The Life of John Bunyan [33]
Seven weeds after his committal, early in January, 1661, the
Quarter Sessions came on, and "John Bunyan, of the town of Bedford,
labourer," was indicted in the customary form for having
"devilishly and perniciously abstained from coming to church to
hear Divine Service," and as "a common upholder of several unlawful
meetings and conventions, to the great disturbance and distraction
of the good subjects of the kingdom." The chairman of the bench
was the brutal and blustering Sir John Keeling, the prototype of
Bunyan's Lord Hategood in Faithful's trial at Vanity Fair, who
afterwards, by his base subserviency to an infamous government,
climbed to the Lord Chief Justice's seat, over the head of Sir
Matthew Hale. Keeling had suffered much from the Puritans during
the great Rebellion, when, according to Clarendon, he was "always
in gaol," and was by no means disposed to deal leniently with an
offender of that persuasion. His brethren of the bench were
country gentlemen hating Puritanism from their heart, and eager for
retaliation for the wrongs it had wrought them. From such a bench,
even if Bunyan had been less uncompromising, no leniency was to be
anticipated. But Bunyan's attitude forbade any leniency. As the
law stood he had indisputably broken it, and he expressed his
determination, respectfully but firmly, to take the first
opportunity of breaking it again. "I told them that if I was let
out of prison today I would preach the gospel again to-morrow by
the help of God." We may dislike the tone adopted by the
magistrates towards the prisoner; we may condemn it as overbearing
and contemptuous; we may smile at Keeling's expositions of
Scripture and his stock arguments against unauthorized prayer and
preaching, though we may charitably believe that Bunyan
misunderstood him when he makes him say that "the Book of Common
Prayer had been ever since the apostles' time"; we may think that
the prisoner, in his "canting pedlar's French," as Keeling called
it, had the better of his judges in knowledge of the Bible, in
Christian charity, as well as in dignity and in common sense, and
that they showed their wisdom in silencing him in court - "Let him
speak no further," said one of them, "he will do harm," - since
they could not answer him more convincingly: but his legal offence
was clear. He confessed to the indictment, if not in express
terms, yet virtually. He and his friends had held "many meetings
together, both to pray to God and to exhort one another. I
confessed myself guilty no otherwise." Such meetings were
forbidden by the law, which it was the duty of the justices to
administer, and they had no choice whether they would convict or
no. Perhaps they were not sorry they had no such choice. Bunyan
was a most "impracticable" prisoner, and as Mr. Froude says, the
"magistrates being but unregenerate mortals may be pardoned if they
found him provoking." The sentence necessarily followed. It was
pronounced, not, we are sure reluctantly, by Keeling, in the terms
of the Act. "He was to go back to prison for three months. If at
three months' end he still refused to go to church to hear Divine
service and leave his preaching, he was to be banished the realm,"
- in modern language "transported," and if "he came back again
without special royal license," he must "stretch by the neck for
it."
"This," said Keeling, "I tell you plainly." Bunyan's reply that
"as to that matter he was at a point with the judge," for "that he
would repeat the offence the first time he could," provoked a
rejoinder from one of the bench, and the unseemly wrangling might
have been still further prolonged, had it not been stopped by the
gaoler, who "pulling him away to be gone," had him back to prison,
where he says, and "blesses the Lord Jesus Christ for it," his
heart was as "sweetly refreshed" in returning to it as it had "been
during his examination.