Download or read book John Bunyan and the Language of Conviction written by Beth Lynch and published by DS Brewer. This book was released on 2004 with total page 206 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bunyan's works re-evaluated, and considered in their Restoration and non-conformist context. This book undertakes a major reassessment of the works of John Bunyan [1628-88], the nonconformist author of The Pilgrim's Progress, who was imprisoned for preaching his beliefs. Through a reading of each of his narratives, and many of his pastoral writings, both in textual detail and in relation to the various traditions - such as Reformed spirituality and the nonconformist trial - within which he lived, preached, and wrote, the author offers a systematic re-evaluation of Bunyan's development as an author. She presents new perspectives on his most popular works, Grace Abounding and The Pilgrim's Progress, whilst arguing that the significance of the lesser-known Life and Death of Mr Badman and The Holy War has been severely underestimated; and she shows how overall the works offer a candid document of nonconformist experience in the Restoration period.

Download or read book The Cambridge Companion to Bunyan written by Anne Dunan-Page and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2010-06-10 with total page 213 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A comprehensive introduction to Bunyan's life and works, examining their place in the broader context of seventeenth-century history and literature.

Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of John Bunyan written by Michael Davies and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018-07-12 with total page 760 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Oxford Handbook of John Bunyan is the most extensive volume of original essays ever published on the seventeenth-century nonconformist preacher and writer, John Bunyan. Its thirty-eight chapters examine Bunyan's life and works, their religious and historical contexts, and the critical reception of his writings, in particular his allegorical narrative, The Pilgrim's Progress. Interdisciplinary and comprehensive, it provides unparalleled scope and expertise, ranging from literary theory to religious history and from theology to post-colonial criticism. The Handbook is structured in four sections. The first, 'Contexts', deals with the historical Bunyan in relation to various aspects of his life, background, and work as a nonconformist: from basic facts of biography to the nature of his church at Bedford, his theology, and the religious and political cultures of seventeenth-century Dissent. Part 2 considers Bunyan's literary output: from his earliest printed tracts to his posthumously published works. Offering discrete chapters on Bunyan's major works - Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners (1666), The Pilgrim's Progress, Parts I and II (1678; 1684); The Life and Death of Mr. Badman (1680), and The Holy War (1682) - this section nevertheless covers Bunyan's oeuvre in its entirety: controversial and pastoral, narrative and poetic. Section 3, 'Directions in Criticism', engages with Bunyan in literary critical terms, focusing on his employment of form and language and on theoretical approaches to his writings: from psychoanalytic to post-secular criticism. Section 4, 'Journeys', tackles some of the ways in which Bunyan's works, and especially The Pilgrim's Progress, have travelled throughout the world since the late seventeenth century, assessing Bunyan's place within key literary periods and their distinctive developments: from the eighteenth-century novel to the writing of 'empire'.

Download or read book The Rhetoric of Conversion in English Puritan Writing from Perkins to Milton written by David Parry and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2021-12-30 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This rhetorical study of the persuasive practice of English Puritan preachers and writers demonstrates how they appeal to both reason and imagination in order to persuade their hearers and readers towards conversion, assurance of salvation and godly living. Examining works from a diverse range of preacher-writers such as William Perkins, Richard Sibbes, Richard Baxter and John Bunyan, this book maps out continuities and contrasts in the theory and practice of persuasion. Tracing the emergence of Puritan allegory as an alternative, imaginative mode of rhetoric, it sheds new light on the paradoxical question of how allegories such as John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress came to be among the most significant contributions of Puritanism to the English literary canon, despite the suspicions of allegory and imagination that were endemic in Puritan culture. Concluding with reflections on how Milton deploys similar strategies to persuade his readers towards his idiosyncratic brand of godly faith, this book makes an original contribution to current scholarly conversations around the textual culture of Puritanism, the history of rhetoric, and the rhetorical character of theology.

