John Bunyan

John Bunyan (November 23rd 1628 - August 31st 1688), preacher and allegorist English.

Biography

John Bunyan is born in 1628 in the hamlet from Harrowden, not far from the town of Bedford in a very modest family. His/her mother, Margaret Bentley is the second woman of Thomas Bunyan. This one follows the occupation of travelling ironmonger. In spite of the extreme poverty of his parents, John Bunyan attends some time the school where he learns how to read and to write. But it very quickly gives up its studies to start to work near his father. He will confess later quickly to have lost what he had learned then. In 1666, in its spiritual autobiography Grace Abounding to The Chief off Sinners, John Bunyan will describe his years of youth like dissolues and dépravées. Its “curses, insults, lies and blasphemies of the Crowned Name of God”, lead it to undergo at the age of 9 or 10 years of horrible nightmares on the hell. He lives then in the constant fear of the hell and of its demons which would work to take it along with them and he affirms that a voice often repeats to him “to sell Christ”.

At the 16 years age, in November 1644, during the first civil war, it joined the “Round Heads”, the parliamentary army. There are placed in garrison with Newport Pagnell, in the company of Colonel Richard Cockayne' S. Although the parliamentary victory of Naseby in June 1645 meant the end of the hostilities, Bunyan will remain still two years in the army until the demobilization of its regiment on July 21st, 1647. The gathering of its underpaid men - the delay in the payment of the balances reached 14 weeks - that dissatisfaction gains, causes the emergence of a great religious enthusiasm and attracts many preachers and preachers of any kind. In October 1644, the city counts to seven theologists, two sermons per Sunday and Thursday and every morning, before the changing of the guard, one requests and reads a chapter of the Bible. Interpretations, sermons and sermons quickly make their ways among the men who constitute a particularly long-lived hearth for the development of the sects. There is no doubt that John Bunyan was strongly influenced by those.

Of return to the country after his demobilization, John Bunyan takes again the profession of his father. Shortly after its return - the exact date is not known, undoubtedly in 1649 - it Marie. The name of his first wife did not reach us. His/her first daughter, Mary, are baptized the July 20th 1650. But this little girl is born blind. John, in full theological doubt, cannot have missed seeing there a sign of God, a divine punishment against its impiété. It fears to have made such sins that it would not be forgivable any more by God. Its theological distress the conduit to open with the speech sects such as Ranters and Quakers. Their ideas attract it and will convince it almost but they will not be able to provide to Bunyan until it undoubtedly waited more, the insurance of its safety. This disillusion will lead it later to hold a very hard speech with regard to the Quakers.

After his many interior spiritual conflicts and several years of doubt, John Bunyan joined the congregation Baptist of the church Saint Jean of Bedford in 1653. This community believed in the right of each congregation to pursue its own religious policy. In 1655, it is established in Bedford and is named deacon by the charismatic leader of this congregation, Pasteur John Gifford, little before the death of this one. The influence of Gifford on John Bunyan and his later work is undeniable. Little time after its arrival with Bedford, his first wife dies, leaving John alone with his four children. Its years of doubt and spiritual fight interns and its advance which brings it towards the faith will make it possible him to write a few years later the allegory The Pilgrim' S Progress on the basis of its spiritual own experience. This fight, it also expresses it while becoming gradually, after the death of John Gifford, an important preacher in his community. The sermons help it to leave its spiritual crisis, it is for him a kind of therapy. Bunyan rather seems to him to perceive its talent for preaching as a gift of God whom it must exploit with the glory of This one. In his sermons, John Bunyan will attack hard Ranters and the Quakers. Its fight by lampoon and sermon interposed with a young Quaker, Edward Burroughs, and their passionate debates establish the reputation of John. In 1657 it is formally indicated by its congregation like appointed preacher. John Bunyan takes up his duty fully while its detractors are made more and that a first warning in the form of an inculpation which seems to be remained without continuation, is addressed to him in 1658.

The restoration of monarchy and the accession with the capacity of the king Charles II in 1660 will block the relative religious liberty of the the Commonwealth. Charles II will try to restore the religious unit of the country to the detriment of the dissenting movements like that to which belonged John Bunyan. Bunyan is stopped in 1660, one reproaches him for preaching in public and for holding of the illegal meetings. Its antecedents of partisan of the parliamentary army and his categorical refusal cease preaching, mission for which God would have invested it, do not play in its favor. He is condemned in January 1661 to a three months sorrow of prison and to the perpetual banishment of the kingdom if he refuses to cease preaching or if he does not attend the Sunday mass after his coming out of prison. This judgment will not be applied as such but there will remain twelve years in prisons.

