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Bunyan, while still nominally in confinement, attended its meetings. In 1671 he became an Elder; in December of that year he was chosen Pastor. The question was raised whether, as a prisoner, he was eligible. The objection would not have been set aside had he been unable to undertake the duties of the office.
We can have very little idea of the feelings of a dissenter from the religion of the State, like Paul, under the cruel Nero, or like Bunyan, under the debauched Charles the Second both of them liable, without a moment's warning, to be carried away to prison, or to be murdered, privately or publicly, for refusing submission to civil governors in matters of faith or worship.
They have erred from the law of the love of Christ, and have made a rent in the true Church, which is but one." If our Baptist brethren are justly proud that the burning and shining light of Bunyan was set upon their candlestick, they have equal reason to boast of the torch at which his bland and diffussive light was kindled.
Judging from the style the reference to the laying on of hands the Latin quotations, and those from learned men, it appears somewhat like the pen of D'Anvers, who answered Bunyan upon the question Whether water-baptism is a scriptural term of communion? It is, however, now faithfully reprinted, that our readers may form their own judgment. Hackney, New-Year's Day, 1850 GEORGE OFFOR.
No such were the opinions of John Bunyan; the furnace of sharp conviction had burnt up this proud dross; he believed the testimony of Scripture, that from the crown of the head to the soles of the feet all nature is corrupted; so that out of the unsanctified heart of man proceed evil thoughts, murders, and the sad catalogue of crimes which our Lord enumerates, and which defile our best efforts after purity of heart and life.
He dreamed that the Evil One was trying to carry him off to a darksome place there to be "bound down with the chains and bonds of darkness, unto the judgment of the great day." Such dreams made night terrible to him. Bunyan tells us that he swore and told lies and that he was the ringleader in all the wickedness of the village.
Well, all these things are the good hand of thy God upon thee, and they are upon thee to constrain, to provoke, and to make thee willing and able to come, coming sinner, that thou mightest in the end be saved. Mason. 2 No outward profession is accepted, except it springs from inward love to Christ. Ed. 3 How clearly is every seeming difficulty explained by Bunyan.
Oh, sinner! whither can you flee from the punishment of sin, but to the Saviour's bosom? Leave your sins and fly to him; that almighty eternal refuge is open night and day. Ed. How art thou fallen, oh Adam! thus to lay the blame of thy sin upon God, "the woman whom thou gavest me," she tempted me. Well does Bunyan term these defences pitiful fumbling speeches, faulteringly made.
It is, in fact, the same narrative that he had published under the title of 'Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners, or a brief and faithful relation of the exceeding mercy of God, in Christ, to his poor servant John Bunyan. This simple, heart-affecting narrative, is here related under the allegorical representation of the 'Holy War. In this, all the circumstances of his conviction of sin, and his conversion to God, are narrated with startling interest from the first alarm his being roused from a state of death-like lethargy, his opposition to the grace of God, his refusals of the invitations of Emmanuel, and his being at length conquered to become a monument of divine mercy a temple of the Holy Ghost.
If any are proud, doting about questions and strifes of words, evil surmisings, perverse disputings, supposing that gain is godliness; from such withdraw. Bunyan rests all upon the word, the characters are described who are to be excluded from the Lord's table; but in no instance is it upon record that any one was excluded because he had not been baptized in water.
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