The Life of John Bunyan [27]
against himself, Christians may "Get the art as to outrun him in
his own shoes, and make his own darts pierce himself." "What!
didst thou never learn to outshoot the devil in his own bow, and
cut off his head with his own sword as David served Goliath?" The
whole treatise is somewhat wearisome, but the pious reader will
find much in it for spiritual edification.
CHAPTER IV.
We cannot doubt that one in whom loyalty was so deep and fixed a
principle as Bunyan, would welcome with sincere thankfulness the
termination of the miserable interval of anarchy which followed the
death of the Protector and the abdication of his indolent and
feeble son, by the restoration of monarchy in the person of Charles
the Second. Even if some forebodings might have arisen that with
the restoration of the old monarchy the old persecuting laws might
be revived, which made it criminal for a man to think for himself
in the matters which most nearly concerned his eternal interests,
and to worship in the way which he found most helpful to his
spiritual life, they would have been silenced by the promise,
contained in Charles's "Declaration from Breda," of liberty to
tender consciences, and the assurance that no one should be
disquieted for differences of opinion in religion, so long as such
differences did not endanger the peace and well-being of the realm.
If this declaration meant anything, it meant a breadth of
toleration larger and more liberal than had been ever granted by
Cromwell. Any fears of the renewal of persecution must be
groundless.
But if such dreams of religious liberty were entertained they were
speedily and rudely dispelled, and Bunyan was one of the first to
feel the shock of the awakening. The promise was coupled with a
reference to the "mature deliberation of Parliament." With such a
promise Charles's easy conscience was relieved of all
responsibility. Whatever he might promise, the nation, and
Parliament which was its mouthpiece, might set his promise aside.
And if he knew anything of the temper of the people he was
returning to govern, he must have felt assured that any scheme of
comprehension was certain to be rejected by them. As Mr. Froude
has said, "before toleration is possible, men must have learnt to
tolerate toleration," and this was a lesson the English nation was
very far from having learnt; at no time, perhaps, were they further
from it. Puritanism had had its day, and had made itself generally
detested. Deeply enshrined as it was in many earnest and devout
hearts, such as Bunyan's, it was necessarily the religion not of
the many, but of the few; it was the religion not of the common
herd, but of a spiritual aristocracy. Its stern condemnation of
all mirth and pastime, as things in their nature sinful, of which
we have so many evidences in Bunyan's own writings; its repression
of all that makes life brighter and more joyous, and the sour
sanctimoniousness which frowned upon innocent relaxation, had
rendered its yoke unbearable to ordinary human nature, and men took
the earliest opportunity of throwing the yoke off and trampling it
under foot. They hailed with rude and boisterous rejoicings the
restoration of the Monarchy which they felt, with a true instinct,
involved the restoration of the old Church of England, the church
of their fathers and of the older among themselves, with its larger
indulgence for the instincts of humanity, its wider
comprehensiveness, and its more dignified and decorous ritual.
The reaction from Puritanism pervaded all ranks. In no class,
however, was its influence more powerful than among the country
gentry. Most of them had been severe sufferers both in purse and
person during the Protectorate. Fines and sequestrations had
fallen heavily upon them, and they were eager to retaliate on their
oppressors. Their turn had come; can we wonder that they were
eager to