The Works of John Bunyan, vol 1 - John Bunyan (best self help books to read TXT) 📗

“Grace Abounding,” you are ready to say at every step, here is the future author of the “Pilgrim’s Progress.” It is as if you stood beside some great sculptor, and watched every movement of his chisel, having seen his design; so that at every blow some new trait of beauty in the future statue comes clearly into view.’[1]

A great difference of opinion has been expressed by learned men as to whether Bunyan’s account of himself is to be understood literally, as it respects his bad conduct before his conversion, or whether he views himself through a glass, by which his evil habits are magnified. No one can doubt his perfect honesty. He plainly narrates his bad, as well as his redeeming qualities; nor does his narrative appear to be exaggerated. He was the son of a travelling tinker, probably a gipsy, ‘the meanest and most despised rank in the land’; when, alarmed at his sins, recollection that the Israelites were once the chosen people of God, he asked his father, whether he was of that race; as if he thought that his family were of some peculiar people, and it was easy for such a lad to blend the Egyptians with the Israelitish race. When he was defamed, his slanderers called him a witch, or fortune teller, a Jesuit, a highwayman, or the like.

Brought up to his father’s trade, with his evil habits unchecked, he became a very depraved lad; and when he states his sad character, it is with a solemn pledge that his account is strictly true. Probably, with a view to the full gratification of his sinful propensities, he entered the army, and served among the profligate soldiers of Charles I at the siege of Leicester.[2]

During this time, he was ill at ease; he felt convinced of sin, or righteousness, and of judgment, without a hope of mercy. Hence his misery and internal conflicts, perhaps the most remarkable of any upon record. His own Giant Despair seized him with an iron grasp. He felt himself surrounded by invisible beings, and in the immediate presence of a holy God. By day, he was bewildered with tormenting visions, and by night alarming dreams presented themselves to him upon his bed. The fictitious appeared to his terrified imagination realities. His excited spirit became familiar with shapeless forms and fearful powers. The sorrows of death, and the pains of hell, got hold upon him. His internal conflict was truly horrible, as one who thought himself under the power of demons; they whispered in his ears—pulled his clothes; he madly fought, striking at imaginary shades with his hands, and stamping with his feet at the destroyer. Thoughts of the unpardonable sin beset him, his powerful bodily frame became convulsed with agony, as if his breast bone would split, and he burst asunder like Judas. He possessed a most prolific mind, affording constant nourishment to this excited state of his feelings. He thought that he should be bereft of his wits; than a voice rushed in at the window like the noise of wind, very pleasant, and produced a great calm in his soul. His intervals of ease, however, were short; the recollection of his sins, and a fear that he had sold his Saviour, haunted his affrighted spirit. His soul became so tormented, as to suggest to his ideas the suffering of a malefactor broken upon the wheel. The climax of these terrors is narrated at paragraph No. 187. ‘Thus was I always sinking, whatever I did think or do. So one day I walked to a neighbouring town, and sat down upon a settle in the street, and fell into a very deep pause about the most fearful state my sin had brought me to; and, after long musing, I lifted up my head, but methought I saw as if the sun that shineth in the heavens did grudge to give light; and as if the very stones in the street, and tiles upon the houses, did bend themselves against me; methought that they all combined together, to banish me out of the world; I was abhorred of them, and unfit to dwell among them, or be a partaker of their benefits, because I had sinned against the Saviour.’ In this deep abyss of misery, THAT love which has heights and depths passing knowledge, laid under him the everlasting arms, and raised him from the horrible pit in miry clay, when no human powers could have reached his case. Dr. Cheever eloquently remarks, that ‘it was through this valley of the shadow of death, overhung by darkness, peopled with devils, resounding with blasphemy and lamentations; and passing amidst quagmires and pitfalls, close by the very mouth of hell, that Bunyan journeyed to that bright and fruitful land of Beulah, in which he sojourned during the latter days of his pilgrimage.’ The only trace which his cruel sufferings and temptations seen to have left behind them, was an affectionate compassion for those who were still in the state in which he had once been.

Young Christians, you must not imagine that all these terrors are absolute prerequisites to faith in the Saviour. God, as a sovereign, calls his children to himself by various ways. Bunyan’s was a very extraordinary case, partly from his early habits—his excitable mind, at a period so calculated to fan a spark of such feelings into a flame. His extraordinary inventive faculties, softened down and hallowed by this fearful experience, became fitted for most extensive usefulness.

