John Bunyan · 88 pages
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“...Great sins do draw out great grace; and where guilt is most terrible and fierce, there the mercy of God in Christ, when showed to the soul, appears most high and mighty...”
― John Bunyan, quote from Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners
“...I am for going on, and venturing my eternal state with Christ, whether I have comfort here or no; if God doth not come in, thought I, I will leap off the ladder even blindfold into eternity, sink or swim, come heaven, come hell; Lord Jesus, if thou wilt catch me, do; if not, I will venture for thy name.”
― John Bunyan, quote from Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners
“is profitable for Christians to be often calling to mind the very beginnings of grace with their souls. ”
― John Bunyan, quote from Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners
“Oh, the remembrance of my great sins, of my great temptations, and of my great fears of perishing forever! They bring afresh into my mind the remembrance of my great help, my great support from Heaven, and the great grace that God extended to such a wretch as I.”
― John Bunyan, quote from Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners
“Begin at the beginning of Genesis, and read to the end of the Revelations, and see if you can find, that there were ever any that trusted in the Lord, and were confounded. ”
― John Bunyan, quote from Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners
“it was not my good frame of heart that made my righteousness better, nor yet my bad frame that made my righteousness worse; for my righteousness was Jesus Christ Himself, the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever”
― John Bunyan, quote from Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners
“It is profitable for Christians to be often calling to mind the very beginnings of grace with their souls. ”
― John Bunyan, quote from Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners
“Yea, look diligently, and leave no corner therein unsearched for that treasure hid, even the treasure of your first and second experience of the grace of God towards you. Remember, I say, the word that first laid hold upon you: remember your terrors of conscience, and fear of death and hell: remember also your tears and prayers to God; yea, how you sighed under every hedge for mercy. ”
― John Bunyan, quote from Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners
“Remember also the word, the word, I say, upon which the Lord hath caused you to hope: if you have sinned against light, if you are tempted to blaspheme, if you are drowned in despair, if you think God fights against you, or if heaven is hid from your eyes; remember it was thus with your father; but out of them all the Lord delivered me.”
― John Bunyan, quote from Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners
“I have sent you here enclosed, a drop of that honey that I have taken out of the carcase of a lion. Judg. xiv. 5-8. I have eaten thereof myself, and am much refreshed thereby. (Temptations, when we meet them at first, are as the lion that roared upon Samson; but if we overcome them, the next time we see them, we shall find a nest of honey within them.) The Philistines understand me not. ”
― John Bunyan, quote from Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners
“Now I thought, surely I am possessed of the devil: at other times, again, I thought I should be bereft of my wits; for instead of lauding and magnifying God the Lord, with others, if I have but heard Him spoken of, presently some most horrible blasphemous thought or other would bolt out of my heart against Him; so that whether I did think that God was, or again did think there was no such thing, no love, nor peace, nor gracious disposition could I feel within me.”
― John Bunyan, quote from Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners
“But God did not utterly leave me, but followed me still, not now with convictions, but judgments; yet such as were mixed with mercy. For once I fell into a creek of the sea, and hardly escaped drowning. Another time I fell out of a boat into Bedford river, but, mercy yet preserved me alive: besides, another time, being in a field, with one of my companions, it chanced that an adder passed over the highway, so I having a stick in my hand, struck her over the back; and having stunned her, I forced open her mouth with my stick, and plucked her sting out with my fingers; by which act had not God been merciful unto me, I might by my desperateness, have brought myself to my end.”
― John Bunyan, quote from Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners
“Here, as I said, were judgments and mercy, but neither of them did awaken my soul to righteousness; wherefore I sinned still, and grew more and more rebellious against God, and careless of my own salvation.”
― John Bunyan, quote from Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners
“Oh! the un-thought-of imaginations, frights, fears, and terrors, that are affected by a thorough application of guilt yielding to desperation! This is the man that hath his dwelling among the tombs with the dead; that is always crying out, and cutting himself with stones. Mark v. 1, 2, 3. But, I say, all in vain; desperation will not comfort him, the old covenant will not save him: nay, heaven and earth shall pass away, before one jot or tittle of the word and law of grace will fail or be removed. ”
― John Bunyan, quote from Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners
“This woman and I, though we came together as poor as poor might be (not having so much household stuff as a dish or a spoon betwixt us both), yet this she had for her part: The Plain Man’s Pathway to Heaven and The Practice of Piety; which her father had left her when he died. In these two books I would sometimes read with her, wherein I also found some things that were somewhat pleasing to me (but all this while I met with no conviction). She also would be often telling of me what a godly man her father was, and how he would reprove and correct vice, both in his house, and among his neighbours; what a strict and holy life he lived in his days, both in word and deed.”
― John Bunyan, quote from Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners
“But one day (amongst all the sermons our parson made) his subject was, to treat of the Sabbath day, and of the evil of breaking that, either with labour, sports or otherwise. (Now, I was, notwithstanding my religion, one that took much delight in all manner of vice, and especially that was the day that I did solace myself therewith): wherefore I fell in my conscience under his sermon, thinking and believing that he made that sermon on purpose to show me my evil doing. ”
― John Bunyan, quote from Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners
“Wherefore, to be brief; at last, being still desired by the church, after some solemn prayer to the Lord, with fasting, I was more particularly called forth, and appointed to a more ordinary and public preaching of the word, not only to and amongst them that believed, but also to offer the gospel to those who had not yet received the faith thereof; about which time I did evidently find in my mind a secret pricking forward thereto; though I bless God, not for desire of vain-glory; for at that time I was most sorely afflicted with the fiery darts of the devil, concerning my eternal state.”
