Chapter 2

In the interpreter’s house he is ‘led into a chamber where there was one rising out of bed, and as he put on his raiment he shook and trembled. Then said Christian, Why doth this man thus tremble? The Interpreter then bid him tell to Christian the reason of his so doing. So he began and said, This night, as I was in my sleep I dreamed, and behold the heavens grew exceeding black; also it thundered and lightened in most fearful wise, that it put me into an agony. So I looked up in my dream, and saw the clouds rack at an unusual rate, upon which I heard a great sound of a trumpet, and saw also a man sit upon a cloud, attended with the thousands of heaven—they were all in flaming fire; also the heavens were in a burning flame. I heard then a voice saying, “Arise, ye dead, and come to judgment;” and with that the rocks rent, the graves opened, and the dead that were therein came forth. Some of them were exceeding glad, and looked upward; and some sought to hide themselves under the mountains. Then I saw the man that sat upon the cloud open the book, and bid the world draw near. Yet there was, by reason of a fierce flame which issued out and came from before him, a convenient distance betwixt him and them, as betwixt the judge and prisoners at the bar. I heard it also proclaimed, “Gather together the tares, the chaff, and stubble, and cast them into the burning lake”; and with that the bottomless pit opened just whereabout I stood, out of the mouth of which there came, in an abundant manner, smoke and coals of fire, with hideous noises. It was also said, “Gather my wheat into the garner”; and with that I saw many catched up and carried away into the clouds, but I was left behind. I also sought to hide myself, but I could not, for the man that sat upon the cloud still kept his eye upon me; my sins also came into my mind, and my conscience did accuse me on every side. Upon that I awaked from my sleep.’

No laboured composition could have produced such a dream as this. It flows in such dream-like order as would lead us to infer, that the author who narrates it had, when a boy, heard the twenty-fifth chapter of Matthew read at church, and the solemn impression following him at night assisted in producing a dream which stands, and perhaps will ever stand, unrivalled.

Awful as must have been these impressions upon his imagination, they were soon thrown off, and the mad youth rushed on in his desperate career of vice and folly. Is he then left to fill up the measure of his iniquities? No, the Lord has a great work for him to do. HIS hand is not shortened that he cannot save. Bunyan has to be prepared for his work; and if terrors will not stop him, manifested mercies in judgments are to be tried.

‘God did not utterly leave me, but followed me still, not now with convictions, but judgments; yet such as were mixed with mercy. For once I fell into a creek of the sea, and hardly escaped drowning. Another time I fell out of a boat into Bedford river, but mercy yet preserved me alive. Besides, another time, being in the field with one of my companions, it chanced that an adder passed over the highway, so I, having a stick in my hand, struck her over the back; and having stunned her, I forced open her mouth with my stick, and plucked her sting out with my fingers; by which act, had not God been merciful unto me, I might by my desperateness have brought myself to my end.

‘This also have I taken notice of, with thanksgiving. When I was a soldier, I, with others, were drawn out to go to such a place to besiege it; but when I was just ready to go, one of the company desired to go in my room, to which, when I had consented, he took my place; and coming to the siege, as he stood sentinel, he was shot into the head with a musket bullet, and died.’[27]

In addition to these mercies recorded by his own pen, one of his friends asserts that he acknowledged his deep obligations to Divine mercy for being saved when he fell into an exceeding deep pit, as he was traveling in the dark; for having been preserved in sickness; and also for providential goodness that such a sinner was sustained with food and raiment, even to his own admiration.

Bunyan adds, ‘Here were judgments and mercy, but neither of them did awaken my soul to righteousness’; wherefore I sinned still, and grew more and more rebellious against God, and careless of mine own salvation.’[28]

That such a scape-grace should enter the army can occasion no surprise. His robust, hardy frame, used to exposure in all weathers—his daring courage, as displayed in his perilous dealing with the adder, bordering upon fool-hardiness—his mental depravity and immoral habits, fitted him for all the military glory of rapine and desolation. In his Grace Abounding he expressly states that this took place before his marriage, while his earliest biographer places this event some years after his marriage, and even argues upon it, as a reason why he became a soldier, that ‘when the unnatural civil war came on, finding little or nothing to do to support himself and small family, he, as many thousands did, betook himself to arms.’[29] The same account states that, ‘in June, 1645, being at the siege of Leicester, he was called out to be one who was to make a violent attack upon the town, vigorously defended by the King’s forces against the Parliamentarians, but appearing to the officer who was to command them to be somewhat awkward in handling his arms, another voluntarily, and as it were thrust himself into his place, who, having the same post that was designed Mr. Bunyan, met his fate by a carbine-shot from the wall; but this little or nothing startled our too secure sinner at that time; for being now in an army where wickedness abounded, he was the more hardened.’

