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The great utility
of remarkable accounts of the ways of God in bringing his sheep into the fold,
must be admitted by all. The Bible abounds with these manifestations of Divine
grace from the gentle voice that called Samuel, even unto the thunder which
penetrated the soul of one, who followed the church with continued malignity,
calling unto him, "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?"—a voice
so terrible, and accompanied by such a flood of light, as to strike the
persecutor to the earth, and for a season to deprive him of sight.
The 'Grace
Abounding to the Chief of Sinners' is doubly interesting, as it unfolds to us
not only the return of a notorious prodigal, but a wondrous system of education,
by which a chosen man was fitted for a wondrous work; heavenly and spiritual
learning, which could not have been obtained in all the schools and universities
in the world. It enabled a poor, vile, unlettered rebel—a blasphemous
travelling tinker, to become a most eminent preacher; one whose native powers,
sanctified by harrowing but hallowing feelings, attracted the deep attention of
the most learned and pious of his contemporaries, while it carried conviction to
the most impious and profane. Even beyond all this, his spiritual acquirements
fitted him, without scholastic learning, to become the most popular, the most
attractive, the most useful of English authors. His works increase remarkably in
popularity. As time rolls on, they are still read with deeper and deeper
interest, while his bodily presence and labours mingle in the records of the
events of bygone ages.
Bunyan's account
of his singular trials and temptations may have excited alarm in the minds of
some young Christians lest they should be in an unconverted state, because they
have not been called to pass through a similar mode of training. Pray recollect,
my dear young Christian, that all are not called to such important public
labours as Bunyan, or Whitfield, or Wesley. All the members of the Christian
family are trained to fit them for their respective positions in the church of
Christ. It is a pleasant and profitable exercise to look back to the day of our
espousals, and trace the operations of Divine grace in digging us from the hole
of the pit; but the important question with us all should be, not so much HOW we
became enlightened, but NOW do we love Christ? Now do we regret our want
of greater conformity to his image? If we can honestly answer these questions in
the affirmative, we are believers, and can claim our part in that precious
promise, "Whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die."
Spiritual life is ours, and eternal life is essentially connected with it, and
must be our portion, without an inquiry into the means by which we were called,
whether by the thunders and lighting of Sinai, as Paul was smitten, or by the
"still small voice" (Acts 9:3,4; 1 Kings 19:12; Job 4:16,17).
The value of such
a narrative to a terror-stricken prodigal is vividly shown by Bunyan, in his
'Jerusalem Sinner Saved,' in one of those colloquial pieces of composition in
which he eminently shone. 'Satan is loath to part with a great sinner.
"What, my true servant," quoth he, "my old servant, wilt thou
forsake me now? Having so often sold thyself to me to work wickedness, wilt thou
forsake me now? Thou horrible wretch, dost not know, that thou hast sinned
thyself beyond the reach of grace, and dost think to find mercy now? Art not
thou a murderer, a thief, a harlot, a witch, a sinner of the greatest size, and
dost thou look for mercy now? Dost thou think that Christ will foul his fingers
with thee? It is enough to make angels blush, saith Satan, to see so vile a one
knock at heaven-gates for mercy, and wilt thou be so abominably bold to do
it?" Thus Satan dealt with me, says the great sinner, when at first I came
to Jesus Christ. And what did you reply? Saith the tempted. Why, I granted the
whole charge to be true, says the other. And what, did you despair, or how? No,
saith he, I said, I am Magdalene, I am Zacheus, I am the thief, I am the harlot,
I am the publican, I am the prodigal, and one of Christ's murderers; yea, worse
than any of these; and yet God was so far off from rejecting of me, as I found
afterwards, that there was music and dancing in his house for me, and for joy
that I was come home unto him. O blessed be God for grace, says the other, for
then I hope there is favour for me.'
The 'Grace
Abounding' is a part of Bunyan's prison meditations, and strongly reminds us of
the conversation between Christian and Hopeful on the enchanted ground.
'Christian.
Now then, to prevent drowsiness in this place, let us fall into good discourse.
'Hopeful.
With all my heart.
'Christian.
Where shall we begin?
'Hopeful.
Where God began with us.'
To prevent
drowsiness, to beguile the time, he looks back to his past experience, and the
prison became his Patmos—the gate of heaven—a Bethel, in which his
time was occupied in writing for the benefit of his fellow-Christians. He looks
back upon all the wondrous way through which the Lord had led him from the City
of Destruction to Mount Zion. While writing his own spiritual pilgrimage, his
great work broke upon his imagination.
'And thus it was:
I writing of the way,
And race of saints, in this our gospel day,
Fell suddenly into an allegory
About their journey, and the way to glory.'
'As you read the
"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,
heart-felt, 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.
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