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.
Thirdly, concerning this folio, &c. I have struggled to bring about this great good work; and it had succeeded in Mr. Bunyan's lifetime, even all his labours in folio, but that an interested bookseller opposed it; and notwithstanding the many discouragements I have met with in my struggles in this so great a work, we have—and I may believe by the blessing of the Lord—gotten about four hundred subscriptions, whereof about thirty are ministers; which also shows the great esteem our author's labours are in among Christian people. And that the reasonableness and duty of the preservation of his labours in folio, by subscription, may be continued to memory, I have also added my reasons, which I distributed in my late struggles to effect this work.
His effigies was cut in copper,[9] from an original paint done to the life, by his very good friend, a limner; and those who desire it single, to put in a frame, may have it at this bookseller's—Mr. Marshall; and also the catalogue-table. The epistle is writ by two ministers, Mr. Wilson of Hichin, in Hertfordshire, and Mr. Chandler, who succeeds Mr. Bunyan at Bedford.
And Mr. Burton, that writ the epistle to Some Gospel-truths Opened, being the first book Mr. Bunyan writ, was minister at Bedford.