Works of John Bunyan —GRACE ABOUNDING TO THE CHIEF OF SINNERS

 

A BRIEF AND FAITHFUL RELATION OF THE EXCEEDING MERCY OF GOD IN CHRIST TO HIS POOR SERVANT, JOHN BUNYAN;

WHEREIN IS PARTICULARLY SHOWN THE MANNER OF HIS CONVERSION, HIS SIGHT AND TROUBLE FOR SIN, HIS DREADFUL TEMPTATIONS, ALSO HOW HE DESPAIRED OF GOD'S MERCY, AND HOW THE LORD AT LENGTH THROUGH CHRIST DID DELIVER HIM FROM ALL THE GUILT AND TERROR THAT LAY UPON HIM.

The value of such a narrative to a terror-stricken prodigal is vividly shown by Bunyan, in his 'Jerusalem Sinner Saved,' 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," quote 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 Zacchaeus, 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 afterward, that there was music and dancing in his house for me, and for joy that I have come home unto him. O blessed be God for grace, says the other, for then I hope there is favor 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 ways 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.'

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 his narrative appears to be exaggerated. He was the son of a traveling tinker, probably a gypsy, '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 was 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, fortune teller, Jesuit, 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.

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, are perhaps the most remarkable of any upon record. His own Giant Despair seized him with an iron grasp. He felt 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 of 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; then a voice rushed in at the window like the noise of the 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 in paragraph No. 187. 'Thus was I always sinking, whatever I did think or do. So one day I walked to a neighboring town, sat down upon a settlement 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 that 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 in 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 sealant, 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.