I had read Pilgrims Progress by Rev. John Bunyan, and i felt it would be good to post the reading of the Life of Rev. John Bunyan here on the Christian Constitutional Society site. This reading is found in the front of my copy of The Pilgrims Progress printed by the American Tract Society. There is no publish date in or on the book. I found it very enjoyable to learn about this child of God and some of John Bunyan's journey from a very wretched sinner to a man with a passion for Jesus Christ. If you have not read The Pilgrims Progress i encourage you to get the book. Also a friendly suggestion is that you would be better served getting the classic version rather than the modern day revision.
THE LIFE
OF
REV. JOHN BUNYAN
The Rev. John Bunyan, the celebrated author of THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS, and many other useful works, was born at Elstow, near Bedford, England, in the year 1628.
His parents were very poor, but gave him that best education in their power. Such, however, was his extreme depravity, that he addicted himself, even in childhood, to the basest practices, particularly to cursing and swearing, in which he exceeded the worst of his wicked companions, and arrived at such a sad preeminence in sin, that he became the ringleader of the profane.
Yet, amid all these enormities, God left not himself without a witness in his bosom. He had many severe checks of conscience, and terrifying thoughts of hell. After days spent in sin, his dreams were sometimes peculiarly frightful. The fears of death and judgement intruded into his gayest hours. A copious narrative of these early conflicts and crimes is to be found in his treatise entitled, Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners. The Lord was also pleased to grant him several remarkable deliverances from death. Once he fell into the river Ouse; at another time he fell into the sea, and narrowly escaped being drowned. When he was seventeen years of age he became a soldier; and at the siege of Leicester, being called out to stand sentinel, another desiring to take his place, he consented, and his comrade who took his place was shot through the head with a musket-ball.
But neither mercies nor judgements made any durable impression on his hardened heart. He was not only insensible of the evil and danger of sin, but an enemy to every thing serious. The thought of religion, or even the appearance of it in others, was an intolerable burden to him.
The first step towards his reformation was his marriage with a woman whose parents were accounted religious. Being extremely poor, she had brought him as her whole portion, two books, The Practice of Piety, and The Plain Man's Pathway to Heaven. In these they sometimes read together, and his wife often talked to him of the godly life of her father. By these means, and especially in consequence of hearing a sermon against Sabbath-braking, he formed some resolutions of reformation, and of performing a few religious duties, which he then thought would be enough to carry him to heaven. His convictions were not, however, sufficient to keep him from his beloved sports, even in the afternoon of that Sabbath on which he had received them, when, being engaged in a game, a sentence was impressed on his mind so forcibly that he thought it like a voice from heaven, Wilt thou leave they sins and go to heaven, or have thy sins and go to hell? This excited dreadful consternation in his mind, which was instantly followed by suggestions that he was an enormous, unparalleled sinner—that it was now too late to seek after heaven, and that his transgressions were beyond the reach of mercy. Despair reached his mind, and he formed this desperate conclusion, that he must be miserable if he left his sins, and miserable if he continued in his sins; and therefore he determined to take his fill of them, as the only pleasure he was likely to have. It may justly be feared that multitudes perish by such temptations as these. There language is, “There is no hope—but we will walk after our own devices, and we will every one do the imagination of his evil heart.”
Contriving how to gratify himself with sin, yet deriving no satisfaction from it, he continued about a month longer; when it pleased God to give him another severe check by means of a woman, who, though a notorious sinner herself, was so shocked at the oaths he uttered, that she told him “he was the most ungodly fellow for swearing that she had ever seen in her life, and that he was enough to spoil all the youth in the town, if they came into his company.” By this reproof from such a person he was entirely confounded; and from that moment he refrained in general from swearing, though before he scarcely ever spoke a sentence without an oath.
About this time he had several remarkable dreams,in which he thought that the earth shook and opened her mouth to receive him—that the end of the world and the day of judgement were arrived. Once he dreamed that he was just dropping into the flames among the damned, and that a person in white shining raiment suddenly plucked him as a brand out of the fire. These dreams made impressions on his mind which were never forgotten, and perhaps inclined him, many years after, to publish the masterpiece of all his works, THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS, under the similitude of a dream.
