Grace Abounding

The Testimony of a Pilgrim
A Biographical Study of John Bunyan
Psalm 66:16
2010-01-29
SRMMX Session Two

John Bunyan took the psalmists call in Psalm 66:16 as his own.

Come and hear, all you who fear God,
and I will tell what he has done for my soul.

With that in mind, Bunyan composed his autobiography, Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners, or, a Brief Relation of the Exceeding Mercy of God in Christ, to His Poor Servant, John Bunyan. He wrote the first edition after being in prison for five years, and his final adds and edits were made near the end of his twelfth year in prison. Though he hadn’t been called officially as the pastor in Bedford, he had been preaching and taking more leadership for a couple years prior to being arrested. His wrote this book for those in the flock he cared about, especially to encourage those with doubts about salvation and struggles of assurance.

Grace Abounding reminds us of Augustine’s Confessions. Though Bunyan’s book isn’t in the form of a prayer, it does relate his intense struggles with unbelief as well as his slavery to sin. Bunyan’s tormented conscience also reminds the reader of Martin Luther, who, not coincidently, Bunyan refers to, and took Luther’s commentary on Galatians as a great comfort. Perhaps most of all, “grace abounding to the chief of sinners” channels the apostle Paul’s testimony in 1 Timothy 1:15.

This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief. (KJV)

Like Luther, like Augustine, like Paul, Bunyan knew himself a great sinner who needed a great Savior. Also like them, Bunyan received great grace and was used by God to make a great impact on his generation and generations to come.

We’ll see both grace abounding in Bunyan’s history and grace abounding through Bunyan’s hardships.

Grace Abounding in Bunyan’s History (Timeline)

It’s challenging to get Bunyan’s timeline straight.

Grace Abounding is an unsatisfactory document for the biographer. It is a spiritual autobiography, describing the events which led up to Bunyan’s conversion. The chronology is at best imprecise, at worst chaotic. Any references to external events in Bunyan’s life during this period are quite accidental. (Hill, 63)

John Bunyan was born November 28, 1628, in the small village of Elstow, England. (About 50 miles from London. Less than a century after William Tyndale, and only 17 years after the King James Version was published). The Bunyan family had lived in Bedfordshire since at least 1199. We know very little about his parents except that his “father’s house [was] of that rank that is the meanest and most despised of all the families in the land” (GA, Works, 6), a fact affirmed by his father’s occupation of tinker. A tinker, or brasyer, was a metal worker, using hammer and forge as his tools. He would travel the countryside fixing farm equipment, such as plows and harnesses, or kitchen utensils, such as pots and pans. The name “tinker” comes from the sound made as the man walked between jobs with his tools and supplies on his back. “A tinker was an emblem of lower-class non-respectability and immorality” (Hill, 135).

Bunyan had virtually no formal education. “It pleased God to put into [my parents'] hearts to put me to school, to learn both to read and write; the which I also attained, according to the rate of other poor men’s children” (GA, 6); maybe he spent 2-4 years in study. But he went on to say, “to my shame, I confess, I did soon lose that little I had learned, and that even almost utterly” (GA, 6), and joined his father as a tinker.

The first bitter taste of suffering we know about is the death of his mother when he was 15 years old (in 1644). His 13 year old sister died a few months later, and the only thing that seemed to make those burdens worse was that his father remarried only one month later. Bunyan was not a believer, and no doubt resented his father.

As soon as he was able, he joined the Parliamentary army in nearby Newport Angell. He was 16 years years old and served until the army was disbanded three years later. The military exposed him to new people and new ideas. It also exposed him to danger and death. Bunyan provides a sense of how close to the action he was with a story of trading guard duty shifts with another soldier. “When I consented, he took my place; and coming to the siege, as he stood sentinel, he was shot into the head with a musket bullet, and died” (GA, 7).

He moved back to Elstow and married within a couple years, though we never learn the name of his wife. Presumably John looked forward to the comforts and joys of marriage after his difficulties, but within a year their first daughter was born, Mary, who was blind. It’s hard to imagine the struggle and stress of caring for a blind child in 1650, and the maturity required of a 22 year old.

