exactly fitted to assist in maturing the mind of his young member.
Bunyan had, for a considerable time, sat under his ministry, and
had cultivated acquaintance with the members of his church; and so
prayerfully had he made up his mind as to this important choice of
a church, with which he might enter into fellowship, that, although
tempted by the most alluring prospects of greater usefulness,
popularity, and emolument, he continued his church fellowship with
these poor people through persecution and distress, imprisonment
and the threats of transportation, or an ignominious death, until
he crossed the river 'which has no bridge,' and ascended to the
celestial city, a period of nearly forty years. Of the labours of
his first pastor, John Gifford, but little is known, except that
he founded the church of Christ at Bedford, probably the first, in
modern times, which allowed to every individual freedom of judgment
as to water baptism; receiving all those who decidedly appeared
to have put on Christ, and had been received by him; but avoiding,
with godly jealousy, any mixture of the world with the church. Mr.
Gifford's race was short, consistent, and successful. Bunyan calls
him by an appellation, very probably common in his neighbourhood
and among his flock, 'holy Mr. Gifford';[143] a title infinitely
superior to all the honours of nobility, or of royalty. He was
a miracle of mercy and grace, for a very few years before he had
borne the character of an impure and licentious man--an open enemy
to the saints of God. His pastoral letter, left upon record in the
church-book, written when drawing near the end of his pilgrimage,
is most admirable; it contains an allusion to his successors, Burton
or Bunyan, and must have had a tendency in forming their views of
a gospel church. Even Mr. Southey praises this puritanic epistle
as exemplifying 'a wise and tolerant and truly Christian spirit':
and as it has not been published in any life of Bunyan, I venture