Bunyan wrote ‘Grace Abounding ‘, which nobody has read. He also wrote ‘The Pilgrim’s Progress’ which everybody has read. The former is about abstract nouns; the latter is about human beings – Talkative, Pliable and Worldly Wiseman. They are still with us today. So is Vanity Fair. Bunyan had served his time as a soldier and a jail-bird secure in the arms of the Creator and he was well qualified to form conclusions about the effect of the Gospel on the interior of ordinary people. In this he was a puritan pioneer, when puritans took their faith seriously (as did Papists when they had the freedom to do so). But English people disliked both Papists and puritans and preferred to keep theologians and pastors at arms’ length. That dislike is still evident today.
Cowper was a poet and hymn-writer who found that the Gospel may well prove to be the beginning of problems rather than the end of them, It was Cowper who wrote the well-known hymn (if it can be called a hymn) about his spiritual despondency: ‘O for a closer walk with God’. The hymn speaks of ‘an aching void /The world can never fill.’ He was prone to depression and had suicidal tendencies but this particular hymn will gain a response from many. The Christian faith is not a panacea for mental and physical ailments.
We owe a lot to both these writers. Bunyan brought spiritual issues to life in a way that echoes street speech and love of gossip. Cowper wrote for those more accustomed to dignified poetry. Both explored the mind and its strengths and frailties. Both can help us understand our own faith better.
NOT FORGOTTEN
They don’t forget Bunyan (that unlicensed preacher) in Bedfordshire. Elstow has the remains of an Abbey or nunnery that was once the eighth richest in England. It houses the font in which John Bunyan was baptized in 1628. It also has stained glass windows commemorating Bunyan. What remains of the building is used as a parish church. The Vicar is Paul Messam. It is one of the Church of England’s might-have-beens that the site of the abbey, following the dissolution, might have accommodated a cathedral. A vote in Parliament approved but nothing came of it.
Bedford has a John Bunyan museum and a ‘meeting place’ for worshippers.
Cowper has a Memorial Congregational Church in Dereham, Norfolk and a Cowper and Newton museum established in 1900. Cowper contributed hymns to the collection published by Newton and Cowper entitled ‘Olney Hymns’. Cowper also wrote the domestic epic ‘The Task’.
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