Studies in Christian Biography; 2; John Bunyon

as bell last night i spoke about an italian said francis of assisi one of the most low will all the saints tonight i want to speak about an english when stuart and willie john bunyan ranger of bedford arrested with god dreamer of dreams preacher pastor point writer of books it might not be support suppose that that is in a point of comparison between wasted the money on and frail little francis yet that is a striking comparison to check the english puritan walking in the fields of his beloved that fisher says he i could have spoken of christ's love and must say even to the very close that set upon the plough glance before

me and had they been capable to have understood me it is a message that makes one think of a man we're seeing somewhere in italy where for the love of christ some francis preached to the birds in the shadow of the roadside threes and with no doubt about their ability to understand him onions place in the gallery of the immortals few will question no in his own lifetime he was a genius who has appealed scarcely reached beyond his own class the common interests of england the great ones of his day paid scant attention to him a conspicuous exception was the celebrated puritan john owen who once went to hear him preach king charles the second they say

expressed surprise to on that amendment men such as he could sit and listen to an illiterate didn't care me please your majesty was own supply i would gladly give up all my learning if i could preach like that tinker bunyan however has not been a universal favorite book the auto was contemptuous of his style cooker point patronize but did not really appreciate him even so the critics the hostile critics before long where in a minority no race an authority than dr samuel johnson announced the judgment that there were only three books that readers would wish longer donkey or take robinson crusoe and the pilgrim's progress a

collie the historian said the during the latter part of the seventeenth century there was only two minds which presents the imaginative faculty and a very eminent degree one of those mines produced by that ice lost and the other the pilgrim's progress this is high praise but in our time george bernard shaw in the preface to men and superman went further he compared shakespeare's ability to portray character will their job on him to shakespeare's discredit making every allowance for shows delight in despite a june shakespeare he was clearly expressing a deliberate literary judgement on another occasion she had this to say or would you miss and shakespeare you find in bunyan do that through harrowing came quite

obviously and naturally take one of shakespeare's big fighting scenes and compare its blank verse and point of mia retired pope strenuous mess with bunyan spyware mug this famous cue for the fight with mcduff runs it i will try the last before my body i so my warlike shield lay on macduff and then be him but first cries hold enough turn from this jingle dramatically right in feeling of silly and resource listened thought and expression to the poems cue for the fight in the valley of humiliation i am void lafayette in the matter but there myself to die i swear by my inferno did and that there shall go no farther here when i spilled my soul this is the same thing

down must utterly apart from its appeal grand joint force and appropriateness it is bitter clap trap and infinitely better word music better than shakespeare this is high praise indeed bunyan supreme title to fame lies in their job of his genius which she fashioned imprisoned the pilgrim's progress a loss the picture which many have all been in is that of a visionary mystic the immortal dreamer he is sometimes call and people and visit him as solitary sedentary inactive bunyan spent twelve of the sixty years in prison because he insisted on his right to preach and the powers that be denied and liberty to do so yet he was anything but an inactive

man out of prison he was constantly on the move preaching to teaching this attack if you've been accustomed to think of him as a dreamer and mystic listen to this description of an offline store would figure fellatio than it's common to one with so ek to the mine for big boned ruddy complexion large bright poetic eyes most and square jaw a straight bolt knows and flowing reddish hair bower with natural grace if he found it was with no trace of old got it or temper when he smiled it was the beginning of his sunday so irrepressible and hearty there's a wealth of genial good natured in such a fizzy obviously that is itself a magnetic force

before we turn to the most famous of his books that we provide you with some biographical data bunyan was born at coastal in bedford show on the thirtieth of november sixteen hundred and twenty eight he was the senate went into a member of parts and get close vinnie wide awake glad he learned more about of dollars that he ever did in school he had the power of observation that a novelist must have if he's activity to depict character conscripted to military service at sixteen his experience as a soldier provided material for his later imaginative it the artery of weapons in the armory of house beautiful the deadly conflict of christian with appalling on the valiant beheading of gray caught the margins on content marketing's the ambiguous case challenges and low competence of the holy war it did not disturbed

