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I pleased remember, and while memory yet
Holds fast her office here, can ne'er forget;
Ingenious Dreamer! in whose well-told tale,
Sweet fiction and sweet truth alike prevail;

Whose humorous vein, strong sense, and simple style,
May teach the gayest, make the gravest smile;
Witty, and well employed, and like thy Lord,
Speaking in parables his slighted word;

I name thee not, lest so despised a name
Should move a sneer at thy deserved fame.
Yet e'en in transitory life's late day,

That mingles all my brown with sober gray,
Revere the man, whose Pilgrim marks the road
And guides the Progress of the soul to God;
'Twere well with most, if books that could engage
Their childhood, pleased them at a riper age;
The man, approving what had charmed the boy,
Would die at last in comfort, peace, and joy;
And not with curses on his heart, who stole
The gem of truth from his unguarded soul."

LECTURE V.

PROVIDENCE, GRACE, AND GENIUS,

IN BUNYAN AND THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS.

Illustrations of Divine Providence in selecting Bunyan to write the Pilgrim's Progress.-Weak things chosen to confound the mighty.-The Author of the Pilgrim's Progress selected not from the Establishment, but from without it.-Signal rebuke of ecclesiastical exclusiveness and hierarchical pretensions, in the Pilgrim's Progress and the Saint's Rest.-More of Bunyan's Divine Emblems.-Bunyan's release from prison. His release from life, and entrance into the Celestial City.-Dr. Scott's opinion of the Pilgrim's Progress. Its entire freedom from Sectarianism.-Its universality both in genius and piety.-Comparison between Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, and Edwards on the Religious Affections.-Bunyan and Spenser. -Survey of the Events, Characters, and Scenery in the Pilgrim's Progress.-The splendour of its conclusion.

We meet in the life of Bunyan some of the most remarkable illustrations to be found any where on record, of the manner in which God has chosen the weak things of the world to confound the mighty, and base things of the world, and things which are despised, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are; to abase the pride, and rebuke the pretensions of all human glory. Bunyan's preaching, which was the means of the conversion of so many souls, how utterly despised and counted like insanity was it, by all the wise, the noble, the esteemed of this world! And Bunyan's Allegory, when it first appeared, with how much contempt was it regarded, as a sort of story or ballad for the vulgar, by the lords, gentlemen, and ecclesiastics of the age. If any prophet in those days could have gone to the bishop and justices, under whose jurisdiction Bunyan was thrust into the common jail, and left twelve years in prison, and could have said, My lords, there is one John Bunyan, formerly a tinker, and now a tagged lacemaker in a cell in the prison of Bedford, imprisoned by your lordships for preaching the Gospel, who hath composed and published an allegory which shall work more to the accomplishment of God's counsels, and to the establishment of sound piety and morality, and to the usefulness and glory of the literature of this kingdom, than all that your lordships, with all the preachers and authors in this civil and ecclesiastical circuit, shall have accomplished in your whole life-time; he would have been regarded as void of understanding, if not imprisoned for contempt of the higher authorities.

And yet, such a prophet would have spoken but the simple truth; for into how many languages this book hath been translated no man can tell, and how many editions it has passed through still less may any man enumerate, nor how many souls it may have guided to eternal glory. It has gone almost wherever the Bible has gone, and has left the stamp of the best part of English literature, where neither Milton nor Shakspeare were ever heard of. Indeed, it may doubtless be said of Bunyan as of that woman of sacred memory in the New Testament, Wherever this Gospel shall be preached in all the world, there shall that, which this man hath done for Christ, be told for a memorial of him. The alabaster-box of very precious ointment, which that woman poured upon the Saviour's head, was an unutterably precious offering, because her heart went with it; but this alabaster-box of genius and piety, the fruit of these twelve years' imprisonment, was the work, both the offering itself and the feelings with which it was offered, equally

of Bunyan's heart, filled with love to the same Saviour. And wherever the Bible goes, doubtless, in all time, this book will follow it.

As the book itself is an illustration of this great principle of God's administration, so was his own selection of Bunyan as his instrument to do so mighty a work. Disregarding the claims of great establishments and mighty hierarchies, passing by the gorgeous state religions of the world and all their followers, passing the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the See of London, and the great consecrated shrines of applauded genius and piety, even the genius of Milton, and the pulpits of Jeremy Taylor, and Howe, and Usher, and the wise and mighty and noble together, he entered the prison cell in Bedford, and poured this unction of his Spirit upon John Bunyan, and touched his lips alone with this hallowed fire, and dipped his pen alone in these colours of heaven. There were as great boasts, if not of the apostolical succession, at least of the Ecclesiastical Establishment, in those days as in this; and God saw that a lordly hierarchy, and many a lordly bishop, were proclaiming to all the world this lie, that there could be no lawful worship of God, and no true church of Christ, without a prayer book and prelatical consecration, without episcopacy, confirmation, and a liturgy; but all this was as wood, hay, and stubble; and Divine Providence selected, to make the brightest jewel of the age as a Christian, a minister, and a writer, a member of the then obscure, persecuted, and despised sect of Baptists. He took John Bunyan; but he did not remove him from the Baptist church of Christ into what men said was the only true church; he kept him shining in that Baptist candlestick all his life-time; for what is it to Christ whether a man be Baptist, Methodist, Congregationalist, Presbyterian, Independent, or Episcopalian, so he be but a true follower of the Saviour, so he lord it not over God's heritage, nor be guilty of schism in consigning to God's uncovenanted mercies, in defiance of all Christian charity, those whom the Saviour holds as dear as the apple of his eye? What are these sectarian shibboleths to Christ, if his people will but walk according to this rule, which was a text of favourite note with Bunyan, By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye love one another!' MY DISCIPLES, not members of this or that sectarian persuasion, be it Episcopal, Baptist, Presbyterian, or what not. My disciples, not Church-men, nor Paul's-men, nor Rome's men, but MY DISCIPLES.

