The Life of John Bunyan [18]
upon his soul, "Thy righteousness is in heaven." He looked up and
"saw with the eyes of his soul our Saviour at God's right hand."
"There, I say, was my righteousness; so that wherever I was, or
whatever I was a-doing, God could not say of me, 'He wants my
righteousness,' for that was just before Him. Now did the chains
fall off from my legs. I was loosed from my affliction and irons.
My temptations also fled away, so that from that time those
dreadful Scriptures left off to trouble me. Oh methought Christ,
Christ, there was nothing but Christ that was before mine eyes. I
could look from myself to Him, and should reckon that all those
graces of God that now were green upon me, were yet but like those
crack-groats, and fourpence-halfpennies that rich men carry in
their purses, while their gold is in their trunks at home. Oh, I
saw my gold was in my trunk at home. In Christ my Lord and
Saviour. Further the Lord did lead me into the mystery of union
with the Son of God. His righteousness was mine, His merits mine,
His victory also mine. Now I could see myself in heaven and earth
at once; in heaven by my Christ, by my Head, by my Righteousness
and Life, though on earth by my body or person. These blessed
considerations were made to spangle in mine eyes. Christ was my
all; all my Wisdom, all my Righteousness, all my Sanctification,
and all my Redemption."
CHAPTER III.
The Pilgrim, having now floundered through the Slough of Despond,
passed through the Wicket Gate, climbed the Hill Difficulty, and
got safe by the Lions, entered the Palace Beautiful, and was "had
in to the family." In plain words, Bunyan united himself to the
little Christian brotherhood at Bedford, of which the former loose-
living royalist major, Mr. Gifford, was the pastor, and was
formally admitted into their society. In Gifford we recognize the
prototype of the Evangelist of "The Pilgrim's Progress," while the
Prudence, Piety, and Charity of Bunyan's immortal narrative had
their human representatives in devout female members of the
congregation, known in their little Bedford world as Sister
Bosworth, Sister Munnes, and Sister Fenne, three of the poor women
whose pleasant words on the things of God, as they sat at a doorway
in the sun, "as if joy did make them speak," had first opened
Bunyan's eyes to his spiritual ignorance. He was received into the
church by baptism, which, according to his earliest biographer,
Charles Doe "the Struggler," was performed publicly by Mr. Gifford,
in the river Ouse, the "Bedford river" into which Bunyan tells us
he once fell out of a boat, and barely escaped drowning. This was
about the year 1653. The exact date is uncertain. Bunyan never
mentions his baptism himself, and the church books of Gifford's
congregation do not commence till May, 1656, the year after
Gifford's death. He was also admitted to the Holy Communion, which
for want, as he deemed, of due reverence in his first approach to
it, became the occasion of a temporary revival of his old
temptations. While actually at the Lord's Table he was "forced to
bend himself to pray" to be kept from uttering blasphemies against
the ordinance itself, and cursing his fellow communicants. For
three-quarters of a year he could "never have rest or ease" from
this shocking perversity. The constant strain of beating off this
persistent temptation seriously affected his health. "Captain
Consumption," who carried off his own "Mr. Badman," threatened his
life. But his naturally robust constitution "routed his forces,"
and brought him through what at one time he anticipated would prove
a fatal illness. Again and again, during his period of
indisposition, the Tempter took advantage of his bodily weakness to
ply him with his former despairing questionings as to his spiritual
state. That seemed as bad as bad could be. "Live he must not; die
he dare not."