THE PILGRIM’S PROGRESS © 2014 Desiring God Published by Desiring God Post Ofce Box 2901 Minneapolis, MN 55402 www.desiringGod.org Permissions You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way and do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction. For web posting, a link to this document on our website is preferred. Any exceptions to the above must be approved by Desiring God. Please include the following statement on any distributed copy: © Desiring God. Website: desiringGod.org Cover Design: Peter Voth Typesetting: Ryan Leichty Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version ®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway. Used by permission. All rights reserved. All emphases in Scripture quotations have been added by the author or editor. Material for this book has been taken from The Hidden Smile of God by John Piper, © 2001. Used by permission of Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers, Wheaton, IL 60187, www.crossway. org. For more biographies from John Piper, see Crossway’s series, The Swans Are Not Silent. TABLE OF CONTENTS Foreword by Leland Ryken I To Live Upon God Who Is Invisible: Te Life of John Bunyan by John Piper IX Preface by John Newton (1776) XXXIX The Pilgrim’s Progress Te Jail 1 Conviction of the Necessity of Flying 5 Te Slough of Despond 9 Evangelist Findeth Christian Under Mount Sinai, and Looketh Severely Upon Him 19 Proceeds to the Cross 39 Christian Saluted by the Tree Shining Ones 41 Te Hill of Difculty 45 Te Valley of Humiliation 61 Combat with Appolyon 65 Christian Overtakes Faithful 75 Christian Has Another Companion 111 Te Delectable Mountains 135 Christian, Hopeful, and the Shepherds 139 Adventures on the Enchanted Ground 155 Ministering Spirits Meet Christian and Hopeful 183 Te Conclusion 187 Scripture Index 189 Acknowledgements 197 FOREWORD Leland Ryken Te book that became known to posterity as The Pilgrim’s Progress is a Christian classic whose importance is impossi- ble to overstate. For more than two centuries after its frst publication, The Pilgrim’s Progress ranked just behind the King James Bible as the most important book in evangelical Protestant households. Te book has been translated into some two hundred languages, including eighty in Africa. Any book that has achieved such popularity has a very large claim to our attention. Facts of Publication The Pilgrim’s Progress actually has two publication dates, cor- responding to the two books that comprise it. Te frst book was published in 1678 and bore the title The Pilgrim’s Prog- ress: From This World to That Which Is to Come, Delivered Under the Similitude of a Dream. It tells the story of the spir- itual journey of the protagonist named Christian from the City of Destruction to the Celestial City (meaning heaven). Book II was published six years later as part of an old artistic tradition known as a “companion piece.” It tells the story of the same journey, this time undertaken by Chris- tian’s wife, Christiana, and their four sons. Te two books I Foreword continued to be published separately until 1728, not being published as a combined book until forty-four years after the frst appearance of Book II. Tis new edition from De- siring God resembles the early publication strategy of The Pilgrim’s Progress by releasing Book I individually. Additionally, in order to provide more insight into the life of Bunyan, this new edition features an introduction by John Piper that traces the character of Bunyan’s faith in the midst of sufering. Tis new edition also includes a preface written by John Newton in 1776. Newton’s preface accom- panied several publications of The Pilgrim’s Progress in the eighteenth century, but has virtually been non-existent for the last century. Te recovery of this preface and incorpora- tion into the present volume sets it apart from other editions currently in print. Author and Composition Te author of The Pilgrim’s Progress is John Bunyan (1628– 1688), one of the most famous preachers in English history as well as a popular British author. Externally Bunyan led a difcult life. He was poor from childhood. He married his frst wife at the age of twenty, and Bunyan once claimed that when the couple married they had not “so much household stuf as a dish or spoon betwixt us both.” By Bunyan’s own account, he led a wild youth and was converted at the ap- proximate age of thirty. Following his conversion, Bunyan felt a call to preach. Terein lay a difculty. Religious tolerance had not yet ar- rived on the scene, and