His imprisonment was protracted from sessions to sessions, till he had measured out twelve weary years in Bedford gaol. Perhaps we should not call them weary. They had their alleviations. His wife and children were allowed to visit him. His blind and most beloved daughter was permitted to cheer his solitude and her own. He had his Bible, and his “Book of Martyrs.” He had his imagination, and his pen. Above all, he had a good conscience. He felt it a blessed exchange to quit the “iron cage” of despair for a “den” oft visited by a celestial comforter; and which, however cheerless, did not lack a door to heaven.
Whether it was the man’s own humanity, or whether it was that God who assuaged Joseph’s captivity, gave Bunyan special favour in the eyes of the keeper of his prison, the fact is certain, that he met with singular indulgence at the least likely hands. Not only was he allowed many a little indulgence in his cell, but he was suffered to go and come with a freedom which could hardly have been exceeded had the county gaol been his own hired house. For months together he was a constant attender of the church-meetings of his brethren in Bedford, and was actually chosen pastor during the period of his incarceration. On one occasion some of the bishops who had heard a rumour of the unusual liberty conceded to him, sent a messenger from London to Bedford to ascertain the truth. The officer was instructed to call at the prison during the night. It was a night when Bunyan had received permission to stay at home with his family; but so uneasy did he feel, that he told his wife he must go back to his old quarters. So late was it that the gaoler blamed him for coming at such an untimely hour; but a little afterwards the messenger arrived. “Are all the prisoners safe?” “Yes.” “Is John Bunyan safe?” “Yes.” “Let me see him.” Bunyan was called, and the messenger went his way; and when he was gone the gaoler told him, “Well, you may go out again just when you think proper; for you know when to return better than I can tell you.”
But the best alleviations of his captivity were those wonderful works which he there projected or composed. Some of these were controversial; but one of them was his own life, under the title, “Grace abounding to the Chief of Sinners,” and another was the “Pilgrim’s Progress.”
In 1672 he obtained his liberty, and his friends immediately built for him a large meeting-house, where he continued to preach with little interruption till his death. Once a year he visited London, and was there so popular, that twelve hundred people would gather together at seven in the morning of a winter’s working-day to hear him. Amongst the admiring listeners, Dr Owen was frequently found; and once when Charles the Second asked how a learned man like him could sit down to hear a tinker prate, the great theologian is said to have answered, “May it please your Majesty, could I possess the tinker’s abilities for preaching, I would most gladly relinquish all my learning.” But popular as he was, he was not fond of praise. One day after he had concluded an impressive discourse, his friends pressed round to thank him for his “sweet sermon.” “Aye,” he bluntly answered, “you need not remind me of that; for the devil told me as much before I left the pulpit.”
He had numbered sixty years, and written as many books, when he was released from his abundant labours. A young gentleman, his neighbour, had fallen under his father’s displeasure, and was much concerned at his father’s estrangement as well as at the prospect of being disinherited. He begged Mr Bunyan’s friendly interposition to propitiate his father, and prepare the way for his return to parental favour and affection. The kind-hearted man undertook the task, and having successfully achieved it, was returning from Reading to London on horseback, when he was thoroughly drenched with excessive rains. He arrived cold and wet at the house of Mr Strudwick, a grocer on Snow Hill. Here he was seized with fits of shivering, which passed off in violent fever, and after ten days’ sickness, on the 31st of August 1688, his pilgrimage ended, and he went in by the gate into the city.
As the most appropriate introduction to the following selections from the practical writings of Bunyan, we would chose this rapid history of the Man, with a few remarks on the Theologian and the Author.
I. Bunyan’s theological merits we rank very high. No one can turn over his pages without noticing the abundance of his Scriptural quotations; and these quotations no one can examine without perceiving how minutely he had studied, and how deeply he had pondered, the word of God. But it is possible to be very textual, and yet by no means very scriptural. A man may heave an exact acquaintance with the literal Bible, and yet entirely miss the great Bible message. He may possess a dexterous command of detached passages and insulated sentences, and yet be entirely ignorant of that peculiar scheme which forms the great gospel revelation. But this was Bunyan’s peculiar excellence. He was even better acquainted with the Gospel as the scheme of God, than he was familiar with the Bible-text; and the consequence is, that though he is sometimes irrelevant in his references, and fanciful in interpreting particular passages, his doctrine is almost always according to the analogy of faith. The doctrine of a free and instant justification by the imputed righteousness of Christ, none even of the Puritans could state with more Luther-like boldness, nor defend with an affection more worthy of Paul. In his last and best days, Coleridge wrote, “I know of no book, the Bible excepted, as above all comparison, which I, according to my judgment and experience, could so safely recommend as teaching and enforcing the whole saving truth, according to the mind that was in Christ Jesus, as the Pilgrim’s Progress. It is in my conviction the best Summa Theologiæ Evangelicæ ever produced by a writer not miraculously inspired.” [30a] Without questioning this verdict, we would include in the encomium some of his other writings, which possibly Coleridge never saw. Such as the Tracts contained in this volume. [30b] They exhibit Gospel-truths in so clear a light, and state them in such a frank and happy tone, that he who runs may read, and he who reads in earnest will rejoice. The Pilgrim is a peerless guide to those who have already passed in at the wicket-gate; but those who are still seeking peace to their troubled souls, will find the best directory in “The Jerusalem Sinner Saved.”
II. Invaluable as a theologian, Bunyan stands alone as a contributor to theological literature. In recent times no man has done so much to draw the world’s delighted attention to the subjects of supreme solicitude. No production of a mortal pen has found so many readers as one work of his; and none has awakened so frequently the sighing behest, “Let me die the death of the righteous.”
None has painted the beauty of holiness in taints more lovely, nor spoken in tones more thrilling to the heart of universal humanity. At first the favourite of the vulgar, he is now the wonder of the learned; and from the obscurity, not inglorious, of smoky cupboards and cottage chimneys, he has been escorted up to the highest places of classical renown, and duly canonized by the pontiffs of taste and literature. The man, whom Cowper praised anonymously,
“Lest so despised a name should move a sneer,”