Download or read book New Testaments written by Michael Austin and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2012 with total page 181 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, popular works of literature attracted--as they attract today--sequels, prequels, franchises, continuations, and parodies. Sequels of all kinds demonstrate the economic realities of the literary marketplace. This represents something fundamental about the way human beings process narrative information. We crave narrative closure, but we also resist its finality, making such closure both inevitable and inadequate in human narratives. Many cultures incorporate this fundamental ambiguity towards closure in the mythic frameworks that fuel their narrative imaginations. New Testaments: Cognition, Closure and the Figural Logic of the Sequel, 1660-1740 examines both the inevitability and the inadequacy of closure in the sequels to four major works of literature written in England between 1660 and 1740: Paradise Lost, The Pilgrim's Progress, Robinson Crusoe, and Pamela. Each of these works spawned sequels, which--while often different from the original works--connected themselves through rhetorical strategies that can be loosely defined as figural. Such strategies came directly from the culture's two dominant religious narratives: the Old and New Testaments of the Christian Bible--two vastly dissimilar works seen universally as complementary parts of a unified and coherent narrative.

Download or read book Histories that Mansoul and Her Wars Anatomize written by Robert J. McKelvey and published by Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. This book was released on 2011-06-16 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Robert McKelvey argues that John Bunyan wrote The Holy War as a warfare allegory symbolizing the salvation history of Scripture from a Calvinistic-covenantal perspective. In this cosmic drama of redemption, the "Histories That Mansoul, and her Wars Anatomize" include the individual-soteric-microcosmic level or ordo salutis unfolding analogous to the redemptive-historical-macrocosmic level or historia salutis. The eternal covenant of redemption provides the foundation for this history of salvation, which progresses from creation to the anticipation of consummation. This scheme finds its roots in the Puritan philosophy of "universal history" which sees all historical events serving God's redemptive purposes. The individual, through union with Christ founded on election, participates in the drama by inclusion within the trans-historical covenant of grace. As a depiction of cosmic war, The Holy War sets forth the enmity between the church and Antichrist, which is representative of the greater battle between Christ and the devil from Genesis to Revelation. As a pastoral guide to persecuted saints, Bunyan retrospectively rehearses the history of redemption to grant comfort. In addition, he prospectively reveals the consummation of redemption to encourage perseverance and instil eschatological hope. This thesis is substantiated contextually through Bunyan's life and writings, historiographically by surveying the history of Holy War interpretation, pre-textually by examining the introduction to the allegory, and textually by analyzing the allegory itself.

Download or read book Allegory and Enchantment written by Jason Crawford and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017-01-19 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is modernity? Where are modernitys points of origin? Where are its boundaries? And what lies beyond those boundaries? Allegory and Enchantment explores these broad questions by considering the work of English writers at the threshold of modernity, and by considering,in particular, the cultural forms these writers want to leave behind. From the fourteenth to the seventeenth centuries, many English writers fashion themselves as engaged in breaking away from an array of old idols: magic, superstition, tradition, the sacramental, the medieval. Many of these writers persistently use metaphors of disenchantment, of awakening from a broken spell, to describe their self-consciously modern orientation toward a medieval past. And many of them associate that repudiated past with the dynamics and conventions of allegory. In the hands of the major English practitioners of allegorical narrativeWilliam Langland, John Skelton, Edmund Spenser, and John Bunyanallegory shows signs of strain and disintegration. The work of these writers seems to suggest a story of modern emergence in which medieval allegory, with its search for divine order in the material world, breaks down under the pressure of modern disenchantment. But these four early modern writers also make possible other understandings of modernity. Each of them turns to allegory as a central organizing principle for his most ambitious poetic projects. Each discovers in the ancient forms of allegory a vital, powerful instrument of disenchantment. Each of them, therefore, opens up surprising possibilities: that allegory and modernity are inescapably linked; that the story of modern emergence is much older than the early modern period; and that the things modernity has tried to repudiatethe old enchantmentsare not as alien, or as absent, as they seem.

Download or read book Fictional and Historical Worlds written by J. Hart and published by Springer. This book was released on 2012-01-30 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examines possible and fictional worlds, author and authority, otherness and recognition, translation, alternative critique, empire, education, imagination, comedy, history, poetry, and culture. The analyzed works include classical and modern texts and theorists of the past sixty years ranging from Jerome Bruner to Stephen Greenblatt.

