(Guest Post: Mike Clark)
John Bunyan was born on November 30, 1628 in Elstow, about a mile south of Bedford, England to the parents of Thomas Bunyan and Margaret Bentley. His father Thomas was a tinker or metal worker and he and his wife Margaret were both natives of Elstow and were born in the same year of 1603. Margaret had known Thomas all her life. However, Thomas was first married to Anne Pinney in 1623, but she died a few years later in 1627 childless. That same year he remarried to Margaret in the month of May. We know very little about John’s father and even less about his mother. In late November of 1628 we see the simple beginnings of a great and strong life. John Brown comments “We seem to see the wondrous babe carried on that last of the chill days of November of 1628 to Elstow Church to be christened. Rude was the little cradle out of which he was lifted, and commonplace the cottage, with its grimy forge, out of which he was carried.” Such were the humble beginnings of a man that would be used by God greatly.
His Life
Growing up, John Bunyan received the ordinary education of the poor, which equated to being able to read and write and not much more than that. The real education that he received was that given in the great school of human life where many have received such effective training. He learned the trade of his father as the saying goes that the bread eaters must soon become the bread-winners.
The first of his many great sorrows came when he was sixteen years of age. In June of 1644, his mother and sister died within one month of each other. His sister, Margaret, the playmate of his childhood, was only thirteen. Within weeks of each other, John found himself walking across the fields to the quiet graves in the Elstow Churchyard. Before another month had gone by, his second great heartache came when his father remarried to fill the place of his mother. Old enough to understand and affectionate enough to resent, this indignity to his mother’s memory must have estranged him from his father and his home. Brown again writes “The removal of the gentler influence of mother and sister at the formative period of life, and the revulsion of feeling created by the indecent haste with which his father had married again, may have had not a little to do with the those wild and willful ways of the next few years, which he lived to describe so vividly and repent so bitterly.” About six to eight months after his mother’s death, Bunyan entered the Parliamentary Army. There he served for two years and experienced some harrowing moments such as when a man took his place as a sentinel and soon after was shot in the head with a musket ball and died. Another time, during a military operation, he fell into a creek of the sea and hardly escaped drowning. These memories came back to him when it came time to write about the fight between Apollyon, the expedition of Greatheart, and the winning back of Mansoul for Emmanuel.
After leaving the Army, Bunyan returned to Elstow and his tinkering. Soon after that, at the age of twenty or twenty one, he married a woman who was an orphan and a native of a place other than Elstow. This woman brought into Bunyan’s life a real home with the presence of love, something that had been absent since his mother’s death. They came together as poor and poor might be, not having so much household stuff as a dish or spoon between the both of them. Brown adds that “it was an unpromising beginning, but many that are more promising turn out worse. It may be that where there are health and hope and honest industry, mutual love and trust can better supply the lack of dish and spoon than an abundance of dishes and spoons can supply the lack of love.” John and his wife together had four children. They were Mary, Elizabeth, John, and Thomas. Mary, being the oldest, was born blind. This was a tremendous burden of his heart in caring for Mary and the others, but became greater when he was imprisoned. Bunyan’s wife had a godly father who had passed down to her two books which she brought to the marriage. One was entitled “The Plain Man’s Pathway to Heaven” which was a little square book of about four hundred pages having been first published around 1601, and in 1637 had reached its twenty-fourth edition. It is in the form of a dialogue between four persons, who appear as a divine, a plain honest man, and ignorant man, and a caviler. The other book, which Bunyan read with his wife, was called “The Practice of Piety.” Its distinctly ecclesiastical tone was a favorite with the Puritans. Bunyan found these books pleasing to read, but not convicting. God, however, had already started his work of drawing the young Bunyan to Himself.