Son after, he fell into the company of a poor, serious man, whose discourses of religion and of the Scriptures so affected him, that he applied himself to reading the Bible, especially the historical parts of it.
By degrees a reformation of manners took place, which became so remarkable that his neighbours were greatly surprised at it, and often complimented him upon it. By these commendations he was greatly puffed up with pride, and began to think himself a very good Christian, and, to use his own words, that “no man in England could please God better than he.” But all this was only lopping off the branches of sin, while the root of an unregenerated nature still remained. With much difficulty, and by slow degrees, he refrained from his accustomed diversions of dancing and ringing; he relinquished the latter from the apprehension that one of the bells, or even the steeple, might fall and crush him to death. But hitherto he remained ignorant of Christ, and was going about to establish his own righteousness. He was still of that generation “who are pure in their own eyes, and yet not washed from their filthiness.”
No long after, the providence of God so ordered it that he went to work at Bedford, and happening to hear some women, who were sitting at a door, talk about the things of God, his curiosity induced him to listen t them, but he soon found their conversation above his reach. They were speaking of the new birth, and the work of God in their hearts—how they were convinced of their miserable state by nature—how God had visited their souls with his love in Christ Jesus—with what promises they had been refreshed, comforted, and supported under affliction and temptations. They also talked of the wretchedness of their own hearts, and of their unbelief—of renouncing their own works and righteousness, as insufficient to justify them before God. All this appeared to be spoken in such spiritual language, in such a serous manner, and with such an air of Christian joy and cheerfulness, that he seemed like one who had found a new world.
This conversation was of great service to him. He now saw that his case was not so good as he had fondly imagined; that among all his thoughts of religion, the grand essential of it, the NEW BIRTH, had never entered his mind—that he had never derived comfort from the promises of God—that he had never known the plague of his own heart, having never taken notice of his secret thoughts—and that he was entirely unacquainted with Satan's temptations, and the way to resist them. He therefore frequented the company of those persons to obtain information; his mind became constantly intent upon gaining spiritual knowledge, and his whole soul was so fixed on eternal things, that it was difficult to draw his mind from heaven to earth. He now began to read his Bible as it were with new eyes; it became inexpressibly sweet and pleasant to him, because it held forth a Saviour whom he now felt the want of. Reading, meditation, and prayer to understand the Scriptures, were the employments in which he delighted.
Now the enemy of souls assaulted him with his temptations. One of the principal was, whether he was elected or not. But it pleased God to relieve him by the application of that Scripture, “Look at the generations of old, and see; did ever any trust in God and were confounded?” This gave him much encouragement, as if it had been said, “Begin at Genesis, and read to the end of the Revelation, and try if you can find any that ever trusted in God and were confounded; and if none that trusted in God ever miscarried, then your duty is to trust in God, and not to concern yourself about election, which is a secret thing.”
Another temptation that violently assaulted him was, “How if the day of grace should be past and gone?” But after many days spent in bitterness of spirit, he was relieved by that blessed word, “Compel them to come in, that my house may be filled;” and “yet there is room.”
Many more were his temptations, of which the reader may find a large account in his Grace Abounding, above referred to. But the Lord, who knows how to deliver the godly out of temptation, was pleased to deliver him out of all his spiritual distresses, and to fill his soul with joy and peace in believing.
To this happy event, under the blessing of the Holy Spirit, the conversation he had with experienced Christians, and the valuable labors of Mr. Gifford, then minister of the gospel at Bedford, were chiefly conducive. When twenty-seven years of age, Mr. Bunyan joined a congregation of pious Christians at Bedford. His natural abilities, eminent grace, and the remarkable temptations he had experienced, soon pointed him out as a proper person for the ministry. Curiosity naturally excited multitudes to attend his preaching, and he soon found that his labors were not in vain in the Lord.
Such were his diffidence and modesty that at first he thought it incredible that God should speak to the hearts of sinners by his means. But he was encouraged by many seals of his ministry. His views of the work, and his method in it, deserve notice and imitation. The Lord gave him mich compassion for perishing sinners. He studied with great diligence to find out such words as might awaken the conscience, exhibit Christ in all his infinite fulness, and show the sinner that except in His precious atonement there is no salvation.
