The Works of John Bunyan, vol 3 by John Bunyan (summer books .TXT) 📕

WISE. Indeed some children do greatly mend when put under other men’s roofs; but, as I said, this naughty boy did not so; nor did his badness continue because he wanted a master that both could and did correct it. For his master was a very good man, a very devout person; one that frequented the best soul means, that set up the worship of God in his family, and also that walked himself thereafter. He was also a man very meek and merciful, one that did never over-drive young Badman in business, nor that kept him at it at unseasonable hours.

ATTEN. Say you so! This is rare. I for my part can see but few that can parallel, in these things, with Mr. Badman’s master.

WISE. Nor I neither, yet Mr. Badman had such an one; for, for the most part, masters are now-a-days such as mind nothing but their worldly concerns, and if apprentices do but answer their commands therein, soul and religion may go whither they will. Yea, I much fear that there have been many towardly lads put out by their parents to such masters, that have quite undone them as to the next world.

ATTEN. The more is the pity. But, pray, now you have touched upon this subject, show me how many ways a master may be the ruin of his poor apprentice.

WISE. Nay, I cannot tell you of all the ways, yet some of them I will mention. Suppose, then, that a towardly lad be put to be an apprentice with one that is reputed to be a godly man, yet that lad may be ruined many ways; that is, if his master be not circumspect in all things that respect both God and man, and that before his apprentice.

1. If he be not moderate in the use of his apprentice; if he drives him beyond his strength; if he holds him to work at unseasonable hours; if he will not allow him convenient time to read the Word, to pray, &c. This is the way to destroy him; that is, in those tender beginning of good thoughts, and good beginnings about spiritual things.

2. If he suffers his house to be scattered with profane and wicked books, such as stir up to lust, to wantonness, such as teach idle, wanton, lascivious discourse, and such as have a tendency to provoke to profane drollery and jesting; and lastly, such as tend to corrupt and pervert the doctrine of faith and holiness. All these things will eat as doth a canker, and will quickly spoil, in youth, &c. those good beginnings that may be putting forth themselves in them.

3. If there be a mixture of servants, that is, if some very bad be in the same place, that is a way also to undo such tender lads; for they that are bad and sordid servants will be often, and they have an opportunity too, to be distilling and fomenting of their profane and wicked words and tricks before them, and these will easily stick in the flesh and minds of youth, to the corrupting of them.

4. If the master have one guise for abroad, and another for home; that is, if his religion hangs by in his house as his cloak does, and he be seldom in it, except he be abroad; this young beginners will take notice of, and stumble at. We say, hedges have eyes, and little pitchers have ears;[23] and, indeed, children make a greater inspection into the lives of fathers, masters, &c., than ofttimes they are aware of. And therefore should masters be careful, else they may so destroy good beginnings in their servants.

5. If the master be unconscionable in his dealing, and trades with lying words; or if bad commodities be avouched to be good, or if he seeks after unreasonable gain, or the like; his servant sees it, and it is enough to undo him. Eli’s sons being bad before the congregation, made men despise the sacrifices of the Lord (1 Sam 2).

But these things, by the by, only they may serve for a hint to masters to take heed that they take not apprentices to destroy their souls. But young Badman had none of these hindrances; his father took care, and provided well for him, as to this. He had a good master, he wanted not good books, nor good instruction, nor good sermons, nor good examples, no nor good fellow-servants neither; but all would not do.

ATTEN. It is a wonder that in such a family, amidst so many spiritual helps, nothing should take hold of his heart! What!

not good books, nor good instructions, nor good sermons, nor good examples, nor good fellow-servants, nor nothing do him good!

WISE. You talk, he minded none of these things; nay, all these were abominable to him. 1. For good books, they might lie in his master’s house till they rotted from him, he would not regard to look into them; but contrariwise, would get all the bad and abominable books that he could, as beastly romances, and books full of ribaldry, even such as immediately tended to set all fleshly lusts on fire.[24] True, he durst not be known to have any of these to his master; therefore would he never let them be seen by him, but would keep them in close places, and peruse them at such times as yielded him fit opportunities thereto.