His first wife brought very little with her into the marriage. “This woman and I, came together as poor as poor might be, not having so much household stuff as a dish or spoon betwixt us both” (GA). But what she did bring proved very precious. She possessed two books, inherited from her father: The Plain Man’s Pathway to Heaven by Arthur Dent and The Practice of Piety by Lewis Bayly. She often spoke of her father’s great Christian example.

Around this time Bunyan began to experience violent conviction. He looked back on his earlier years with grief. “I had but few equals…both for cursing, swearing, and blaspheming the holy name of God….Until I came to the state of marriage, I was the very ringleader of all the youth that kept me company, in all manner of vice and ungodliness” (GA, 6). Very Augustinian. Though he may have been exaggerating the extent of his wickedness, we do know from other sources that he was known around town as a fantastic swearer.

As he thought about his sin, he couldn’t escape his tormented conscience and fear of God’s just judgment. He knew enough Scripture to fight himself for only so long, as the passages of law and condemnation won out over passages of grace and forgiveness.

This is why he came to love Luther so much. He went in search of someone older, someone who understood his pain.

I did greatly long to see some ancient godly man’s experience, who had writ some hundreds of years before I was born….After many such longings in my mind, the God in whose hands are all our days and ways, did cast into my hand, one day, a book of Martin Luther; it was his comment on the Galatians–it also was so old that it was ready to fall piece to piece if I did but turn it over….I found my condition, in his experience, so largely and profoundly handled, as if his book had been written after my heart….I do prefer this book of Martin Luther upon the Galatians, excepting the Holy Bible, before all the books that I have ever seen, as most fit for a wounded conscience. (GA, 22)

Yet he continued to struggle for at least four of five more years. A few of us read through Grace Abounding together, and I admitted that I was growing weary of his cycles. Every time it seemed he turned a corner, or finally got his head above the waters of despair, he’d plunge down again, over and over and over. But God was preparing him, and somewhere during this time he was genuinely converted.

Bunyan joined the Bedford church in 1655. His soul conflicts didn’t go away, but he did enjoy more of grace, and within a couple years, he was invited to speak. He began preaching in small meetings and in country settings. His fervor for the preaching task was only exceeded by his fervor for men to believe in Christ.

His wife died in 1658, leaving him to care for four children. In 1659 he married again. 1659 is pivotal in English history, and is a decisive turn in Bunyan’s testimony. In 1659 Oliver Cromwell died. Cromwell was the Lord Protectorate of the English Commonwealth, a republic that was largely tolerant of religious freedom. There had been an ongoing battle between Parliament and monarchy. Before Cromwell, Charles I, the king and proponent of the Church of England, was opposed and then beheaded. But when Cromwell died, and when his son Richard replaced him and couldn’t hack it, Parliament invited Charles II back from France. So monarchy was restored in 1660, and with the Restoration came new laws that prohibited any non-conformity with the state church.1

It became illegal to preach without a state license and conduct meetings without the Book of Common Prayer. Anglicanism was religion, external and ceremonial, but not gospel. Bunyan had no appreciation for externals and went on preaching. He was arrested and imprisoned in 1660, less than one year after remarrying, with his oldest daughter 10 years old.

In his prison account, Bunyan relates how Elizabeth, his wife, went before the court to plead for her husband’s release. We usually focus on the guys more than their wives, so it won’t hurt to take a moment and share some of his Elizabeth’s courage.

“Would he stop preaching?” “My lord, he dares not leave off preaching as long as he can speak.” “What is the need of talking?” “There is need for this, my lord, for I have four small children that cannot help themselves, of which one is blind, and we have nothing to live upon but the charity of good people.”
Matthew Hale, with pity, asks if she really has four children being so young. “My lord, I am but mother-in-law [stepmother] to them, having not been married to him yet full two years. Indeed, I was with child when my husband was first apprehended; but being young and unaccustomed to such things, I being smayed at the news, fell into labor, and so continued for eight days, and then was delivered; but my child died.”
Hale is moved, but other judges are hardened and speak against him. “He is a mere tinker!” “Yes, and because he is a tinker and a poor man, therefore he is despised and cannot have justice.”
One Mr. Chester is enraged and says Bunyan will preach and do as he wishes. “He preacheth nothing but the word of God!” she says.
Mr. Twisden, in a rage: “He runneth up and down and doeth harm.” “No, my lord, it is not so; God hath owned him and done much good by him.” The angry man continues, “His doctrine is the doctrine of the devil.” She replies, “My lord, when the righteous Judge shall appear, it will be known that his doctrine is not the doc- trine of the devil!” (The Hidden Smile of God)

Since he had limited freedom in prison, he wrote about the leaving of his family from visits.

