John Bunyan

Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners John Bunyan

This classic of Christian autobiography John Bunyan is timeless in its wisdom, wherein the author wrestles with his convictions of belief in the divine.

For centuries a leading source on the Puritanical movement and its adherents, Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners remains a regularly consulted text by theologians, religious historians and the general reader. The title itself is a composite reference to two famous Biblical passages: Romans 5:20 and Timothy 1:15.

As well as discussing the process through which he found his Christian faith, Bunyan is forthright about the personal struggles he had with belief. Hardship was a reality for Bunyan, who drafted this book while incarcerated for preaching without a proper license. For Bunyan the possibility of salvation by the Lord was a constant preoccupation, and a motivation for authoring multiple works on faith and leading the life he led.

The text is also valuable for its historical context in 17th century. This was a time when Protestantism in all forms was in its youth across Europe and the fledgling North America. The concerns with doubt expressed by Bunyan are without doubt eternal: anxiety over the existence of God in the face of what appears to be unceasing adversity remains a popular topic for believers in Christianity.