Bunyan, Mr. Ignorance, and the Quakers Author(s): Richard F. Hardin Reviewed work(s): Source: Studies in Philology, Vol.

69, No. 4 (Oct., 1972), pp. 496-508 Published by: University of North Carolina Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4173781 . Accessed: 28/02/2013 01:45
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Bunyan,Mr. Ignorance,and the Quakers

By
RICHARD

F. HMARi

HE allegorical figuresin The Pilgrim'sProgress are seldom very mysterious; often their names-Pliable,Faithful,Interpreter-define clearlyenoughtheirrolesin the Christian life. Yet sometimes the namedoes not tell us all we need to know about the character. We need to know something about religion in Bunyan's time if we are to understand that By-ends,besidesrepresentingthe man of expediency as his namesuggests, embodies many of the qualities of respectable, comfortable Anglicanism, especially in consortwith his complacentfellows, Hold-the-world, Monev-love, and Save-all.The By-ends episode,one of the mostengagingpieces of social criticismin the novel, is obviouslymeant to expose the foiblesof the established churchin the later seventeenth centuryand does so in a way that no otherepisodein the bookdoes.' With and the others,Bunyanhas madehis definitive By-ends, Money-love, statement on worldlyAnglicans.In my opinionthe figureIgnorance of Part One has similarlygeneral and special roles, not unlike or Duessain The FaerieQueen. He is principally Archimago what his name indicates, knowingneitherhimselfnor the revealedtruths more particularly, of Scripture; a kind of though, he represents familiarto everyonein Bunyan's Christian time, one of a sect who and intuitiveresponse abovestudy,the Quaker.s. prizedspontaneity the beliefs of the arenot set downin any Although earlyQuakers fromthe writingsof leaders systematic fashion,they maybe inferred EdwardBurrough,who like George Fox and Bunyan'sadversarv
T

'The By-ends episode was not added until the third edition. Perhaps one of Bunyan'sreaderspointed out to him the need for a passagedealing specificallywith the broad-mindedAnglican with his (to Bunyan) characteristiccompromises.

496

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contributed mightilyto the floodof religious-controversial literature in seventeenth-century England. Of coursethere were varietiesof Quakerism at this time, as we know fromFox'sdispleasure over the conduct of the fanaticalJames Nayler. However, turning to the The journalof autobiography of the virtualfounderof the Quakers, GeorgeFox, we can find a numberof the tenetsupon which all the earlyFriends generally agreed, not a few of which relateto Bunyan's character Ignorance. Undoubtedly Fox and his disciplesowed much to a puritanheritage shared with Bunyan. Fox was moved" to cryout against all sorts of music,and againstthe mountebanks playingtrickson theirstages, for they burdenedthe pure life, and stirred up people'sminds to 2 Beyondtheiranti-worldliness, vanity." however,thereis little overt similarity betweenQuakersand Calvinists.While men like Bunyan held to the inherentevil of naturalman and the impossibility of
salvationwithout special election by God, Fox and the early Quakers

believedthat Christhad regenerated all mankind, giving to each an "inner light" by which he could obtainhis salvation.The truthof this light was revealedearlyto Fox:
Now the Lord God hath opened to me by his invisible power how that every man was enlightened by the divine light of Christ; and I saw it shine through all, and that they that believed in it came out of condemnationand came to the light of life and became the children of it, but they that hated it, and did not believe in it, were condemnedby it, though they made a professionof Christ. (p. 33)

The light is given to all men,even unbaptized Indians, as Fox argued in whatmusthavebeen a dramatic confrontation duringhis American travels.In November,I672, Fox'spartyspentthe night at the home of Carolina: of the governor
And there was a doctor that did dispute with us, which was of great service and occasion of opening much to the people, concerning the Light and the Spirit. And he so opposed it in every one, that I called an Indian because he denied it to be in them, and I asked him if that he did lie and do that to another which he would not have them do the same to him, and when he did wrong was not there something in him that did tell him of it, that he should not do so, but did reprove him. And he said there was such a thing in him when he did any such a thing that he was ashamed of them. So we made the doctor ashamed in the sight of the
2 Jojurnalof George Fox, ed. John L. Nickalls (Cambridge, Eng., z912), p. 38. Furtherquotationsfrom the Journalare from this edition.

