Quotes from John Bunyan

You can be sure that one or both of you must seal his testimony with blood. So be faithful unto death, and the King will give you a crown of life. The one who dies there, although his death will be unnatural and perhaps very painful, will be better off than his companion, not only because he will arrive at the Celestial City sooner, but also because he will escape many of the miseries that the other will meet with on the rest of his journey. So

Wherefore, sinner, here is laid a necessity upon thee, one of the two must be thy lot; either thou must accept God's grace, and be content to be saved freely thereby, notwithstanding all thy undeserving and unworthiness, or else thou must be damned for thy rebellion and for thy rejecting of this grace

Why, I hope to see Him alive who hung dead on the cross. And . . . and there I hope to be rid of all those things that remain as an annoyance to me.

Alas, poor man! is the heavenly glory of so little worth with him, that he counteth it not worth running the risk of a few difficulties to obtain it?

He stood still for a while and looked with astonishment at the cross. It surprised him that the sight of the cross released him of his burden. He looked and looked again as tears ran down his cheeks. (

Remember that you are sinners as abominable as the Publican, wherefore do you, as you have him for your pattern, go to God, confess, in all simple, honest, and self- abasing, your numerous and abominable sins; and be sure that in the very next place you forget not to ask for pardon, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner. And remember that none but God can help you against, nor keep you from, the damnation and misery that comes by sin.

I found my condition in his experience so largely and profoundly handled, as if his book had been written out of my heart.  This made me marvel: for thus thought I, This man could not know any thing of the state of Christians now, but must needs write and speak the experience of former days.

The Publican, in that he was an extortioner, unjust and an adulterer, made it thereby manifest that he did not love his neighbour; and thou by making a god, a saviour, a deliverer, of thy filthy righteousness, dost make it appear, that thou dost not love thy God;

The trials that those men do meet with, Who are obedient to the heavenly call, Are many and various, and suited to the flesh, And come, and come, and come again afresh; That now or some time else we by them may Be taken, overcome, and cast away. O let the pilgrims, let the pilgrims then, Be vigilant and quit themselves like men.

Now I saw in my dream, that just as they had ended this talk they drew near to a very miry slough, that was in the midst of the plain; and they, being heedless, did both fall suddenly into the bog. The name of the slough was Despond. Here, therefore, they wallowed for a time, being grievously bedaubed with the dirt; and Christian, because of the burden that was on his back, began to sink in the mire.

acknowledge myself in fault; and had I been here alone, I had, by sleeping, run the danger of death. I see it is true that the Wise Man saith, "Two are better than one." Hitherto hath thy company been my help; and thou shalt have a

The book the man is reading is the Word of God, the Bible. It has become both the focus of and the reason for his current state of perplexity and distress. The heavy burden on his back is his awakened knowledge and sense of his own sin. The man discovers the frightful condition of his heart, which provokes genuine and constant fears of damnation. These fears are an ever-present weight upon his entire person. 4.