To eulogize this narrative, would be like ‘gilding refined gold’; but I cannot help remarking, among a multitude of deeply interesting passages, his observations upon that honest open avowal of Christian principles, which brought down severe persecution upon him. They excite our tenderest sympathy; his being dragged from his home and wife and children, he says, ‘hath oft been to me, as the pulling my flesh from my bones; my poor blind child, what sorrow art thou like to have for thy portion in this world! thou must be beaten, must beg, suffer hunger, cold, nakedness, and a thousand calamities, though I cannot now endure the wind should blow upon thee. O, I saw I was as a man who was pulling down his house upon the head of his wife and children; yet, recollecting myself, thought I, I must venture you all with God.’ How awful must be the state of the wretched persecutor, who occasions such sufferings to the children of the most high God!

In this edition, the greatest care has been taken to preserve the exact words of the author, as he first published them; where he altered or added to the text in subsequent editions, it is marked with an inverted comma, or inserted in the notes. Obsolete words and customs are explained; the numbering of his sections is continued, in addition to which, it is divided into chapters for family reading, upon the plan of the late Rev. J. Ivimey; double inverted commas denote quotations of Scripture.

The reader is strongly pressed to keep in his recollection the peculiar use made of the word should, by the author in this narrative. It is from the Saxon scealan, to be obliged. Thus, in the Saxon gospels (Matt 27:15), “the governor should release unto the people a prisoner”; in our version it is, “was wont to release,”

meaning that custom compelled him so to do. In Bunyan’s phraseology, the word should is used in the same sense, that is, to show that, under peculiar circumstances, his feelings or position involuntarily produced a certain result. Thus, in No. 6, Troubled with the thoughts of judgment and condemnation I should tremble; and in No. 15, The father of his wife having left her two books, in these I should sometimes read; probably the only books he then had. It is remarkable, that although the Saxon language had not been spoken in Bedfordshire for many centuries, still many valuable words remained in use.

The order in which this thrilling narrative of Bunyan’s religious feelings and experience is now for the first time published, is, I.

Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners—his call to the ministry, and his imprisonment for refusing to attend the Church of England service. II. His Relation of the Circumstances attending his incarceration in Bedford Jail. III. The continuation of his Life to his decease, written by one of his friends, and always printed with Grace Abounding. IV. His Dying Thoughts. V. His Prison Meditations—verses which were probably sold on a broadside or sheet of paper by his children, to procure necessaries for his family.

The length of the notes may need some apology; the only one the editor can make is his veneration for John Bunyan, and his earnest desire to render this inestimable book more deeply interesting, by explaining manners, customs, and words not now in use; the note on No. 232, occupied the time of one whole day.

The errors, omissions, and additions, which existed to a most extraordinary extent through the book, have been corrected, and the text restored to its primitive beauty; among many hundred of these errors, one may suffice as a specimen; it is in Bunyan’s preface, ‘God did not play in convincing of me, the devil did not play in tempting of me,’ this is altered in many editions to ‘God did not play in tempting of me.’

Most earnestly do I hope that this republication, now for the first time, for nearly two hundred years, given in its native excellence and purity, may be attended with the Divine blessing, to the comfort of many despairing Jerusalem sinners; to the building up of the church of Christ on earth; to the extension of pure, heartfelt, genuine Christianity; and to the confusion of the persecutors. They intended, by shutting the pious pilgrim up in a dungeon, to prevent his voice from being heard to the comfort of his poor neighbours, and by which violence, his persecutors have caused his voice to burst the prison doors and walls, and to be heard over the whole world. His ‘Pilgrim’s Progress,’ which was written in prison, has been, and now is, a guide to Christian pilgrims of all nations, kindreds, tribes, and people, teaching them not to rest content in any national religion, but personally to search the Scriptures, with earnest supplications to the God of mercy and truth, that they may be guided to Christ, as the Alpha and Omega of their salvation.

GEORGE OFFOR.

A PREFACE, OR BRIEF ACCOUNT OF THE PUBLISHING OF THIS WORK, WRITTEN

BY THE AUTHOR THEREOF, AND DEDICATED TO THOSE WHOM GOD HATH COUNTED

HIM WORTHY TO BEGET TO FAITH, BY HIS MINISTRY IN THE WORD.

Children, grace be with you, Amen. I being taken from you in presence, and so tied up, that I cannot perform that duty that from God doth lie upon me to youward, for your further edifying and building up in faith and holiness, &c., yet that you may see my soul hath fatherly care and desire after your spiritual and everlasting welfare; I now once again, as before, from the top of Shenir and Hermon, so ‘now’ from the lions’ dens, from the mountains of the leopards (Song 4:8), do look yet after you all, greatly longing to see your safe arrival into the desired haven.[3]

I thank God upon every remembrance of you; and rejoice, even while I stick between the teeth of the lions in the wilderness, at the grace, and mercy, and knowledge of Christ our saviour, which God hath bestowed upon you, with abundance of faith and love. Your hungerings and thirstings also after further acquaintance with the Father, in his Son; your tenderness of heart, your trembling at sin, your sober and holy deportment also, before both God and men, is great refreshment to me; “For ye are my glory and joy” (1 Thess 2:20).

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