The Life of John Bunyan [49]
Bunyan's pen was almost idle during the last six
years of his imprisonment. Only two of his works were produced in
this period: his "Confession of Faith," and his "Defence of the
Doctrine of Justification by Faith." Both were written very near
the end of his prison life, and published in the same year, 1672,
only a week or two before his release. The object of the former
work was, as Dr. Brown tells us, "to vindicate his teaching, and if
possible, to secure his liberty." Writing as one "in bonds for the
Gospel," his professed principles, he asserts, are "faith, and
holiness springing therefrom, with an endeavour so far as in him
lies to be at peace with all men." He is ready to hold communion
with all whose principles are the same; with all whom he can reckon
as children of God. With these he will not quarrel about "things
that are circumstantial," such as water baptism, which he regards
as something quite indifferent, men being "neither the better for
having it, nor the worse for having it not." "He will receive them
in the Lord as becometh saints. If they will not have communion
with him, the neglect is theirs not his. But with the openly
profane and ungodly, though, poor people! they have been christened
and take the communion, he will have no communion. It would be a
strange community, he says, that consisted of men and beasts. Men
do not receive their horse or their dog to their table; they put
them in a room by themselves." As regards forms and ceremonies, he
"cannot allow his soul to be governed in its approach to God by the
superstitious inventions of this world. He is content to stay in
prison even till the moss grows on his eyelids rather than thus
make of his conscience a continual butchery and slaughter-shop by
putting out his eyes and committing himself to the blind to lead
him. Eleven years' imprisonment was a weighty argument to pause
and pause again over the foundation of the principles for which he
had thus suffered. Those principles he had asserted at his trial,
and in the tedious tract of time since then he had in cold blood
examined them by the Word of God and found them good; nor could he
dare to revolt from or deny them on pain of eternal damnation."
The second-named work, the "Defence of the Doctrine of
Justification by Faith," is entirely controversial. The Rev.
Edward Fowler, afterwards Bishop of Gloucester, then Rector of
Northill, had published in the early part of 1671, a book entitled
"The Design of Christianity." A copy having found its way into
Bunyan's hands, he was so deeply stirred by what he deemed its
subversion of the true foundation of Evangelical religion that he
took up his pen and in the space of six weeks composed a long and
elaborate examination of the book, chapter by chapter, and a
confutation of its teaching. Fowler's doctrines as Bunyan
understood them - or rather misunderstood them - awoke the worst
side of his impetuous nature. His vituperation of the author and
his book is coarse and unmeasured. He roundly charges Fowler with
having "closely, privily, and devilishly turned the grace of God
into a licentious doctrine, bespattering it with giving liberty to
lasciviousness;" and he calls him "a pretended minister of the
Word," who, in "his cursed blasphemous book vilely exposes to
public view the rottenness of his heart, in principle diametrically
opposite to the simplicity of the Gospel of Christ, a glorious
latitudinarian that can, as to religion, turn and twist like an eel
on the angle, or rather like the weathercock that stands on the
steeple;" and describes him as "contradicting the wholesome
doctrine of the Church of England." He "knows him not by face much
less his personal practise." He may have "kept himself clear of
the ignorant Sir Johns who had for a long time, as a judgment of
God, been made the mouth to the people - men of debauched lives who
for the love of
years of his imprisonment. Only two of his works were produced in
this period: his "Confession of Faith," and his "Defence of the
Doctrine of Justification by Faith." Both were written very near
the end of his prison life, and published in the same year, 1672,
only a week or two before his release. The object of the former
work was, as Dr. Brown tells us, "to vindicate his teaching, and if
possible, to secure his liberty." Writing as one "in bonds for the
Gospel," his professed principles, he asserts, are "faith, and
holiness springing therefrom, with an endeavour so far as in him
lies to be at peace with all men." He is ready to hold communion
with all whose principles are the same; with all whom he can reckon
as children of God. With these he will not quarrel about "things
that are circumstantial," such as water baptism, which he regards
as something quite indifferent, men being "neither the better for
having it, nor the worse for having it not." "He will receive them
in the Lord as becometh saints. If they will not have communion
with him, the neglect is theirs not his. But with the openly
profane and ungodly, though, poor people! they have been christened
and take the communion, he will have no communion. It would be a
strange community, he says, that consisted of men and beasts. Men
do not receive their horse or their dog to their table; they put
them in a room by themselves." As regards forms and ceremonies, he
"cannot allow his soul to be governed in its approach to God by the
superstitious inventions of this world. He is content to stay in
prison even till the moss grows on his eyelids rather than thus
make of his conscience a continual butchery and slaughter-shop by
putting out his eyes and committing himself to the blind to lead
him. Eleven years' imprisonment was a weighty argument to pause
and pause again over the foundation of the principles for which he
had thus suffered. Those principles he had asserted at his trial,
and in the tedious tract of time since then he had in cold blood
examined them by the Word of God and found them good; nor could he
dare to revolt from or deny them on pain of eternal damnation."
The second-named work, the "Defence of the Doctrine of
Justification by Faith," is entirely controversial. The Rev.
Edward Fowler, afterwards Bishop of Gloucester, then Rector of
Northill, had published in the early part of 1671, a book entitled
"The Design of Christianity." A copy having found its way into
Bunyan's hands, he was so deeply stirred by what he deemed its
subversion of the true foundation of Evangelical religion that he
took up his pen and in the space of six weeks composed a long and
elaborate examination of the book, chapter by chapter, and a
confutation of its teaching. Fowler's doctrines as Bunyan
understood them - or rather misunderstood them - awoke the worst
side of his impetuous nature. His vituperation of the author and
his book is coarse and unmeasured. He roundly charges Fowler with
having "closely, privily, and devilishly turned the grace of God
into a licentious doctrine, bespattering it with giving liberty to
lasciviousness;" and he calls him "a pretended minister of the
Word," who, in "his cursed blasphemous book vilely exposes to
public view the rottenness of his heart, in principle diametrically
opposite to the simplicity of the Gospel of Christ, a glorious
latitudinarian that can, as to religion, turn and twist like an eel
on the angle, or rather like the weathercock that stands on the
steeple;" and describes him as "contradicting the wholesome
doctrine of the Church of England." He "knows him not by face much
less his personal practise." He may have "kept himself clear of
the ignorant Sir Johns who had for a long time, as a judgment of
God, been made the mouth to the people - men of debauched lives who
for the love of