The Works of John Bunyan, vol 1 by John Bunyan (books to read to improve english .TXT) 📕

Bunyan was thirty-two years of age when taken to prison. He had suffered the loss of his pious wife, whose conversation and portion had been so blessed to him. It is not improbable that her peaceful departure is pictured in Christiana’s crossing the river which has no bridge. She left him with four young children, one of whom very naturally and most strongly excited his paternal feelings, from the circumstance of her having been afflicted with blindness. He had married a second time, a woman of exemplary piety and retiring modesty; but whose spirit, when roused to seek the release of her beloved husband, enabled her to stand unabashed, and full of energy and presence of mind, before judges in their courts, and lords in their mansions. When her partner was sent to jail, she was in that peculiar state that called for all his sympathy and his tenderest care. The shock was too severe for her delicate situation; she became dangerously ill, and, although her life was spared, all hopes had fled of her maternal feelings being called into exercise. Thus did one calamity follow another; still he preserved his integrity.[224]

Bunyan was treated with all the kindness which many of his jailers dared to show him. In his times, imprisonment and fetters were generally companions. Thus he says—‘When a felon is going to be tried, his fetters are still making a noise on his heels.’[225] So the prisoners in the Holy War are represented as being ‘brought in chains to the bar’ for trial. ‘The prisoners were handled by the jailer so severely, and loaded so with irons, that they died in the prison.’[226] In many cases, prisoners for conscience’ sake were treated with such brutality, before the form of trial, as to cause their death. By Divine mercy, Bunyan was saved from these dreadful punishments, which have ceased as civilization has progressed, and now cloud the narratives of a darker age.

After having lain in prison about seven weeks, the session was held at Bedford, for the county; and Bunyan was placed at the bar, indicted for devilishly and perniciously abstaining from coming to church to hear Divine service, and as 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. In this indictment Bunyan is not described as ‘of Elstow’ but ‘of Bedford.’ Probably he had removed to Bedford soon after he joined Gifford’s church. The bench was numerous, and presided over by Justice Keelin.[227] If this was Sergeant Kelynge who, the following year, was made Lord Chief-Justice, he was a most arbitrary tyrant, equaled or excelled only by Judge Jeffreys. It was before him that some persons were indicted for attending a conventicle; but it being only proved that they had assembled on the Lord’s-day with Bibles in their hands without prayer-books, and there being no proof that their meeting was only under colour or pretence of religion, the jury acquitted them. Upon this he fined each of the jury-men one hundred marks, and imprisoned them till the fines were paid. Again, on a trial for murder, the prisoner being under suspicion of Dissent, was one whom the judge had a great desire to hang, he fined and imprisoned all the jury because, contrary to his direction, they brought in a verdict of manslaughter! Well was it said, that he was more fit to charge the Roundheads under Prince Rupert than to charge a jury. After a short career, he fell into utter contempt.[228] He entered into a long argument with the poor tinker, about using the liturgy of the Church of England, first warning him of his danger if he spake lightly of it. Bunyan argued that prayer was purely spiritual, the offering of the heart, and not the reading of a form. The justice declared—‘We know the Common Prayer-book hath been ever since the apostles’ time, and is lawful to be used in the church!!’ It is surprising that such a dialogue was ever entered upon; either Keling was desirous of triumphing over the celebrated tinker, or his countenance and personal appearance commanded respect. For some cause he was treated with great liberality for those times; the extent of it may be seen by one justice asking him, ‘Is your God Beelzebub?’ and another declaring that he was possessed with the devil! ‘All which,’ says Bunyan, ‘I passed over, the Lord forgive them!’ When, however, the justice was worsted in argument, and acknowledged that he was not well versed in Scripture, he demanded the prisoner’s plea, saying, ‘Then you confess the indictment?’

‘Now,’ says Bunyan, ‘and not till now, I saw I was indicted; and said—“This I confess, we have had many meetings together, both to pray to God, and to exhort one another; and that we had the sweet comforting presence of the Lord among us for our encouragement (blessed be his name!); therefore I confess myself guilty, and no otherwise.”’ This was recorded as a plea of guilty, and Keling resumed his natural ferocity. ‘Then,’ said he, ‘hear your judgment.

You must be had back again to prison, and there lie for three months following; and then, if you do not submit to go to church to hear Divine service, and leave your preaching, you must be banished the realm; and after that, if you shall be found in this realm without special license from the king, you must stretch by the neck for it. I tell you plainly’; ‘and so he bid my jailer have me away.’

