|
The Life of John Bunyan |
John Bunyan was born in 1628 in
the parish of Elstow, about a mile south of Bedford. He was the son of a tinker.
As a boy he travelled with his father learning the tinker trade. John had a
happy childhood. He went
to school and learned to read and write. In 1642, when he was a teenager, civil
war broke out and John joined the Parliamentary forces against the King. John returned to Elstow after the civil war and married a local girl. They had four children, one of the children, a girl, was blind. It was this that made John decide that he needed to change his life. In the early 1650s John joined a congregation led by a pastor called John Gifford. The two of them became friends. In 1655 John moved to St Cuthbert's Street in Bedford and it was while he was living there that he discovered he had a talent for preaching the word of God. In 1660 the monarchy was restored
and it was decided that to help the country become united only one way of
worshipping God would be allowed. The government decided to
ban preaching as a part of their move towards a common religion. John Bunyan was
already a well known preacher and he refused to be silenced. While he was
preaching in the village of Samsell he was arrested. John appeared before the
local justices in Bedford where he was sentenced to stay in prison until he
changed his way of worshipping, that is until he conformed. John Bunyan was 32 when he went to
prison. He was held in the County Gaol, which was less then 5 minutes from his
home. At first he though he would only be in gaol for a few weeks but as time
went by he was not released. John was allowed
to have food bought to his cell and daily visits from his second wife and
friends kept him in touch with the world. Most of the time he sat and wrote. He
completed several books while he was in gaol. The best known is The Pilgrim's
Progress. In 1672 King Charles II decided that people could worship how they liked and John Bunyan was released. He became the pastor of the Independent Congregation, buying a barn and orchard in Mill Street, Bedford as a place to meet in. Once again John became a well known preacher. In
1673 the King was forced to change the law again and three years later John
Bunyan was returned to prison. He was released in June 1677 and on 18th
February 1678 he published The Pilgrim's Progress.
John live for a further ten years. In that time he wrote another forty books. He traveled throughout Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Surrey and London preaching the word of God. John Bunyan died in August 1688 after suffering from pneumonia. He is buried in a vault in Bunhill Fields in City Road, London.
|