During these days, Bunyan was not yet a Christian. The sinfulness of Bunyan’s early life was not specially those of the flesh. He was not a drunkard and he denied that he had ever been unchaste. It should be noted that a man’s weakness, however, is often the reaction from his strength. Brown describes Bunyan’s violent outrage against reverence and truth stating that “his burning power of expression ran riot in weird blasphemies which made even blasphemers tremble. This kind of wickedness that had begun early lasted long. He was a grown man, when one who was herself a loose and ungodly wretch, and therefore not over-nice, protested that it made her tremble to hear him and that he was the ungodliest fellow for swearing ever she heard in all her life, and that it was enough to spoil all the youth in the whole town.” In his autobiography, “Grace Abounding” he mentions that he had few equals for his cursing, swearing, lying, and blaspheming the holy name of God. He was the ringleader of all the youth that kept company with him in all manner of vice and ungodliness.
One day while playing a game of cat, he felt as if he heard a voice from heaven dart into his soul saying “wilt thou leave thy sins and go to heaven, or have thy sins and go to hell?” His conscience was stricken and made a desperate attempt to be rid of it. He then tried self reform and gave up swearing, took up reading the historical parts of the Bible, and set about to keep the commandments, which he thought he did nicely and that God would be well pleased with him as any other man in England. His neighbors noticed a change in him and expressed a sense of surprise which fed his pride and became proud of his godliness. The Lord, leading Bunyan in a way that he did not know, mercifully shook him out of his self-satisfaction. One day as he was going into Bedford to work he came across three or four poor women having a spiritual conversation. At this time, he himself had become quite the talker on the things of religion. Overhearing their discussion, he soon found that their talk was above him and spoke of a holy discontent with themselves and of a new birth from above. They spoke of how God had visited their souls with His love in the Lord Jesus which refreshed, comforted, and strengthened them. They spoke of the pleasantness of Scripture and grace and seemed to him that they had found a new world to which he was altogether a stranger. These women were members of a church whose pastor was John Gifford. Bunyan soon began attending services and he and his family became members in 1653.
For Bunyan, there were seasons of great doubt about the Scriptures and about his own soul. A whole flood of blasphemies poured on his spirit. From morning to night, he felt he was being carried away by a mighty whirlwind. During this time, Bunyan happened to pick up an old book that was falling apart and found in it his own condition so largely and profoundly handled as if it had been written out of his own heart. It was a copy of the “Commentary on the Galatians,” by Martin Luther. How fitting that the one man of all the centuries most fitted to walk with Bunyan was Luther. Bunyan said that he did prefer this book of Martin Luther, with the exception of the Bible, before all books that ever I have seen as most fit for a wounded conscience. At the same time, Bunyan had one temptation that loomed large in his experience. John Piper remarks “When he thought that he was established in the Gospel, there came a season of overwhelming darkness following a terrible temptation when he heard the words, ‘sell and part with this most blessed Christ….Let him go if he will.’ He tells us that ‘I felt my heart freely consent thereto. Oh, the diligence of Satan; oh, the desperateness of man’s heart.’ For two years, he tells us, he was in the doom of damnation. ‘I feared that this wicked sin of mine might be that sin unpardonable.’ ‘Oh, no one knows the terrors of those days but myself.’ I found it a hard work now to pray to God because despair was swallowing me up.” Then at last came the decisive day. Brown writing about that decisive day along with Bunyan’s thoughts says “One day as he was passing into the field, still with some fears in his heart, suddenly this sentence fell into his soul, “Thy righteousness is in heaven “; and methought withal I saw with the eye of my soul, Jesus Christ at God’s right hand. I saw moreover, that it was not my good frame of heart that made my righteousness better, nor yet my bad frame that made my righteousness worse; for my righteousness was Jesus Christ Himself, the same yesterday, today, and forever. Now did my chains fall from my legs indeed; I was loosed from my afflictions and irons. Now Christ was all; all my wisdom, all my righteousness, all my sanctification, and all my redemption!”