The hero answered—‘I am at a point with you: if I were out of prison to-day, I would preach the gospel again tomorrow, by the help of God.’[229]

The statutes, by virtue of which this awful sentence was pronounced, together with the legal form of recantation used by those who were terrified into conformity, are set forth in a note to the Grace Abounding.[230] Bunyan was, if not the first, one of the first Dissenters who were proceeded against after the restoration of Charles II; and his trial, if such it may be called, was followed by a wholesale persecution. The king, as head of the Church of England, wreaked his vengeance upon all classes of Dissenters, excepting Roman Catholics and Jews.

The reign of Charles II was most disgraceful and disastrous to the nation, even the king being a pensioner upon the French court. The Dutch swept the seas, and threatened to burn London; a dreadful plague depopulated the metropolis—the principal part of which was, in the following year, with its cathedral, churches, and public buildings, destroyed by fire; plots and conspiracies alarmed the people; tyranny was triumphant; even the bodies of the illustrious dead were exhumed, and treated with worse than savage ferocity; while a fierce persecution raged throughout the kingdom, which filled the jails with Dissenters.

In Scotland, the persecution raged with still more deadly violence.

Military, in addition to civil despotism, strove to enforce the use of the Book of Common Prayer. The heroic achievements and awful suffering of Scottish Christians saved their descendants from this yoke of bondage.[231]

A short account of the extent of the sufferings of our pious ancestors is given in the Introduction to the Pilgrim’s Progress[232]—a narrative which would appear incredible did it not rest upon unimpeachable authority. It would be difficult to believe the records of the brutal treatment which the sufferers underwent had they not been handed down to us in the State Trials, and in public registers, over which the persecuted had no control. Two instances will show the extreme peril in which the most learned and pious men held their lives. John James, the pastor of a Baptist church in Whitechapel, was charged, upon the evidence of a perjured drunken vagabond named Tipler, a pipe-maker’s journeyman, who was not present in the meeting, but swore that he heard him utter treasonable words.

Notwithstanding the evidence of some most respectable witnesses, who were present during the whole service, and distinctly proved that no such words were used, Mr. James was convicted, and sentenced to be hung. His distracted wife saw the king, presented a petition, and implored mercy, when the unfeeling monarch replied, ‘O! Mr.

James; he is a sweet gentleman.’ Again, on the following morning, she fell at his feet, beseeching his royal clemency, when he spurned her from him, saying, ‘John James, that rogue, he shall be hanged; yea, he shall be hanged.’ And, in the presence of his weeping friends, he ascended from the gibbet to the mansions of the blessed.

His real crime was, that he continued to preach after having been warned not to do so by John Robinson, lieutenant of the Tower, properly called, by Mr. Crosby,[233] a devouring wolf, upon whose head the blood of this and other innocent Dissenters will be found.

Another Dissenting minister, learned, pious, loyal, and peaceful, was, during Bunyan’s time, marked for destruction. Thomas Rosewell was tried before the monster Jeffreys. He was charged, upon the evidence of two infamous informers, with having doubted the power of the king to cure the kings’ evil, and with saying that they should overcome their enemies with rams’ horns, broken platters, and a stone in a sling. A number of most respectable witnesses deposed to their having been present; that no such words were uttered, and that Mr. Rosewell was eminent for loyalty and devoted attachment to the Government. Alas! he was a Dissenting teacher of high standing, of extensive acquirements, and of great earnestness in seeking the salvation of sinners; and, under the direction of that brutal judge, the venal jury found him guilty, and he was sentenced to be hung. This frightful sentence would have been executed but from a singular interposition of Providence. Sir John Talbot was present during the trial, and a stranger to Mr. Rosewell; but he was so struck with the proceedings, that he hastened to the king, related the facts, and added, ‘that he had seen the life of a subject, who appeared to be a gentleman and a scholar, in danger, upon such evidence as he would not hang his dog on.’ And added, ‘Sire, if you suffer this man to die, we are none of us safe in our own houses.’

At this moment Jeffreys came in, gloating over his prey, exulting in the innocent blood he was about to shed, when, to his utter confusion, the king said, ‘Mr. Rosewell shall not die’; and his pardon was issued under the great seal.[234] Every Englishman should read the state trials of that period, recording the sufferings of Richard Baxter, William Penn, Sir H. Vane, and many others of our most pious forefathers; and they must feel that it was a miracle of mercy that saved the life of Bunyan, and gave him leisure to write not only his popular allegories, but the most valuable treatises in the English language upon subjects of the deepest importance.

When he entered the prison, his first and prayerful object was to levy a tax upon his affliction—to endeavour to draw honey from the carcass of the lion. His care was to render his imprisonment subservient to the great design of showing forth the glory of God by patient submission to His will. Before his commitment, he had a strong presentiment of his sufferings; his earnest prayer, for many months, was that he might, with