Thus we find Bunyan engaged in military affairs. There can be no doubt but that he was a soldier prior to his marriage, and that he was present at the siege of Leicester; but it is somewhat strange (if true) that he should have preferred the Parliamentary to the Royal army. Although this is a question that cannot be positively decided without further evidence than has yet been discovered, there are strong reasons for thinking that so loyal a man joined the Royal army, and not that of the Republicans.

The army into which Bunyan entered is described as being ‘where wickedness abounded,’ but, according to Hume, in this year the Republican troops were generally pious men.

Bunyan’s loyalty was so remarkable as to appear to be natural to him; for even after he had so severely suffered from the abuse of kingly power, in interfering with the Divine prerogative of appointing modes of worship, he, who feared the face of no man—who never wrote a line to curry favour with any man or class of men—thus expresses his loyal feelings—‘I do confess myself one of the old-fashioned professors, that covet to fear God, and honour the king. I also am for blessing of them that curse me, for doing good to them that hate me, and for praying for them that despitefully use me and persecute me; and have had more peace in the practice of these things than all the world are aware of.’ ‘Pray for the long life of the king.’ ‘Pray that God would discover all plots and conspiracies against his person and government.’[30] ‘Will you rebel against the king? is a word that shakes the world.’[31] ‘Pray for all that are in authority; reproach not the governor, he is set over thee; all his ways are God’s, either for thy help or the trial of thy graces—this is duty, will render thee lovely to thy friends, terrible to thine enemies, serviceable as a Christian.’[32] ‘Let kings have that fear, honour, reverence, worship that is due to their place, their office and dignity.’ ‘I speak it to show my loyalty to the king, and my love to my fellow-subjects.’[33] With such proofs of his peaceful submission to government in all things that touched not the prerogatives of God; it would have been marvelous indeed if he had taken up arms against his king. His infatuated delight in swearing, and roisterous habits, were ill suited to the religious restraints of the Parliamentarians, while they would render him a high prize to Rupert’s dragoons. Add to this, the remarkable fact, that Leicester was besieged and stormed with terrible slaughter by the king, but not by the army of the Parliament. The taking of Leicester by the king in person was attended with great cruelties. The abbey was burnt by the cavaliers. Rupert’s black flag was hoisted on the gate which had been treacherously given up. Every Scotchman found in the town was murdered. The mace and town seals were carried off as plunder; and, if the account given by Thoresby in his History of Leicester is correct, the scene of carnage was quite enough to sicken Bunyan of a military life. He knew the mode in which plunder taken from the bodies of the slain was divided by the conquerors:—

‘Or as the soldiers give unto Each man the share and lot, Which they by dint of sword have won, From their most daring foe; While he lies by as still as stone, Not knowing what they do.’[34]

‘The king’s forces having made their batteries, stormed Leicester; those within made stout resistance, but some of them betrayed one of the gates; the women of the town laboured in making up the breaches, and in great danger. The king’s forces having entered the town, had a hot encounter in the market-place; and many of them were slain by shot out of the windows, that they gave no quarter, but hanged some of the committee, and cut others to pieces. Some letters say that the kennels ran down with blood; Colonel Gray the governor, and Captain Hacker, were wounded and taken prisoners, and very many of the garrison were put to the sword, and the town miserably plundered. The king’s forces killed divers who prayed quarter, and put divers women to the sword,[35] and other women and children they turned naked into the streets, and many they ravished. They hanged Mr. Reynor and Mr. Sawyer in cold blood; and at Wighton they smothered Mrs. Barlowes, a minister’s wife, and her children.’[36]

Lord Clarendon admits the rapine and plunder, and that the king regretted that some of his friends suffered with the rest.[37] Humphrey Brown deposed that he was present when the garrison, having surrendered upon a promise of quarter, he saw the king’s soldiers strip and wound the prisoners, and heard the king say—‘cut them more, for they are mine enemies.’ A national collection was made for the sufferers, by an ordinance bearing date the 28th October, 1645, which states that—‘Whereas it is very well known what miseries befell the inhabitants of the town and county of Leicester, when the king’s army took Leicester, by plundering the said inhabitants, not only of their wares in their shops, but also all their household goods, and their apparel from their backs, both of men, women, and children, not sparing, in that kind, infants in their cradles; and, by violent courses and tortures, compelled them to discover whatsoever they had concealed or hid, and after all they imprisoned their persons, to the undoing of the tradesmen, and the ruin of many of the country.’

