John Bunyan and the Fifth Monarchists

Abstract

Authorities on John Bunyan have traditionally failed to associate him with the radical millenarians known as the Fifth Monarchists. Only William York Tindall, in an analysis of Bunyan's millenarian principles, suggested their affinity with the views of the Fifth Monarchy Men. There is, however, an unnoticed passage in one of Bunyan's own works which indicates that he was at one time an adherent of Fifth Monarchist ideology. The work in question, The Advocateship of Jesus Christ (more commonly known under the second-issue title, The Work of Jesus Christ as an Advocate), was published in May 1688, shortly before Bunyan's death. Unlike several of his posthumous works, this book was not concerned with millenarian themes but with Christ's role as an attorney who pleaded the cause of the elect before God the supreme judge. Nevertheless, near the end of this work Bunyan recalled that “I did use to be much taken with one Sect of Christians, for that it was usually their way, when they made mention of the Name of Jesus, to call him, The blessed King of Glory”. Upon reflection—in a climate charged with tension as hostility to James II mounted—Bunyan calmly observed that ”Christians should do thus; ‘twould do them good.” He was not, of course, suggesting a revival of the Fifth Monarchy movement, but reminding his readers that their ultimate sovereign was Christ, not James II.The passage is not important for its relevance to political conditions in 1688 but for its indication that Bunyan had once apparently been a disciple of the Fifth Monarchists, a fact not hitherto known. Unfortunately, he did not indicate at what point in his career he was attracted to these people, but it was either the period between his conversion in 1653 and his imprisonment seven years later, or the period from about the publication of The Holy War in 1682 to the collapse of the Fifth Monarchy movement in 1685.