In 1655 after his conversion, members of his church asked him to exhort the church, to which he acquiesced. There he discovered his gifts among the people. Those fortunate first listeners did feel in their hearts that they had the privilege of having no common seer among them. His popularity as a powerful lay preacher grew. When the country understood that he, the tinker, had turned preacher, they came to hear the word by hundreds and that from all parts. Brown adds “In the days of toleration, a day’s notice would get a crowd of 1,200 to hear him preach at 7 o’clock in the morning on a weekday.” Piper, quoting Brown, further remarks concerning Bunyan “the greatest Puritan theologian, and a contemporary of Bunyan, John Owen, when asked by King Charles why he, a great scholar, went to hear an uneducated tinker preach, said, ‘I would willingly exchange my learning for the tinker’s power of touching men’s hearts.’” Preaching became Bunyan’s passion and became the work of his life. Bunyan once said, speaking of Christ’s condescension, “He became poorer than they that go with flail and rake. In Him death has no fear for us. Death can do no thee no harm. It is only a passage out of a prison into a palace.”
During this time there is an interesting story told of how Bunyan encountered a university man on the road near Cambridge. The university man asked him how he, not having the original scriptures, dared to preach. To this he replied by asking the man, in turn, if he himself had the originals, the actual copies written by the prophets and apostles. The man said no, but he had what he knew to be true copies of the originals. And I, Bunyan said, believe the English Bible to be a true copy also.
Bunyan pleaded with his fellow believers to pray for him. He asked them “pray for me to our God, with much earnestness, fervency, and frequently, in all your knockings at our Father’s door, because I do very much stand in need thereof, for my work is great, my heart is vile, the devil lieth at watch, the world would fain be saying, Aha, aha, thus would we have it! And of myself, keep myself I cannot, trust myself I dare not; if God does not help me I am sure it will not be long before my heart deceives, and the world have their advantage of me.”
In the days of Bunyan, there were great conflicts between Parliament and monarchy in England. Both Bishop William Laud and King Charles I opposed the reforms of the Church of England desired by the Puritans and pressed to bring all the Church of England into High Church conformity along the lines of the Book of Common Prayer. Bunyan speaking about the Book of Common Prayer said that he could pray very well without it. For a time the nonconformists had their way, but after a while Parliament turned against them and passed a series of acts that resulted in increased restrictions on the Puritan preachers. In 1662, the Act of Uniformity was passed that required acceptance, again, of the Book of Common Prayer and Episcopal ordination. Two thousand Puritan pastors were forced out of their churches. If caught preaching apart from the Church of England fines were imposed or arrests were made. One gentlemen, who was using his house as a place of worship, was fined a large amount and had many goods taken. He pleaded with the authorities saying “Sir what shall my children do? Shall they starve?” The authorities responded saying “so long as he was a rebel his children should starve.” In 1660, while Bunyan was preaching, the constables came and ordered him to go with him and thus the twelve year ordeal in prison began.
A few years before Bunyan went to prison, his wife died, leaving him with four children under ten. In 1659 he married Elizabeth, a remarkable woman. After only a year of marriage, Bunyan was arrested and put in prison while his wife was pregnant and miscarried during the crisis. Elizabeth cared for the four children as a stepmother for those twelve years of John’s imprisonment. She did however bear to John two more children later on, namely Sarah and Joseph. She went to great lengths to persuade the authorities to release John. When the authorities asked if he would stop preaching, she said “My lord, he dares not leave off preaching as long as he can speak.” One of the authorities said that Bunyan’s doctrine is the doctrine of the devil. Elizabeth responded by saying “My lord, when the righteous Judge shall appear, it will be known that his doctrine is not the doctrine of the devil!”
For twelve years, (1660-1672) Bunyan chose prison and a clear conscience over freedom and a conscience soiled by the agreement not to preach. He could have had freedom at any moment if he just agreed to stop preaching. But both he and his wife Elizabeth were of like mind. He was however sometimes tormented about whether or not he was making the right decision. Bunyan writes “The parting with my wife and poor children hath often been to me in this place as the pulling of the flesh from my bones; and that not only because I am somewhat too fond of these great mercies, but also because I should have often brought to my mind the many hardships, miseries and wants that my poor family was like to meet with should I be taken from them, especially my poor blind child, who lay nearer my heart than all I had besides; O the thoughts of the hardship I thought my Blind one might go under, would break my heart to pieces.” Yet he remained in prison until 1672, when he was released because of the Declaration of Religious Indulgence.
