The Nameless Instrument: Bunyan's Representation of Prayer in The Holy War

• Published in: Bunyan studies no. 12; p. 88
• Main Author: Gay, David
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Newcastle Upon Tyne Northumbria University, Department of Humanities, Faculty of Arts, Design and Social Sciences 01.01.2006
• Subjects: British & Irish literature; Bunyan, John (1628-1688); Bunyan, John (1628-88); English literature
• ISSN: 0954-0970

[...]as Neil Keeble remarks, in / Will Pray With the Spirit 'it is the shared experience of persecution which binds writer and reader and which has become the defining quality of God's people'.31 Bunyan presents himself as 'the defender of liberty of conscience and of inner commitment against the ranged authorities of the state which would impose uniformity of belief and practice, in particular, subscription to the Book of Common Prayer'.32 A corollary of Keeble's argument, then, is that all Bunyan's representations of prayer, including those that are overtly pastoral, are implicitly political statements because they necessarily reflect Bunyan's attitude to the Book of Common Prayer. [...]Liturgies, or Common-Prayer-Books are forbidden in the second Commandement, and in other Scriptures.39 The second commandment is this: 'Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth' (Exodus 20: 4). [...]comparisons of Bunyan's representation of prayer to George Herbert, an Anglican priest committed the spirit of common prayer, and to Bunyan's nonconformist contemporaries who equated the Book of Common Prayer with the sin of idolatry, add to our understanding of the emblem of the nameless instrument. In personal conversation with an individual, rather than public display before an authence, it prefers personal insight to general commonsense'. [...]the 1662 Book of Common Prayer relegates liturgical change to 'private fancies'; N. H. Keeble, The Literary Culture of Nonconformity (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1987), p. 211.