The Riches of Bunyan | Page 5

for the gospel of the Cross, enwrapped "IN THE SPIRIT, ON THE LORD'S DAY." Such were the schools where Non-conformist piety received its temper, its edge, and its lustre. The story of Bunyan is, we say, one of the golden threads binding together into harmony and symmetry, what, seen apart, seem but fragmentary and incoherent influences--the track of a divine Providence controlling the fates and reputations of the race. It is a Providence disappointing men's judgments and purposes, exalting the lowly and depressing the illustrious, rebuking despondency on the one hand and on the other curbing presumption, setting up one and putting down another. This is done even now and even here, as one of the many intimations which even time and earth present, of that final and universal reparation which is reserved for the general resurrection and the last judgment. Then the unforgetting and universal Sovereign will avenge all the forgotten of his people, nor leave unpunished one among the tallest and mightiest of his enemies. As the foreshadowing of this, there is often in this life what Milton has called, "a resurrection of character." Seen in Bunyan and others on earth, it will be one day accomplished as to all the families of mankind. We pronounce TOO SOON upon the apparent inequalities of fame and recompense around us; while we fail to take in the future as well as the present, and attempt to solve the mysteries of time without including in the field of our survey the retributions of that eternity which forms the selvage and hem of all the webs of earth. And we pronounce not only too soon but VERY SUPERFICIALLY upon the inequalities of happiness in the lot of those who fear and those who scorn God; while we look mainly or merely to the outward circumstances of home and station and bodily well-being, but take no note of the inner and more enduring elements of felicity, supplied to the sufferer for Christ by the blended powers of conscience and of hope--the one of them purified and pacified by the blood of the great sacrifice on Calvary; the other of them steadily and cheerfully soaring to the glories and rest of the mount Zion above. Faithful, in his cage, bearing the gibes and flouts of the rabble who thirsted for his blood, was one of the happiest men in all Vanity Fair, even ere the hour when his spirit mounted the fiery chariot that hurried him to his celestial home.
The style of Bunyan, it may be further said, is one of the countless and brilliant testimonials to the merit and power of our excellent received version of the Bible. Shut out, as Bunyan was, from direct contact with much other literature, he was most thoroughly conversant with the remains of prophets and apostles, embalmed in that venerable work. With those scriptures his mind was imbued, saturated, and tinged, through its whole texture and substance. Upon the phraseology and imagery and idioms of that book was formed his own vernacular style, so racy, glowing, and energetic--long indeed underrated and decried, but now beginning to receive its due honors, and winning the praise of critics whose judgment and taste few will have the hardihood to impeach. No immaculate perfection, indeed, is claimed for the English version of the Scriptures. No perfect version has the world ever seen, or is it ever like to see; but the writings of Bunyan must be admitted to stand among the many crowding trophies of the power of our common Bible to furnish the mind with "thoughts that breathe and words that burn"--with holiest conceptions and mightiest utterances.
And Bunyan himself, as a theologian on whose head no learned academy had laid its hand of patronage, or let fall its anointing dews, but who, whether confronting the fanatics of his time or the distinguished latitudinarian divines, showed himself so powerful a reasoner, so acute and clear and practical a thinker, and so mighty in his knowledge of the Scriptures--Bunyan himself, in his position and merits as a theologian, furnishes a standing monument of the power of the divine Spirit to fashion, by prayer and the study of the Bible, by affliction and by temptation, and by bitter persecutions even, a preacher, pastor, and writer, such as no university need have disdained to own. To that Spirit Bunyan gave zealous, earnest, and continual worship. Receiving his light and power from that good Spirit, and anxiously directing to that great Agent all the hopes and the praises of the flock whom he led, and of the readers whom he taught, his writings remain to diffuse and perpetuate the lesson of his life. Into whatever tribe of the ancient East or of the remote West his Pilgrim has been introduced, the name and story of