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govemor and the people; and he ran so far out that he would not own the Scriptures. (p. 642)

Such liberality, particularlyunusual among English Christians at

that time, was the naturalconsequence of Fox'sbelief in a universal Atonement,ratherthan a Calvinist,limited Atonement. Fox expoundsthis doctrine in a simplefableof two old peoplewhosehouse is so damaged by an enemy that they and their childrenare at the
mercy of the elements. (It is interesting to note that the old couple

does nothing to merit having their house destroyed.) Many come to rebuildthe house,but aftertakingthe family's offering moneythey exclaim,"'there'sno perfection here . . .; this house can never be perfectlybuilt up again."' These deceivers "all the sects represent in Christendom," who
have pretended to build up Adam and Eve's fallen house and when they have got people's money they tell them the house cannot be perfected here: and so their house lies as it did. But I told them Christwas come freely, who hath perfectedfor ever by one offering all them that are sanctified, and renews them up in the image of God, as man and woman were in before they fell; and makes man and woman's house as perfect again as God had made them at the first. And this, Christ the heavenly man has done freely. (p. 368)

From this it follows, first, that sects and churches ("steeplehouses") areunnecessary attachments to truereligion: God's"people were His temples,and he dwelt in them" (p. 8). Nor does man need the other paraphernalia of revealedreligion,such as written and commentaries doctrines on them. Fox saysof his own growthin spiritual perfection:
My desires after the Lord grew stronger,and zeal in the pure knowledge of God and Christ alone, without the help of any man, book, or writing. . . . And then the Lord did gently lead me along, and did let me see his love, which was endless and eternal, and surpassethall the knowledge that men have in the natural state, or can get by history or books; and that love let me see myself as I was without

him. (pp.

II-2)

More important, Fox'sinterpretation of the Atonementsuggests,at least on the surface,that man is basically good althoughcorruptible
from without. With unassuming candor, Fox reportsthat as a child

he himself had "a gravityand stayedness of mind and spirit not usual in children."He adds,"When I cameto eleven yearsof age,

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I knew purenessand righteousness"; and, "When boys and rude peoplewould laugh at me, I let them alone and went my way, but " (pp. i-a). andhonesty peoplegenerally had a love formy innocency accountof his youth, Nothing couldbe moreremotefromBunyan's in which, as he recallsin the early pages of GraceAboundingto led him to frolic sinful condition the Chief of Sinners,his naturally in the "lusts and fruitsof the flesh,"especially blasphemy. as we Now to returnto Pilgrim's we find in Ignorance, Progress, meet him on the homestretch of Christian's journey,the same unthat is so typicalof Fox: waveringself-confidence
Then said Christian . . . Come, how do you? how stands it between God and your Soul now? Ignor. I hope well, for I am always full of good motions, that come into my mind, to comfortme as I walk.'

This self-satisfied equanimity scandalizes Christian and Hopeful,just as that of the Quakersmust have shockedanxiousCalvinistslike Bunyan. To Christian's hard, rationalprobings,Ignorance's justificationis everand again,"My hearttellsme so." This leadsChristian to refute the assumption (sharedby manyif not mostQuakers)that naturalman, whetherchild or Indian,can be good:
The word of God saith of persons in a natural condition, There is none righteous, there is none that doth good, It saith also, That every imagination of the heart of man is only evil, and that continually. And again, The imagination of mans heart is evil from his Youth. Now then, when we think thus of ourselves, having sense thereof, then are our thoughts good ones, because according to the Word of God. Ignor. I will never believe that my heart is thus bad. (p. 264)

is virtuallya summary Ignorance's subsequent testimony of Fox's creed: "I believe that Christdied for sinnersand that I shall be justifiedbeforeGod fromthe Cursethroughhis gracious acceptance of my obedience to his Law. Or thus, Christmakesmy Duties that to His Fatherby virtueof his Merits,and so are Religious acceptable shall I be justified"(p. 266). This belief in transferred merit (not differentfrom orthodox materially Anglicanand Catholicdoctrine) Christianflatly condemns: "Thou believestwith a false faith, be8-Grace Abounding and The Pilgrim's Progress, ed. John Brown (Cambridge, Eng., 1907), p. 263. I have used this text for all quotations from both Grace Abounding and Pilgrim'sProgress.

