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John Bunyan and the Fifth Monarchists

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 July 2014

Richard L. Greaves
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Authorities on John Bunyan have traditionally failed to associate him with the radical millenarians known as the Fifth Monarchists. Only William York Tindall, in an analysis of Bunyan's millenarian principles, suggested their affinity with the views of the Fifth Monarchy Men. There is, however, an unnoticed passage in one of Bunyan's own works which indicates that he was at one time an adherent of Fifth Monarchist ideology. The work in question, The Advocateship of Jesus Christ (more commonly known under the second-issue title, The Work of Jesus Christ as an Advocate), was published in May 1688, shortly before Bunyan's death. Unlike several of his posthumous works, this book was not concerned with millenarian themes but with Christ's role as an attorney who pleaded the cause of the elect before God the supreme judge. Nevertheless, near the end of this work Bunyan recalled that “I did use to be much taken with one Sect of Christians, for that it was usually their way, when they made mention of the Name of Jesus, to call him, The blessed King of Glory”. Upon reflection—in a climate charged with tension as hostility to James II mounted—Bunyan calmly observed that ”Christians should do thus; ‘twould do them good.” He was not, of course, suggesting a revival of the Fifth Monarchy movement, but reminding his readers that their ultimate sovereign was Christ, not James II.

The passage is not important for its relevance to political conditions in 1688 but for its indication that Bunyan had once apparently been a disciple of the Fifth Monarchists, a fact not hitherto known. Unfortunately, he did not indicate at what point in his career he was attracted to these people, but it was either the period between his conversion in 1653 and his imprisonment seven years later, or the period from about the publication of The Holy War in 1682 to the collapse of the Fifth Monarchy movement in 1685.

Type
Research Article
Information
Albion , Volume 13 , Issue 2 , Summer 1981 , pp. 83 - 95
Copyright
Copyright © North American Conference on British Studies 1981

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References

1 See, e.g., Brown, John, John Bunyan (1628-1688): His Life, Times, and Work, revised by Harrison, Frank Mott (London, 1928)Google Scholar; Sharrock, Roger, John Bunyan (London, 1968)Google Scholar; Furlong, Monica, Puritan's Progress (London, 1975)Google Scholar; Sadler, Lynn Veach, John Bunyan (Boston, 1979)Google Scholar. Although Christopher Hill does not indicate Bunyan's Fifth Monarchist associations, the discovery of this fact lends further support to his view of Bunyan's radicalism. See The World Turned Upside Down (New York, 1973), pp. 328–31Google ScholarPubMed; Some Intellectual Consequences of the English Revolution (Madison, 1980), pp. 13-14, 47.Google Scholar

2 Tindall, William York, John Bunyan: Mechanick Preacher (New York, 1934), chap. 6.Google Scholar

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4 Bunyan, John, The Work of Jesus Christ as an Advocate (London, 1688), p. 165Google Scholar. This work was first issued in the same year under the title, The Advocateship of Jesus Christ. For the emphasis on Jesus as king see, e.g., Rogers, John, Jegar Sahadutha (London, 1657)Google Scholar. The manifesto of Thomas Venner's 1661 rising was entitled A Door of Hope: or, a Call … unto the Standard of Our Lord, King Jesus. Vavasor Powell composed a hymn in 1654 “To Christ Our King,” reprinted in Brown, Louise Fargo, The Political Activities of the Baptists and Fifth Monarchy Men in England During the Interregnum (Washington, 1912), p. 51.Google Scholar

5 Nickolls, John, ed., Original Letters and Papers of State Addressed to Oliver Cromwell (London, 1743), p. 92.Google Scholar

6 Brown, , John Bunyan, pp. 101–3Google Scholar; Birch, Thomas, ed., A Collection of the State Papers of John Thurloe, 7 vols. (London, 1742), 6:228–30Google Scholar. There is no evidence that Fenn and Cooper were Fifth Monarchists.

7 Ibid., p. 187.

8 Tibbutt, H.G., ed., “The Minutes of the First Independent Church (now Bunyan Meeting) at Bedford, 1656-1766,” Publications of the Bedfordshire Historical Society 55 (1976): 29–30Google Scholar; Underwood, T.L. and Sharrock, Roger, eds., The Miscellaneous Works of John Bunyan, (Oxford, 1980), P. xxivGoogle Scholar (hereafter cited as Miscellaneous Works).