“In my preaching,” says he, “the Lord did lead me to begin where his word begins, with sinners; to condemn all flesh, and to open and allege that the curse of God doth lay hold on all men, as they come into the world, because of sin. This part of my work I fulfilled with the terrors of the law and guilt for my own transgressions lying heavy on my conscience. I went myself in chains, to preach to them in chains; and carried that fire in my own conscience, of which I persuaded them to beware. I have gone full of a sense of guilt and terror even to the pulpit door, and there it hath been taken off, and I have been at liberty in my mind until I have done my work, and then immediately it has returned as heavily as before; yet God carried me on, and surely with a strong hand, for neither guilt nor hell could take me off my work.
“Thus I went on for the space of two years, after which the Lord came in upon my soul with some sure peace and comfort through Christ, giving me many sweet discoveries of his blessed grace. And I did much labor to hold forth Jesus Christ in all his offices, relations, and benefits, unto the world; and did strive also to discover, to condemn, and to remove those false supports on which the world lean, and by depending on them, fall and perish.
“When i have been preaching, my heart hath often, all the time of this and other exercises, with great earnestness, cried to God that he would make the word effectual to salvation; wherefore I did labor so to speak as that thereby, if possible, the sin and the person guilty might be particularized. And when I have done the exercise, it hath gone to my heart to think the word should now fall as rain on stony places; still wishing, O that they who have heard me did but see as I do, what sin, and death, and hell, and the curse of God are! and what the grace, and love, and mercy of God are, through Christ, to men who are yet estranged from him! And indeed I did often say in my heart before the Lord, that if to be hanged up presently before their eyes would be a means of awakening them and confirming them in the truth, I could gladly consent to it.
“I never cared to meddle with unimportant points which were in dispute among the saints, yet it pleased me much to contend with great earnestness for the word of faith, and the remission of sins by the sufferings and death of Jesus. I saw my work before me did run in another channel, even to carry the awakening word; to that, therefore, I did adhere.
“If any of those who were awakened by my ministry fell back, I can truly say, that their loss hath been more to me than if my own child had been going to its grave. My heart hath been so wrapped up in the glory of this excellent work, that I counted myself more blessed and honored by it, than if God had made me emperor of the Christian world, or the lord of all the glory of the earth, without it. Oh, these words, ‘He that converteth a sinner from the error of his way, doth save a soul from death. They that be wise shall shine as brightness of the firmament, and they that turn many to righteousness, as the stars, for ever and ever.’ James 5:20; Dan. 12:3. These, with many others of a like nature, have been refreshments to me.
“My great desire, in fulfilling my ministry, was to get into the darkest places of the country, because I found my spirit leaned most after awakening and converting work; and the word that I carried did lean itself most that way also: ‘Yea, so have I strived to preach the gospel, not where Christ was named, lest I should build on another man's foundation.’” Rom. 15:20.
This fidelity excited many enemies; and the time in which he lived being a time of persecution for conscience' sake, he was thrown into prison, and there continued, in the whole, for twelve years.
He was enabled to bear this tedious imprisonment patiently. The Lord was very gracious to him. “I never had,” he said while in prison, “in all my life, so great an insight into the word of God as now. Those scriptures which I saw nothing in before, are made, in this place and state, to shine upon me. I have had sweet sights of the forgiveness of my sins, and of my being with Jesus in another world. Oh the mount Sion, the heavenly Jerusalem, the innumerable company of angels, and God the Judge of all, and the spirits of just men made perfect, and Jesus, have been sweet unto me in this place! I have seen that here which I am persuaded I shall never while in this world be able to express. I have seen a truth in the words, ‘Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory.’”
The thoughts of his afflicted family would sometimes press upon his mind, especially the case of one of his four children who was blind. Mr. Bunyan was a man of strong affections, a tender husband, and a very indulgent parent. But he was supported under this affliction by these two scriptures: “Leave thy fatherless children, I will preserve them alive; and let thy widows trust in me.” The Lord hath said, “Verily, it shall be well with thy remnant; verily, I will cause the enemy to entreat thee well in the time of evil.”
He was not idle during his long and severe confinement, but diligently studied his Bible, which, with the Book of Martyrs, composed his whole library. His own hands also ministered to the necessity of his indigent family; but he was still more usefully employed in preaching to all who could gain access to the jail, and with a spirit and power that surprised his hearers.
