The Works of John Bunyan, vol 1, John Bunyan [reading like a writer TXT] 📗

Charles I.[325] These were given by Robert Bunyan, in 1839, then sixty-four years of age, to a younger branch of the family, Mr. Charles Robinson, of Wilford, near Nottingham (his sister’s son), for safe custody. He died in 1852; while his aged uncle remains in good health, subject to the infirmities of his seventy-eighth year. On many of the blank spaces in the Bible are the registers of births and deaths in the family, evidently written at the time. Those relics are deposited in a carved oak box. They were sold with the late Mr. Robinson’s effects, January, 1853, and secured for me by my excellent friend James Dix, Esq., of Bristol, who met with them immediately after the sale, on one of his journeys at Nottingham. They are not worshipped as relics, nor have they performed miracles, but as curiosities of a past age they are worthy of high consideration. Everything that was used by him, and that survives the ravages of time, possesses a peculiar charm; even the chair in which he at is preserved in the vestry of the new chapel, and is shown to those who make the pilgrimage to the shrine of Bunyan.[326]

In the same vestry is also a curious inlaid cabinet, small, and highly finished. It descended from Bunyan to a lady who lived to an advanced age—Madam Bithray; from her to the Rev. Mr. Voley; and of his widow it was purchased to ornament the vestry of Bunyan’s meeting-house.

The personal appearance and character of our pilgrim’s guide, drawn by his friend Charles Doe, will be found at the end of his Grace Abounding; to which is appended his Dying Sayings—‘of sin—afflictions—repentance and coming to Christ—of prayer—of the Lord’s day, sermons, and week days: “Make the Lord’s day the market for thy soul”—of the love of the world—of suffering—of death and judgment—of the joys of heaven—and the torments of hell.’

How inscrutable are the ways of God! Had Bunyan lived a month longer, he would have witnessed the glorious Revolution—the escape of a great nation. The staff and hope of Protestant Europe was saved from a subtle—a Jesuitical attempt—to introduce Popery and arbitrary government. The time of his death, as a release from the incumbrance of a material body, was fixed by infinite wisdom and love at that juncture, and it ought not to be a cause of regret.

His interest in the welfare of the church ceased not with his mortal life. How swiftly would his glorified spirit fly to see the landing of William, and hover with joy over the flight of the besotted James! He was now in a situation to prove the truth of that saying, ‘the angels desire to look into’ the truth and spread of the glad tidings. How he would prove the reality of his opinion, expressed in The Holy War, of the interest taken by the inhabitants of heaven in the prosperity of the church on earth. When Mansoul was conquered, the spirits that witnessed the victory ‘shouted with that greatness of voice, and sung with such melodious notes, that they caused them that dwell in the highest orbs to open their windows, and put out their heads and look down to see the cause of that glory’ (Luke 15:7-10).[327] So may we imagine that the happy, happy, glorified spirit of Bunyan would look down rejoicing, when, a few years after he had yielded up his pastoral cares, the seed which he had been instrumental in sowing produced its fruit in such numbers, that the old meeting-house was pulled down, and in its place a large and respectable one was erected. And again, on the 20th February, 1850, with what joy would he look down upon the opening of a still larger, more commodious, and handsome meeting-house, bearing his name, and capable of holding 1150 worshippers. One of Bunyan’s pungent, alarming sayings to the careless was, ‘Once die, we cannot come back and die better.’[328] If anything could tempt him, in his angelic body, to re-visit this earth, it would be to address the multitude at the new Bunyan Chapel with his old sermon on The Jerusalem Sinner Saved, or Good News to the Vilest of Men.

But we have Moses and the prophets—Christ and his apostles; if we shut our ears to them, neither should we listen to a messenger from the New Jerusalem.

When it is recollected that Bunyan received the most imperfect rudiments of education in a charity school when very young, which were ‘almost entirely’ obliterated by bad habits—that he was a hard-working man through life, maintaining himself, a wife, and four children, by his severe labour as a brazier—and yet, by personal efforts, he educated himself and wrote sixty-two valuable religious treatises, numbering among them his inimitable allegories, The Pilgrim’s Progress and Holy War, made a Concordance to the Bible, and conducted important controversies. Preaching, while at liberty, almost innumerable sermons on the Lord’s-days and week-days, early in the morning and late at night. Visiting his flock with pastoral care—founding churches in the villages, and even in towns and cities far distant from his dwelling—constantly giving advice to promote peace and good will, and rendering benevolent aid by long journeys! His whole life presents to us a picture of most astonishing, energetic perseverance. Every moment of time must have been employed as if he valued it as a precious trust, which, if once lost, could never be regained. Who of us can compare our life with his last thirty years, and not blush with shame!

The finest trait in Bunyan’s Christian character was his deep, heartfelt humility. This is the more extraordinary from his want of secular education, and his unrivalled talent. The more we learn, the greater is the field for research that opens before us, insomuch that the wisest philosophers have most seriously felt the little progress they have made. He acknowledged to Mr. Cockayn, who considered him the most eminent man, and a star of the first magnitude in the firmament of the churches,[329] that spiritual pride was his easily besetting sin, and that he needed the thorn in the flesh, lest he should be exalted above measure. A sense of this weakness probably led him to peculiar watchfulness against it. His self-abasement was neither tinctured with affectation, nor with the pride of humility.

