JOHN BUNYAN

JOHN BUNYAN

The Pilgrim Who Made Progress

John Bunyan was born in 1628 in a small town in southern England. He was the son of a tinker, someone who repaired pots and pans, sharpened knives, and did other small metal work. That became John’s work, too, but he also started preaching.

During John’s youth, England was torn by civil war. King Charles I was killed and his son, Charles II, was driven out of the country. Oliver Cromwell then took over the government. He ruled well, but when he died, Charles II was brought back and made king.

When the kings were in power, the official Church of England controlled most religious life and supported the king. But when Oliver Cromwell ruled, he encouraged the independent churches—Puritan, Baptist, Presbyterian, and Quaker. Naturally, when King Charles II returned to power, he wanted to get rid of these independent churches. He feared that they might be disloyal to him.

But it was in these independent churches that John Bunyan preached. When he was told to stop, he refused to obey the king’s law. He said he had to obey God. So he was thrown into prison.

After giving birth to four children, John’s first wife died in about 1658, the same year that Oliver Cromwell died. John was very lonely and needed help raising his small children. Mary, the oldest, was only eight years old and blind. Before long John remarried. Elizabeth, his new wife, became a loving wife and mother and bore two more children.

The prison to which John was sent in 1661 was just down the street from the Bunyan home, and every day his blind daughter Mary brought him a jug of soup.

Bunyan spent nearly twelve years there, but he did not waste his time. He wrote many articles and books. The most well known book is Pilgrim’s Progress, an imaginary story of a young man traveling toward heaven. John was released from prison in 1672 and returned to his life as a pastor.

He died in London in 1688 from pneumonia, which he apparently caught after riding far out of his way through a chilling rainstorm to help settle a quarrel between a father and son.