Today Tim Challies posted an article (authored by Tim Keesee) in honor of John Bunyan’s birthday on November 28th. Given the occasion, I figure now is as good a time as any to bring out a piece on Elizabeth, John Bunyan’s young and faithful wife.

Although his writings are extensive, John Bunyan is most famously known for the great Christian classic, Pilgrim’s Progress.  According to Christianity Today, Pilgrim’s Progress “is the first place bestseller (apart from the Bible) in all publishing history.”^[1] One biblical scholar states that “next to the Bible … Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress rates highest among all classics.”^[2] Charles Spurgeon is said to have read Pilgrims Progress over 100 times in his lifetime.^[3] Indeed, it is a roadmap whose precious biblical truths have lit the way home for many a pilgrim.

So, how does a working class man, imprisoned for over 12 years, accomplish such an enduring feat? I believe if John Bunyan were alive he would answer that by pointing to Proverbs 18:22: “He who finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains favor from the Lord.”

The year is 1659, and John and Elizabeth Bunyan have just been married. For John, it is his second marriage. His first wife died leaving him and their four small children, including blind Mary, behind. In less than two years, John is imprisoned for non-conformance with the Church of England and “preaching without license.”^[4]  John’s arrest means his young wife is now forced to fend for herself and the children. Elizabeth rises to the occasion and gracefully takes on the responsibility of raising John’s children as her own. Throughout his imprisonment, she remains his most earnest advocate. So much so that her husband compares her to the Persistent Widow in Luke 18:3-5.^[5]

Early in John’s imprisonment, Elizabeth visits the House of Lord’s in London, where she heroically pleads for her husband’s release. Her husband later wrote that his wife possessed “more spirit than they had expected to find in the helpmate of the tinker preacher.”^[6]

Here is a summary of the exchange:

Elizabeth: My Lord, I make bold to come again to your lordship to know what may be done with my husband.

Judge Hale: Woman, I told thee before I could do thee no good, because they have taken that for a conviction which thy husband spoke at the sessions; and unless there be something done to undo that, I can do thee no good.

Elizabeth: My Lord, he is kept unlawfully in prison. They clapped him up before there was any proclamation against the meetings. The indictment also is false. Besides they never asked him whether he was guilty or not of preaching without a license. Neither did he confess the indictment.

Judge Chester: My lord, he was lawfully convicted … he is a pestilent fellow, there is not such a fellow in the country again.

Judge Twisdon: What, Will your husband leave preaching? If he will do so, then send for him.

Elizabeth: My Lord, he dares not leave preaching so long as he can speak … He desires to live peaceably and to follow his calling that his family may be maintained. Moreover, my lord, I have four small children that cannot help themselves, one of which is blind, and we have nothing to live upon but the charity of good people. I am but a stepmother to them, having not been married to my husband yet two fully years. Being young and unaccustomed to such things, I became dismayed at the news of his imprisonment and fell into labor, and so continued for eight days, and then was delivered, but my child died.

Judge: Alas! Poor woman, you make poverty your cloak. I understand that your husband is maintained better by running up and down preaching than by following his calling. What is his calling?

Some of the company: A tinker [repairman] my lord.

Elizabeth: Yes, and because he is a tinker and a poor man, therefore he is despised and cannot have justice … As for preaching, he preacheth nothing but the Word of God … God hath owned him, and done much good by him.

Judge: God! Your husband’s doctrine is the doctrine of the devil.

Elizabeth: My lord, when the righteous judge shall appear, it will be known that his doctrine is not the doctrine of the devil.

Judge: My lord, do not mind her, but send her away.

Another judge: I am sorry, woman, that I can do thee no good. Thou must do one of three things, either apply to the King, sue out his pardon, or get a writ of error. The last will be the cheapest.^[7]

Upon hearing this, Elizabeth burst into tears. She writes, “not too much because they were so hard-hearted against me and my husband but to think what a sad account such poor creatures will have to give at the coming of the Lord, when they shall there answer for all things whatsoever they have done, whether it be good or bad.”^[8]

It would be ten years before Elizabeth would hear again concerning the case against her husband. Thankfully she was able to visit him during that time. In 1672, after 12 long years, John Bunyan was released from prison, only to be imprisoned again for a shorter time. Elizabeth and John went on to have two children of their own, Sara and Joseph.  John died in 1688 and left what little he had, entirely to his wife.

As we honor the legacy of John Bunyan, we do well to remember the woman who humbly accepted the seemingly hard Providence of God, and faithfully administered her duties as John Bunyan’s help mate.

Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised. – Proverbs 31:30

^[1] Christian History Magazine-Issue 11: John Bunyan and Pilgrim’s Progress (Worcester, PA: Christian History Institute, 1986).
^[2] Christian History Magazine-Issue 11: John Bunyan and Pilgrim’s Progress (Worcester, PA: Christian History Institute, 1986).
^[3] The Spurgeon Archive, Did You Know? By Eric W. Hayden
^[4] Edith Deen, Great Women of the Christian Faith, (New York: Christian Herald Books) 1959, 349.
^[5] Ibid 350.
^[6]  Ibid 351.
^[7] Ibid 350-351.
^[8] Ibid 351.