Download or read book Grace abounding to the chief of sinners written by John Bunyan and published by . This book was released on 1863 with total page 156 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Protestant Autobiography in the Seventeenth Century Anglophone World written by Kathleen Lynch and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2012-03-22 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Autobiographical narrative is seldom viewed as a catalyst for the social and political upheavals of mid-seventeenth-century England and its colonies. Protestant Autobiography in the Seventeenth-Century Anglophone World argues that it should be. Focusing on the inward search for signs of election as a powerful stimulus for new, written forms of self-identification, this study directs critical attention toward the collective processes through which 'truthful' texts of spiritual experience were constructed, validated, and endorsed. This new analysis of the rhetoric of authentic selfhood emphasizes the ways in which personal accounts of religious awakening became another opportunity to conceptualize experience as an authorizing principle. A broad spectrum of Protestant life-writing is explored, from Augustine's Confessions, first translated into English in 1620, through John Bunyan's Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners (1666) and Richard Baxter's Reliquiae Baxterianae (1696). The forms in which these landmark texts were circulated and the interests that those circulations served are examined in such a way as to put canonical texts back into conversation with the outpouring of individual life writings that dates from the middle of the 17th century on. As the first new historicized account of the seventeenth-century Protestant conversion narrative in a generation, Protestant Autobiography in the Seventeenth-Century Anglophone World contributes to the reintegration of the scholarly fields of literature, religion, and politics. It revitalizes the study of proto-literary forms which, while devotional in nature, were deeply political in their consequences, contributing as they did to the emerging discourse of personal liberties.

Download or read book Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners written by John Bunyan and published by . This book was released on 2010-12 with total page 140 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Grace Abounding is the personal testimony of John Bunyan, the author of the Pilgrim's Progress. It describes his life before conversion, his attempts to reform himself through his own efforts, his conviction of sin, and his acceptance of the grace of God in Christ Jesus. John Bunyan goes on to describe how he was asked to become a preacher, how he was imprisoned, and his conclusions from his experiences. An afterword continues Bunyan's life from the point where his autobiography leaves off. John Bunyan was born in 1628 near the village of Elstow, Bedfordshire, England. As a young man in the 1640s, he served in the English Civil War. He then returned to the skilled crafts by which he earned his living. Converted during the 1650s, John Bunyan began to preach. His preaching brought him into conflict with English religious laws of the time, and he was imprisoned, finally being released in 1672 after King Charles II liberalized the laws. It was during his time in prison that he wrote many of his books. Bunyan subsequently pastored a church in Bedford, England, and served as chaplain to the Lord Mayor of London.

Download or read book Themelios Volume 45 Issue 3 written by D. A. Carson and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2021-01-08 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Themelios is an international, evangelical, peer-reviewed theological journal that expounds and defends the historic Christian faith. Themelios is published three times a year online at The Gospel Coalition (http://thegospelcoalition.org/themelios/) and in print by Wipf and Stock. Its primary audience is theological students and pastors, though scholars read it as well. Themelios began in 1975 and was operated by RTSF/UCCF in the UK, and it became a digital journal operated by The Gospel Coalition in 2008. The editorial team draws participants from across the globe as editors, essayists, and reviewers. General Editor: D. A. Carson, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School Managing Editor: Brian Tabb, Bethlehem College and Seminary Consulting Editor: Michael J. Ovey, Oak Hill Theological College Administrator: Andrew David Naselli, Bethlehem College and Seminary Book Review Editors: Jerry Hwang, Singapore Bible College; Alan Thompson, Sydney Missionary & Bible College; Nathan A. Finn, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary; Hans Madueme, Covenant College; Dane Ortlund, Crossway; Jason Sexton, Golden Gate Baptist Seminary Editorial Board: Gerald Bray, Beeson Divinity School Lee Gatiss, Wales Evangelical School of Theology Paul Helseth, University of Northwestern, St. Paul Paul House, Beeson Divinity School Ken Magnuson, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary Jonathan Pennington, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary James Robson, Wycliffe Hall Mark D. Thompson, Moore Theological College Paul Williamson, Moore Theological College Stephen Witmer, Pepperell Christian Fellowship Robert Yarbrough, Covenant Seminary

Download or read book John Bunyan s The Pilgrim s Progress written by John Bunyan and published by . This book was released on 1916 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book John Bunyan an Autobiography written by John Bunyan and published by . This book was released on 1873 with total page 154 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners Authentic Original Classic written by John Bunyan and published by Destiny Image Publishers. This book was released on 2011-07-28 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "My grace is sufficient for thee" (2 Corinthians 12:9). Before Pilgrim's Progress, John Bunyan wrote Grace Abounding-from his jail cell. John was not imprisoned for his youthful rebellion, but for preaching the gospel after he heard a word from God. "For though, as yet, I was nothing but a poor painted hypocrite, yet I loved to be talked of as one that was truly godly." For many years, John-like all Christians-struggled with his sinful nature. In Grace Abounding, he honestly declares his shortcomings, and knows that he must overcome them to fulfill his destiny. "But one morning, when I was again at prayer, and trembling under the fear of this, that no word of God could help me, that piece of a sentence darted in upon me, 'My grace is sufficient.'" Throughout John's life he realized how vulnerable he was, and how great God's grace is. First, I confessed I was fallen, but not fallen away…. Secondly, I confessed that I had put Jesus Christ to shame by my sin, but not to open shame…. Discover God's abounding grace for you through this classic work that has guided countless many over the past 300 years.