His humble-mindedness appeared to arise form his intimate communion with Heaven. In daily communion with God, he received a daily lesson of deeper and deeper humility. ‘I am the high and lofty One, I inhabit eternity! verily this consideration is enough to make a broken-hearted man creep into a mouse-hole, to hide himself from such majesty! There is room in this man’s heart for God to dwell.’[330]

‘I find it one of the hardest things that I can put my soul upon, even to come to God, when warmly sensible that I am a sinner, for a share in grace and mercy. I cannot but with a thousand tears say, “God be merciful to me a sinner” (Ezra 9:15).’[331]

The Revs. Messrs. Chandler and Wilson, bear the following testimony as eye-witnesses to his character:—‘His fancy and invention were very pregnant and fertile. His wit was sharp and quick—his memory tenacious, it being customary with him to commit his sermons to writing after he had preached them,’ a proof of extraordinary industry. ‘His understanding was large and comprehensive—his judgment sound and deep in the fundamentals of the gospel. His experience of Satan’s temptations in the power and policy of them, and of Christ’s presence in, and by his Word and Spirit to succour and comfort him, was more than ordinary; the grace of God was magnified in him and by him, and a rich anointing of the Spirit was upon him; and yet this great saint was always in his own eyes the chiefest of sinners, and the least of saints. He was not only well furnished with the helps and endowments of nature, beyond ordinary, but eminent in the graces and gifts of the Spirit, and fruits of holiness. He was from first to last established in, and ready to maintain, that God-like principle of having communion with saints as such, without any respect to difference in things disputable among the godly. His carriage was condescending, affable, and meek to all, yet bold and courageous for Christ. He was much struck at, in the lat times of persecution; being far from any sinful compliance to save himself, he did cheerfully bear the cross.’ Such was the character given of him by these two eminent divines, in 1693, while his memory, in its fullest fragrance, was cherished by all the churches.

This humility peculiarly fitted him to instruct the young, of whom he was very fond—

‘Nor do I blush, although I think some may Call me a baby, ‘cause I with them play; I do ‘t to show them how each fingle fangle On which they doating are, their souls entangle; And, since at gravity they make a tush, My very beard I cast behind a bush.’[332]

He had friends among the rich as well as the poor. Of this his solid gold ring and handsome cabinet are proofs. From a letter in the Ellis correspondence, we learn that Bunyan had so secured the affections of the Lord Mayor of London, as to be called his chaplain.[333]

Among his religious friends and associates he must have been a pleasing, entertaining, lively companion. However solemn, nay awful, had been his experience when walking through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, yet when emerging from the darkness and enjoying the sunshine of Divine favour, he loved social intercourse and communion of saints. It is one of the slanders heaped upon Christianity to call it a gloomy, melancholy theme: though ‘it is better to go to the house of mourning than to the house of feasting,’ yet the wisely pious man will endeavour, even at an elegant entertainment or a Lord Mayor’s dinner, to drop useful hints. Whenever Bunyan describes a social party, especially a feast, he always introduces a wholesome dish; and it is singular, in the abundance of publications, that we have not been favoured with John Bunyan’s Nuts to Crack at Religious Entertainments, or a Collection of his Pious Riddles.

Thus, at the splendid royal feast given to Emmanuel, when he entered Mansoul in triumph, ‘he entertained the town with some curious riddles, of secrets drawn up by his father’s secretary, by the skill and wisdom of Shaddai, the like to which there are not in any kingdom.’ ‘Emmanuel also expounded unto them some of those riddles himself, but O how were they lightened! They saw what they never saw, they could not have thought that such rarities could have been couched in such few and ordinary words. The lamb, the sacrifice, the rock, the door, the way.’[334] ‘The second Adam was before the first, and the second covenant was before the first.’[335] ‘Was Adam bad before he eat the forbidden fruit?’[336] ‘How can a man say his prayers without a word being read or uttered?’[337] ‘How do men speak with their feet?’ Answer, Proverbs 6:13.[338] ‘Why was the brazen laver made of the women’s looking-glasses?’[339] ‘How can we comprehend that which cannot be comprehended, or know that which passeth knowledge?’[340] ‘Who was the founder of the state or priestly domination over religion?’[341] What is meant by the drum of Diabolus and other riddles mentioned in The Holy War?[342]

The poetical riddles in The Pilgrim’s Progress are very striking—

‘A man there was, though some did count him mad, The more he cast away, the more he had.’

How can ‘evil make the soul from evil turn.’[343]

Can ‘sin be driven out of the world by suffering?’[344]

‘Though it may seem to some a riddle, We use to light our candles at the middle.’[345]

‘What men die two deaths at once?’[346]

‘Are men ever in heaven and on earth at the