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of Christ, righteousness fromthe personal causeit takethJustification can no longer and appliesit to thy own" (p. 266). When Ignorance fromhim and he withdraws relendessexamination, bearChristian's the two uprightpilgrimsdiscussthe need for Hopeful,whereupon for sin " "true or rightfear,"which is causedby " savingconvictions "right of sin and the accompanying (p. 268). Both the conviction on salvation: fear" seem to be missingfrom the Quakerpreaching between Fox's 7ournal and indeed, one of the salient differences is that there is no sense that the autobiographies Calvinistspiritual writerneed extricate himselffrom the effectsof his sins-nor more than a hint that he has ever even sinned. Ignoranceshares with the Quakers,then, an emotional,antirationaloutlook(hence his name) regardingsin and redemption. There is even evidencethat he has not readhis Bible very well, so the committed is he to the a prioritruthsof his heart. (Significantly, while Fox's with Scriptural of Bunyanarebristling citations, writings of knowledge, being the antithesis Journal has veryfew.) Ignorance we are remindedof the primacyof knowledgein Bunyan'sworldof "the thingsthat withoutknowledge view. As he writeselsewhere,
be of the Spirit of God," man can never find the path to salvation. These things cannot be known by the " natural man," he continues,

discerned.Now, if he cannot know "becausethey are spiritually them, fromwhat principleshouldhe will them? For judgment,or mustbe beforethe will can act. I say again,a man must knowledge, knowthem to be thingsin chief . . . or else his will will not comply of the Quakers eyes the ignorance with them.. . ." 4 In Bunyan's Ignorance:they do not coincidesexactlywith that of his character know the true importof God'sword, and they do not know themselves. Thlisis the irony (deliciousirony,I think, for Bunyan,who was final appearance in not abovehavingthe last laugh) of Ignorance's havemadetheirwayacross the the narrative. Hopefuland Christian River of Death, Christianunder great inner tormentsas befits an
'A Defence of the Doctrine of Justificationby Faith in Jesus Christ, in The Complete Works of John Bunyan, ed. Henry Stebbing (London, n.d.), IV, 250. All citations from minor writings of Bunyan are to this edition.

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agonizing, fearful,but righteous soul. Ignorance, confident as always, would seem about to have an easy time of it at the river'sedge: " For it happened, that therewas then in that place one Vain-hope, a Ferryman, that with his Boathelpedhim over" (p. 279). At the gates of the HeavenlyCity, however,he is askedfor his certificate, and having gone throughlife the easy way, can of courseproduce none. The King commands that he be taken away, like the man without a wedding garmnent in Christ'sparable,and the Shining Ones placehim securelyin hell. Because the episode of Ignoranceoccupies a crucial place in Pilgrim's Progress, we may ask wthether so much thunderwouldn't have been wastedon the small,still young 5 sect called the Quakers.
What evidence is there which connects them more explicitly with Ignorance? In the first place, whatever the strength of the Quaker movement may have been in actuality, Bunyan certainly saw it as a prominent threat. In Grace Abounding he mentions by name only two sects which had a great impact on his spiritual development. One was the Ranters, who believed that given the doctrine of election men might sin with impunity; the other was the Quakers, by whom, Bunyan says, " I was driven to a more narrow search of the Scripture, and was, through their light and testimony, not only enlightened, but greatly confirmed and comforted in the truth; and, as I said, the guilt of sin did help me much."6 It may be germane to my argument that the Ranter, Mr. Selfwill, is introduced at roughly the same point in the journey of Part Two as is Ignorancein that of Part One.7 Rantersand Quakers are associatedin several of Bunyan's controversialwritings, as in The Doctrine of the Law and Grace Unfolded, where theirs are the " Two Hell-Bred Objections Answered."8
'When Hopeful sees Ignorancehe remarks," Look . . . how far yonder youngster loitereth behind " (p. 263). ' Par. I26. On the Ranters, see par. 44. 'I doubt that Selfwill's identity as a Ranter can be questioned. Honesty says, " He held that a man might follow the Vices as well as the Virtues of the Pilgrims, and that if he did both, he should certainly be saved" (p. 368). 8 In A Case of Conscience Resolved, writing on the role of women in the ministry, Bunyan says, "I do not believe they should minister to God in prayer before the whole church, for then I should be a Ranter or a Quaker" (IV, 41 o).

