How utterly contemptible does any Government become when they tamper
with spiritual worship. At one period they punished Dissenters with
imprisonment, transportation, and, to use Judge Keeling's elegant
expression in his sentence on Bunyan, 'to stretch by the neck for
it'; and anon, the very same Government, under the same king, gives
them license to dissent! Human laws affecting religion can never
be the standard of morality; to read the Bible is considered to be
sin in Tuscany, and righteousness in Britain. The release of this
great and pious man from his tedious imprisonment, has been hitherto
involved in a cloud of mystery, which it will be our happiness
to disperse, while we record that event in a clear, indisputable
narrative of facts. His earlier biographer, Mr. Doe, not having
access to archives which the lapse of time has now rendered available,
attributed his release to the influence of Bishop Barlow, by the
interference of Dr. Owen. It is narrated in the life of Dr. Owen,
published in 1721:--'The doctor had some friends also among the
bishops, Dr. Barlow, formerly his tutor, then bishop of Lincoln,
who yet upon a special occasion failed him, when he might have
expected the service of his professed friendship. The case was this,
Mr. John Bunyan had been confined to a jail twelve years, upon an
excommunication for Nonconformity. Now there was a law, that if
any two persons will go to the bishop of the diocese, and offer
a cautionary bond, that the prisoner shall conform in half a year,
the bishop may release him upon that bond; whereupon a friend
of this poor man desired Dr. Owen to give him his letter to the
bishop in his behalf, which he readily granted. It was soon after
the discovery of the Popish plot, when this letter was carried to
the bishop, who having read it, desired "a little time to consider
of it, and if I can do it, you may be assured of my readiness."
He was waited upon again in about a fortnight, and his answer was,