So bitter was the feeling aroused against him by the marvellous success of his irregular ministry, that his enemies, even before the restoration of the Church and Crown, endeavoured to put the arm of the law in motion to restrain him. We learn from the church books that in March, 1658, the little Bedford church was in trouble for “Brother Bunyan,” against whom an indictment had been laid at the Assizes for “preaching at Eaton Socon.” Of this indictment we hear no more; so it was probably dropped. But it is an instructive fact that, even during the boasted religious liberty of the Protectorate, irregular preaching, especially that of the much dreaded Anabaptists, was an indictable offence. But, as Dr. Brown observes, “religious liberty had not yet come to mean liberty all round, but only liberty for a certain recognized section of Christians.” That there was no lack of persecution during the Commonwealth is clear from the cruel treatment to which Quakers were subjected, to say nothing of the intolerance shown to Episcopalians and Roman Catholics. In Bunyan’s own county of Bedford, Quakeresses were sentenced to be whipped and sent to Bridewell for reproving a parish priest, perhaps well deserving of it, and exhorting the folks on a market day to repentance and amendment of life. “The simple truth is,” writes Robert Southey, “all parties were agreed on the one catholic opinion that certain doctrines were not to be tolerated:” the only points of difference between them were “what those doctrines were,” and how far intolerance might be carried. The withering lines are familiar to us, in which Milton denounces the “New Forcers of Conscience,” who by their intolerance and “super-metropolitan and hyperarchiepiscopal tyranny,” proved that in his proverbial words, “New Presbyter is but old Priest writ large”—
“Because you have thrown off your prelate lord,
And with stiff vows renounce his liturgy
Dare ye for this adjure the civil sword
To force our consciences that Christ set free!”
How Bunyan came to escape we know not. But the danger he was in was imminent enough for the church at Bedford to meet to pray “for counsail what to doe” in respect of it.
It was in these closing years of the Protectorate that Bunyan made his first essay at authorship. He was led to it by a long and tiresome controversy with the Quakers, who had recently found their way to Bedford. The foundations of the faith, he thought, were being undermined. The Quakers’ teaching as to the inward light seemed to him a serious disparagement of the Holy Scriptures, while their mystical view of the spiritual Christ revealed to the soul and dwelling in the heart, came perilously near to a denial of the historic reality of the personal Christ. He had had public disputations with male and female Quakers from time to time, at the Market Cross at Bedford, at “Paul’s Steeple-house in Bedford town,” and other places. One of them, Anne Blackley by name, openly bade him throw away the Scriptures, to which Bunyan replied, “No; for then the devil would be too hard for me.” The same enthusiast charged him with “preaching up an idol, and using conjuration and witchcraft,” because of his assertion of the bodily presence of Christ in heaven.
The first work of one who was to prove himself so voluminous an author, cannot but be viewed with much interest. It was a little volume in duodecimo, of about two hundred pages, entitled “Some Gospel Truths Opened, by that unworthy servant of Christ, John Bunyan, of Bedford, by the Grace of God, preacher of the Gospel of His dear Son,” published in 1656. The little book, which, as Dr. Brown says, was “evidently thrown off at a heat,” was printed in London and published at Newport Pagnel. Bunyan being entirely unknown to the world, his first literary venture was introduced by a commendatory “Epistle” written by Gifford’s successor, John Burton. In this Burton speaks of the young author—Bunyan was only in his twenty-ninth year—as one who had “neither the greatness nor the wisdom of the world to commend him,” “not being chosen out of an earthly but out of a heavenly university, the Church of Christ,” where “through grace he had taken three heavenly degrees, to wit, union with Christ, the anointing of the Spirit, and experience of the temptations of Satan,” and as one of whose “soundness in the faith, godly conversation, and his ability to preach the Gospel, not by human aid, but by the Spirit of the Lord,” he “with many other saints had had experience.” This book must be pronounced a very remarkable production for a young travelling tinker, under thirty, and without any literary or theological training but such as he had gained for himself after attaining to manhood. Its arrangement is excellent, the arguments are ably marshalled, the style is clear, the language pure and well chosen. It is, in the main, a well-reasoned defence of the historical truth of the Articles of the Creed relating to the Second Person of the Trinity, against the mystical teaching of the followers of George Fox, who, by a false spiritualism, sublimated the whole Gospel narrative into a vehicle for the representation of truths relating to the inner life of the believer. No one ever had a firmer grasp than Bunyan of the spiritual bearing of the facts of the recorded life of Christ on the souls of men. But he would not suffer their “subjectivity”—to adopt modern terms—to destroy their “objectivity.” If the Son of God was not actually born of the Virgin Mary, if He did not live in a real human body, and in that body die, lie in the grave, rise again, and ascend up into heaven, whence He would return—and that Bunyan believed shortly—in the same Body He took of His mortal mother, His preaching was vain; their faith was vain; they were yet in their sins. Those who “cried up a Christ within, in opposition to a Christ without,” who asserted that Christ had no other Body but the Church, that the only Crucifixion, rising again, and ascension of Christ was that within the believer, and that every man had, as an inner light, a measure of Christ’s Spirit within him sufficient to guide him to salvation, he asserted were “possessed with a spirit of delusion;” deceived themselves, they were deceiving others to their eternal ruin. To the refutation of such fundamental errors, substituting a mystical for an historical faith, Bunyan’s little treatise is addressed; and it may be truly said the work is done effectually. To adopt Coleridge’s expression concerning Bunyan’s greater and world-famous work, it is an admirable “Summa Theologiæ Evangelicæ,” which, notwithstanding its obsolete style and old-fashioned arrangement, may be read even now with advantage.
