Grace Abounding To The Chief Of Sinners Order Printed Copy

Author: John Bunyan
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About the Book

"Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners" is an autobiographical work by John Bunyan in which he recounts his spiritual journey from a life of sin and doubt to finding redemption and salvation through his faith in God. Bunyan describes the struggles and trials he faced, as well as the unwavering grace and mercy he received from God. The book serves as a powerful testament to the transformative power of faith and the boundless love of God.

John Knox

"The sword of justice is God's, and if princes and rulers fail to use it, others may." He was a minister of the Christian gospel who advocated violent revolution. He was considered one of the most powerful preachers of his day, but only two of the hundreds of sermons he preached were ever published. He is a key figure in the formation of modern Scotland, yet there is only one monument erected to him in Scotland, and his grave lies beneath a parking lot. John Knox was indeed a man of many paradoxes, a Hebrew Jeremiah set down on Scottish soil. In a relentless campaign of fiery oratory, he sought to destroy what he felt was idolatry and to purify Scotland's religion. Taking up the cause John Knox was born around 1514, at Haddington, a small town south of Edinburgh. Around 1529 he entered the University of St. Andrews and went on to study theology. He was ordained in 1536, but became a notary, then a tutor to the sons of local lairds (lower ranking Scottish nobility). Dramatic events were unfolding in Scotland during Knox's youth. Many were angry with the Catholic church, which owned more than half the real estate and gathered an annual income of nearly 18 times that of the crown. Bishops and priests were often mere political appointments, and many never hid their immoral lives: the archbishop of St. Andrews, Cardinal Beaton, openly consorted with concubines and sired 10 children. The constant sea traffic between Scotland and Europe allowed Lutheran literature to be smuggled into the country. Church authorities were alarmed by this "heresy" and tried to suppress it. Patrick Hamilton, an outspoken Protestant convert, was burned at the stake in 1528. In the early 1540s, Knox came under the influence of converted reformers, and under the preaching of Thomas Guilliame, he joined them. Knox then became a bodyguard for the fiery Protestant preacher George Wishart, who was speaking throughout Scotland. In 1546, however, Beaton had Wishart arrested, tried, strangled, and burned. In response, a party of 16 Protestant nobles stormed the castle, assassinated Beaton, and mutilated his body. The castle was immediately put to siege by a fleet of French ships (Catholic France was an ally to Scotland). Though Knox was not privy to the murder, he did approve of it, and during a break in the siege, he joined the besieged party in the castle. During a Protestant service one Sunday, preacher John Rough spoke on the election of ministers, and publicly asked Knox to undertake the office of preacher. When the congregation confirmed the call, Knox was shaken and reduced to tears. He declined at first, but eventually submitted to what he felt was a divine call. It was a short-lived ministry. In 1547, after St. Andrews Castle had again been put under siege, it finally capitulated. Some of the occupants were imprisoned. Others, like Knox, were sent to the galleys as slaves. Traveling preacher Nineteen months passed before he and others were released. Knox spent the next five years in England, and his reputation for preaching quickly blossomed. But when Catholic Mary Tudor took the throne, Knox was forced to flee to France. He made his way to Geneva, where he met John Calvin. The French reformer described Knox as a "brother … laboring energetically for the faith." Knox for his part, was so impressed with Calvin's Geneva, he called it, "the most perfect school of Christ that was ever on earth since the days of the apostles." Knox traveled on to Frankfurt am Main, where he joined other Protestant refugees—and quickly became embroiled in controversy. The Protestants could not agree on an order of worship. Arguments became so heated that one group stormed out of a church one Sunday, refusing to worship in the same building as Knox. Back in Scotland, Protestants were redoubling their efforts, and congregations were forming all over the country. A group that came to be called "The Lords of the Congregation" vowed to make Protestantism the religion of the land. In 1555, they invited Knox to return to Scotland to inspire the reforming task. Knox spent nine months preaching extensively and persuasively in Scotland before he was forced to return to Geneva. Fiery blasts of the pen Away from his homeland again, he published some of his most controversial tracts: In his Admonition to England he virulently attacked the leaders who allowed Catholicism back in England. In The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women he argued that a female ruler (like English Queen Mary Tudor) was "most odious in the presence of God" and that she was "a traitoress and rebel against God." In his Appellations to the Nobility and Commonality of Scotland, he extended to ordinary people the right—indeed the duty—to rebel against unjust rulers. As he told Queen Mary of Scotland later, "The sword of justice is God's, and if princes and rulers fail to use it, others may." Knox returned to Scotland in 1559, and he again deployed his formidable preaching skills to increase Protestant militancy. Within days of his arrival, he preached a violent sermon at Perth against Catholic "idolatry," causing a riot. Altars were demolished, images smashed, and religious houses destroyed. In June, Knox was elected the minister of the Edinburgh church, where he continued to exhort and inspire. In his sermons, Knox typically spent half an hour calmly exegeting a biblical passage. Then as he applied the text to the Scottish situation, he became "active and vigorous" and would violently pound the pulpit. Said one note taker, "he made me so to grew [quake] and tremble, that I could not hold pen to write." The Lords of the Congregation militarily occupied more and more cities, so that finally, in the 1560 Treaty of Berwick, the English and French agreed to leave Scotland. (The English, now under Protestant Elizabeth I, had come to the aid of the Protestant Scots; the French were aiding the Catholic party). The future of Protestantism in Scotland was assured. The Parliament ordered Knox and five colleagues to write a Confession of Faith, the First Book of Discipline, and The Book of Common Order—all of which cast the Protestant faith of Scotland in a distinctly Calvinist and Presbyterian mode. Knox finished out his years as preacher of the Edinburgh church, helping shape the developing Protestantism in Scotland. During this time, he wrote his History of the Reformation of Religion in Scotland. Though he remains a paradox to many, Knox was clearly a man of great courage: one man standing before Knox's open grave said, "Here lies a man who neither flattered nor feared any flesh." Knox's legacy is large: his spiritual progeny includes some 750,000 Presbyterians in Scotland, 3 million in the United States, and many millions more worldwide.