only one state-sanctioned Christian group enjoyed freedom of worship. In Bunyan’s day that group was the Church of England, also known as the An- glican Church. Bunyan was a Baptist preacher who refused to stop preaching without an ofcial license. As a result, II Foreword Bunyan found himself in and out of prison over a period of twelve years (1659–1671). While imprisoned, he eked out a living for his family by making shoe laces. Much great literature and art have been produced in the crucible of sufering, and The Pilgrim’s Progress is such a work. Te consensus of scholarly opinion is that Bunyan wrote Book I of his masterpiece while in prison. (He is also reputed to have secretly carved a fute from a table leg in the prison.) Bunyan was emphatically not a one-book author. De- spite his chaotic and stressful external life (including the death of his frst wife when he was approximately thirty and the blindness of his daughter Mary), Bunyan was a prolifc author. He published over thirty books, mainly theological in nature. Bunyan was also one of the most famous preachers of his day (which partly explains why the civil and Anglican ofcials singled him our for particularly harsh treatment). After his release from prison, Bunyan sometimes traveled all the way from his native Bedford to London to preach (a two-day journey in Bunyan’s day). On one recorded event, 1,200 Londoners turned out on a cold winter morning to hear Bunyan preach. Bunyan’s death at the age of sixty was caused by pneumo- nia resulting from exposure to drenching rain while Bunyan made a two-day trip on horseback to heal relations between a father and his estranged son. Bunyan was buried in the famous nonconformist cemetery in London called Bunhill Fields. Te monument on his tomb is today the most prom- inent site in the cemetery. On its side is the carved fgure of a person carrying a burden on his back, a picture of the most famous moment in The Pilgrim’s Progress where Christian loses his burden of sin at the foot of the cross. III Foreword The Pilgrim’s Progress As a Literary Classic The Pilgrim’s Progress is a paradox. On the one hand it is a work of folk literature. Tis makes it a book of the common people, just like the Bible. Trough the ages, parents have read The Pilgrim’s Progress to their children much as they read Bible stories to them. Reinforcing this identity of being a book for ordinary people rather than literary scholars is the religious nature of the book. It is a book of edifcation frst, and beyond that it ofers whatever entertainment value we might wish to fnd in it. But that is only half of the picture. The Pilgrim’s Progress is also a complex work of literature, appealing to people of literary sophistication as well as the common person. Per- haps no other literary masterpiece incorporates as many dif- ferent literary genres as The Pilgrim’s Progress. Te primary genre is narrative or story. Tis means that readers need to be ready to respond to the three narrative ingredients of setting, characters, and plot. Most storytellers excel in one of these or perhaps two, but we would be hard pressed to decide which of the three Bunyan is best at. He is good at all three. His ability to describe scenes cannot be surpassed. But just as we think that this is Bunyan’s specialty, we remember his skill with character creation and remind ourselves that few authors have given us a greater gallery of memorable characters than Bunyan. And then we further recall that Bunyan’s skill with plot is breathtaking. What kind of story is Te Pilgrim’s Progress? Te list of subgenres is nearly endless. Te main storyline is a travel story, in the specifc form of a perilous journey (surely one of the fve greatest story motifs of all time). Te virtues of the travel story are one of the leading appeals of Te Pil- grim’s Progress, as we are entranced by strange settings re- mote from our daily routine (though somehow familiar), IV Foreword encounters with unusual characters, and narrow escapes in abundance. Many travel stories are quest stories, and this is true of The Pilgrim’s Progress. Te protagonists of the two books— Christian in Book I and Christiana in Book II—leave the City of Destruction in a search to fnd the Celestial City. Te story of their quests is an adventure story par excellence. Danger and suspense greet us at every turn. An Allegory Much more could be said about the story qualities of The Pilgrim’s Progress, but the really essential fnal thing that we need to note is that Bunyan’s story is an allegory.