9 Tibbutt, , ed., Minutes, p. 28Google Scholar. For Jessey see White, B.R., “Henry Jessey,” A Biographical Dictionary of British Radicals in the Seventeenth Century, ed. Greaves, Richard L. and Zaller, Robert (Brighton, in pfess)Google Scholar; hereafter cited as B.D.B.R.

10 Tibbutt, , Minutes, p. 31Google Scholar; Capp, B.S., The Fifth Monarchy Men (London, 1972), pp. 276–78Google Scholar. For Rogers and Simpson see R.M. Gibson, “John Rogers,” and Greaves, “John Simpson,” B.D.B.R.

11 Tibbutt, , Minutes, p. 34Google Scholar. For Cokayne see Greaves, “George Cokayne,” B.D.B.R.

12 Miscellaneous Works, 2:87, 89. 92.Google Scholar

13 Ibid., 1:173, 205. Child, Burton, and Richard Spencly wrote the epistle to this work, Ibid., 1:121.

14 Ibid., pp. 284-85.

15 Greaves, Richard L., ed., The Miscellaneous Works of John Bunyan, 2 (Oxford, 1976), pp. 11–226.Google Scholar

16 Thurloe State Papers, 6:228–30Google Scholar; Tibbutt, , Minutes, pp. 15, 17.Google Scholar

17 Sharrock, Roger, ed., “A Relation of the Imprisonment of Mr. John Bunyan,” published in his edition of Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners (Oxford, 1962), p. 105.Google Scholar

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20 See Brown, , John Bunyan, p. 182.Google Scholar

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23 Ibid., pp. 49, 50.

24 Ibid., pp. 72-73.

25 Offor, George, ed., The Works of John Bunyan, 3 (Glasgow, 1861), pp. 408–409.Google Scholar

26 Ibid., p. 402.

27 Ibid., pp. 426-27.

28 Ibid., pp. 444-45.

29 Ibid., p. 410.

30 Ibid., p. 445. Cf. Llwyd, Morgan, Gweithiau Morgan Llwyd, 2 vols., ed. Ellis, T.E. and Davies, J.H. (Bangor, 1899, 1908), 2:237.Google Scholar

31 Offor, Works, 3:411Google Scholar. Capp correctly observes that most of the violence espoused by the Fifth Monarchists was only verbal (The Fifth Monarchy Men, p. 134).

32 Ibid., pp. 190-94.

33 See, e.g., Canne, John, A Voice from the Temple (1653) pp. 24–25Google Scholar; Rogers, John, Ohel or Beth-shemesh (1653), p. 24.Google Scholar

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36 Sharrock, Roger and Forrest, James F., eds., The Holy War (Oxford, 1980), pp. 85, 92.Google Scholar

37 Ibid., p. 138.

38 Ibid., p. 222.

39 Ibid., p. 247. See Tindall, John Bunyan, chap. 7.

40 Ibid., pp. 222, 228-29.

41 Greaves, Richard L., “John Bunyan's ‘Holy War’ and London Nonconformity,” The Baptist Quarterly 26 (October 1975): 158–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

42 Greaves, “George Cokayne,” B.D.B.R.

43 Greaves, “Anthony Palmer”; Richard Harvey, “Matthew Mead”; Paul S. Seaver, ”John Owen,” B.D.B.R.; Toon, Peter, God's Statesman (Exeter, 1971).Google Scholar

44 After The Holy War (1682), Bunyan's publications were The Greatness of the Soul (1683), A Holy Life (1684), Seasonable Counsel (1684), A Caution (1684), The Pharisee and the Publicane (1685), and A Book for Boys and Girls (1686). These were not millenarian works.

45 Lamont, William M., Richard Baxter and the Millennium (London, 1979), chaps. 1 and 4.Google Scholar

46 Capp, , The Fifth Monarchy Men, pp. 220–21.Google Scholar

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48 Ibid., p. 61.

49 Ibid., p. 73.

50 Ibid., pp. 44, 74. Cf. 3:536-37; Powell, Vavasor, The Bird in the Cage (1661), p. 35.Google Scholar

51 Offor, , Works, 2:72, 78.Google Scholar

52 Ibid., 3:536-37.

53 Ibid., 2:480.

54 Ibid., p. 424.

55 Ibid., pp. 426, 456.

56 Ibid., p. 457.