





Transcribed from the 1893 Oliphant Anderson and Ferrier edition by David
Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk





BUNYAN CHARACTERS: FIRST SERIES
BEING LECTURES DELIVERED IN ST. GEORGE'S FREE CHURCH EDINBURGH
BY ALEXANDER WHYTE, D.D.


INTRODUCTORY


   'The express image' [Gr. 'the character'].--Heb. 1. 3.

The word 'character' occurs only once in the New Testament, and that is
in the passage in the prologue of the Epistle to the Hebrews, where the
original word is translated 'express image' in our version.  Our Lord is
the Express Image of the Invisible Father.  No man hath seen God at any
time.  The only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He hath
declared Him.  The Father hath sealed His divine image upon His Son, so
that he that hath seen the Son hath seen the Father.  The Son is thus the
Father's character stamped upon and set forth in human nature.  The Word
was made flesh.  This is the highest and best use to which our so
expressive word 'character' has ever been put, and the use to which it is
put when we speak of Bunyan's Characters partakes of the same high sense
and usage.  For it is of the outstanding good or evil in a man that we
think when we speak of his character.  It is really either of his
likeness or unlikeness to Jesus Christ we speak, and then, through Him,
his likeness or unlikeness to God Himself.  And thus it is that the
adjective'moral' usually accompanies our word 'character'--moral or
immoral.  A man's character does not have its seat or source in his body;
character is not a physical thing: not even in his mind; it is not an
intellectual thing.  Character comes up out of the will and out of the
heart.  There are more good minds, as we say, in the world than there are
good hearts.  There are more clever people than good people;
character,--high, spotless, saintly character,--is a far rarer thing in
this world than talent or even genius.  Character is an infinitely better
thing than either of these, and it is of corresponding rarity.  And yet
so true is it that the world loves its own, that all men worship talent,
and even bodily strength and bodily beauty, while only one here and one
there either understands or values or pursues moral character, though it
is the strength and the beauty and the sweetness of the soul.

We naturally turn to Bishop Butler when we think of moral character.
Butler is an author who has drawn no characters of his own.  Butler's
genius was not creative like Shakespeare's or Bunyan's.  Butler had not
that splendid imagination which those two masters in character-painting
possessed, but he had very great gifts of his own, and he has done us
very great service by means of his gifts.  Bishop Butler has helped many
men in the intelligent formation of their character, and what higher
praise could be given to any author?  Butler will lie on our table all
winter beside Bunyan; the bishop beside the tinker, the philosopher
beside the poet, the moralist beside the evangelical minister.

In seeking a solid bottom for our subject, then, we naturally turn to
Butler.  Bunyan will people the house for us once it is built, but Butler
lays bare for us the naked rock on which men like Bunyan build and
beautify and people the dwelling-place of God and man.  What exactly is
this thing, character, we hear so much about? we ask the sagacious
bishop.  And how shall we understand our own character so as to form it
well till it stands firm and endures?  'Character,' answers Butler, in
his bald, dry, deep way, 'by character is meant that temper, taste,
disposition, whole frame of mind from whence we act in one way rather
than another... those principles from which a man acts, when they
become fixed and habitual in him we call his character... And
consequently there is a far greater variety in men's characters than
there is in the features of their faces.'  Open Bunyan now, with Butler's
keywords in your mind, and see the various tempers, tastes, dispositions,
frames of mind from which his various characters act, and which, at
bottom, really make them the characters, good or bad, which they are.  See
the principles which Bunyan has with such inimitable felicity embodied
and exhibited in their names, the principles within them from which they
have acted till they have become a habit and then a character, that
character which they themselves are and will remain.  See the variety of
John Bunyan's characters, a richer and a more endless variety than are
the features of their faces.  Christian and Christiana, Obstinate and
Pliable, Mr