2. For good instruction, he liked that much as he liked good books; his care was to hear but little thereof, and to forget what he heard as soon as it was spoken. Yea, I have heard some that knew him then say, that one might evidently discern by the show of his countenance and gestures that good counsel was to him like little ease, even a continual torment to him; nor did he ever count himself at liberty but when farthest off of wholesome words (Prov 15:12). He would hate them that rebuked him, and count them his deadly enemies (Prov 9:8).

3. For good example, which was frequently set him by his master, both in religious and civil matters, these young Badman would laugh at, and would also make a by-word of them when he came in place where he with safety could.

4. His master indeed would make him go with him to sermons, and that here he thought the best preachers were, but this ungodly young man, what shall I say, was, I think, a master of art in all mischief, he had these wicked ways to hinder himself of hearing, let the preacher thunder never so loud. 1. His way was, when come into the place of hearing, to sit down in some corner and then to fall fast asleep. 2. Or else to fix his adulterous eyes upon some beautiful object that was in the place, and so all sermon-while therewith to be feeding of his fleshly lusts. 3. Or, if he could get near to some that he had observed would fit his humour, he would be whispering, giggling, and playing with them till such time as sermon was done.

ATTEN. Why! he was grown to a prodigious height of wickedness.

WISE. He was so, and that which aggravates all was, this was his practice as soon as he was come to his master—he was as ready at all these things as if he had, before he came to his master, served an apprenticeship to learn them.

ATTEN. There could not but be added, as you relate them, rebellion to his sin. Methinks it is as if he had said, I will not hear, I will not regard, I will not mind good, I will not mend, I will not turn, I will not be converted.

WISE. You say true, and I know not to whom more fitly to compare him than to that man who, when I myself rebuked him or his wickedness, in this great huff replied, What would the devil do for company if it was not for such as I?

ATTEN. Why, did you ever hear any man say so?

WISE. Yes, that I did, and this young Badman was as like him as an egg is like an egg. Alas! the Scripture makes mention of many that by their actions speak the same, ‘They say unto God, Depart from us, for we desire not the knowledge of thy ways’ (Job 21:14).

Again, ‘They refused to hearken, and pulled away the shoulder, and stopped their ears. Yea, they make their hearts’ hard ‘as an adamant-stone, lest they should hear the law, and the words which the Lord of hosts hath sent’ (Zech 7:11,12). What are all these but such as Badman, and such as the young man but now mentioned?

That young man was my play-fellow when I was solacing myself in my sins; I may make mention of him to my shame, but he has a great many fellows.

ATTEN. Young Badman was like him indeed, and he trod his steps as if his wickedness had been his very copy: I mean as to his desperateness, for had he not been a desperate one he would never have made you such a reply when you was rebuking of him for his sin. But when did you give him such a rebuke?

WISE. A while after God had parted him and I, by calling of me, as I hope, by his grace, still leaving him in his sins; and so far as I could ever gather, as he lived, so he died, even as Mr.

Badman did; but we will leave him and return again to our discourse.

ATTEN. Ha! poor obstinate sinners! Do they think that God cannot be even with them?

WISE. I do not know what they think, but I know that God hath said, ‘That as he cried, and they would not hear; so they cried and I would not hear, saith the Lord’ (Zech 7:13). Doubtless there is a time coming when Mr. Badman will cry for this.

ATTEN. But I wonder that he should be so expert in wickedness so soon! Alas, he was but a stripling, I suppose he was as yet not twenty.

WISE. No, nor eighteen either; but, as with Ishmael, and with the children that mocked the prophet, the seeds of sin did put forth themselves betimes in him (Gen 21:9,10; 2 Kings 2:23,24).

ATTEN. Well, he was as wicked a young man as commonly one shall hear of.

WISE. You will say so when you know all.

ATTEN. All, I think, here is a great all; but if there is more behind, pray let us hear it.

WISE. Why then, I will tell you, that he had not been with his master much above a year and a half, but he came acquainted with three young villains, who here shall be nameless, that taught him to add to his sin much of like kind, and he as aptly received their instructions. One of them was chiefly given to uncleanness, another to drunkenness, and the third to purloining, or stealing from his master.

ATTEN. Alas! poor wretch, he was bad enough before, but these, I suppose, made him much worse.

WISE. That they made him worse you may be sure of, for they taught him to be an arch, a chief one in all their ways.

ATTEN. It was an ill hap that he ever came acquainted with them.

WISE. You must rather word it thus—it was the judgment of God that he did, that is, he came