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Rev. James Hamilton >> Life of Bunyan
LIFE OF BUNYAN
by Rev. James Hamilton
Scotch Church, Regent Square, London.
After the pleasant sketches of pens so graceful as Southey's and
Montgomery's; after the elaborate biography of Mr Philip, whose
researches have left few desiderata for any subsequent devotee;
indeed, after Bunyan'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. Our main object is to give a simple and coherent
account of a most unusual man--and then we should like to turn to
some instructive purpose the peculiarities of his singular history,
and no less singular works.
John Bunyan was born at Elstow, near Bedford, in 1628. His father
was a brazier or tinker, and brought up his son as a craftsman of
like occupation. There is no evidence for the gipsy origin of the
house of Bunyan; and though extremely poor, John's father gave his
son such an education as poor men could then obtain for their
children. He was sent to school and taught to read and write.
There has been some needless controversy regarding Bunyan's early
days. Some have too readily taken for granted that he was in all
respects a reprobate; and others--the chief of whom is Dr Southey--
have laboured to shew that there was little in the lad which any
would censure, save the righteous overmuch. 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. 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. 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's epithet--"a blackguard." The reader need
not go far to see young Bunyan. Perhaps there is near your dwelling
an Elstow--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. And
it is now verging to the close of the summer's day. The daws are
taking short excursions from the steeple, and tamer fowls have gone
home from the darkening and dewy green. But old Bunyan's donkey is
still browzing there, and yonder is old Bunyan's self--the brawny
tramper dispread on the settle, retailing to the more clownish
residents tap-room wit and roadside news. However, it is young
Bunyan you wish to see. Yonder he is, the noisiest of the party,
playing pitch-and-toss--that one with the shaggy eyebrows, whose
entire soul is ascending in the twirling penny--grim enough to be the
blacksmith'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. The penny has come down with the wrong side
uppermost, and the loud execration at once bewrays young Badman. You
have only to remember that it is Sabbath evening, and you witness a
scene often enacted on Elstow green two hundred years ago.
The strong depraving element in Bunyan's character was UNGODLINESS.
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, "Depart from me, for I desire not the
knowledge of thy ways." The only restraining influence of which he
then felt the power, was terror. 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. 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. 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. He would wish that there had been no hell at all;
or that, if he must needs go thither, he might be a devil, "supposing
they were only tormentors, and I would rather be a tormentor than
tormented myself."
These were the fears of his childhood. As he grew older, he grew
harder. He experienced some remarkable providences, but they neither
startled nor melted him. 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. One day in the field with a companion, an adder
glided across their path. Bunyan's ready switch stunned it in a
moment; but with characteristic daring, he forced open the creature's
mouth, and plucked out the sting--a foolhardiness which, as he
himself observes, might, but for God's mercy, have brought him to his
end. In the civil war he was "drawn" as a soldier to go to the siege
of Leicester; but when ready to set out, a comrade sought leave to
take his place. Bunyan consented. His companion went to Leicester,
and, standing sentry, was shot through the head, and died. These
interpositions made no impression on him at the time.
He married very early: "And my mercy was to light upon a wife, whose
father was counted godly. This woman and I, though we came together
as poor as poor might be--not having so much household stuff as a
dish or spoon betwixt us, yet this she had for her portion, 'The
Plain Man's Pathway to Heaven,' and 'The Practice of Piety,' 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. 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. 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--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. But, withal, I was so
overrun with the spirit of superstition, that I adored, and that with
great devotion, even all things--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."
So strong was this superstitious feeling--one shared by the ignorant
peasantry in many portions of England, even at the present day--that
"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--their name, their
garb, and work, did so intoxicate and bewitch him." It little
matters what form superstition takes--image-worship, priest-worship,
or temple-worship; nothing is transforming except Christ in the
heart, a Saviour realized, accepted, and enthroned. 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.
One day, however, he heard a sermon on the sin of Sabbath-breaking.
It fell heavy on his conscience; for it seemed all intended for him.
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. He was busy at a game called "Cat," and had already
struck the ball one blow, and was about to deal another, when "a
voice darted from heaven into his soul, 'Wilt thou leave thy sins and
go to heaven, or have thy sins and go to hell?'" 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. "My state is
surely miserable--miserable if I leave my sins, and but miserable if
I follow them. I can but be damned; and if I must be so, I had as
good be damned for many sins as few." 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.
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. He seldom believed; he always felt and saw. And
he could do nothing by halves. 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. 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.
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's window, cursing and swearing,
and "playing the madman, after his wonted manner," 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. The woman was
herself a notoriously worthless character; and so severe a reproof,
from so strange a quarter, had a singular effect on Bunyan's mind.
He was in a moment silenced. 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. Nevertheless, so it was, from
that instant onward he was cured of his wicked habit, and people
wondered at the change.
"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. 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'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. 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. 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. 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. Now, therefore,
they began to speak well of me, both before my face and behind my
back. Now I was, as they said, become godly; now I was become a
right honest man. But oh! when I understood these were their words
and opinions of me, it pleased me mighty well. 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 . . . And thus I continued for about a
twelvemonth or more."