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to my case is the fact that Bunyan's firstpublicaEquallyrelevant tion, Some GospelTruthsOpened,was an attackon the Quakers. In it, Bunyan several times explicitly chargesthe Quakerswith as when he warnsthem ignorance,
to be very serious touching thine estate and condition, and examine thine own heart by the rule and word of God, whether or no thou hast as yet any beginnings of desiring after religion; and if thou findest that thou hast lived until now in ignorance,and hast not set thyself to rememberthy Creatoras thou art commanded (Eccl. Xit.I) then I beseech thee considerthat thou art under the wrath of Almighty God, and hast been so ever since thou camest into the world, (Eph. ii.I, 2) being thou in thy first parentsdidst transgress against thy Maker.9

One of the purposesof Christ's second coming, he says, will be " to

cut off all the ignorant persons thatare in the world"(I, 77). Who are the ignorant?Foremost amongthemis "the profane who scoffer, makesa mockat the truthsof God, and so goes on in his sins . . . who becausethey [sic] understand not the Scriptures, nor the power
of God in them, speak evil of the truth therein contained, and think

the Lord like unto themselves"(I, 77). Earlierin this argument Bunyanhad equatedthese scoffers with the Quakers:
Before Christ'ssecond coming there shall come scoffers in the world, walking after their own lusts; and if ever this scripture is fulfilled, it is fulfilled in these men called Quakers: for they are the men that at this day make a mock at Christ's second coming, which shall be from heaven without; and therefore, saith the Holy Ghost, these mockersshall be such as shall say, Where is the promiseof his coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were. (I, 75)

The QuakerEdwardBurrough repliedto this attackwith The True Faith of the Gospel of Peace ContendedFor, whereupon Bunyanissueda rambling defenseof his firsttreatise, A Vindicatioz of GospelTruthsOpened. Herethe charge of ignorance is vigorously reasserted:
Was there ever such a deal of ignorance discoveredat one time by a man, as to say, that every man hath the Spirit, or that which is as good as the Spirit, though the Spirit saith plainly, that some have not the spirit, as I have proved plainly?
(I, 105)

Be silent and say no more, lest thou dost through ignorance, or presumption,set up thy conscienceor nature as high and as good as the spirit of Christ. (I, I05)
8

Complete Works, I, 50.

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But now, friend, is not he ignorantof the gospel, which thinks his own conscience will lead him to eternal life, by commandingto abstain from this evil, and practice that good? (I, Io6) [The Quakers in distorting Scripture] show forth a great deal either of ignorance or presumption,knowingly to fight against the truth. (I, 13)

Havingsummarized the Quakerteachings on the innerlight, Bunyan concludes:

Now these things are nothing else but conscience, nature, or the law, for a natural man hath nothing else that dwelleth within him to convince him of sin; only these things have a new name put upon them. And poor creatureshearing the name of Christ, being ignorant of the nature of Christ, do presently close in with these things, supposing, nay verily believing that these are the spirit of Christ. (I, I2I)

In Instructions for the Ignorant, althoughhe does not mentionthe Quakers by name,Bunyanlists as the veryfirstof his cardinal points of doctrine the one on which Christian and Ignorance disagree, and on which the Baptists were readiest to disputethe Quakers: "Considerthat, seeingeveryone by natureare accounted sinners,it is no matterwhetherthy actualsins be little or great,few or many, thy sinful nature hath alreadylain thee under the curse of the law" (I, 488). Assuredly, then, a contemporary or at leasta member Baptist reader, of Bunyan'sflock, would not have overlooked Ignorance's Quaker attributes,even though several modem readershave interpreted otherwise.John W. Draper,perhapsa bit too readyto assertthat "Bunyanrepresents the Reformation at warwith the Renaissance," 10 finds that "Ignoranceis clearlya discipleof Natural Religion,of 11 In view currentphase." which Deism was the most characteristic of the slim likelihoodthat Deism, still quite new in England,had already taken root in Bunyan'sprovinces,I am skeptical about that Ignorance is a Draper's theory. His rejectionof the possibility Quakeris equally unconvincing: "In fact, had Bunyan intended to typify the Quakers,he would surely have Ignorance specifically emotionalism. laid morestresson his unrestrained Bunyan,moreover, must have had a much largerbody in mind than this small and sect . .. ." 12 Yet Bunyan's anti-Quaker bitterly persecuted writings
Mr Ignorance,"MLR, XXII (1927), i 5-zr. 11Ibid., p. I8. "Ibid., p. x9. Draper does not say who has identified Ignorance as a Quaker,
1? "Bunyan's