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All gorgeous and prelatical establishments God passed by, and selected the greatest marvel and miracle of grace and genius in all the modern age from the Baptist church in Bedford! If this be not a rebuke and a refutation of that absurd mockery, "the apostolical succession," and all pretensions like it, we know not how Divine Providence could construct one. It is just as clear as the Saviour's own personal rebuke of the same intolerant proud spirit in his day; and the feeling with which its application is received by the pretenders to the only true church in our day is remarkably similar. • I tell you of a truth, many widows were in Israel in the days of Elias, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, when great famine was throughout all the land; but unto none of them was Elias sent, save unto Sarepta, a city of Sidon, unto a woman that was a widow. And many lepers were in Israel in the time of Eliseus the prophet; and none of them was cleansed saving Naaman the Syrian. And all they in the synagogue, when they heard these things were filled with wrath, and rose up, and thrust him out of the city, and led him unto the brow of the hill, whereon their city was built, that they might cast him down headlong!" Why, what mighty evil hath our blessed Lord done to awaken this dreadful hell of wrath and malignity in this synagogue of Satan? He hath simply told them that their church was no longer to be the only true church of Christ on earth, but that he was going to preach to the Gentiles! And the wickedness of this Jewish hierarchy is but a specimen of the wickedness which this pretence of being the only true church inevitably sets in motion and brings with it, wherever such a pretended true church can get the power to enforce its excommunications. It will lead our blessed Lord himself to the brow of the hill, and cast him down headlong, if he visit this earth in a conventicle, if he come to any other than an Established Church.

The same principle thus marvellously illustrated in the life of Bunyan, was that by which God passed by the many thousands of Israel of loftier genealogy and prouder claims, and fixed upon David the son of Jesse, the keeper of his father's flock in the wilderness, and anointed and crowned him King of Israel; passed by also the great towns and beautiful cities of Judea, and Jerusalem itself, and fixed upon Bethlehem as the birth-place of our Saviour; passed by also the learned and excellent, the princes and scholars of the land, when he would found a new spiritual kingdom to last for ever, and

took the fishermen and the tax-gatherers; and to step out of sacred history once more, into common, in a case in some respects of great similarity to Bunyan's own, passed by the godliest learned men of honour, title and rank, and chose a chaplain in Oliver Cromwell's parliamentary army to write the Saint's Rest. The two greatest, most important, most efficacious spiritual works the world has ever seen, written by men cast out, persecuted, imprisoned, as not being members of the true church, as not conforming to the will of the Established hierarchy! The world is full of these blessed instances of God's wisdom to cast down the pride of man, and abase his pretensions, that no flesh may glory in his presence. And as to these hierarchical arrogancies, it would seem that Divine Wisdom itself could resort to no expedient more sure to put them to shame, than when the Holy Spirit takes up his abode, and displays his glory, in beings cast out, persecuted, imprisoned, and burned, by such bigotry and violence. The great overshadowing, remorse less, hierarchical unity of the Church, when it is any thing else but unity in the possession and exercise of the Spirit of Christ, becomes a destructive unity of evil, a unity of ambition, consecrated under the name of religion, a unity of earthly power and aggrandizement, in which the passion of universal conquest, that like a chariot of fire whirled a Nimrod or Napoleon over the world, kindles in the bosom of churchmen, and makes out of the church itself the most perfect, awful form of despotism. It is such a dreadful unity that has anathematized and destroyed some of the brightest temples of the Holy Ghost, out of which God has shined in this world of darkness. It was indeed this remorseless, despotic, persecuting unity, to which our blessed Lord himself was sacrificed, to prevent a schism in the Jewish hierarchy. But under whatever form, save that of love to Christ, and participation in his Spirit, this unity is vaunted, it becomes an unhallowed, worldly, vain, ambitious boast; and powerfully, indeed, are its pretensions shown to be vanity, when God raises up, beyond its precincts, such men as Baxter and Bunyan, Owen and Doddridge, Calamy and Howe, Brainerd and Edwards, Payson and Dwight. Rather let every Christian be in himself a separate sect, than the church of Christ a compulsory despotism.

