certainly will, as to the observance of days or abstinence from meats—whether to stand, or sit, or kneel, in prayer—whether to stand while listening to some pages of the inspired volume, and to sit while others are publicly read—whether to call Jude a saint, and refuse the title to Isaiah—are questions which should bring into active exercise all the graces of Christian charity; and, in obedience to the apostolic injunction, they must agree to differ. 'Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind' (Rom 14:5). Human arts have been exhausted to prevent that mental exercise or self-persuasion which is essential to a Christian profession. The great object of Satan has ever been to foster indifference, that deadly lethargy, by leading man to any source of information rather than prayerful researches into the Bible. Bunyan's severe discipline in Christ's school would lead him to form a judgment for himself; he was surrounded by a host of sects, and, with such a Bible-loving man, it is an interesting inquiry what party he would join.
He lived in times of extraordinary excitement. England was in a transition state. A long chain of events brought on a crisis which involved the kingdom in tribulation. It was the struggle between the unbridled despotism of Epsicopacy, and the sturdy liberty of Puritanism. For although the immediate cause of the civil wars was gross misgovernment—arbitrary taxation without the intervention of Parliament, monopolies and patents, to the ruin of trade; in fact, every abuse of the royal power—still, without the additional spur of religious persecution, the spirit of the people would never have proved invincible and overpowering. The efforts of Archbishop Laud, aided by the queen and her popish confessor, Panzani, to subjugate Britain to the galling yoke of Rome, signally failed, involving in the ruin the life of the king and his archbishop, and all the desolating calamities of intestine wars, strangely called 'civil.' In this strife many of the clergy and most of the bishops took a very active part, aiding and abetting the king's party in their war against the parliament—and they thus brought upon themselves great pains and penalties. The people became suddenly released from mental bondage; and if the man who had been born blind, when he first received the blessing of sight, 'saw men as trees walking,' we cannot be surprised that religious speculations were indulged in, some of which proved to be crude and wild, requiring much vigorous persuasive pruning before they produced good fruit. Bunyan was surrounded by all these parties; for although the rights of conscience were not recognized—the Papists and Episcopalians, the Baptists and Unitarians, with the Jews, being proscribed—yet the hand of persecution was comparatively light. Had Bunyan chosen to associate with the Episcopalians, he would not have passed through those severe sufferings on which are founded his lasting honours. The Presbyterians and Independents received the patronage of the state under the Commonwealth, and the great mass of the clergy conformed to the directory, many of them reciting the prayers they had formerly read; while a considerable number, whose conscience could not submit to the system then enforced by law, did, to their honour, resign their livings, and suffer the privations and odium of being Dissenters. Among these were necessarily included the bishops.[133]
Of all sects that of the Baptists had been the most bitterly written against and persecuted. Even their first cousins, the Quakers, attacked them in language that would, in our peaceful days, be considered outrageous. 'The Baptists used to meet in garrets, cheese-lofts, coal-holes, and such like mice walks,'—'theses tumultuous, blood-thirsty, covenant-breaking, government-destroying Anabaptists.'[134] The offence that called forth these epithets was, that in addressing Charles II on his restoration, they stated that "they were no abettors of the Quakers." Had royal authority possessed the slightest influence over Bunyan's religious opinions, the question as to his joining the Baptists would have been settled without investigation. Among other infatuations of Charles I, had been his hatred of any sect that professed the right and duty of man to think for himself in choosing his way to heaven. In 1639 he published his 'Declaration concerning the tumults in Scotland,' when violence was resorted to against the introduction of the Common Prayer in which he denounced voluntary obedience because it was not of constraint, and called it 'damnable'; he calls the principles of the Anabaptists, in not submitting their consciences to human laws, 'furious frenzies,' and 'madness'; all Protestants are 'to detest and persecute them'; 'these Anabaptists raged most in their madness'; 'the scandal of their frenzies'; 'we are amazed at, and aggrieved at their horrible impudence'; 'we do abhor and detest them all as rebellious and treasonable.'[135] This whole volume is amusingly assuming. The king claims his subjects as personal chattels, with whose bodies and minds he had a right to do as he pleased. Bunyan owed no spiritual submission to man, 'whose breath is in his nostrils'; and risking all hazards, he became one of the denounced and despised sect of Baptists. To use the language of his pilgrim, he passed the lions, braving all the dangers of an open profession of faith in Christ, and entered the house called Beautiful, which 'was built by the Lord of the hill, on purpose to entertain such pilgrims in.'[136] He first gains permission of the watchman, or minister, and then of the inmates, or church members. This interesting event is said to have taken place about the year 1653.[137] Mr. Doe, in The Struggler, thus refers to it, Bunyan 'took all advantages to ripen his understanding in religion, and so he lit on the dissenting congregation of Christians at Bedford, and was, upon confession of faith, baptized about the year 1653,'[138] when he was in the twenty-fifth year of his age. No minutes of the proceedings of this church, prior to the death of Mr. Gifford in 1656,[139] are extant, or they would identify the exact period when Bunyan's baptism and admission to the church took place. The spot where he was baptized is a creek by the river Ouse, at the end of Duck Mill Lane. It is a natural baptistery, a proper width and depth of water constantly fresh; pleasantly situated; sheltered from the public highway near the High Street. The Lord's Supper was celebrated in a large room in which the disciples met, the worship consecrating the place.[140]
Religious feelings and conduct have at all times a tendency to promote the comfort, and elevate the character of the poor. How often have we seen them thus blessed; the ragged family comfortably clothed, the hungry fed, and the inmates of a dirty miserable cottage or hovel become a pattern of cleanly happiness. One of Bunyan's biographers, who was an eye-witness, bears this testimony. 'By this time his family was increased, and as that increased God increased his stores, so that he lived now in great credit among his neighbours.' He soon became a respectable member of civil as well as religious society; for, by the time that he joined the church, his Christian character was so fully established, that, notwithstanding the meanness of his origin and employment, he was considered worthy of uniting in a memorial to the Lord Protector. It was to recommend two gentlemen to form part of the council, after Cromwell had dissolved the Long Parliament. It is a curious document, very little known, and illustrative of the peculiar style of these eventful times.
Letter from the people of Bedfordshire to the Lord Generall Cromwell, and the Councell of the army.
May 13th, 1653.
May it please your Lordship, and the rest of the council of the army. We (we trust) servants of Jesus Christ, inhabitants in the county of Bedford, haveing fresh upon our hearts the sadde oppressions we have (a long while) groan'd under from the late parlayment, and now eyeing and owning (through grace) the good hand of God in this great turne of providence, being persuaded that it is from the Lord that you should be instrument in his hand at such a time as this, for the electing of such persons whoe may goe in and out before his people in righteousnesse, and governe these nations in judgment, we having sought the Lord for yow, and hopeing that God will still doe greate things by yow, understanding that it is in your hearte through the Lord's assistance, to establish an authority consisting of men able, loveing truth, feareing God, and hateing covetouseness; and we having had some experience of men with us, we have judged it our duty to God, to yow, and to the rest of his people, humbly to present two men, viz., Nathaniell Taylor, and John Croke, now Justices of Peace in our County, whom we judge in the Lord qualified to manage a trust in the ensuing government. All which we humbly referre to your serious considerations, and subscribe our names this 13th day of May, 1653—
John Eston, Clement Berridge, Isaac Freeman, John Grewe, John
Bunyan, William Dell, John Gifford, William Baker, junr., William
Wheelar, Ja. Rush, Anth. Harrington, John Gibbs, Tho. Varrse,
