p. 11 | Bunyan's Imprisonment

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jul 8, 1875

Bunyan's Imprisonment

BUNYAN's imprisonment formed so considerable a part of his life as a minister of Christ, and was so fruitful in those writings that have not only immortalized his name, but been the means of doing so much good, that its story is well worth listening to.

He had been for some five years preaching the gospel, and had had encouragement in his labors, when the enemies of Christ's cause determined to bring his preaching to an end. Accordingly, on the 12th of November, 1660, a warrant of arrest was served upon him as he was about engaging in a service in a village of Bedfordshire.

His friends had heard that a warrant had been issued for his apprehension, and one of them, the brother in whose house the meeting was to be held, questioned whether it would not be wiser not to hold the service, that Bunyan might escape. “To whom I said,” says Bunyan in his autobiography, “No, by no means. I will not stir, neither will I have the meeting dismissed for this. Come, be of good cheer. Let us not be daunted. Our cause is good; we need not be ashamed of it. To preach God's word is so good a work that we shall be well rewarded if we suffer for that—or to this purpose.”

The service proceeded so far as the prayer for the “blessing of God upon our opportunity,” when the constable presented himself, and the preacher was taken into custody, and the next day brought before a magistrate. This official, one Wingate, committed the preacher, upon his absolutely refusing to desist from proclaiming the gospel, to answer at the quarter sessions.

Endeavors were made to have him released on bail, but his crime was considered too great, and no magistrate could be found willing to take the responsibility. As for Bunyan himself he was entirely at ease in the matter. “I begged of God,” he says, “I might do more good by being at liberty; but if not, his will be done; for I was not altogether without hopes but that my imprisonment might be an awakening to the saints in the country; therefore, I could not tell well which to choose, only I, in that manner, commit the thing to God.”

The indictment under which he was tried was as follows: “That John Bunyan, of the town of Bedford, laborer; being a person of such and such conditions, he hath (since such a time) devilishly and perniciously abstained from coming to hear divine service, and is a common upholder of several unlawful meetings and conventicles, to the great disturbance and distraction of the good subjects of this kingdom, contrary to the laws of our sovereign lord and king,” etc.

The sentence was that he be confined in jail three months, and if at the end of that time he would not consent to attend church, and give up preaching, he would be banished from the realm, upon penalty of hanging if afterward found within it. The banishment did not take place; but for twelve years, with an interval perhaps of six months, he was kept a prisoner.

But divine grace was given to him to maintain his steadfast purpose. He would listen to no word of compromise. Preach he must if he had his liberty. He was not harassed by any thought of even the worst that his enemies might do. “Thus I reasoned with myself,” he writes, “If I provide only for a prison, then the whip comes unawares, and so doth also the pillory.” Again, “If I only provide for these, then I am not fit for banishment. Farther, if I conclude that banishment is the worst, then if death comes I am surprised. So that I see the best way to go through sufferings is to trust in God through Christ, as touching the world to come; and, as touching this world, to count the grave my house, to make my bed in darkness; to say to corruption, Thou art my father, and to the worm, Thou art my mother and sister; that is, to familiarize these things to me.”

And so, in serene trust in God, though his heart bled at his separation from his family, particularly from his blind daughter, and he felt the privations they were obliged to endure, the years passed on, occupied in the composition of those works—particularly the Pilgrim's Progress—by which he being dead yet speaks, and will speak as long as the English language endures.—Christian Weekly.