JOHN BUNYAN
MAN OF MANY ABILITIES – PART 1
THE renowned Dr. John Owen told Charles 11 : “I would willingly exchange all my learning for the tinker’s power of touching men’s heart’s.” He was a personal friend and admirer, and never lost an opportunity of hearing him preach whenever Bunyan visited London. For almost three hundred years his immortal allegory Pilgrim’s Progress has been touching men’s hearts, and has secured him a fame reserved for only the very elite of English authors. The Dream-story has been translated into a hundred and twenty languages, more than any other book save the Bible
Many have sought to imitate his style and his use of allegory but he remains unique. His education was scanty but the learning which he acquired in His Saviour’s School of Suffering gave him a depth of insight into. the human heart which few have equalled. Well might the poet Browning exclaim :
“Tis my belief, GOD spoke
No tinker has such power.”
TINKER
He was born in November 1628 in the little village of Elstow, near Bedford. His father was a poor tinker or brazier, working at the forge by his cottage or going from farm to farm in course of his trade, mending metal wares. In this trade John was destined to follow, but evidently he did not learn his religion from his father for he says, “poverty but not piety was the mark of our home.” He records his gratitude that his parents put him to school to learn to read and write, but it’s clear that his education was very limited as he confesses: “I did soon lose the bit I learnt . . . long before the Lord did His gracious work of conversion upon my soul.
Poverty compelled him to leave school and serve at the forge. His mother died when he was sixteen, his father soon remarried but it seems that John now fell into wild ways and became the ringleader of ungodly youths! The Civil War between the Cavaliers of Charles I and the Roundheads of Cromwell had broken out two years before in 1642. As sixteen was the regulation age for army service he was taken into the Parliamentary army.
SOLDIER
Hence the young tinker became a soldier. He says little about these army days but no doubt their influence comes to light in his writings. Marching with those Roundhead fighting-praying Captains he would, no doubt, find his models for such characters as Great-heart. Once he escaped death from a musket bullet through a comrade taking his place, and no doubt he heard many a sermon from Puritan chaplains, but when the army was disbanded in 1646 he was notorious for his cursing, swearing, lying and blaspheming, and on his own confession completely unconcerned about God. He married when he was 21 years of age and soon had a young family of four children, the first child Mary was blind and there was always a special bond between them. But he was then a gay, careless young man, revelling in the village gatherings, a keen dancer, and taken up with the various sports
His wife had evidently had a godly father, and she began to exert some religious influence upon him, by reading aloud from two books left by her father, and by persuading him to attend the local church. Once indeed in the midst of his Sunday afternoon sports on the green he thought he heard a voice from heaven but he kept it to himself and continued on his foul-mouthed way in which every other word was an oath. Once he was rebuked for his language by a loose woman who said that she trembled to hear him and that he was spoiling the youth of the whole town. This unlikely shaft went home and he was secretly ashamed.
To the amazement of himself and of others he stopped his swearing, and now became very religious, he read his Bible-especially the historical parts, and was willing to talk religion with anyone. For a year he thought he pleased God as well as any man in England, his neighbours marvelled at the alteration but he soon discovered that although he had religion he had not yet experienced regeneration.
One day on his rounds in Bedford he came across a group of women from John Gifford’s recently formed Gospel Church; he was very eager to talk about religion but soon found himself out of his depth when they talked about the new birth. Their conversation awakened him and he returned time and again to talk with them. In due time they referred him to their pastor who gladly talked to the young tinker about salvation. lt was not easy for him to find the “wicket gate” he was so given to self-examination and self-condemnation that he fell into the Slough of Despond.
How he wallowed, how difficult it was for him to get out, the struggle lasted two years or so, but dawn came at last. The burden rolled from his back and he was filled with, song and sun- shine. He became a regular adherent of the little group of believers in Bedford and he benefited greatly from the rich ministry of Gifford. Even so he still experienced dark times, days of blackest doubting and despair; Bunyan was only too well acquainted with Doubting Castle and grim Giant Despair. He really joined the church in 1653 and was probably baptised in the River Ouse around that time. (Although even in those days of liberty under Cromwell it was probably at dead of night, public baptism by immersion was still a subject for scorn and persecution).
Eventually he became a deacon of the church and as he continued to study the Word of God it became apparent to the faithful believers that here was a convert on whom God had His hand in a special way.
1655 was a year of sorrow in his life, just he lost his wife Mary, and then his godly pastor passed away. It was also a time of beginning of great things. He was asked to preach, and though not a little abashed feeling his own inadequacy, he ventured and his efforts were attended with immediate and evident blessings. His influence grew and people came in to hear the Word by hundreds from all parts.
Barnabas Ministries UK 