by him but he had very little formal education more than once in his books he takes a fling and scholars he has never gone to school he says to our struggle and plato he prefers the bible and having that still within he counts himself are better furnished the navy had without it all the library's of the two universities been in oxford and cambridge he may be said to have educated himself by writing books he certainly knew how to write his mother tongue with purity with clarity and with force this is an accomplishment which a university does not always in power with money and it seems to have been a native tedious but he developed their genius and his motto was the bible how does it come about that he used just a very good apparently without any sense what it how is it that you're never

find him bunyan any date any stilted phrases he wrote such wonderful english because he read little in comparison with the english bible as john richard green puts it by means english is the simplest and homeliest english that has ever been used by any great english writer it is the english of the bible so completely inevitable become bonhams life that one feels it's phrases as the natural expression of his thoughts he had lived in the bible to its words became his own it should not be overlooked that he was a gifted pitcher after his release from prison he was probably the most popular picture of his generation it would have been done the countryside delivering his segments occasionally he visited london where as many as twelve hundred people listened to him one morning at seven o'clock in the dead of winter he was what used to be

called a painful preacher he aimed to hunt and to stab the conscience i went myself in chains the rights to preach to them in chains and carried that fire in my own booze and i persuaded them that they will but if he could wound he could also he will not mean better than he in the language of that day the language of the bible to park in oil and wine like every creature he and disappointments which ran his heart if i were fruitless it mattered not who commanded me but if i were fruitful i can't not who did condemn the result of a sound was often very different from what he anticipated when i thought i had done no good then i did the most and when i thought i should catch them i fished for nothing and what peter has not had this expedience would cost in by the

by sometimes did more execution of all the salmon besides the tie between him and his congregation was very close the backsliding it as an expressive would the backsliding of any of his confidence was a sort of grief to him it was more to me than if one of my own children were going to the grave once when he had priest with special grace he was congratulated on his suite so it applied you need not remind me of that for the devil told me of that before i was out of the pulpit bunyan was a point as well as a preacher now it must be admitted that much of his verses she ago he attended elton such caucus quantity that he may have been a trial to his friends but as one of his biographers

remarks if he never saw this he dances and some of his lines and memorable that is tom in the song of the shepherd boy which mr gray tarp head with such enjoyment he that is don't need to see an awful he that is low no pride he that is humble ever show have gotten to be his guide i am compared with what i have little be it or much and lord content once do i crave because though safest such foreigners to such a burden is that goo on pilgrimage here little and here after bliss is based from age to age the oxford book of verse gives a place to christiane a song this be the day that i began a pilgrim thought to be and bless it also

be the man but they had to move with me tis true toward shore and again i began to seek to live forever but no i ran fast as i can tis better late than never morgan in books contain what is perhaps the base loved all these pilgrims songs who would you rather see let him come hither one here will constant be calm when come whether there's no discouragement show making wants really and his first i'll vote intend to be a pilgrim who sewed be sitting around with dismal stories do but themselves confound his strength the mores know i am ken and frayed here with a giant fight but he will have a right to be a program all the problem nor fall feed and condoned his spirit he knows he at the end show life

inherit then fancies fly away he will not fear what man say he'll lay by night and day to be a pilgrim onion has countless poems for children or remorse leslie pointing a model he not only finds sermons in storms he assiduously squeezes out of them the last drop of someone that calculated to produce one sample should suffice does a child stuttering through the farmyard notice an egg then the child is called upon to reflect that's the eggs no chick by falling from the ham no manor christian talese born again the exit first printed in the show maine before greece in sin and darkness below the aig when lead by warmth is made of chicken and christ by grace

those did in sin the script if the little puritan child had to memorize verses like those that i spoke when the task was dan that he was permitted to turn to that other book of bonhams which some of us first got to notice to him and came to love the book without a real life story and it's about lions and a fee and the pollen and the dungeon of giant despair in doping past so so we tend to banyan the author and first not the masterpiece the pilgrim's progress back to the book also masterpiece which preceded it grace abounding to the chief of sinners it is one of the most poignant and moving spiritual autobiographies average than it is to be compared with a customs confessions bunyan had that dating the same overwhelming

