24

THE LIFE OF JOHN BUNYAN.

that I was afraid I had sinned the sin against the Holy Ghost. He told me he thought so too." Here therefore he had but cold comfort; and talking farther with him, found him, though a good man, a stranger to such severe spiritual conflicts. He therefore went to God again, and reiterated his creis for mercy; though as yet with little comfort, because the hour of his deliverance was not fully come.

In this interval he walked to a neighbouring town, where sitting to rest himself upon a settle in the street, he fell into a deep pause upon his state: after long musing he lifted up his head: "But methought, (says he,) I saw as if the sun that shineth in the heavens did grudge to give light; and as if the very stones in the street, and tiles upon the houses, did bend themselves against me: methought that they all combined together to banish me out of the world; I was abhorred of them, and unworthy to dwell among them, or to be partaker of their benefits, because I had sinned against the Saviour. O how happy now was every creature over me! for they stood fast, and kept their station, but I was gone and lost.

"Then breaking out in the bitterness of my soul, I said to my soul, with a grievous sigh, How can God comfort such a wretch as I am?" I had no sooner said it, but this returned upon me, as an echo doth answer a voice, 'This sin is not unto death.'(a) At which I was as if I had been raised out of the grave, and cried out again, Lord, how couldst thou find out such a word as this?' For I was filled with admiration at the fitness and at the unexpectedness of the sentence: the power, and sweetness, and light, and glory, that came with it also, was marvellous to me to find. Now, thought I, if this sin is not unto death, then it is pardonable; therefore from this I have encourage

(a) 1 John v. 16, 17.

THE LIFE OF JOHN BUNYAN.

25

ment to come to God by Christ for mercy, as well as others."

The comfort of this word was not, however, of long duration, any more than the preceding. Within two or three days he began to droop again; but, again and again was revived with the application of some or other of the promises of the Gospel. These repeated temptations made him more attentive and scrupulous in examining the ground of his consolations, lest he should deceive himself with a misapplication of the promises. Thus his mind continued for weeks, and months, and in the whole for years, "hanging (so he expresses it,) as in a pair of scales; sometimes up and sometimes down; now in peace, and anon again in ter ror;" not, however, so extreme as he had felt before; for this was but the hinder part of the tempest: "the thunder (says he) was gone beyond me, only some drops did still now and then fall on me; but because my former frights and anguish were sore and deep; therefore it oft befell me still, as it befalleth those that have been scared with fire, I thought every voice was Fire! Fire!"

At length his chains were loosed, his irons knocked off, and those alarming scriptures ceased to trouble him. As he saw farther into the nature and spirit of the Gospel, he felt the ground of his dependance more secure, and was in the end made an extraordinary instrument of comforting others with the same consolations which he had himself received. But, before we proceed, I beg to be indulged in a few observations on the preceding narrative; and shall begin with Mr. Bunyan's own reflections.

1. On the causes of his extraordinary temptations. These he considers as principally two, which shall be related in his own simple phraseology. "The first was, that I did not, when I was delivered from the temptations that went before, still pray to God to keep me from temptations that were to come; for though,

26

THE LIFE OF JOHN BUNYAN.

as I can say in truth, my soul was much in prayer before this trial seized me; yet then I prayed only, or principally for the removal of present troubles, and for fresh discoveries of his love in Christ: which I saw afterwards was not enough to do; I also should have prayed, that the great God would keep me from the evil that was to come: according to what is written, Pray, that ye enter not into temptation.'

"Another cause of this temptation was, that I had tempted God, and in this manner: Upon a time my wife was great with child, and before her full time was come, her pangs, as of a woman in travail, were fierce and strong upon her; even as if she would have immediately fallen in labour, and been delivered of an untimely birth. Now at this very time it was, that I had been so strongly tempted to question the being of God; wherefore, as my wife lay crying by me, I said, but with all secrecy imaginable, even thinking in my heart, Lord, if now thou wilt remove this sad affliction from my wife, and cause that she be troubled no more therewith this night (and now were her pangs just upon her,) then I shall know that thou canst discern the most secret thoughts of the heart.' I had no sooner said it in my heart, but her pangs were taken from her, and she was cast into a deep sleep; at this I greatly marvelled; but after a good while, I fell to sleep also: so when I awaked in the morning, it came upon me again, what I had said in my heart the last night, and how the Lord had shewed me, that he knew my secret thoughts; which was a great astonishment unto me for several weeks after.

"Well, about a year and a half afterwards, that sinful thought, of which I have spoken before, went through my wicked heart; even this thought, 'Let Christ go if he will:' so when I was fallen under guilt for this, the remembrance of my other thought, and of the effect thereof, would also come upon me, with this rebuke along with it, Now you may see

THE LIFE OF JOHN BUNYAN.

27

that God doth know the most secret thoughts of the heart.'

"And with this, that of the passages that were betwixt the Lord and his servant Gideon, fell upon my spirit; how because that Gideon tempted God with his fleece, both wet and dry, when he should have believed and ventured upon his word: therefore the Lord did afterwards so try him, as to send him against an innumerable company of enemies; and that too, as to outward appearance, without any strength or help.(a) Thus he served me, and that justly; for I should have believed his word, and not have put an if to the allseeing God."

2. Our author leads us next to remark the advantages he derived from these painful and distressing trials; they were briefly such as these: a strong and abiding conviction of the being, power, and holiness of God-a deep experience of the value and preciousness of the promises, to which he was enabled to cling and cleave, as a man in immediate danger of being drowned-an exceeding lively sense of the infinite mercy, grace, and love of God, which was at times such, that he thinks if it had abode long "it would have made him incapable of business.”

was

We must now resume our narrative, consider our author as a public character, and give some account of his being called to the work of the ministry, which "about five or six years" after his conversion. This was first suggested, it seems, by some serious and judicious members of Mr. Gifford's church, who apprehended that, both from his gifts and experience, he was calculated for public and eminent usefulness in the church.

His first attempts were (as is the manner among dissenters) in private, and to a few select hearers;

(a) Judges vi. 7.

28

THE LIFE OF JOHN BUNYAN.

afterwards he ventured to exhort in some of the neighbouring villages; and finally, at the desire of the church, he was solemnly set apart, with prayer and fasting, to the public ministry of the word. As to himself, he tells us, he was enabled to see "that the Holy Ghost never intended that men who have gifts and abilities should bury them in the earth; but rather did command and stir up such to the exercise of their gift; and also did commend those that were apt and ready so to do: " They have addicted themselves to the ministry of the saints."(a)

When it was known that Bunyan, the profane tinker, had commenced a preacher of the Gospel, hearers soon flocked around him to the amount of many hundreds, and that from all quarters, Nor did he preach long without visible success: many came with weeping eyes and bleeding hearts, to confess their sins, and bless God for him as the instrument of their conversion. At first he found it hard to believe that the Lord had so highly honoured him, but was soon constrained to join with them in blessing and adoration.

One instance particularly worth recording, is of a dissolute student of Cambridge university, who, being induced by curiosity to hear "the tinker prate," was so affected with his sermon as to become a real convert, and, in the issue, an eminent preacher of the Gospel.

The effects of this honest man's preaching were so different from what usually attended the sermons of learned, ingenious, and polite preachers, that the reader may probably wish to hear something of the matter and method of his preaching, which cannot be given better than in his own plain but emphatic language.

"In my preaching of the word, I took special notice of this one thing; namely, that the Lord did

(a) 1 Cor. xvi. v.