Another dispute with a scholar.
As Mr. Bunyan was preaching in a barn, and showing the fewness of those that should be saved, there stood one of the learned to take advantage of his words; and having done preaching, the schoolman said to him, You are a deceiver, a person of no charity, and therefore not fit to preach; for he that in effect condemneth the greatest part of his hearers hath no charity, and therefore not fit to preach.
Then Mr. Bunyan answered—The Lord Jesus Christ preached in a ship to his hearers on the shore (Matt 13); and showed that they were as four sorts of ground—The high-way, The stony, The thorny, and The good ground; whereof the good ground was the only persons to be saved.
And your position is—That he that in effect condementh the greatest part of his hearers hath no charity, and therefore not fit to preach the gospel.
But here the Lord Jesus Christ did so; then your conclusion is—The Lord Jesus Christ wanted charity, and therefore not fit to preach the gospel.
Horrid blasphemy; away with your hellish logic, and speak Scripture.
Then replied the learned: 'Tis blasphemy to call logic hellish, which is our reason—the gift of God; for that which distinguisheth a man from a beast is the gift of God.
But Mr. Bunyan replied: Sin doth distinguish a man from a beast; is sin therefore the gift of God? &c.
They parted.
I once asked him his opinion in a common religious point, and offered some arguments to prove my opinion for the general of it; but he answered, that where the Scripture is silent we ought to forbear our opinions; and so he forebore to affirm either for or against, the Scripture being altogether silent in this point.