sense of sin the same over poaching consciousness of the holiness of god the poor but i'm dustin had the clue the head i quote one passage in illustration may i thought no i grow worse and worse no i'm far from convention that ever was before where four i began to sink greatly in my soul and began to entertain such discouragement to my heart has laid me as low as hell i could not believe that christ had a love for me alas i could me that he hadn't nazi in the field in the favored any of these things i was driven as with the tempest my heart would be unclean a canaanite scored well in the land sometimes i would tell my condition to the people of god when they would get to me and would tell me of the promises but they as had as good have to admit that i

must reach the sun with my thing that as have bitten me receive will rely upon the promises or my sense and feeling was against me and i so i had a heart that would soon and that lead under a law that would con game but all this while as to the act of singing i was never more tender my conscience know was so i would smile at every page i could not know to ohio to speak my words for fear i should this place them all hope cautiously did i then going all i did the same i found myself as a nomad a blog that sugar if i did but steer and were says there with both of god and christ and the spirit and all good things but my point to no and in what pollution that was my clique and affliction that i had to do it off two amazing

by lee's know that i was more loathsome to mind when iceland toward and thought i was sort of god's eyes to sin and corruption i said borders met shalit bob lerch of my heart as walter wood wrote about a fountain i thought know that everyone had a better higher than i had i thought none but the devil himself could equalize for me in wood wickedness in pollution of mine iced over for at the sight of my one violinist deeply into despair what i concluded that this condition that i was in good not stand with a state of grace sure thought i i have forsaken of god sure i am given up to the deck and to iraq or being mined and thus i continued a little while even for some years together it is easy to dismiss all of this as a sort of religious meaning you

go about your route william james and his varieties of religious experience he was a typical case of the psychopath that temperament sensitive of conscience to a disease degree beset by boats fears and insistent ideas and a victim of the bork politicians both mortar and since it added to this one of fear for melancholy self content and despair it is curious how one man is played by his sin and another carefree and unconcerned consumed with a high and young boys school in london they vote on sunday lecherous the very next day or celine a scrupulous in spiritual devotion but the crew moderates and profligate silly they apparently had no sense of due monday and ethically sensitive moral to the core

was tortured by day and almost driven man with a sense of guilt from the psychological point of view silly they would be regarded by many as more help sick and no but we're seeing more healthy wasn't by him by far a fight or character issue say the crew didn't have to exaggerate so he was no black and he certainly was no black and north of mcallen the historians that it is that bunyan at eighteen was the most austere of young puritans and would have been considered a young man of singular gravity and innocence i do not suggest for a moment that the onions conscience should be taken for tomato he himself never supposed that all christians must undergo his type of religious expedience kristen did in the pilgrim's progress but faithful and christie and i've also

reached the celestial city and no sense to others they fail than i do ask you however to keep this in mind storms out to be expected in the ocean but no one looks for in a mill pond the debate say it's not all of them by any means how it means calvinists and puritans obsessed by douglas of election and predestination of all engaged in graham rice things of the spigot questions of relativity and guilt do not really uprise here to an awakened conscience degrees of sinfulness out as nothing the fact of sin is everything let the psychologists dispose of money into some no dope that was a morbid element in his nature no doubt his views of theology and of the bible famed his morbidity but do remember hill difficulty his notion what are known as the valley of humiliation

known as the slow of this bond know about a delectable mountains greece abandoned to the chief of sinners as a book may be inconceivable in fantastic to some what do they know of an overwhelming sense of guilt if they feel guilty of a compound in themselves without any i do but they do not then by the rendon invalid expedience undergone by john bunyan john bunyan challenges us today where is the sentiment of all in the presence of one who is a pure eyes than to behold iniquity the holiness of god and the sin of man a quarter of age it is when we lose our sense of the one that we lose our consciousness of the other yet the events of recent years have revived the feeling that there is something really something radically wrong with less money and will have more to say to us in proportion is we recognized that

only the god who is wholly enough to judge can also be mighty and gracious enough to say the sequel degrees abounding is pilgrim's progress without the one we should not have had the other the genius of the manager and slowly he was at the record the first part of the book was published and fifty six before the work was complete whatever void imitates its stone for example it was written not for effect but from the heart it is natural straightforward and just one page after page there's not a word of moral two syllables the sentence is going right to the march that james when the language takes on our shaming singing inspire quality as i walk through the wilderness of this world highlighted on a certain place where it was a day in my