Though not acting from enlightened MOTIVES, Bunyan was now under the
guidance of new INFLUENCES. 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. The real
and final transformation is rather within the man than upon him. So
was it with John Bunyan. 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. It was slowly and regretfully,
however, that he severed the "right hand." One of his principal
amusements was one which he could not comfortably continue. It was
BELL-RINGING; by which he probably means the merry peals with which
they used to desecrate their Sabbath evenings. It was only by
degrees that he was able to abandon this favourite diversion. "What
if one of the bells should fall?" To provide against this
contingency, he took his stand under a beam fastened across the
tower. "But what if the falling bell should rebound from one of the
side walls, and hit me after all?" This thought sent him down
stairs, and made him take his station, rope in hand, at the steeple
door. "But what if the steeple itself should come down?" This
thought banished him altogether, and he bade adieu to bell-ringing.
And by a similar series of concessions, eventually, but with longer
delay, he gave up another practice, for which his conscience checked
him--dancing. 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. The
Son had not made him free.
There is such a thing as cant. 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. 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--or rather, God in
it--has done for them. There are few things which indicate a
healthier state of personal piety than such a frank and full-hearted
Christian intercourse. It was a specimen of such communings which
impressed on the mind of Bunyan the need of something beyond an
outside reformation. 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. He drew near to listen
to their discourse. It surprised him; for though he had by this time
become a great talker on sacred subjects, their themes were far
beyond his reach. God's work in their souls, the views they had
obtained of their natural misery and of God'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. "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--as if they were 'people that dwelt alone, and were not to be
reckoned among their neighbours!'"
The conversation of these poor people made a deep impression on
Bunyan's mind. He saw that there was something in real religion into
which he had not yet penetrated. He sought the society of these
humble instructors, and learned from them much that he had not known
before. 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. A sect of
Antinomians, who boasted that they could do whatsoever they pleased
without sinning, now fell in his way. 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. He read their books, and pondered their principles; but
prefaced his examination with the simple prayer,--"O Lord, I am a
fool, and not able to know the truths from error. Lord, leave me not
to my own blindness. If this doctrine be of God, let me not despise
it; if it be of the devil, let me not embrace it. Lord, in this
matter I lay my soul only at thy foot: let me not be deceived, I
humbly beseech thee." His prayer was heard, and he was saved from
this snare of the devil.
The object to which the eye of an inquiring sinner should be turned,
is CHRIST--the finished work and the sufficient Saviour. But, in
point of fact, the chief stress of the more evangelical instruction
has usually been laid on FAITH--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. By some such misdirection
Bunyan was misled. In quest of faith he went a long and joyless
journey, and was wearied with the greatness of his way. 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. One day, on the road
from Elstow to Bedford, it was suggested to his mind to try some
miracle, and that miracle should be, "to say to the puddles which
were in the horse-pads, 'Be dry,' and to the dry places, 'Be you
puddles.'" However, before doing this, he thought he should go over
the hedge and pray for faith, and then come and speak the word. "But
what if, after you have prayed and tried to do it, nothing happens?"
The dread of this alternative made him postpone the anxious
experiment, and left him still in doubt.
Then he had a sort of waking vision, suggested by what he had seen in
his pious friends at Bedford. "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. 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.
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. But none could I find for some time. At the last I saw, as
it were, a narrow gap, like a little doorway in the wall, through
which I attempted to pass. 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. 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. {1}
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. 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. 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."
The dream did him good, for, though it brought him no absolute
assurance, it inspirited his efforts after it.
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. At
one time he was afflicted by an erroneous view of the doctrine of
election. 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--a frowning chevaux de frise, rather than a fence of
protection and preservation. And when somewhat relieved from this
perplexity, he fell into another. 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. But the
words, "Compel them to come in, that my house may be filled;" and
those others, "And yet there is room," brought him relief. 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. "But oh!
how I now loved those words that spake of a Christian'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! How lovely now was every one in my eyes, that I
thought to be converted, whether man or woman! They shone, they
walked like a people that carried the broad seal of heaven upon them.
Oh! I saw the lot was fallen to them in pleasant places, and they had
a goodly heritage. But that which made me sick, was that of Christ,-
-'He went up into a mountain, and called to him whom he would, and
they came unto him.' This Scripture made me faint and fear, yet it
kindled fire in my soul. That which made me fear was this: lest
Christ should have no liking to me, for he called whom he would. 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, '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. But oh! I feared he would not call me.'"
There was at that time a minister in Bedford whose history was almost
as remarkable as Bunyan's own. His name was Gifford. He had been a
staunch royalist, and concerned in the rising in Kent. He was
arrested, and, with eleven of his comrades, was doomed to die. The
night before the day fixed for his execution his sister came to visit
him. She found the guard asleep, and, with her assistance, the
prisoner effected his escape. 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. Being there a
perfect stranger, he ventured on the practice of physic; but he was
still abandoned to reckless habits and outrageous vice. 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. In his vexation he snatched up a
book. It was a volume of Bolton, a solemn and forceful writer then
well known. A sentence in this book so fixed on his conscience that
for many weeks he could get no rest in his spirit. 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's love. 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. A little church
was formed, and he was invited to become its pastor; and there he
continued till he died. {2} It was to this Mr Gifford that Bunyan
was at this time introduced; and though the conversations of this
"Evangelist" 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.