6. How would his spirit have been grieved at a sentence which occurs: 'Would a heathen god refuse to answer such prayers in which the supplicants were not agreed; and shall we think the true God will answer them?' Do stocks or stones answer prayers?
7. Bunyan's peculiar practice of admitting all the Lord's children to the Lord's table; all such as he hoped were spiritually baptized, without reference to water-baptism, is here directly opposed. The author refers to 1 Corinthians 12:13 on which text he says—'I need not go about to confute that notion that some of late have had of this text, viz., that the baptism here spoken of is the baptism of the Spirit, because you have not owned and declared that notion as your judgment, but on the contrary.' The fact is, that Bunyan is one of those here noticed as 'some of late,' and his church did hold that judgment. His comment on this text is, 'not of water, for by one SPIRIT are we all baptized into one body.'—Reason of my Practice. And in his 'Differences about Water-Baptism no Bar to Communion,' he thus argues upon that text, 'Here is a baptism mentioned by which they are initiated into one body; now that this is the baptism of water is utterly against the words of the text; for by one SPIRIT we are all baptized into one body.'—'It is the unity of the Spirit, not water, that is intended.' Bunyan was the great champion for the practice of receiving all to church-communion whom God had received in Christ, without respect to water-baptism; and had he changed his sentiments upon a subject which occasioned him so much hostility, even from his Baptist brethren, it would have been heralded forth as a triumph.
In 1684, four years prior to his death, he republished these sentiments in the first edition of 'A Holy Life the Beauty of Christianity'; his words are—'Men are wedded to their opinions more than the law of grace and love will permit. Here is a Presbyter, here an Independent, a Baptist, so joined each man to his own opinions, that they cannot have that communion one with another, as by the testament of the Lord Jesus they are commanded and enjoined.' Bunyan, there can be no doubt, lived and died in the conviction, that differences were permitted among Christians to stimulate them to search the Scriptures, and to exercise the grace of forbearance, as was the case in the primitive churches, in their disputes about meats and days, and even as to whether the Gentiles were to be visited with the gospel.
8. Bunyan is ever pressing the duty of private judgment in all the affairs of religion; not to be scared with the taunts of 'schism,' 'division-makers,' 'new separatists,' 'wiser than your teachers,' and similar arrows, drawn from Satan's quiver, which occur in this exhortation.
Judging from the style—the reference to the laying on of hands—the Latin quotations, and those from learned men, it appears somewhat like the pen of D'Anvers, who answered Bunyan upon the question—Whether water-baptism is a scriptural term of communion? It is, however, now faithfully reprinted, that our readers may form their own judgment.
Hackney, New-Year's Day, 1850 GEORGE OFFOR.
An Exhortationto Peace and Unity
'Endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.'—Ephesians 4:3
Beloved, religion is the great bond of human society, and it were well if itself were kept within the bond of unity; and that it may so be, let us, according to the text, use our utmost endeavours 'to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.'
These words contain a counsel and a caution: the counsel is, 'That we endeavour the unity of the Spirit'; the caution is, 'That we do it in the bond of peace': as if he should say, I would have you live in unity; but yet I would have you to be careful that you do not purchase unity with the breach of charity. Let us, therefore, be cautioned that we do not so press after unity in practice and opinion, as to break the bond of peace and affection.