About That Pilgrim’s Progress

Over the next months leading up to Reformation Month (October) of this year, I am studying through The Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan (Parts 1 & 2). I will be using Derek Thomas’ excellent teaching series on Ligonier that contains approximately 18 lessons. To prepare, I read through Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners, which is Bunyan’s autobiography. To cap things off, I plan to meet with leaders in training and prospectives ones to discuss both parts of Bunyan’s work. Along the pathway, I may post a thing or two here.

To begin with, I enjoyed Bunyan’s opening apology. “Apology” in this sense is a justification or a vindication, as opposed to an excuse.¹ This apology is written in poetry of ten-syllables per line (called iambic pentameter), often with rhyming couplets. As I simultaneously study the Prophet Isaiah, a few lines in particular stood out to me:

The Prophets used much by Metaphors
To set forth Truth; Yea, who so considers
Christ his Apostles too, shall plainly see,
That Truths, to this day, in such Mantles be.
Am I afraid to say that Holy Writ,
Which for its Style and Praise puts down all wit,
Is everywhere so full of all these things,
(Dark figures, Allegories) yet there springs
From that same Book, the lustre, and those rays
Of light, that turns our darkest nights to days.

Roger Pooley notes:

“Bunyan learned to read the Old Testament typologically, that is, to see in characters and events of the Old Testament a foreshadowing of the person and work of Christ. Although the value of metaphor seems to be an argument between Bunyan’s friends, there was also an argument during the Restoration between Anglicans and Dissenters about the desirability of plain speech. Bunyan’s admirer John Owen was attacked by Samuel Parker for his use of ‘fulsome and luscious metaphors’.

…

Another line I enjoy is,

Sound words I know Timothy is to use,
And Old Wives’ Fables he is to refuse:
But yet grave Paul him no where did forbid
The use of Parables: in which lay hid
That gold, those pearls, and precious stones that were
Worth digging for, and that with greatest care

I have little by way of comment on these words except that I appreciate Bunyan’s view of the pastor was one that expanded beyond plain speech and utilized many genres of literature.

One more perhaps:

I find that men (as high as Trees) will write
dialogue-wise, yet no man doth them slight,
For writing so: Indeed if they abuse
Truth, cursed be they, and the craft they use
To that intent; but yet let Truth be free
to make her Sallies upon Thee, and Me,
Which way it pleases God: for who knows how,
Better than he that taught us first to Plough,
To Guide our Mind and Pens for his Design?
And he makes base things ushered in Divine.

The last words are an allusion to Isaiah 28:24, 26, which say, “Does he who plows for sowing plow continually? Does he continually open and harrow his ground?…For he is rightly instructed; his God teaches him.” As such, God is said to guide the pen just as to guide the plow. And I find that one could very well form prayer or a writer’s liturgy from the above. And more than that, for any vocation has its dependence in God’s gifts and wisdom.

1. See note in Penguin Classics edition. The standard text being used in our study group is the Chapel Library edition, however, I am generally using the edition that Derek Thomas used for his study of the book for reference throughout. The main text is the same, just different notations throughout which will supplement those I am training with another vantage point.