During his imprisonment there were some who were released, but Bunyan was not among them. The local authorities were given their own discretion as to who may be released. Bunyan said that Barabbas was preferred to the master, no wonder therefore that felons were preferred to the disciple. There were times in those twelve years that the Bedford jail was crowded almost beyond its capacity with even saintly men and women who valued the truth of God. There was a considerable congregation within the walls of the prison itself. Bunyan had two familiar friends with him in prison. One was the Bible and other was the Book of Martyrs. Sometimes Bunyan was under cruel and oppressive jailors in an uncomfortable and close prison to which even a jailor took such pity of his rigorous sufferings that he did as the Egyptian jailor did to Joseph, put all care and trust into his hands.
Bunyan, not being one to be idle, took about many things to keep him occupied. He would make laces and other handicraft and acted as spiritual counselor to some who were permitted to bring their affairs to him. He was the spiritual guide to those inside and outside the prison. His pen was his true friend however and spent much time in writing. He said that he depended on no sayings of man, but relied solely on the true sayings of God as found in the Scriptures of truth. He wrote four books before he was thirty-two. His first venture of a literary sort was called “Profitable Meditations.” The book is in the form of poetical dialogue and involves a supposed conversation between Satan and the tempted soul seeing here the first ideas of the parley between Christian and Apollyon. His second book was entitled “Praying in the Spirit.” It was mainly a treatise on prayer. Speaking of what he believed prayer to be he says “A good sense of sin and the wrath of God, and some encouragement from God.” Bunyan’s third book was “Christian Behavior” and was a treatise upon a true life as the fitting outcome of a sound faith. Later Bunyan wrote a book with the title “Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners” which he says is the story of his life. This proved to be one of his most memorable compositions and brings to mind similar works such as Augustine’s confessions. After Bunyan’s release in 1672, he was detained again for a short time in 1675 and it is believed this is when he wrote his most famous piece “Pilgrim’s Progress.” He knew neither Greek nor Hebrew and had no theological degrees. Speaking of the length of time in prison he says “In which condition I have continued with much content through grace. I was made to see that if ever I would suffer rightly I must first pass a sentence of death upon everything which can properly be called a thing of this life, even to reckon myself, my wife, my children, my health, my enjoyments, and all as dead to me and myself as dead to them. And second to live upon God that is invisible. I see the best way to go through suffering is to trust in God through Christ as touching the world to come.”
After Bunyan’s release he immediately was licensed to preach as the pastor of Bedford where he had served through the years. Ten years after his last imprisonment in the middle 1680’s persecution was once again heavy. Meetings were broken in upon and worshippers were taken to prison. Ministers were introduced to their pulpits through trap-doors in the floor or ceiling or through doorways in the walls. Bunyan was once again expecting to be taken away again but God spared him. In August of 1688, he was traveling to London to preach and to help make peace between a man in his church and his alienated father. His mission was successful, but after a trip to an outlying district, he returned to London on horseback through excessive rains. He became sick and had a high fever and on August 31, 1688, at the age of sixty, followed his famous fictional Pilgrim from the “City of Destruction” to the “New Jerusalem.” He is buried in London at Bunhill fields. He preached his last sermon from John 1:13 and his last words from the pulpit were “Live like the children of God, that you may look your Father in the face with comfort another day.”
Bunyan stated that he was a Baptist, but would prefer telling people that he was a Christian and that if God should count him worthy, to be called a Christian, a believer, or other such name which is approved by the Holy Ghost. He continued “And as for those titles of Anabaptists, Independents, Presbyterians, or the like, I conclude that they came neither from Jerusalem, nor Antioch, but rather from hell and Babylon, for they naturally lead to divisions.”
