake"; and
with that the bottomless pit opened just whereabout I stood, out
of the mouth of which there came, in an abundant manner, smoke and
coals of fire, with hideous noises. It was also said, "Gather my
wheat into the garner"; and with that I saw many catched up and
carried away into the clouds, but I was left behind. I also sought
to hide myself, but I could not, for the man that sat upon the
cloud still kept his eye upon me; my sins also came into my mind,
and my conscience did accuse me on every side. Upon that I awaked
from my sleep.'