― John Bunyan, quote from Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners
“But the same day, as I was in the midst of a game of Cat, and having struck it one blow from the hole, just as I was about to strike it the second time, a voice did suddenly dart from heaven into my soul, which said, Wilt thou leave thy sins and go to heaven, or have thy sins and go to hell? At this I was put to an exceeding maze; wherefore leaving my cat upon the ground, I looked up to heaven, and was, as if I had, with the eyes of my understanding, seen the Lord Jesus looking down upon me, as being very hotly displeased with me, and as if He did severely threaten me with some grievous punishment for these and other ungodly practices.”
― John Bunyan, quote from Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners
“1 Cor. xvi. 15, 16. 270. By this text I was made to see that the Holy Ghost never intended that men who have gifts and abilities, should bury them in the earth, but rather did command and stir up such to the exercise of their gift, and also did commend those that were apt and ready so to do. They have addicted themselves to the ministry of the saints. This scripture, in these days, did continually run in my mind, to encourage me, and strengthen me in this my work for God;”
― John Bunyan, quote from Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners
“I found myself a man and compassed with infirmities; the parting with my wife and poor children, hath often been to me in this place, as the pulling the flesh from the bones, and that not only because I am somewhat too fond of these great mercies, but also because I should have often brought to my mind the many hardships, miseries, and wants that my poor family was like to meet with, should I be taken from them, especially my poor blind child, who lay nearer my heart than all besides: Oh! the thoughts of the hardship I thought my poor blind one might go under, would break my heart to pieces.”
― John Bunyan, quote from Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners
“That I had been a great and grievous sinner, and that it was now too late for me to look after heaven; for Christ would not forgive me, nor pardon my transgressions. Then I fell to musing on this also; and while I was thinking of it, and fearing lest it should be so; I felt my heart sink in despair, concluding it was too late; and therefore I resolved in my mind I would go on in sin: for, thought I, if the case be thus, my state is surely miserable; miserable if I leave my sins, and but miserable if I follow them; I can but be damned, and if I must be so, I had as good be damned for many sins, as be damned for few.”
― John Bunyan, quote from Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners
“Indeed, I have been as one sent to them from the dead; I went myself in chains, to preach to them in chains; and carried that fire in my own conscience, that I persuaded them to be aware of. I can truly say, and that without dissembling, that when I have been to preach, I have gone full of guilt and terror, even to the pulpit door, and there it hath been taken off, and I have been at liberty in my mind until I have done my work; and then immediately, even before I could get down the pulpit stairs, I have been as bad as I was before; yet God carried me on, but surely with a strong hand, for neither guilt nor hell could take me off my work.”
― John Bunyan, quote from Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners
“But that which helped me in this temptation, was divers considerations, of which, three in special here I will name, the first was the consideration of these two scriptures, Leave thy fatherless children, I will preserve them alive, and let thy widows trust in me: and again, The Lord said, Verily it shall be well with thy remnant, verily, I will cause the enemy to entreat thee well in the time of evil, and in time of affliction. Jer. xlix. 11; xv. 11.”
― John Bunyan, quote from Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners
“After which, the Lord came in upon my own soul, with some staid peace and comfort through Christ; for He did give me many sweet discoveries of His blessed grace through Him; wherefore now I altered in my preaching (for still I preached what I saw and felt); now therefore I did much labour to hold forth Jesus Christ in all His offices, relations, and benefits unto the world; and did strive also to discover, to condemn, and remove those false supports and props on which the world doth both lean, and by them fall and perish. On these things also I staid as long as on the other.”
― John Bunyan, quote from Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners
“but one day, as I was standing at a neighbour’s shop window, and there cursing and swearing, and playing the madman, after my wonted manner, there sate within, the woman of the house, and heard me; who, though she also was a very loose and ungodly wretch, yet protested that I swore and cursed at that most fearful rate, that she was made to tremble to hear me; and told me further, that I was the ungodliest fellow for swearing, that she ever heard in all her life; and that I, by thus doing, was able to spoil all the youth in the whole town, if they come but in my company.”
― John Bunyan, quote from Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners
“And, when I had travelled through these three chief points of the word of God, about the space of five years or more, I was caught in my present practice, and cast into prison, where I have lain above as long again to confirm the truth by way of suffering, as I was before in testifying of it according to the scriptures, in a way of preaching.”
― John Bunyan, quote from Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners
“I had also another consideration, and that was, the dread of the torments of hell, which I was sure they must partake of that for fear of the cross, do shrink from their profession of Christ, His words and laws before the sons of men: I thought also of the glory that He had prepared for those that in faith, and love, and patience, stood to His ways before them. ”
― John Bunyan, quote from Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners
“Thus I continued about a year; all which time our neighbours did take me to be a very godly man, a new and religious man, and did marvel much to see such a great and famous alteration in my life and manners; and indeed so it was, though yet I knew not Christ, nor grace, nor faith, nor hope; for, as I have well seen since, had I then died, my state had been most fearful.”
― John Bunyan, quote from Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners
“For I have been in my preaching, especially when I have been engaged in the doctrine of life by Christ, without works, as if an angel of God had stood by at my back to encourage me:”
― John Bunyan, quote from Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners
“I thought I might now have an opportunity to speak my last words to a multitude, which I thought would come to see me die; and, thought I, if it must be so, if God will but convert one soul by my very last words, I shall not count my life thrown away, nor lost.”
― John Bunyan, quote from Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners
John Bunyan
Born place: in Bedford, Elstow, England, The United Kingdom
Born date November 28, 1628
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