Pilgrim's Progress

John Bunyan

Description

The classic drama of Christian's journey to discover eternal life offers readers encouragement and direction for their own pilgrimage.

Informations

• Publié par: Baker Publishing Group
• Date de parution: 01 février 1999
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781441233288
• Langue: English

Extrait

A Spire Book Published by Revell a division of Baker Publishing Group P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287 www.revellbooks.com
Ebook edition created 2013
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means for example, electronic, photocopy, recording without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
ISBN 978-1-4412-3328-8
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
CONTENTS
Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page

PREFACE
MEMOIR OF JOHN BUNYAN
AUTHORS APOLOGY FOR HIS ROOK
THE PILGRIM’S PROGRESS IN THE SIMILITUDE OF A DREAM
THE AUTHOR’S WAY OF SENDING FORTH HIS SECOND PART OF THE PILGRIM
THE PILGRIM’S PROGRESS IN THE SIMILITUDE OF A DREAM THE SECOND PART

Notes
Back Cover
PREFACE
In the preparation of this, the Puritan Edition of Pilgrim’s Progress , special attention has been paid to revision of the text, and great pains taken to restore this as nearly as possible to the text which had received Bunyan’s own latest corrections and additions. It is well known that in the second and third editions, Bunyan made large additions to the allegory and many important corrections. For example, Worldly Wiseman first makes his appearance in the second edition, published in 1678, the year already made famous by the publication of the first edition. In the third edition, issued in 1679, Bunyan added the characteristic portrait of Mr. By-ends. During Bunyan’s life-time, eleven editions of the great book were published, the last appearing in 1688, the year of his death.
The edition now presented to readers of every class contains the text of the Pilgrim’s Progress as it stood when Bunyan’s death removed all possibility of further authoritative revision. The proofs have been very carefully compared with copies of the first, second, third, and eleventh editions in the library of the British Museum. The eleventh, which is one of the rarest in the whole series, appeared in the year when Bunyan died. It doubtless contains its latest corrections. It was also much more fully illustrated than any previous issue. There are often important differences between the text of the third and of the eleventh editions. In all these cases the text printed here is that of the eleventh.
In the original edition Scripture references were printed in the margin. But these are often inaccurate. In later days these have been much revised, altered, and enlarged. No attempt has been made in this edition to reproduce these references.
The second part has for this reprint been carefully collated with the second edition, published in 1686. This was the last edition of that part issued in Bunyan’s life-time, and doubtless contains his own latest corrections.
This edition, therefore, may confidently claim to be as accurate as the very best editions in print, if, indeed, it be not superior to any yet issued.
MEMOIR OF JOHN BUNYAN
J OHN B UNYAN , the son of a travelling brazier or tinker, was born at Elstow, near Bedford, in 1628, at a period when wickedness prevailed through the land. His education was such as poor people could in those days give to their children. He was sent to school and taught to read and write; but he was an idle boy, and for cursing, swearing, lying, and blaspheming, had few equals of his own age. In his earlier days, terror seemed to be the only restraining influence of which he felt the power. In the day-time he often had gloomy forebodings of the wrath to come; and at night he was scared with dreams. His imagination conceived apparitions of evil spirits seeking to drag him away after them; or he would fancy that the last day was come, with all its terrible realities.
Such were his youthful fears. As he grew older, he became more hardened: and the remarkable providential interpositions of which he was the subject neither startled nor melted him. Twice he narrowly escaped drowning; and during the Civil War was drawn as a soldier to go to the siege of Leicester. A comrade, who had sought and obtained leave to go in his room, when standing sentry, was shot through the head and died.
His marriage had some slight influence on his future life. The young woman was very poor, and her only portion consisted of two volumes which her father, a godly man, had given to her The Plain Man’s Pathway to Heaven , and The Practice of Piety . Mrs Bunyan would often read these books with her husband, and would relate what a holy life her father led. As a consequence an earnest desire for reformation seized upon him; but it was only external. His heart was unchanged, and he continued in a sinful course of life.