martyr or madman: the unnerving faith of ignatius

“I am afraid of your love,” Bishop Ignatius wrote to the early church in Rome, “lest it should do me an injury” ( Epistle to the Romans 1.2). It is hard to imagine more ironic words. Ignatius, a disciple of the apostle John, was nearing seventy years of age when he sent the letter ahead of him on August 24 (somewhere between AD 107 and 110). He told them he remained “afraid” of the believers’ love — meaning he was afraid that they would keep him from martyrdom, that they would “do him an injury” by keeping him from being torn apart by lions. Ignatius sent a total of seven letters to seven churches en route to the Colosseum. This letter to the church in Rome gave his thoughts on martyrdom and extended a special plea for their non-interference in his. Instead of asking for whatever influence the Roman believers may have had to release him, he bids them stand down. In his own words, For neither shall I ever hereafter have such an opportunity of attaining to God; nor will ye, if ye shall now be silent, ever be entitled to the honor of a better work. For if ye are silent concerning me, I shall become God’s; but if ye show your love to my flesh, I shall again have to run my race. Pray, then, do not seek to confer any greater favor upon me than that I be sacrificed to God. (2.2) And again, I write to all the Churches, and impress on them all, that I shall willingly die for God, unless ye hinder me. I beseech of you not to show an unseasonable good-will towards me. Suffer me to become food for the wild beasts, through whose instrumentality it will be granted me to attain to God. (4.1) Martyr or Madman? Michael Haykin’s assessment seems conclusive: “In the seven letters of Ignatius of Antioch we possess one of the richest resources for understanding Christianity in the era immediately following that of the apostles” (31). Surveying Ignatius’s letters to the seven churches on the road to Rome, Haykin summarizes three concerns weighing heavily upon the bishop’s mind: (1) the unity of the local church, (2) her standing firm against heresy, and (3) non-interference in his calling to martyrdom (32). The first and second are unsurprising, but what are we to make of the third? What do you think of a man saying, “May I enjoy the wild beasts that are prepared for me; and I pray that they may be found eager to rush upon me, which also I will entice to devour me speedily. . . . But if they be unwilling to assail me, I will compel them to do so” (5.2)? Who is this Daniel praying not for rescue but looking forward to the lion’s den? “Christians had been killed in the past, but few with as much enthusiasm.” Some scholars, Haykin notes, have called him mentally imbalanced, pathologically bent on death (32). Christians had been killed in the past, but few, if any, with such enthusiasm. What right-thinking Christian would write, “If I shall suffer, ye have loved me; but if I am rejected, ye have hated me” (8.3)? Was he a madman? ‘Sanity’ to Ignatius Did he have an irrational proclivity for martyrdom? Can his death wish fit within the bounds of mature Christian life and experience? If you were his fellow bishop and friend — say, Polycarp (later a martyr himself) — what might you say if you desired to dissuade him? You might call his mind to the holy Scripture — for example, Jesus’s prophecy of Peter’s own martyrdom (which happened years earlier in Rome). Jesus foretold, “Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were young, you used to dress yourself and walk wherever you wanted, but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want to go ” (John 21:18). The apostle Peter did not want to go and stretch out his hands in his own crucifixion. He did not want to be dressed by another and “carried” to his death. Granted, he wanted that end more than denying his