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 showed 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.

Whereunto is added a brief relation of his call to the work of the ministry, of his temptations therein, as also what he hath met with in prison. All which was written by his own hand there, and now published for the support of the weak and tempted people of God.

“Come and hear, all ye that fear God, and I will declare what he hath done for my soul.”—Psalm 66:16.

this title page was afterwards altered, and instead of what follows the first line, he inserted,

Or a brief and faithful relation of the exceeding mercy of God in Christ to his poor servant, John Bunyan; namely, in his taking of him out of the dunghill, and converting of him to the faith of his blessed Son, Jesus Christ. Here is also particularly showed, what sight of, and what trouble he had for sin; and also what various temptations he hath met with, and how God hath carried him through them.

Corrected and much enlarged now by the Author, for the benefit of the tempted and dejected Christian.

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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 ...