The detention conditions of Bunyan vary according to the political situation. It is indeed several times authorized to leave the prison to preach and will go even to London. It will also receive many visits. But its adversaries when they learn it tancent its guard sharply and make more strict his detention conditions. In 1666, it is released a few weeks but quickly réincarcéré because it cannot be solved to cease its preaching. During its imprisonment it is authorized to write and published its works. The majority of its literary works will be written besides during these twelve years of prisons. During the first six years of detention he will off write works in prose like Of the Resurrection the Dead, The Holy City (1665) and Grace Abounding to the Chief off Sinners (1666) but also of poetry with Profitable Meditations (1661), Prisons Meditations (1663), One Thing is Needful and Ebal and Gerizzim (1665). After 1666 however and until in 1674, it will not publish anything any more. Indeed, persecution seems at this period to worsen and work Bunyan to meet more enmity; the editor of Bunyan will see his shop plundered in 1666. John Bunyan undoubtedly does not stop writing for as much and it is possible that it already worked at that time on his most famous work, The Pilgrim' S Progress.

In 1672, it is released according to the terms of the declaration of indulgence of Charles II. It also receives the authorization to preach and has to become Pasteur of the church of Bedford. Its reputation always growing attracts crowd and its many displacements in the neighborhoods of Bedford do nothing but increase it. But in 1675, the situation becomes to him again unfavourable and it has to appear before the court of the Archidiacre to have failed to fulfil its parochial obligations. He prefers to hide rather than to present itself and its case is then transferred in front of a course governmental. John Buyan is stopped and imprisoned December 1676 at June 1677. Shortly after its coming out of prison it publishes The Pilgrim progress from this world to that which is to like: delivered under the similarity off has dream which is very quickly a very great success. This success leads it to write other religious allegories as The Life and Death off Mister Badman (1680) which wants to be to it parallel of Pilgrim' S Progress but also The Holy War where it will exploit its experiment of soldier to describe the attacks of the devil against the town of Mansoul (1682).

Its popularity will not cease growing and its sermons will always gather a strong assembly until her death in 1688 of a pneumonia contracted at the time of a strong storm.

Works

The Voyage of the pilgrim

This allegorical novel is appeared in 1678, in a time when the publications start again to be less censured but John Bunyan undoubtedly started to work there as of the years 1660. This allegory recalls the voyage of an ordinary man named Christian (Christian) who decides to take the road to reach the City of Sion. It leaves the city of the destruction (terrestrial) and cuts through a path towards the celestial city. It faces many tests and crosses places to the evocative names like: Slough off Despond (marsh of the discouragement), Vanity Fair (fair with vanities), Hill off Lucre… The many protagonists also bear a revealing name of their personality: Faithful (faithful, honest), Giant Despair (gigantic despair), Mr. Great-Heart (large heart). The book is subdivided in two parts. The first reports the voyage of Christian and the second that of his Christiana wife and their children.

Through this allegory, Bunyan recalls the way which leads to the true faith through the internal doubt and all oppositions and temptations as well as external. Its spiritual own experience built through several years of doubt, of handing-over in question by facing its interior demons is reported in picturesque form. The man who guides the pilgrim at good port is the evangelist, that which defends the religion of Bunyan. The Pilgrim' S Progress can thus be regarded as a evangelic apology for the Protestantisme. The force of the work of John Bunyan undoubtedly lies in his simplicity and its accessibility. Its simple and effective prose sometimes naive contributed to its fast success. Bunyan gives life to abstractions, creating anthropomorphic figures representative of the emotions and temptations and shows an unquestionable talent of storyteller. Bunyan does not have the scholarship of Milton and its references limit mainly to a well established verbal knowledge Bible. The structure, turnings of sentence and the imagery used by the allegory approach besides largely those of the Bible. The images employed by Bunyan often refer to its ordinary environment and it is what can explain its rapid success because it evokes elements close to the daily newspaper of its readers and who can be paid to their own experience. Christian evokes a man of the people and shows the superiority of poor on the rich person in his spiritual search since the latter are presented like the opponents.

The Pilgrim' S Progress was translated in addition to 100 different languages. It remained during more than 200 years the book more translated and more read in the anglophone world after the Bible.

Other Works

Grace Abounding to the Chief off Sinners
The life and death off mister badman
the holy war , Editor/Edition: Cedar, ISBN 2907282549
the abundance of the grace , 2001, Editor/Edition: The age of man, ISBN 2825114472
Christiana. History of Pèlerine , 1997, Editor/Edition: Cedar, ISBN 2911003020
the prayer , 1991, Editor/Edition: Grace and Truth, ISBN 2853310055
the voyage of the pilgrim , 1982, Editor/Edition: CLC, ISBN 2722200201
to be started with Jerusalem , Editor/Edition: Europress, ISBN 2914562004

External bonds

Site dedicated to John Bunyan
John Bunyan - Ironmonger, poet, evangelist by Robert Farelly. 1935. Work on line.

Partial source

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