from mental bondage; and if the man who had been born blind, when
he first received the blessing of sight, 'saw men as trees walking,'
we cannot be surprised that religious speculations were indulged in,
some of which proved to be crude and wild, requiring much vigorous
persuasive pruning before they produced good fruit. Bunyan was
surrounded by all these parties; for although the rights of conscience
were not recognized--the Papists and Episcopalians, the Baptists
and Unitarians, with the Jews, being proscribed--yet the hand of
persecution was comparatively light. Had Bunyan chosen to associate
with the Episcopalians, he would not have passed through those
severe sufferings on which are founded his lasting honours. The
Presbyterians and Independents received the patronage of the state
under the Commonwealth, and the great mass of the clergy conformed to
the directory, many of them reciting the prayers they had formerly
read; while a considerable number, whose conscience could not
submit to the system then enforced by law, did, to their honour,
resign their livings, and suffer the privations and odium of being
Dissenters. Among these were necessarily included the bishops.[133]

Of all sects that of the Baptists had been the most bitterly
written against and persecuted. Even their first cousins, the
Quakers, attacked them in language that would, in our peaceful days,
be considered outrageous. 'The Baptists used to meet in garrets,
cheese-lofts, coal-holes, and such like mice walks,'--'theses
tumultuous, blood-thirsty, covenant-breaking, government-destroying
Anabaptists.'[134] The offence that called forth these epithets
was, that in addressing Charles II on his restoration, they stated
that "they were no abettors of the Quakers." Had royal authority
possessed the slightest influence over Bunyan's religious opinions,
the question as to his joining the Baptists would have been settled