Christian charity; and, in obedience to the apostolic injunction,
they must agree to differ. 'Let every man be fully persuaded in
his own mind' (Rom 14:5). Human arts have been exhausted to prevent
that mental exercise or self-persuasion which is essential to a
Christian profession. The great object of Satan has ever been to
foster indifference, that deadly lethargy, by leading man to any
source of information rather than prayerful researches into the
Bible. Bunyan's severe discipline in Christ's school would lead
him to form a judgment for himself; he was surrounded by a host
of sects, and, with such a Bible-loving man, it is an interesting
inquiry what party he would join.

He lived in times of extraordinary excitement. England was in a
transition state. A long chain of events brought on a crisis which
involved the kingdom in tribulation. It was the struggle between
the unbridled despotism of Epsicopacy, and the sturdy liberty of
Puritanism. For although the immediate cause of the civil wars was
gross misgovernment--arbitrary taxation without the intervention
of Parliament, monopolies and patents, to the ruin of trade; in
fact, every abuse of the royal power--still, without the additional
spur of religious persecution, the spirit of the people would never
have proved invincible and overpowering. The efforts of Archbishop
Laud, aided by the queen and her popish confessor, Panzani, to
subjugate Britain to the galling yoke of Rome, signally failed,
involving in the ruin the life of the king and his archbishop, and
all the desolating calamities of intestine wars, strangely called
'civil.' In this strife many of the clergy and most of the bishops
took a very active part, aiding and abetting the king's party in their
war against the parliament--and they thus brought upon themselves
great pains and penalties. The people became suddenly released