Can we wonder that ‘the king was abused as a barbarian and a murderer, for having put numbers to death in cold blood after the garrison had surrendered; and for hanging the Parliament’s committee, and some Scots found in that town?’ The cruelties practiced in the king’s presence were signally punished. He lost 709 men on that occasion, and it infused new vigour into the Parliament’s army. The battle of Naseby was fought a few days after; the numbers of the contending forces were nearly equal; the royal troops were veterans, commanded by experienced officers; but the God of armies avenged the innocent blood shed in Leicester, and the royal army was cut to pieces; carriages, cannon, the king’s cabinet, full of treasonable correspondence, were taken, and from that day he made feeble fight, and soon lost his crown and his life. The conquerors marched to Leicester, which surrendered by capitulation. Heath, in his Chronicle, asserts that ‘no life was lost at the retaking of Leicester.’ Many of Bunyan’s sayings and proverbs are strongly tinged with the spirit of Rupert’s dragoons—‘as we say, blood up to the ears.’[38] ‘What can be the meaning of this (trumpeters), they neither sound boot and saddle, nor horse and away, nor a charge?’[39] In his allegories when he alludes to fighting, it is with the sword and not with the musket;[40] ‘rub up man, put on thy harness.’[41] ‘The father’s sword in the hand of the sucking child is not able to conquer a foe.’[42]

Considering his singular loyalty, which, during the French Revolution, was exhibited as a pattern to Dissenters by an eminent Baptist minister; [43] considering also his profligate character and military sayings, it is very probable that Bunyan was in the king’s army in 1645, being about seventeen years of age. It was a finishing school to the hardened sinner, which enabled him, in his account of the Holy War, so well to describe every filthy lane and dirty street in the town of Mansoul.

Whether Bunyan left the army when Charles was routed at the battle of Naseby, or was discharged, is not known. He returned to his native town full of military ideas, which he used to advantage in his Holy War. He was not reformed, but hardened in sin, and, although at times alarmed with convictions of the danger of his soul, yet in the end, the flesh pleading powerfully, it prevailed; and he made a resolution to indulge himself in such carnal delights and pleasures as he was accustomed to, or that fell in his way. ‘His neglecting his business, and following gaming and sports, to put melancholy thoughts out of his mind, which he could not always do, had rendered him very poor and despicable.’[44]

In this forlorn and miserable state, he was induced, by the persuasion of friends, under the invisible guidance of God, to enter into the marriage state. Such a youth, then only twenty years of age, would naturally be expected to marry some young woman as hardened as himself, but he made a very different choice. His earliest biographer says, with singular simplicity, ‘his poverty, and irregular course of life, made it very difficult for him to get a wife suitable to his inclination; and because none that were rich would yield to his allurements, he found himself constrained to marry one without any fortune, though very virtuous, loving, and conformably obedient and obliging, being born of good, honest, godly parents, who had instructed her, as well as they were able, in the ways of truth and saving knowledge.’[45] The idea of his seeking a rich wife is sufficiently droll; he must have been naturally a persuasive lover, to have gained so good a helpmate. They were not troubled with sending cards, cake, or gloves, nor with the ceremony of receiving the visits of their friends in state; for he says, that ‘This woman and I came together as poor as poor might be, not having so much household stuff as a dish or spoon betwixt us both.’[46] His wife had two books, The Plain Man’s Pathway to Heaven, and The Practice of Piety; but what was of more importance than wealth or household stuff, she had that seed sown in her heart which no thief could steal.[47] She enticed and persuaded him to read those books. To do this he by application ‘again recovered his reading, which he had almost lost.’ His wife became an unspeakable blessing to him. She presents a pattern to any woman, who, having neglected the apostolic injunction not to be unequally yoked, finds herself under the dominion of a swearing dare devil. It affords a lovely proof of the insinuating benign favour of female influence. This was the more surprising, as he says, ‘the thoughts of religion were very grievous to me,’ and when ‘books that concerned Christian piety were read in my hearing, it was as it were a prison to me.’ In spite of all obstacles, his rugged heart was softened by her tenderness and obedience, he ‘keeping on the old course,’[48] she upon every proper season teaching him how her father’s piety secured his own and his family’s happiness. Here was no upbraiding, no snubbing, no curtain lectures; all was affectionate, amiable mildness. At first, he became occasionally alarmed for his soul’s salvation; then with the thought of having sinned away the day of grace, he plunged again into sin with greediness; anon a faint hope of mercy would fill him with fear and trembling. But this leads us to the wondrous narrative of his new birth.

THE SECOND PERIOD.

THE INTERNAL CONFLICT, OR BUNYAN’S CONVICTIONS AND CONVERSION.

All nature is progressive; if an infant was suddenly to arrive at manhood, how idiotic and dangerous he would be! A long training is essential to fit the human being for the important duties of life; and just so is it in the new birth to spiritual existence—first a babe, then the young man; at length the full stature, and at last the experienced Christian.

