God does not always shed such a flood of light upon the mind at once. It is not necessary in every case. It could not be well sustained, perhaps, in many cases. Besides, until Gifford and Luther led Bunyan to a prayerful and orderly study of the Scriptures, he was a very ignorant man. He had scraps of truth at his finger ends, but no digest of its evidences or analogy in his memory. He saw the fringes of its glory, but not the foundations of its grace. The perception of its connexions and harmony was, therefore, to him, almost what a prophetic vision would be to a well informed man. It should be for ever remembered also, where Bunyan studied Luther and the Bible at this time. It was alternately in the barns where he slept on straw, and under the lonely trees where he rested himself. He "watched for the morning," upon a bed which had no attractions, when he awoke from his first sleep. Even the Sluggard would hardly have turned himself to slumber again amongst the sacking and litter of a Tinker's couch. For although Bunyan was now an honest man, and known as such in his rounds, the barn was his only dormitory, and the corncloth his only counterpane, and his own wallet stuffed with his clothes, or a corn-sheaf, his only pillow. He rarely knew the luxury of a blanket, or even of a chaff bolster. It was from such couches he arose with the sun, to search the Scriptures, and to ponder Luther's paradoxes, whilst all nature was cool, and calm, and bright, around him. In like manner, when he rested during the heat of the day under the trees or the hedges, all his cares at this time only sent him to his Bible, whilst all his tastes enjoyed the scenery and the solitude. Much of the vividness of his conceptions arose from these circumstances. And then, he had just suffered so much at home, whilst brooding in silence over dark and daring thoughts, that both Nature and Revelation were almost new to him, when he resumed his communion with them in his old rounds. Thus, there is no occasion to stumble It is only what we expect, when mathematical Philosophers, now that few of them are Newtons, sneer and snarl at the awen of moral truth: but it is mortifying and unbearable, when Poets, (whose "Fine eye, in frenzy rolling," searches for the sublime and beautiful as for "hid treasure" in Nature) tell us gravely, that it is "perilous" to expect any thing from Revelation, brighter or better than the vague and vapid conceptions of eternal things, which occur to those who seldom think, and never pray. Christians should not, however, avenge this outrage on truth and decency, by sneering at poetry. Still, Poets must not provoke us, nor try our patience too far. For if we make reprisals,—Alas, for them! CHAPTER XII. BUNYAN AND LUTHER. THE influence of Luther on Bunyan has never been fully pointed out indeed, hardly stated fairly. Even Dr. Southey, who estimated it well, mistakes its commencement. It was not as he says, when Bunyan saw the evidence of his Salvation from Heaven, "with golden seals appendant," nor when he had "the gate of Heaven in full view," and was longing to "enjoy the beatific vision," that Luther's Commentary on the Galatians "fell into his hands." That book led to this state of mind, instead of coming in to confirm it. Hence Bunyan says, "But before I had got thus far out of my Temptations, I did greatly long to see some antient godly man's experience, who had writ some hundred years before I was born. Well, after many such longings in my mind, the God in whose hands are all our days and ways did cast into my hand one day, a book of Martin Luther's. It was his comment on the Galatians. It was also so old, that it was ready to fall piece from piece if I did but turn it over. Now I was much pleased that such an old book had fallen into my hands. I found my condition as largely and profoundly handled, in his experience, as if his book had been written out of my heart. I do prefer this book of Martin Luther (excepting the Bible) before all the books that ever I have seen, as most fit for a wounded conscience." 66 Thus it was before the wounds of his own conscience were healed, and whilst he had not got far out of his temptations, that Bunyan met with Luther. It was a happy meeting. "In the work of that passionate and mighty mind," says Dr. Southey, "he saw his own soul reflected as in a glass. Like Luther he had undergone the agonies of unbelief and deadly fear, and according to his own persuasion wrestled with the Enemy." Bunyan saw more than all this in the Saxon glass. What chiefly arrested and interested him was, the "grave debate, showing that the LAW, as well as the devil, death, and hell, hath a very great hand in the rise of blasphemy, despair, and the like." This he had never dreamt of before. The Law had often slain all his hopes, and set more than his conscience on fire, by crossing his wishes; but he had ascribed both the death of hope and the wrath of passion, to the direct influence of the devil. It was, therefore, startling as well as very strange to him at first, to be warned and adjured by Luther, not to look nor listen to the Law of God, when a sense of guilt was overwhelming the conscience, and sinking the heart in despair. He had to watch and ponder much, before he saw how the utter exclusion of Law from the question of pardon, could relieve the conscience from the fear of wrath, without relaxing the fear of sin or the love of holiness. And he was perfectly astounded to hear Luther almost thank the devil, for calling him "a great sinner." Luther says to Satan, "in telling me that I am a sinner, thou givest me armour and weapons against thyself, that with thine own sword I may cut thy throat, and tread thee under my feet; -for Christ died for sinners. Thou (only) puttest me in mind of God's fatherly love towards me, and of the benefit of Christ, as often as thou objectest that I am a wretched and condemned sinner." To foil Satan thus, with his own weapons, was a new thing to Bunyan. But he was an apt scholar, and soon learned to say for himself, "The guilt of sin helped me much for still as that would come upon me, : the blood of Christ did take it off again, and again, and again." In regard to Law also, he was soon Lutheran enough to say, "In that conscience where, but just now, did reign and rage the law, even there would rest and abide the peace and love of God, through Christ." These are not the Lutheran maxims, which History records, and Poetry immortalizes, as the secret of the Reformation; but these were the maxims which endeared Luther to the conscience of Europe. Robertson did not see this, nor even Villers understand it; but Luther's doctrine of Justification by faith, and his defiance of Satan to condemn, mustered the best men of the millions who responded to him with acclamations, when he threw the Canon Law and the Pope's Bull into the bonfire of Wittemberg, exclaiming, "Let eternal fire trouble thee, because thou hast troubled the Holy One of God." Bunyan is a proof of this. It was Luther's sympathy with uneasy consciences, and Luther's insight into the devices of Satan, and Luther's exhibition of a free salvation, which won his heart, and drew from his pen the declaration-that the work on the Galatians might have been written out of his own heart. I give prominence to the influence of Luther upon Bunyan, because no one can suspect Bunyan of any approach to the enormity of "making void the Law by faith ;" and because it is becoming somewhat too fashionable to boggle at Luther's strong language, on the subject of justification by faith alone. There is, indeed, no necessity for using all the saxonisms of the Saxon Reformer; but English, which does not say that Law has nothing to do with justification, is, however polished, worse than vulgar, except when it says that the Law, like the Prophets, witnesses to the righteousness which is by faith. How well Bunyan understood Luther, if not copied after him also, will be seen from the following remarks upon Paul's doxology, "Now unto Him that is able to do |