Download or read book The Strait Gate written by John Bunyan and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2016-06-15 with total page 80 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A TREATISE EVEN MORE RELEVANT NEARLY 350 YEARS LATER The Strait Gate is a treatise written by Puritan author, John Bunyan, author of The Pilgrim's Progress. This treatise was originally published in 1676 with the purpose of the wickedness prevalent among many professing believers in Bunyan's day. One of the issues arose from the general laxity in the preaching the gospel; and near kin to it, was the ease with which someone could make a confession of faith- having no conviction of sin, nor fruit of repentance, and no holiness of living. John Bunyan took the matter to task. Free from his incarceration at the Bedford Jail for two years (after 12 years in prison), Mr. Bunyan exhorted his readers to embrace a pure gospel, a Biblical gospel. Bunyan viewed the Person and work of Jesus Christ the mainspring from which every aspect of acceptable Christianity was produced, be it doctrinal, dutiful or devotional. "Good works must flow from faith, or not at all," wrote John Bunyan in his 1663 treatise, Christian Behaviour (first published in 1674). FROM GEORGE OFFER IN 1862 In his "Editor's Advertisement," prelude to this treatise in The Complete Works of John Bunyan, George Offor wrote, "If any uninspired writer has been entitled to the name of Boanerges, or a son of thunder, it is the author of the following treatise. Here we have a most searching and faithful display of the straitness or exact dimensions of that all-important gate, which will not suffer many professors to pass into the kingdom of heaven, encumbered as they are with fatal errors. Still 'it is no little pinching wicket, but wide enough for all the truly gracious and sincere lovers of Jesus Christ; while it is so strait, that no others can by any means enter in.' This is a subject calculated to rouse and stimulate all genuine professors to solemn inquiry; and it was peculiarly intended to dart at, and fix convictions upon, the multitudes of hypocritical professors who abounded in Bunyan's time, especially under the reigns of the later Stuarts." More than 150 years since Mr. Offor wrote his advertisement, and nearly 350 years since Mr. Bunyan wrote this treatise, error has multiplied and, worse, been magnified to nearly culminate with a mishmash of every error and corruption of the gospel since the birth of the church in the first century. With Mr. Bunyan's treatise, The Strait Gate, the discerning believer will agree that the Bedford tinker-turned-preacher's exhortation to receive knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior must come from the scriptures alone, and that this knowledge must be received and understood by the light of the Holy Spirit; and logically presenting the Biblical truths in Mr. Bunyan's unique and indefatigable way, you will be encouraged by this work and rejoice in its purity of propositional truth, revel in its sincerity toward practical application, and resolve to take up a more passionate devotion to Christ's person as God and Savior. SPURGEON ON BUNYAN'S WRITING . Of John Bunyan and his classic story, Charles H. Spurgeon had this to say: "...he cannot give us his Pilgrim's Progress- that sweetest of all prose poems- without continually making us feel and say, 'Why, this man is a living Bible!' Prick him anywhere; his blood is Bibline, the very essence of the Bible flows from him." Although Mr. Spurgeon preached this concerning Bunyan's famous allegory, once you've read this treatise, you'll readily agree, that Bunyan's blood is indeed Bibline in everything he writes. May you benefit greatly from the puritan heart and mind of John Bunyan, forged by God's Word and formed by Christ's Divine Light.

Download or read book John Bunyan s Master Story written by Daniel V. Runyon and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study demonstrates that with The Holy War, John Bunyan created a literary masterpiece in the tradition of Psychomania by Prudentius and set the standard by which to judge battle allegories. This analysis reveals the roots of Bunyan's genius in both his theological and literary sensibilities, shaped by Luther and Foxe, and his comprehensive understanding of the biblical plot or master story. This work details biblical foundations and literary devices employed by Bunyan which have remained unnoticed in previous studies, while also engaging themes or motifs of importance to him as a writer and thinker.