Hearing, however, a sermon on the sin of Sabbath-breaking, it much affected him. As was his custom, he was engaged in the afternoon at a pastime, when thoughts of a coming judgment crowded in upon his awakened mind. He became terrified, and imagined he heard a voice from heaven saying, ‘Wilt thou leave thy sins and go to heaven, or have thy sins and go to hell?’ The conviction that he had been a grievous transgressor flashed across his mind, but he concluded that it was too late for him to look for pardon or for heaven, and he returned desperately to his sports again.
After some time had passed, he fell into the company of a poor Christian man, whose pious conversation about religion and the Scriptures so touched Bunyan’s heart that he began to read the Bible. There were many things in that book which alarmed him, and he commenced an outward reformation in word and life, but entirely in his own strength, and ignorant of the love and grace of Christ Jesus. The conversation of three pious women, sitting at a door in the streets of Bedford, one day attracted his notice. He drew near, and as they spoke of the things of God, of His work in their hearts, and of the peace of reconciliation, he saw there was something in real religion which he had not yet known or felt. Their words were never forgotten, and from that time he forsook the company of the profane, and sought the society of those who had at least a reputation for piety.
Bunyan had now set out fairly on his way from the City of Destruction; but he fell into many dangers and errors, and there is scarcely a fear which can assail an inquiring spirit which did not at some period disturb his mind. For a long time, he was like his own man in the cage, at Interpreter’s house, shut out from the promises and looking forward to certain judgment. His conflict, too, with the Evil One was such as to remind us of the struggle between Christian and Apollyon. There came now, however, as he beautifully expresses it in his Pilgrim , a hand with some of the leaves of the tree of life, which Christian took and applied to some of the wounds he had received in the battle, and was healed immediately. He was led by faith to the cross of Christ, and became more than conqueror through Him that loved him. Shortly after this time, he made an open profession of religion, and then began to make known to others the Saviour whom he had found.
The now enlightened Christian man soon had to suffer much on account of his religion. Between the years 1655 and 1660 he often preached in the neighbourhood of Bedford. In the latter year he was arrested and put into the Bedford County Gaol, where, for twelve years, with but one brief interval of a few weeks, he was kept a prisoner. It is frequently asserted that Bunyan wrote the Pilgrim’s Progress during this imprisonment. But Dr Brown has shown conclusively that it was during a later and briefer imprisonment in the old town jail on Bedford Bridge in the year 1676 that the first part of the immortal masterpiece was written. It was first published in the early months of the year 1678. The second part was not published until 1685.
This book, which is equally a favourite in the nursery and in the study, has received the commendation of men of the highest order of intellect. It has been translated into numerous languages, some of which were unknown to Europe in the days in which Bunyan lived. Missionaries have carried with them this book to almost every part of the earth; and now the Pilgrim tells his tale to the Chinese in the East, to the negroes in the West, to the Greenlanders in the North, and the islanders of the Pacific in the South.
Bunyan was the author of another allegory, The Holy War , published in 1682, which is second only in merit to the Pilgrim’s Progress . In his own inimitable way he has also told the story of his life and religious experience in Grace Abounding , a classic worthy to stand by Augustine’s Confessions and Luther’s Table Talk . Besides these great works he wrote many valuable treatises, some of which are still read with pleasure and profit.
In prison Bunyan learned the art of making long-tagged thread laces, and thus contributed to the support of his family. After his release he lived a useful life as minister of Bunyan Meeting in Bedford, and as a preacher and writer. He died August 12, 1688, at Mr Strudwick’s, a grocer, at the sign of the ‘Star,’ on Snow Hill, and was buried in Bunhill Fields.
THE
AUTHOR’S APOLOGY FOR HIS BOOK
W HEN at the first I took my pen in hand Thus for to write, I did not understand That I at all should make a little book In such a mode; nay, I had undertook To make another; which, when almost done, Before I was aware I this begun.

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, In more than twenty things which I set down: This done, I twenty more had in my crown; And they again began to multiply, Like sparks that from the coals of fire do fly. Nay, then, thought I, if that you breed so fast I’ll put you by yourselves, lest you at last Should prove ad infinitum , and eat out