The narrative of Bunyan’s progress in his conversion is, without exception, the most astonishing of any that has been published. It is well calculated to excite the profoundest investigation of the Christian philosopher. Whence came those sudden suggestions, those gloomy fears, those heavenly rays of joy? Much learning certainly did not make him mad. The Christian dares not attribute his intense feelings to a distempered brain. Whence came the invisible power that struck Paul from his horse? Who was it that scared Job with dreams, and terrified him with visions? What messenger of Satan buffeted Paul? Who put ‘a new song’ into the mouth of David? We have no space in this short memoir to attempt the drawing a line between convictions of sin and the terrors of a distempered brain. Bunyan’s opinions upon this subject are deeply interesting, and are fully developed in his Holy War. The capabilities of the soul to entertain vast armies of thoughts, strong and feeble, represented as men, women, and children, are so great as almost to perplex the strongest understanding. All these multitudes of warriors are the innumerable thoughts—the strife—in ONE soul. Upon such a subject an interesting volume might be written. But we must fix our attention upon the poor tinker who was the subject of this wondrous war.

The tender and wise efforts of Mrs. Bunyan to reclaim her husband, were attended by the Divine blessing, and soon led to many resolutions, on his part, to curb his sinful propensities and to promote an outward reformation; his first effort was regularly to attend Divine worship.

He says, ‘I fell in very eagerly with the religion of the times, to wit, to go to church twice a-day, and that too with the foremost; and there should very devoutly both say and sing as others did, yet retaining my wicked life; but withal, I was so overrun with a spirit of superstition, that I adored, and that with great devotion, even all things, both the high-place, priest, clerk, vestment, service, and what else belonging to the Church; counting all things holy that were therein contained, and especially, the priest and clerk most happy, and without doubt greatly blessed, because they were the servants, as I then thought,[49] of God, and were principal in the holy temple, to do his work therein. This conceit grew so strong in little time upon my spirit, that had I but seen a priest, though never so sordid and debauched in his life,[50] I should find my spirit fall under him, reverence him, and knit unto him; yea, I thought, for the love I did bear unto them, supposing they were the ministers of God, I could have lain down at their feet, and have been trampled upon by them; their name, their garb, and work did so intoxicate and bewitch me.’

All this took place at the time when The Book of Common Prayer, having been said to occasion ‘manifold inconveniency,’ was, by an Act of Parliament, ‘abolished,’[51] and by a subsequent Act[52] prohibited, under severe penalties, from being publicly used. The ‘manifold inconveniences’ to which the Act refers, arose from differences of opinion as to the propriety of the form which had been enforced, heightened by the enormous cruelties practiced upon multitudes who refused to use it. Opposition to the English Liturgy as more combined in Scotland, by a covenant entered into, June 20, 1580, by the king, lords, nobles, and people, against Popery; and upon Archbishop Laud’s attempt, in 1637, to impose the service-book upon our northern neighbours, tumults and bloodshed ensued; until, in 1643, a new and very solemn league and covenant was entered into, which, in 1645, extended its influence to England, being subscribed by thousands of our best citizens, with many of the nobility—‘wherein we all subscribe, and each with his own hands lifted up to the Most High God, doe swear’; that being the mode of taking an oath, instead of kissing the cover of a book, as is now practiced. To the cruel and intemperate measures of Laud, and the zeal of Charles, for priestly domination over conscience, may be justly attributed the wars which desolated the country, while the solemn league and covenant brought an overwhelming force to aid the Parliament in redressing the grievances of the kingdom. During the Commonwealth there was substituted, in place of the Common Prayer, A directory for the Publique Worship of God, and the uniformity which was enjoined in it was like that of the Presbyterians and Dissenters of the present day. The people having assembled, and been exhorted to reverence and humility, joined the preacher in prayer. He then read portions of Scripture, with or without an exposition, as he judged it necessary, but not so as to render the service tedious. After singing a psalm, the minister prayed, leading the people to mourn under a sense of sin, and to hunger and thirst after the grace of God, in Jesus Christ; an outline or abstract is given of the subject of public prayer, and similar instructions are given as to the sermon or paraphrase. Immediately after the sermon, prayer was again offered up, and after the outline that is given of this devotional exercise, it is noted, ‘And because the prayer which Christ taught his disciples, is not only a pattern of prayer, but itself a most comprehensive prayer, we recommend it also to be used in the prayers of the Church.’ This being ended, a psalm was sung, and the minister dismissed the congregation with a solemn blessing.[53] Some of the clergy continued the use of prayers, contained in the liturgy, reciting, instead of reading them—a course that was not objected to. This was the form of service which struck Bunyan with such awe and reverence, leaving a very solemn impression upon his mind, which the old form of common prayer had never produced.