Bunyan’s denunciation of the tenets of the Quakers speedily elicited a reply. This was written by a certain Edward Burrough, a young man of three and twenty, fearless, devoted, and ardent in the propagation of the tenets of his sect. Being subsequently thrown into Newgate with hundreds of his co-religionists, at the same time that his former antagonist was imprisoned in Bedford Gaol, Burrough met the fate Bunyan’s stronger constitution enabled him to escape; and in the language of the times, “rotted in prison,” a victim to the loathsome foulness of his place of incarceration, in the year of the “Bartholomew Act,” 1662.
Burrough entitled his reply, “The Gospel of Peace, contended for in the Spirit of Meekness and Love against the secret opposition of John Bunyan, a professed minister in Bedfordshire.” His opening words, too characteristic of the entire treatise, display but little of the meekness professed. “How long, ye crafty fowlers, will ye prey upon the innocent? How long shall the righteous be a prey to your teeth, ye subtle foxes! Your dens are in darkness, and your mischief is hatched upon your beds of secret whoredoms?” Of John Burton and the others who recommended Bunyan’s treatise, he says, “They have joined themselves with the broken army of Magog, and have showed themselves in the defence of the dragon against the Lamb in the day of war betwixt them.” We may well echo Dr. Brown’s wish that “these two good men could have had a little free and friendly talk face to face. There would probably have been better understanding, and fewer hard words, for they were really not so far apart as they thought. Bunyan believed in the inward light, and Burrough surely accepted an objective Christ. But failing to see each other’s exact point of view, Burrough thunders at Bunyan, and Bunyan swiftly returns the shot.”
The rapidity of Bunyan’s literary work is amazing, especially when we take his antecedents into account. Within a few weeks he published his rejoinder to Friend Burrough, under the title of “A Vindication of Gospel Truths Opened.” In this work, which appeared in 1667, Bunyan repays Burrough in his own coin, styling him “a proved enemy to the truth,” a “grossly railing Rabshakeh, who breaks out with a taunt and a jeer,” is very “censorious and utters many words without knowledge.” In vigorous, nervous language, which does not spare his opponent, he defends himself from Burrough’s charges, and proves that the Quakers are “deceivers.” “As for you thinking that to drink water, and wear no hatbands is not walking after your own lusts, I say that whatsoever man do make a religion out of, having no warrant for it in Scripture, is but walking after their own lusts, and not after the Spirit of God.” Burrough had most unwarrantably stigmatized Bunyan as one of “the false prophets, who love the wages of unrighteousness, and through covetousness make merchandise of souls.” Bunyan calmly replies, “Friend, dost thou speak this as from thy own knowledge, or did any other tell thee so? However that spirit that led thee out this way is a lying spirit. For though I be poor and of no repute in the world as to outward things, yet through grace I have learned by the example of the Apostle to preach the truth, and also to work with my hands both for mine own living, and for those that are with me, when I have opportunity. And I trust that the Lord Jesus who hath helped me to reject the wages of unrighteousness hitherto, will also help me still so that I shall distribute that which God hath given me freely, and not for filthy lucre’s sake.” The fruitfulness of his ministry which Burrough had called in question, charging him with having “run before he was sent,” he refuses to discuss. Bunyan says, “I shall leave it to be taken notice of by the people of God and the country where I dwell, who will testify the contrary for me, setting aside the carnal ministry with their retinue who are so mad against me as thyself.”