It was here also that he composed several useful treatises, especially THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS, a book which has done as much good, perhaps, as any other, except the Bible; and by writing which he has probably been more useful, that if he had enjoyed the unrestrained exercise of his public ministry. In composing it, he was evidently favored with a peculiar measure of the divine assistance. Within the confines of a jail he was able so to delineate the Christian's course, with its various difficulties, perils, and conflicts, that scarcely and thing seems to have escaped his notice. The most accurate observer will hardly find one character, either good or bad, or one fatal delusion, or injurious mistake, which is not essentially pointed out in the PILGRIM'S PROGRESS. The book suits all the various descriptions of persons who profess godliness, and relates the experience, temptations, conflicts, supports, and consolations of Christians in our own times, as exactly as if it had been penned for their own immediate benefit. Cowper has spoken of this book and its author in the following manner:
O thou, whom, borne on fancy's eager wing
Back to the season of life's happy spring,
I pleased remember, and while memory yet
Holds fast her office here, can ne'er forget:
Ingenious dreamer, in whose well-told tale
Sweet fiction and sweet truth alike prevail;
Whose humorous vein, strong sense, and simple style,
May teach the gayest, make the gravest smile;
Witty, and well employed, and like thy Lord,
Speaking in parables his slighted word,
I name thee not, lest so despised a name
Should move a sneer at thy deserved fame;
Yet e'en in transitory life's late day,
That mingles all my brown with sober gray,
Revere the man whose Pilgrim marks the road,
And guides the Progress of the soul to God.
The narrative is so entertaining, that the heart becomes interested in the event of every transaction: ministers may draw from it the most valuable instruction as a text-book to be used in their private meetings; and parents may with great advantage select portions of it to be read and explained to their children.
After the Lord had accomplished what he had designed in the works written by this man of God in his dreary solitude, he at length disposed Dr. Barlow, then Bishop of Lincoln, and others, to pity his undeserved sufferings, and to interest themselves in procuring his enlargement.
His active spirit soon improved the liberty afforded him : he visited the people of God in several places, especially the afflicted, tempted, and persecuted, to whom he was now well qualified to speak a word in season. He took this opportunity of paying his grateful acknowledgments to his friends whose kind assistance he had experienced in prison; and as occasion offered, he preached the gospel with great boldness and acceptance, particularly to the congregation at Bedford, of whom he was now chosen minister.
Amidst all his popularity and success, he was kept humble, and was seldom or never known to speak of himself. His whole behaviour was exemplary, so that malice herself has not been able to find, even on the closest inspection, a single stain on his reputation and moral character.
His valuable life, worn out with sufferings, age, and ministerial labors, was closed with a memorable act of Christian charity. He was well known under the blessed character of a peacemaker. He was therefore desired by a young gentleman in the neighborhood of Bedford, to interpose as a mediator between him and his offended father, who lived at Reading, in Berkshire : this friendly business he cheerfully undertook, and happily effected. But in his return to London, being overtaken with excessive rain, he came to a friend's on Snow Hill very wet, and was seized with a violent fever, the pains of which he bore with great patience, resigning himself to the will of God, desiring to be called away that he might be with Christ, looking upon life as a delay of that blessedness to which his soul was aspiring, and after which it was thirsting. In this holy, longing frame of spirit, after a sickness of ten days, he breathed out his soul into the hands of his blessed Redeemer, August 12, 1668, aged 60.
His natural abilities were remarkably great; his fancy and invention uncommonly fertile. His wit was sharp and quick; his memory very good, it being customary with him to commit his sermons to writing after he had preached them. His works are collected in two volumes, folio, and contain as many treatises as he lived years. His judgement was sound and deep in the essential principles of the gospel, as his writings sufficiently evince. His piety and sincerity towards God were apparent to all who conversed with him. He constantly maintained the godlike principle of love, often bewailing that there should be so much division among Christians. He was a man of heroic courage, resolute for Christ and the gospel, and bold in reproving sin both in public and private; yet mild, condescending, and affable to all. Thus lived and died a man in whose character, conduct, and usefulness that scripture was remarkably verified: “Ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called; but God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise, that no flesh should glory in his presence.”
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