And how may we suppose the great Head of the church regards such daring presumption, whether under pretence of apostolical succession or prelatical consecration, that shuts out such men from the church of Christ on earth, and gives them over even to God's uncovenanted mercies in Heaven? Merely the statement of such pretensions is enough to show how opposed they are to the spirit of the gospel. If a desire to spread that gospel and to bring all men into the fold of Christ had prevailed, or were now prevalent, we should hear nothing of such pretensions; if that unity of love existed, which our blessed Lord requires, and without which all other unity is worthless, there would be the kindest charity and piety, but no pride; Christians would, as Paul requires, receive one another, but not to doubtful disputations; and all sects would be found vying with each other, not to spread their own name, but the knowledge of the gospel; not to eject each other from the missionary field, but to fill the world with love and mercy. We trust in God that this spirit shall prevail over every other, and when it does, then will be the time, when there shall be nothing to hurt nor destroy in all God's holy mountain. The prison hours of such men as Bunyan have done much to bring the full blessedness of such a period, and out of Bunyan's prison shone much of that rosy light, that in the morning of the Reformation is more romantically beautiful, than even the clear shining of the sun at noon. His prison work was one of the stars, co-herald with the dawn, reflecting the Sun of Righteousness, but struggling with the darkness all night long. If, during his confinement, he wrote those Divine Emblems, of which I have spoken, as is very probable, there was calm, sweet light, shining out of the soul of the true poet, hidden, as by God's mercy, in a pavilion from the strife of tongues. As the tuneful bird of night sits even amidst the rain, and sings darkling, so the heart of Bunyan sang, while the storm raged round his prison; nay, it may be said of him, as of Luther, that he poured the music of truth from his soul as from a church organ. I could present some of his finished pieces in verse, that may well be compared with the best of our elder poets, and that, contrasted with the doggerel of his early days, show an intellectual transformation as wonderful, almost, as his spiritual new creation. And yet, I must remark, in regard to those rude verses, which, with such inconceivably bad spelling, and with such cramped and distorted chirography, Bunyan used to write in the margin of his old copy of Foxe's Book of Martyrs, that they do not make upon the mind the impression of that word doggerel; the mint out of which they fall is too sacred for that, and the metal, though

wrought with such extreme rudeness, manifestly too precious. As we gaze upon that chirography, in connection with the martyrdom that excited the passionate emotion of the writer, we seem to see the very soul of Bunyan impressing, as with the point of a diamond, in the only language he then knew how to command, the hieroglyphics of the martyr's spirit in his own bosom. Those verses are as Indian arrows, tipped with flint, in comparison with a rifle inlaid with gold, but they are more than curious; there is vigour in them, and fire of the soul.

If the following emblems (in addition to those I have before referred to) be taken as specimens of what fancies the poet could play with for the prisoner's amusement, there is no good critic but will recognise in them the elements of a true poetical genius. Who, for example, in Bunyan's stanzas upon the sun's reflection on the clouds in a fair morning, will not irresistibly be reminded of Milton's beautiful image in the Mask of Comus? Was I deceived, or did a sable cloud

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Turn forth her silver lining on the night.

Bunyan, certainly, never imitated any living creature, nor the writings of any genius, living or dead; yet there are passages, that, with the exception of the recurrence of "grace or similar religious phrases, formed in a very different school from that of the poets of this world, might be deemed to have been cut directly from the pages even of such a writer as Shakspeare. Juliet, looking from her window, might have uttered the following lines, had her thoughts been upon such sacred things as the prayer of the saints.

Look yonder! ah, methinks mine eyes do see
Clouds edged with silver, as fine garments be!
They look as if they saw the golden face,

That makes black clouds most beautiful with grace.

Unto the saints' sweet incense of their prayer
These smoky curled clouds I do compare;

For as these clouds seem edged or laced with gold,
Their prayers return with blessings manifold.

Remark also the beauty of the following lines upon the rising of the sun:

Look how brave Sol doth peep up from beneath,

Shows us his golden face, doth on us breathe;
Yea, he doth compass us around with glories
Whilst he ascends up to his highest stories,
Where he his banner over us displays,
And gives us light to see our works and ways.

Nor are we now as at the peep of light,
To question is it day, or is it night;
The night is gone, the shadow's fled away,
And now we are most certain that 'tis day.

And thus it is when Jesus shows his face,
And doth assure us of his love and grace.

Take also the following very beautiful moral upon the promising fruitfulness of a tree. Who could have written in purer language, or with more terseness and graphic simplicity? A comely sight indeed it is to see,

A world of blossoms on an apple-tree:
Yet far more comely would this tree appear,
If all its dainty blooms young apples were;
But how much more might one upon it see,
If each would hang there till it ripe should be,
But most of all in beauty, 'twould abound,
If every one should then be truly sound.

But we, alas! do commonly behold
Blooms fall apace, if mornings be but cold.
They too which hang till they young apples are,
By blasting winds and vermin take despair.
Store that do hang while almost ripe, we see,
By blust'ring winds are shaken from the tree.

So that of many, only some there be,
That grow and thrive to full maturity.

COMPARISON,

This tree a perfect emblem is of those
Which do the garden of the Lord compose.

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