BUNYAN AND HIS TIMES. Historical sketch of the period.-Bunyan's contemporaries.-His boyhood and convictions of sin.-The Providence and Grace of God illustrated in his life and conversion. The characters he met with.-His Evangelist.-His spiritual and intellectual discipline.-Necessity of experimental piety, for a full appreciation and understanding of the Pilgrim's Progress. If a man were to look about the world, or over all the world's history, for that one of his race, in whose life there should be found the completest illustration of the providence and grace of God, he could hardly fix upon a more perfect instance, than that of John Bunyan. The detailed biography of this man I shall not attempt to present, in so short a sketch as that to which I must of necessity confine myself. But there are points in his life, where the Divine Providence is unfolded so gloriously, and junctures where the Divine grace comes out so clearly and so brightly, that nothing could be more simple, beautiful, and deeply interesting, than their illustration. On some of these points I shall dwell, premising, in order to a right view of them, a rapid but important glance at the age in which he lived. It was an age of great revolutions, great excitement, great genius, great talent; great extremes |