In his third book, published in 1658, at “the King’s Head, in the Old Bailey,” a few days before Oliver Cromwell’s death, Bunyan left the thorny domain of polemics, for that of Christian exhortation, in which his chief work was to be done. This work was an exposition of the parable of “the Rich Man and Lazarus,” bearing the horror-striking title, “A Few Sighs from Hell, or the Groans of a Damned Soul.” In this work, as its title would suggest, Bunyan, accepting the literal accuracy of the parable as a description of the realities of the world beyond the grave, gives full scope to his vivid imagination in portraying the condition of the lost. It contains some touches of racy humour, especially in the similes, and is written in the nervous homespun English of which he was master. Its popularity is shown by its having gone through nine editions in the author’s lifetime. To take an example or two of its style: dealing with the excuses people make for not hearing the Gospel, “O, saith one, I dare not for my master, my brother, my landlord; I shall lose his favour, his house of work, and so decay my calling. O, saith another, I would willingly go in this way but for my father; he chides me and tells me he will not stand my friend when I come to want; I shall never enjoy a pennyworth of his goods; he will disinherit me—And I dare not, saith another, for my husband, for he will be a-railing, and tells me he will turn me out of doors, he will beat me and cut off my legs;” and then turning from the hindered to the hinderers: “Oh, what red lines will there be against all those rich ungodly landlords that so keep under their poor tenants that they dare not go out to hear the word for fear that their rent should be raised or they turned out of their houses. Think on this, you drunken proud rich, and scornful landlords; think on this, you madbrained blasphemous husbands, that are against the godly and chaste conversation of your wives; also you that hold your servants so hard to it that you will not spare them time to hear the Word, unless it will be where and when your lusts will let you.” He bids the ungodly consider that “the profits, pleasures, and vanities of the world” will one day “give thee the slip, and leave thee in the sands and the brambles of all that thou hast done.” The careless man lies “like the smith’s dog at the foot of the anvil, though the fire sparks flee in his face.” The rich man remembers how he once despised Lazarus, “scrubbed beggarly Lazarus. What, shall I dishonour my fair sumptuous and gay house with such a scabbed creephedge as he? The Lazaruses are not allowed to warn them of the wrath to come, because they are not gentlemen, because they cannot with Pontius Pilate speak Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. Nay, they must not, shall not, speak to them, and all because of this.”
The fourth production of Bunyan’s pen, his last book before his twelve years of prison life began, is entitled, “The Doctrine of Law and Grace Unfolded.” With a somewhat overstrained humility which is hardly worthy of him, he describes himself in the title-page as “that poor contemptible creature John Bunyan, of Bedford.” It was given to the world in May, 1659, and issued from the same press in the Old Bailey as his last work. It cannot be said that this is one of Bunyan’s most attractive writings. It is as he describes it, “a parcel of plain yet sound, true, and home sayings,” in which with that clearness of thought and accuracy of arrangement which belongs to him, and that marvellous acquaintance with Scripture language which he had gained by his constant study of the Bible, he sets forth the two covenants—the covenant of works, and the covenant of Grace—“in their natures, ends, bounds, together with the state and condition of them that are under the one, and of them that are under the other.” Dr. Brown describes the book as “marked by a firm grasp of faith and a strong view of the reality of Christ’s person and work as the one Priest and Mediator for a sinful world.” To quote a passage, “Is there righteousness in Christ? that is mine. Is there perfection in that righteousness? that is mine. Did He bleed for sin? It was for mine. Hath He overcome the law, the devil, and hell? The victory is mine, and I am come forth conqueror, nay, more than a conqueror through Him that hath loved me. . . Lord, show me continually in the light of Thy Spirit, through Thy word, that Jesus that was born in the days of Cæsar Augustus, when Mary, a daughter of Judah, went with Joseph to be taxed in Bethlehem, that He is the very Christ. Let me not rest contented without such a faith that is so wrought even by the discovery of His Birth, Crucifying Death, Blood, Resurrection, Ascension, and Second—which is His Personal—Coming again, that the very faith of it may fill my soul with comfort and holiness.” Up and down its pages we meet with vivid reminiscences of his own career, of which he can only speak with wonder and thankfulness. In the “Epistle to the Reader,” which introduces it, occurs the passage already referred to describing his education. “I never went to school to Aristotle or Plato, but was brought up at my father’s house in a very mean condition, among a company of poor countrymen.” Of his own religious state before his conversion he thus speaks: “When it pleased the Lord to begin to instruct my soul, He found me one of the black sinners of the world. He found me making a sport of oaths, and also of lies; and many a soul-poisoning meal did I make out of divers lusts, such as drinking, dancing, playing, pleasure with the wicked ones of the world; and so wedded was I to my sins, that thought I to myself, ‘I will have them though I lose my soul.’” And then, after narrating the struggles he had had with his conscience, the alternations of hope and fear which he passed through, which are more fully described in his “Grace Abounding,” he thus vividly depicts the full assurance of faith he had attained to: “I saw through grace that it was the Blood shed on Mount Calvary that did save and redeem sinners, as clearly and as really with the eyes of my soul as ever, methought, I had seen a penny loaf bought with a penny. . . O let the saints know that unless the devil can pluck Christ out of heaven he cannot pull a true believer out of Christ.” In a striking passage he shows how, by turning Satan’s temptations against himself, Christians may “Get the art as to outrun him in his own shoes, and make his own darts pierce himself.” “What! didst thou never learn to outshoot the devil in his own bow, and cut off his head with his own sword as David served Goliath?” The whole treatise is somewhat wearisome, but the pious reader will find much in it for spiritual edification.