Bunyan was a man who suffered greatly. In summation he early on lost his mother and sister, the quick remarriage of his father, teenage grief, discovering that his first child would be blind for the rest of her life, the spiritual depression and darkness in the early years of his marriage, the death of his first wife leaving him with four small children, twelve years in prison separating himself from friends, family, and church, the ever present stress and uncertainty of persecution, including another short imprisonment, and the final sickness and death being far from those he loved most. All this, not to mention the normal pressures and pains of ministry, marriage, parenting, criticism, and sickness along the way.
All of Bunyan’s sufferings did however have a purpose and was not in vain. It bore much fruit. Bunyan’s sufferings confirmed him in his calling as a writer, especially for the afflicted church. His “Pilgrim’s Progress” is perhaps the world’s bestselling book next to the Bible. It has been translated into over 200 languages. He wrote over fifty eight books. These included collections of poems, children’s literature, allegory, doctrinal expositions of Scripture and those dealing with controversies such as justification and baptism. Bunyan wrote heavily on affliction which can be of great benefit to those of us today who hear the news of cancer or that your child is born with a disease, or persecution arises from being united with Christ. Bunyan’s sufferings also deepened his love for his flock and gave his pastoral labor the fragrance of eternity. He loved his people, he loved the work he did, and he stayed with it and them to the end of his life. His sufferings opened his understanding to the truth that the Christian life is hard and that following Jesus means having the wind in your face. Bunyan said that “it is the will of God, that they that go to heaven should go thither hardly or with difficulty. The righteous shall scarcely be saved. That is, they shall, but yet with great difficulty, that it may be the sweeter.” His sufferings strengthened his assurance that God is sovereign over all the afflictions of His people and will bring them safely home. Bunyan wrote an exposition on I Peter 4:19 where it says “let them that suffer according to the will of God commit the keeping of their souls to him in well doing, as unto a faithful creator.” Bunyan writes “It is not what enemies will, nor what they are resolved upon, but what God will, and what God appoints; that shall be done. No enemy can bring suffering upon a man when the will of God is otherwise, so no man can save himself out of their hands when God will deliver him up for his glory.” Thus God has appointed the persons who will suffer, the time of their suffering, the place of their suffering, and how they will suffer.” Piper remarks that “the key to suffering rightly is to see in all things the hand of a merciful and good and sovereign God and ‘to live upon God that is invisible’.” There really is more of God to be had in times of suffering than at any other time. It is in times of suffering that we seem to grow the most. How little growth there is in our Christian walk when live is smooth. Bunyan’s sufferings deepened in him a confidence in the Bible as the Word of God and a passion for biblical exposition as the key to perseverance. His suffering drove him into the Word and opened the Word to him. As someone who has endured suffering as well, although not near the extent of Bunyan, reading Bunyan has given me a new and revitalized endurance on how to rightly endure suffering, knowing that it does a perfect work.
Everything Bunyan wrote was saturated with the Bible. He said “I have not for these things fished in other men’s writings; my Bible and Concordance are my only library in my writings. Charles Spurgeon said of Bunyan’s writings “this man is a living Bible! Prick him anywhere and you will find that his blood is bibline, the very essence of the Bible flows from him. Bunyan reverenced the Word of God and trembled at the prospect of dishonoring it. Bunyan shows us all what it really means to live upon God that is invisible and to live upon the Word of God. We are to serve and suffer letting the Word of Christ dwell in us richly. How mightily God used this great man.
Bibliography
Brown, John. John Bunyan: His Life, Times, and Work. London: Isbister & Co. Ltd., 1902.
Latourette, Kenneth S. A History of Christianity Volume II “Reformation to the Present.” New York: Harper Collins, 1953.
Piper, John. The Hidden Smile of God. Wheaton: Crossway, 2001.
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