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" of the Quakers attestotherwise; and the "unrestrained emotionalism was neverone of his complaints againstthem. Still, it is easy to see how one might mistakethe naturalreligion of the Quakersfor the naturalreligionof the Deists. Both make strongclaimsfor the rightness or heart,and of the humanconscience both maintainthat the inner light or right conscienceis given by natureto all men. At one pointin the Journal, Foxhimselfundergoes to subsumehis Christianity a temptation to somethinglike Deism, or a religionof nature:
And one morning, as I was sitting by the fire, a great cloud came over me, and a temptationbeset me; but I sat still. And it was said, " All things come by nature"; and the elements and stars came over me so that I was in a manner quite clouded with it. But inasmuch as I sat, still and silent, the people of the house perceived nothing. And as I sat still under it and let it alone, a living hope arose in me, and a true voice, which said, "There is a living God who made all things." And immediately the cloud and temptation vanished away, and life rose over it all, and my heart was glad, and I praisedthe living God. (p. Z5)

This remarkablepassage is a reminder of the common roots which

bothDeismandQuakerism havein the intellectual movements which precededthem: the Reformation, the rebellion against religious even Renaissance authority, Platonism.13 Both WilliamYorkTindall and Henri Talon interpret Ignorance as a seventeenth-century Latitudinarian. DismissingDraper's argument, Tindalllikensthe opinionsof Ignorance to thoseof Bunyan's Cambridge-educated Edward author of The Design opponent Fowler, of Christianity.The similarityis but dimly traced,however,and Tindall does not explain why Bunyan would have accused an opponentso learnedas Fowlerof ignorance.14 Like Draper, Tindall refusesto entertain the possibility that Ignorance is a Quaker: "Hlis 15 contemptfor revelation is not a Quaker." provesthat Ignorance
and in all the earlier scholarshipwhich I have seen, no such identificationis made. From his tone, however, I can only conclude that I am not the first to proposethis argument. "3JakobBohme seems to have been held in great esteem by some of the early Quakers, and may have influenced Fox himself; a small sect of English Bbhmenists later merged with the Quakers. See Rufus M. Jones, SpirittualReformersin the 16th and 17th Centuries (London, 1914), 220-7; MargaretL. Bailey, Miltonand Jakob Bohme (New York, 19I4), 98-108. "John Bunyan Mechanick Preacher(New York, 1934), 62-3. "Ibid., p. 242. Again, we are not told who, if anyone, has made such an

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wereguiltyof just such contempt, eyes the Quakers Yet in Bunyan's and read certainpassagesof Scripture in their refusalto approach with properfear and trembling.Henri Talon, who does not broach of as simply"a portrait here,sees Ignorance the subjectof Quakerism Talon writes, "In his horrorof 'enthusiasm,"' a Latitudinarian." and his tolerance,Ignorance "his insistenceon Christianmorality, of makes us think of Henry More, John Smith, and particularly RobertSouth,whose 'ways of Pleasantness' and wisdomevoke the 'youngster'makes 'fine pleasantgreen lane' alongwhich Bunyan's his way." It is tenuousargumentand perhapsnot intendedto be tolerance, and morality, final. We can discernrespectfor Christian and horror of enthusiasm (if the last is reallya pointwith Ignorance, on how I thinkit is not) in almostany sect of the times,depending we intepretthoseterms.'8 in the pagesof this journal, A morerecentinterpretation by James the very idea of assigningIgnorance to a F. Forrest, has dismissed or sect. Ignorance's fault, we are told, is not Quakerism particular or Deism, but "pride."'" UndoubtedlyBunyan Latitudinarianism did see in Ignorancethe sin of pride-indeed, he often couples but of how many other characters in ignorancewith presumption; might the samebe said? Mr. WorldlyWiseman, Pilgrim's Progress MadameBubble,the By-endsgroup,the lordsand ladiesof Vanity with prideor presumption. Bunyanis not so Fair,are all saturated Parson:thatprideis " the general fromChaucer's remote,spiritually,
identificationin the first place. In A Defense of the Doctrine of Justificationby Faith in Jesus Christ, addressedto Edward Fowler, Bunyan, in fact, associates the Quakers with "latitude men" like Fowler: "Indeed there is in men, as men, a willingness to be saved their own way, even by following (as you) their own natural principles,as is seen by the Quakersas well as yourself . . ." (IV, 249-50). Fowler'skind of Christianityis later classed with that of " Socinians and Quakers"