But notwithstanding these helps, I found myself a man, and compassed with infirmities; the parting with my wife and poor children hath oft been to me in this place as the pulling of the flesh from my bones, and that not only because I am somewhat too fond of those great mercies, but also because I should have often brought to my mind the many hardships, miseries and wants that my poor family was to meet with, should I be taken from them, especially my poor blind child, who lay nearer my hear that all I had besides; O the thoughts of the hardship I thought my blind one might go under, would break my heart to pieces. (GA, 47-48)

He was released briefly in 1666, then taken back for another six years. He wrote nine books during the first six years, but only two that we know of during the second stint. Perhaps he was busy making boot laces to help support his family (Brown, 166). “Or was it that he was become more broken-spirited and for a time at least had lost something of his elasticity of mind” (Brown, 182).

Jails were run by private citizens, and the conditions depended chiefly on the person in charge. In the 17th century “insanitary conditions, lack of heating, and overcrowding, led to jail fever and other diseases.” 40 persons were killed in the Bedford jail in 1665 due to the plague. (Hill, 121)

Cynical pooh-poohing of painful facts on the one side is just as foolish and as needless as eloquent declamation on the other. Bunyan himself never whines over his sufferings; he was too manly for that. He deliberately made his choice, and as deliberately he accepted the consequences of his choice. (Brown, 165)

He wasn’t a celebrity prisoner. He was a “mechanic-preacher,” a man who worked with his hands six day a week. He wasn’t yet the pastor of the church in Bedford, so even though he had the support of the church, he (and his) family weren’t cared for as if he were their leader.

Eventually, the laws relaxed with the “Declaration of Religious Indulgence” in 1672 and Bunyan was released. Shortly afterward he was officially called as pastor in Bedford where he served the next 16 years. He went back to prison in the winter and spring of 1676-77, significant because he probably wrote, or at least finished, The Pilgrim’s Progress during that time. His remainder of his life was filled with preaching (as far away as London), writing, and serving.

That’s a quick pencil sketch of Bunyan’s history.

Grace Abounding through Bunyan’s Hardships (Trials)

John Bunyan was a clay pot, and having received his ministry by the mercy of God, he did not lose heart in his hardships. His weakness and troubles, as he served his flock and proclaimed Jesus Christ as Lord, showed that the surpassing power belongs to God.

Like any pastor, his life was filled with ironies. For example, it is sort of ironic that the man who wrote The Pilgrim’s Progress never traveled out of his home country and probably never journeyed more than 50 or so miles from his home town.

But there are bigger and more consequential ironies, gospel ironies, that as Bunyan focused on unseen things, grace was seen spreading all over the place.

1. Out of Bunyan’s limited education spilled literary genius.

For a man who learned only the basics of reading and writing, he didn’t do too poorly. There are at least 58 books authored by Bunyan, of all sorts. He wrote allegories such as The Pilgrim’s Progress, The Holy War (the conflict between God and Satan over the town Mansoul, with its Ear-gate, Eye-gate, Mouth-gate, Nose-gate, and Feel-gate. Though initially captured by Diabolus, it is regained by the assault of King Shaddai through the victorious campaign of his son, Emmanuel), The Life and Death of Mr. Badman (a contrasting journey with Pilgrim). He wrote poetry and children’s books. He wrote doctrinal papers defending truths such as justification by faith alone and clarifying his views on baptism. Most of his writings were practical expositions for the growth of his sheep, taking a single verse and exploding for 150 pages (like many Puritans).

We’ll look at it in detail tonight, but The Pilgrim’s Progress is perhaps the most well-known and highly-esteemed work of English fiction EVER! Many consider Bunyan be be the father of the novel. Not a novel, but of the novel genre!

It’s impossible to know for sure, but it seems to me that maybe Bunyan read 100 books in his life. His first wife brought two. In prison, according to a friend who visited, Bunyan only had a Bible and a copy of Foxe’s Book of Martyrs (Brown, 159). He knew no Greek or Hebrew. He hardly every quoted anyone. He said, “I never endeavored to, nor durst make use of other men’s lines” (GA, 43). “I have not for these things fished in other men’s waters; my Bible and Concordance are my only library in my writings” (Brown, 364) “If he had read as much as other men Bunyan might have written as little” (Hill, 143).