jill bunyan explains in the margin and i lay me down in that place to sleep and as i slept i dreamed a dream so i saw in my dream but just as christian came up with the cross his blood and loose from off his shoulders and fell back from off his bed and began to tumble and saw continued to do till it came to most of the cell where it's fairly new and so it no more when mr rideau came to the brink of the river he said no i still have no more need of these corrections since john deere of chariots of horses for me to ride on the last words he was had to say where well pro life so you went this way no just as the gates were open to let in the man i looked enough

to and behold the city sean like the sun the streets or so were paved with gold and in the war many man with crowns on their heads pam's in their hands and gordon hops to sing praises widow there were also of them that had wings and the un said one another with at intermission saying holy holy holy is the lord and after that they shut up the gates which when i had seen i wish myself among them bestow is managed by the liveliness of onions imagination it was an imagination that marched with drums and trumpets and a pageant of banners it enlivens plot and dialogue descriptive setting and character portrait year it gives to the abstract the interest of the concrete and seize the spiritual blooming in and through

the familiar the ordinary and the commonplace it is a precious gift this by sheer was a great of the imagination to see that which is invisible to make the spiritual world and jupiter really are you the experiences the book describes are universal experiences you may repudiate bonhams the allergy but you know stranger are terms to the slow of this bond want to bypass a medal or to doting castle or to the valley of humiliation or to vanity fair as i trust your nose gingerly there to the wicked good the wayside course the palace beautiful the land of beulah and what i say of the characterization here to we had at home many of the personalities in the book we know familiarity because they're drawn to the very

like we could give a personal name to the majority of them as of course bunyan could've done because he met them every day in bedford but here it would be an impact and still a phrase or attempt to summarize i must unload to speak to people description of the state by aids so i so that quickly after they were going into the fair they'll vote to blended was going before them whose name was buying guns so they said to him what countryman sir and how far will you this way he told them that he came from the town of fair speech and that he was going to the celestial city but told them not his name

from fear speech said christian is that any good that lives there yes said bryan's i hope teresa what may i call you said christian i am a stranger to you and you to me if you'd be going this way i shall be glad of your company if not i must be granted those don't know fair speech said christian i have heard no and as i remember they say it is a wealthy place yes i will assure you that it is and i have very many rich can get there bray who are your concerns there if a man maybe sobel almost the whole town and in particular my lord turnabout my lord times over my lord fear speech from whose ancestors that down first took its name also just a smooth man used to facing both ways <unk> anything

and the parson about polish vista two times it was my mother's own brother by father's side and to tell you the truth i am become a gentleman of good quality yes my great grandfather was part of what i'm looking one way of growing up and i got most of my estate by the same occupation are you a moderate man yes and my wife is a very virtuous woman the daughter of a virtuous woman she was my lady's feelings doctor therefore she came of a very honorable family and is a drive to such a pitch of breeding that she knows how to carry it to or even to prince and patient it is true we somewhat different religion from those of the stricter sort get back into small points first we never strive against wind and trade secondly we're always most serious when religion goes in his silver slippers

we love much to walk with him in the street if the sun shines and the people applauding don't you know the tape and no was defeated though as they walked along together the guy a dusty old gentleman if he did not know one just a feeling that came on pilgrimage out of these spots honest yes very well said he he was a man that had the root of the matter to him but he was one of the most troublesome pilgrims that never met with in all my days i perceive you knew him for you of given him a very chaotic honest knew him i was a great companion of his i was with him almost unnamed when he first began to think about what would come upon us you know after i was with a great time i was as guide for my my ass does host of the gates of the celestial city

then you knew him to be a trouble someone great how i did so but i could very well be a four man of my calling it oftentimes entrusted with the conduct of searches he was honest why then pray let us hear a little of him and how he managed himself under your country great why he was always afraid that he should come short of whether he had to decide to go everything for eight and in that he had been a police because if it had bought the least to putin's of opposition to it i have heard that you eroding at the stove just gone for about a month ago no a dusty four we saw several gold wonderful invention though they are many of them offered to lend in their hands he would not go back again neither the celestial city he said he should die if he came in to it and yet he was detected at every difficulty and stumbled at every store that in a body cast in his way well