(IV,
10

260).

Talon, John Bunyan, tr. Barbara Wall (Cambridge, Mass., 1951), p. 212. Maurice Hussey, "Bunyan's Mr. Ignorance,"MLR, XLIV (I949), 483-9, contends that "Mr. Ignorance came . . . from Arthur Dent's The Plaine Mans Path-Way to Heaven, where he appears as Antilegon, the caviller" (p. 483); however, this sourcestudy does not, so far as I can see, precludemy findings. 17 " Bunyan's Ignorance and the Flatterer: A Study in the LiteraryArt of Dam12-22 nation," SP, LX (I963), (p. i8). Forrestwrites: "Some see in Ignorance testimony to Bunyan's abhorrenceof Quaker faith in the 'Inner Light"'; but he does not identify the "some." Cf. notes I2 and i5, above.

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roote of alle harmes" was the most common of moral commonplaces

book in the seventeenth as in the fourteenth century. A Christian aboutsin is alwaysboundto be, in largemeasure, a bookaboutpride.
Certainly, from a man of Bunyan'sacute moral sensitivity we should

expectmorepreciseand informed distinctions than this.

I do not mean to deny the value of Mr. Forrest'sinterpretation,for

he doeswell to callourattention to the contextin whichthe meeting occurs.But is he rightin holdingthatsomesymbolic with Ignorance
relation exists between the Ignorance episode and the attendant

It wouldseemthat Bunyan and Little-Faith? meetingswith Flattery

had a less complicated motive, simply in wanting us to know that Ignorance is a dawdler, always lagging behind, reluctant to join in

and Hopeful. What betterway to make fellowshipwith Christian this apparent over severalepisodesof than to space his appearance
the allegory? Always alone, always loitering, distrustful of true

revealsas one of his greatest Christian faultsa comrades, Ignorance standoffishness amonghis fellow Christians.Bunyan's religion,outwardly so individualistic and dependent on the solitary struggle,

demandsa brotherhood paradoxically among its followerswhich

ties. Christian,Faithful, and Hopeful; transcendsmere organizational

and Christiana Christiana and Mercy;even Greatheart are all bound in the fellowshipof Christ. In Bunyan'sideal worldit would be to travelhis roadalone. It would for a true Christian unthinkable
seem to be a manifestationof that " terrorof being cut off from the

ordinaryworld of men" which Roger Sharrockfinds in Grace In Fox's Journalone can readilysee the Quakers Abounding.18 the same kind of remoteness in theirdealingswith nondeveloping not effect of Quakers-a predictable pride but of their relentless thatBunyan's sectwouldeverhave persecution, quiteunlikeanything in England. to undergo betweenthe religions of Fox and Bunyan The crucialdifferences are mostcogentlyevokedin an episodefromthe Journal which can of course) of Chrisbe read as a Quakercounterpart (coincidental, tian's dialoguewith Ignorance.In i653 Fox was preachingto a at Carlisle, and soldiers numberof Baptists
18John Bunyan (London,
I954),

p. 34.