Yet he was prolific, profound, and picturesque. His language is colorful and unmistakable. One editor of his works commented,

He spoke as he felt; and, while he copied no sentence from others, no man that ever wrote has been so copied from by others. (Offor, GA, fn)

That’s not to say that everyone appreciated Bunyan. He was a tinker, and not accepted by most among the cultured crowd. He seems to defend not only his style (of allegory) in The Pilgrim’s Progress, but even his usefulness as an author. One book written against him was titled, Dirt Wip’t Off: or a manifest Discovery of the Gross Ignorance, Erroneousness, and most Unchristian and Wicked Spirit of one John Bunyan, Lay-Preacher in Bedford.2

Nevertheless, God uses the foolish to confound the wise, and much grace spilled of of this tinker.

His college was a dungeon, his library the Bible, and he came forth with gigantic powers to grapple with the prince of darkness. No human learning could have so fitted him for this terrible and mysterious warfare. (Offor, GA, 41 fn)

2. Out of Bunyan’s soul conflicts spilled spiritual comforts.

Perhaps the only way to penetrate deeper into Bunyan’s tormented conscience than reading Grace Abounding is to see Christian in The Pilgrim’s Progress as a personification of Bunyan. Fear of destruction and fear of God gripped Christian. That’s what motivated him to escape the City of Destruction.

Bunyan was convinced he had committed the unpardonable sin. He was overwhelmed with guilt and sure he was beyond God’s saving reach for about five years. He was ignorant about the Bible had virtually no spiritual guidance. Some of his greatest enemies were “phantoms of his own heated imagination, the result of his own misinterpretation of the book of God” (Brown, 59)

But, soul conflict is better than no conflict.

If it is distressing to feel discontent with one’s self, it is dangerous to feel content; aspiration and not self-complacency is the law of a healthful life; and He who was leading Bunyan by a way that he knew not, mercifully shook him out of this unwholesome self-satisfaction. (Brown, 62)

Simple, Sloth, and Presumption couldn’t be wakened from sleep, with fetters on their heels. “Simple said, ‘I see no danger.’ Sloth said, ‘Every fat must stand on his own bottom.’ And so they lay down to sleep again.” (TPP, 43) That said, how one resolves their soul conflict makes a huge difference.

I had seen some, who, though they were under wounds of conscience, then they would cry and pray; but they seeking rather present ease from their trouble, than pardon for their sin, cared not how they lost their guilt, so they got it out of their mind; and therefore, having got it off the wrong way, it was not sanctified unto them; but they grew harder and blinder, and more wicked after their trouble. (Grace Abounding, #86)

Both the struggles, and the resolution of his struggles in Christ, were necessary. Without the internal struggles, he might have been harsh and impatient with others who struggled. Without the resolution in Christ, he could offer no actual help beyond commiseration.

God prepared Bunyan thoroughly before using him greatly. His “overwhelming horror of sin was accompanied by pity for the sinner…[he] again and again expresses pity and desire to help: his contempt is reserved for the hypocritical” (Hill, 270). Many of his books were written to comfort and encourage weary, wounded souls. While he was in prison, a lady was sent to him for counsel since she was stricken in her conscience.

Like the apostle Paul, the God of all comforts enabled Bunyan to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which was comforted by God (2 Corinthians 1:3-7). Much grace and comfort spilled out of this once-troubled soul.

3. Out of Bunyan’s long imprisonment spilled larger (and lasting) influence.

We probably wouldn’t be talking about John Bunyan or reading his material with such care apart from his long imprisonment. It is the severe degree of separation from his family, the steep, voluntary cost he paid for the gospel, that makes his story so compelling.

His imprisonment brought insight for later ministry. Much of what he had to say was learned during that time, as his character was tempered in the trial.

