The Pilgrim’s Progress, John Bunyan [most popular novels .txt] 📗

joy. Now see how he that exalteth himself shall be abased, and how surely, along with spiritual pride, comes carelessness, false security, and a grievous fall. —⁠Cheever The very person’s hand we need to help us, whom we thought we had exceeded. —⁠Mason When a consciousness of superiority to other Christians leads to vain glory, a fall will be the consequence; but while it excites compassion, it also cements Christian friendship. —⁠Ivimey ↩

Mr. Anything became a brisk man in the broil; but both sides were against him, because he was true to none. He had, for his malapertness, one of his legs broken, and he that did it wished it had been his neck. —⁠Holy War ↩

Jeremiah 29:18, 19. ↩

2 Peter 2:22. ↩

Genesis 39:11⁠–⁠13. ↩

Proverbs 22:14. ↩

“I trow,” I believe or imagine (Imp. Dict.). —⁠Editor ↩

Proverbs 5:5. ↩

Job 31:1. ↩

If the experience of Christian is an exhibition of Bunyan’s own feelings, the temptations of Madam Wanton are very properly laid in the way of Faithful, and not of Christian. She would have had no chance with the man who admired the wisdom of God in making him shy of women, who rarely carried it pleasantly towards a woman, and who abhorred the common salutation of women. —⁠Grace Abounding, No. 316 —⁠Editor ↩

Ephesians 4:22. ↩

“All” is omitted from every edition by Bunyan, except the first; probably a typographical error. ↩

1 John 2:16. ↩

An awful slavery! “None that go unto her return again, neither take they hold of the paths of life” (Proverbs 2:19). —⁠Editor ↩

Romans 7:24. ↩

That sinner who never had a threatening fiery visit from Moses, is yet asleep in his sins, under the curse and wrath of the law of God. —⁠C. C. V. G. ↩

As the law giveth no strength, nor life to keep it, so it accepteth none of them that are under it. Sin and Die, is forever its language. There is no middle way in the law. It hath not ears to hear, nor heart to pity, its penitent ones. —⁠Bunyan on Justification, vol. 1, p. 316 ↩

The delineation of this character is a masterly grouping together of the arguments used by men of this world against religion, in ridicule and contempt of it. Faithful’s account of him, and of his arguments, is a piece of vigorous satire, full of truth and life. —⁠Cheever ↩

1 Corinthians 1:26; 3:18; Philippians 3:7, 8. ↩

John 7:48. ↩

Nothing can be a stronger proof that we have lost the image of God, than shame concerning the things of God. This shame, joined to the fear of man, is a very powerful enemy to God’s truths, Christ’s glory, and our soul’s comfort. Better at once get out of our pain, by declaring boldly for Christ and His cause, than stand shivering on the brink of profession, ever dreading the loss of our good name and reputation: for Christ says (awful words): “Whosoever shall be ashamed of Me and of My words, in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him also shall the Son of man be ashamed when He cometh in the glory of His Father” (Mark 8:38). It is one thing to be attacked by shame, and another to be conquered by it. —⁠Mason ↩

Luke 16:15. ↩

Mark 8:38. ↩

Proverbs 3:35. ↩

Christian in a great measure escaped the peculiar temptations that assaulted Faithful, yet he sympathized with him; nor did the latter deem the gloomy experiences of his brother visionary or imaginative, though he had been exempted from them. One man, from a complication of causes, is exposed to temptations of which another is ignorant; and in this case he needs much sympathy, which he seldom meets with; while they, who are severe on him are liable to be baffled in another way, which, for want of coincidence in habit, temperature, and situation, he is equally prone to disregard. Thus Christians are often led reciprocally to censure, suspect, or dislike each other, on those very grounds which would render them useful and encouraging counselors and companions! —⁠Scott ↩

Bunyan, in his Pilgrim’s Progress, places the Valley of the Shadow of Death, not where we should expect it, at the end of Christian’s pilgrimage, but about the middle of it. Those who have studied the history of Bunyan and his times will hardly wonder at this. It was then safer to commit felony than to become a Dissenter. Indeed, a felon was far surer of a fair trial than any Dissenting minister, after the restoration of Charles II. This Bunyan found. Simply and solely for preaching, he was condemned by Keeling to imprisonment. That was to be followed by banishment if he did not conform, and, in the event of his return from banishment without license from the King, the judge added, “You must stretch by the neck for it; I tell you plainly.” Christian endured, in the first portion of this dismal valley, great darkness and distress of mind about his soul’s safety for eternity; and, in the latter part of the valley, the dread of an ignominious, and cruel, and sudden execution in the midst of his days⁠—a fear more appalling than the prospect of a natural death. This he was enabled to bear, because he then enjoyed the light, the presence, and the approbation of his God. —⁠Editor ↩

The character now introduced under a most expressive name, is an admirable portrait, drawn by a