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And after the meeting was done the pastor, with a rapier in his hand, came and asked me what must be damned, being a high notionist and a flashy man. And I was moved of a sudden to tell him, that which spoke in him was to be damned, which stopped the pastor'smouth, and the witness of God was raised up in him. (p. 157)

The "high notionist," the man of sense, againstthe man of sensibility: it is a familiarcontest in the Journal. Probablysuch a conflictis alwaysoccurring in the historyof religion,between the spontaneous, sensitivedisciplesof natureand the studious,rational proponents of dogma.We expectFox to takeexceptionto the rationhe recalls alistictheology of the Baptists.At a meetingin Edinburgh how
the Baptists began with their logic and syllogisms. But I was moved in the Lord's power to thresh their chaffy, light minds, and showed the people that after that manner of light discoursing they might make white black and black white, and because a cock had two legs and they two legs therefore they were cocks, and so turn anything into lightness; which was not the manner of Christ nor his aposdes' teaching and speaking. (p. 321)

When two such opponents-Foxand the Baptists,Ignoranceand Christian-meetin religiousdebate,neither side is bound to leam much. Christianbacks Ignoranceinto an intellectualcornerfrom which the only escapeis throughthe heart;the replymight as well have comefromFox: "This is your Faith,but not mine;yet mine, I doubtnot, is as good as yours: thoughI have not in my head so with Ignorance manywhimsiesas you" (p. 267). If we sympathize but our at this moment,we do so withoutpastorBunyan's approval, to Bunyanthe artist. doingso is a testimony have probably with Ignorance Most modernreaders sympathized of his disastrous end. before He possesses even at this point, learning a little simplethe naivetyof youth,straightforward, sincere,perhaps selfminded;if somewhatsmug, he pales beside the overbearing and Hopeful. Bunyanmighthave depicted of Christian assuredness of course: Ignorance like him otherwise, mighthave been a hypocrite or a commonscoffer. Instead,we have a charChaucer's Pardoner, acterwho is verynearthe personof GeorgeFox-and, one supposes, any numberof sincereQuakerswhom Bunyanmust have met: a man of tolerance, self-acknowledged peace,and goodwill. Bunyan's of mental states is well known to himself into a variety ability put the from GraceAbounding,and I believe this capacitydetermines

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Bunyan, Mr. Ignorance, and the Quakers

greatness of Pilgrim's Progress. In portrayingIgnorance, he has so absorbedhimself in the role of his familiarpulpit-enemy,the Quaker, that for a moment we are put off guard, just as the Baptist pastor of Carlisle must have been when, instead of confronting an aggressive, contentious opponent, he found himself up against a man of feeling. Yet why did this innocuous characterso merit Bunyan'sdispleasure that he (and he alone of all the divisive characters) figures in the climactic scene of Pilgrim's Progress? Why not show a papist or a complacentAnglican being carriedoff to hell? I have alreadynoted that Ignorance represents the antithesis of knowledge-especially " knowledge of the things that be of the spirit of God," without which no man is saved. But I for one cannot see how this notion by itself could have inspired one of the darkest,most profound episodes in the historv of religious literature, what Hawthorne called "the most awful truth of Bunyan'sbook."19 Bunyan'smotive in this final disposition of Ignorance is, I think, a matter of passion. For if George Fox was a man of feeling, John Bunyan also had his passionate side, which is manifested in his desire for grace and above all for a knowledge of his own spiritual condition. His magnificent final statement in Grace Abounding, his vow to " leap off the Laddereven blindfold into Eternity" is no less spontaneousand no more rationally deduced that any of Fox's pronouncements. Bunyan despised ignorance becauseit virtuallyrobbedhim of his reasonfor being. Deprived of the quest for knowledge, that great outlet for his spiritualenergies, he would have been left wvithlittle more than dry-as-dustdoctrine. Had Ignorance entered the Christian life by an easy route to find eternal happiness at the end, it would have meant for Bunyan a mindless universe. To him, life above all meant suffering-if not the externallyinflictedsufferingof Faithful in Vanity Fair, then the inner tormentof doubt and despair. Whether Bunyan was right in associating Ignorancewith Quakers it is neither possible nor proper for me to say. Yet he must have felt personallyrebuked, if not threatened, by their preaching, which reduced to nothing the fear and anguish on which he had based his claim to salvation.
The University of Kansas
9The

Blithedale Rowmnce, chap.

28.

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