after really that the slope despond agreed well as i have told you when century the morning i don't know how he ventured and so got over that pretty was over he would scarcely believe it he had i think a slow of despondent his mind a slow that he carried everywhere with him or else he could never have been as he was so he came up to the gate you know what i mean that stands at the head of this way and their groceries to their good while before he would venture to know when the gate was opened he would give back and give place to others and say that he was not with big four only got before some to the gate yet many of the wynton before him there and the poor man would stand shaking and shrinking i dare say it would have picked is one hard to have seen you know what to go back again at last he took the hammer that hand on the gate in his hand and gave a small wrap

up to then one open to him of the shrine that was before he the job and stepped out after him and said oh trembling one what want to style was that he failed them to the ground he that spoke to him wanted to see him sophy and so he said to him peace be to the up for i have said open the door to the common for about i guess it was that he got up and went in tempe and when he was in he was ashamed to show his face just a feeling the depth of character bunyan most admired old honest is to stand for great heart as the valiant for the troops out or notable and occupy notable places in the pilgrim's progress iii saw

he'd listened to both they have for what i know then they will lie to withdraw but let me go on with my tail as i was this museum as i said there was one in very pleasant attack but old who presented itself to me and offered me three things to wit have bought a purse and a bed no the truth is i was both really and sleepy i'm also a spoon is a moment and that perhaps the witch new well i had post her once and again but she pulled by my report says and smile then i began to be angry but she mattered that nothing at all then she made offers again and said if i would be ruled by her she would make me great and happy for city i am the mistress of the widowed and maine are made happy by me then i asked her name and she told me it was meant a bubble the city further from her but still she formerly with enticements and i'm going to

make an issue so to my knees and with hands lifted up and cries i prayed to him that said he would help so just as you came up the gentlewoman went away then i continued to give thanks for this migrant deliverance for ivory believe she intended no good but rather sought to make stock of me and my gin honest without don't have designs were bad but state know you talk about me thinks i even have seen a sort of red sun story of her stern first pope to have done both on his madden bubble is she not a tall comedian somewhat of a swarthy complexion stern first rate you get it she is just set to an honest does he not speak very smoothly and give you a smile at the end of the sentence steadfast you for right upon it again for the tsar have any actions honest does she brought when

a great post by her side and is not her hand often amid finger in your money as if that what do i stand for is just so had she stood by all this while you could not more employees have set her fourth before may not have better described her features a brief a passage about list of great art so they went on till they came within sight of the lions the midst of a taft was a strongman so he was not afraid of a lion but yet when they would come up to the place where the lions where the boys that went before would amount to add the cringe behind for they were afraid of the lions so they stepped back and went behind at this that carried smiled and said how know my boys do you have to go before when no danger does approach and love to come behind so soon as the lions' appear

see what we have in all this amid the variety of human types and the homely than a wealth of satire of human of pathos of compression of faith was puritanism so somewhere after the pilgrim's progress is a serious book but there's music in it and dancing and good eating and fun and often hear of the pilgrims making magic over the downfall of giant despair now to see anna it made was quickly upon the vile and a daughter messy upon the mood so since they were so many disposed she played them a lesson and ready to halt or downs so he took despondency is doctor much afraid by the hand and dancing they went in the road to he could not dance with one catch

in his hand but i promise you he floated it well also the ghetto was to be commended for shia answered the music and some guy was puritanism so somber a religion one passage are reserved for the conclusion it illustrates bunyan at the height of his cds the year art history is from stomach but do notice that religious conviction that inspire as they are after this it was not raised abroad that must've read him for truth was sent for by a summons by the same post as the other and had this for a token but the summons was true but his picture was broken at the same time when he understood it he

called for his friends and told the market then said he i am going to my father's and so with great difficulty i have got hit there yet no i do not prevent the overall the troubles i have been asked to arrive where i am my sword and i give to him that show succeed me in my pilgrimage and my courage and skill to him that can get my marks and scarves i carry with me to be a witness for me that i have fought his battles oh no we'll be my underwater when the date that he must go hands was come many accompanied him to the riverside into which as he went he said death where is thy sting and as he went down deeper he said really so also

on the other to pay