I never had in all my life so great an inlet into the Word of God as now; those Scriptures that I saw nothing in before, are made in this place and state to shine upon me. (GA, 47)

His imprisonment emboldened his convictions for ministry. When he thought he might get out near the end of 12 years, he said,

If nothing will do unless I make of my conscience a continual butchery and slaughtershop, unless putting out my own eyes, I commit me to the blind to lead me, as I doubt not is desired by some, I have determined, the Almighty God being my help and shield, yet to suffer, if frail life might continue so long, even till the moss shall grow on mine eyebrows, rather than thus to violate my faith and principles. (A Confesion of my Faith, and a Reason of my Practice, quoted in John Brown, John Bunyan, 231)3

His imprisonment built a platform for ministry. He knew that how he did not shrink back would be witnessed.

When I have [preached], it hath gone to my heart to think the Word should now fall as rain on stony places, still wishing from my heart, O that they who have heard me speak this day did but see as I do what sin, death, hell, and the curse of God is; and also what the grace, and love, and mercy of God is, through Christ, to men in such a case as they are, who are yet estranged from him. And, indeed, I did often say in my heart before the Lord, That if to be hanged up presently before their eyes would be a means to awaken them, and confirm them in the truth, I gladly should be contented. (GA, 42)

He had much opportunity to shepherd and preach in jail, as members of his church joined him often, the number reaching as high as 60 (Brown, 156-157). But his influence extended outside the walls. It is a gospel irony that putting a man in prison cell opens up the world to him. Again, he is like Paul, who though he was in chains, knew that the word of god is not bound (2 Timothy 2:9). Bunyan’s enemies, intending to suppress his voice by putting him in prison, accomplished the opposite.

Grace spilled to locations and generations as his pot was put up in prison.

4. Out of Bunyan’s daily deaths spilled eternal lives.

Abounding afflictions, endured for Christ and His elect, spread abounding grace in the gospel, that when believed, brings life. It’s a gospel irony that hurting brings healing, suffering produces strength, and death brings life.

It isn’t only the one time event of death, it is the dying process. It is death by a thousand paper cuts, daily deaths and sacrifices. “Life from death” is one of God’s unseen promises, but it is a crucial promise that enables us, like Bunyan, not to lose heart.

Bunyan suffered. He sacrificed. Even the occasion of his physical death demonstrates the reality to the very end. He didn’t die a martyr’s death. He wasn’t burned at the stake or beheaded. He had traveled to London, and took a preaching assignment, the main reason for his trip was to help reconcile a son to his angry father. He wasn’t ministering to a crowd of thousands, or hundreds; it was two men. Returning to the place he was staying from an outer borough, pouring rain soaked him, he got sick, and died of fever, August 31, 1688. He was alone; his family probably didn’t even know until he was dead. He was buried in Bunhill Fields (the Dissenters’ cemetery) alongside John Owen.

The point is, out of Bunyan’s weak and afflicted clay pot sloshed abounding grace, grace that increased the thanksgiving of many to the glory of God (cf. 2 Corinthians 4:13-15). He endured by living on unseen things.

John Owen, a contemporary, a fellow non-conformist, and friend of Bunyan, when asked by King Charles why he, a great scholar, would go to hear an uneducated tinker preach said,

Could I posses the tinker’s ability for preaching, please your majesty, I would gladly relinquish all my learning. (Peter Toon, God’s Statesman: Life and Work of John Owen, 162)

Conclusion

I understand that I’ve presented a lopsided perspective on Bunyan. There must also be some bad things. It’s has to be true; he was a sinner. There are times he seems a bit defensive about his lack of education and acceptance.4 He battled pride. There are times I wonder if he was as winsome as he could have been with his enemies, though he was so tender and appealing to broken hearts that he couldn’t be called gruff. He may have had an overactive imagination, much like Martin Luther, when it came to exaggerating his sin. Of course, without that imagination, we may not have The Pilgrim’s Progress. He may not have treated the women around him as kindly as he could, yet we also don’t read about sexual failure.

It’s tempting to study a life, ministry, and influence like Bunyan as if he were in a glass case. But of all the biographies we’ve considered, Bunyan is proof that God doesn’t need great men to work with.

Let all men therefore prize a little with the fear of the Lord; gifts indeed are desirable, but yet great grace and small gifts are better than great gifts and no grace. (Grace Abounding, #305)

He makes great heroes from uneducated, sinful, broken men who surrender to Him and bank on His promises. Men who would rather have Jesus than anything this world affords. Men and women like Mr. and Mrs. Bunyan who live on unseen things.