Master again, but it stands to reason that if he could have ended differently, he would have chosen otherwise. Or you might consider the apostle Paul and his second-to-last letter before he too was likely beheaded in Rome. “First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way” (1 Timothy 2:1–2). He exhorts that prayers be made for rulers that Christians might lead quiet and peaceful lives. Pray for your leaders, in part, that they might be saved — and thus not given to killing you “all the day long” for public entertainment (Romans 8:36). Ignatius to ‘Sanity’ “But,” the well-taught bishop might have responded, “did not Peter write much of suffering and necessary trials as tests to our faith? Does not God place our faith in the fire (or the Colosseum) that it might be found to result in praise and glory and honor at Christ’s revelation (1 Peter 1:7; 4:12)? Or did Peter not put forward the suffering servant, Jesus Christ, as our example to follow? Or is it not a ‘gracious thing in the sight of God’ to endure suffering for righteousness’ sake — something we are ‘called to’ and blessed in (1 Peter 2:20; 3:14)? And further, did Peter not tell the church to ‘arm’ themselves with this thinking (1 Peter 4:1), and to rejoice insofar as they share in Christ’s sufferings, evidence that the Spirit of glory rests upon them (1 Peter 4:13–14)? “And what to say of our beloved Paul? Was it not he who was hard pressed to stay, even when fruitful labor awaited him? Did he not inscribe my heart on paper when he said, ‘To live is Christ, and to die is gain,’ and that to be with Christ is ‘far better’ (Philippians 1:21, 23)? And was it not also the case that, knowing he was walking from one affliction to the next, he walked the martyr’s path — against the behest and weeping of fellow Christians who threatened to break the apostle’s heart (Acts 21:12–13)? “‘Constrained by the Spirit,’ did he not go forward (Acts 20:22)? He testified that he did not count his life of any value nor as precious to himself, if only he could finish his race and ministry to testify to God’s grace (Acts 20:24). He assured crying saints along the violent road that he was ready not only to be imprisoned but to die for the name of Jesus (Acts 21:13). They eventually submitted and said, ‘Let the will of the Lord be done’ (Acts 21:14). Will you not imitate them, beloved Polycarp?” This imagining is to help us get into the mind of the “madman,” as well as to warn us from drawing hasty applications. Though most will not consent so insistently and passionately to a martyr’s death, some will pass by other exits on the way to testifying to the ultimate worth of Christ. Messiah’s Madmen What might we, far from the lions of Ignatius’s day, learn from the martyred bishop of Antioch? I am challenged by his all-consuming love for Jesus, a love that the world — and some in the church — considers crazy. Let fire and the cross; let the crowds of wild beasts; let breakings, tearings, and separations of bones; let cutting off of members; let bruising to pieces of the whole body; and let the very torment of the devil come upon me: only let me attain to Jesus Christ. (5.3) “If we are madmen, let it be for Christ.” If we are madmen, let it be for Christ. Should not Paul’s words be stated over our entire lives? “If we are beside ourselves, it is for God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you” (2 Corinthians 5:13). If we are crazy, it is because of Christ. If we are in our right minds, it is for others to be won to the same madness we have. The love of Christ “controls us” (2 Corinthians 5:14). Oh what a beautiful strangeness, what a provocative otherness, what an unidentifiable oddity is a Christian who loves Christ with his all and considers death to be truly gain. Such a one can see, even behind the teeth of lions, an endless life with him .