John Bunyan, answered from the texts and cited to the page.
A tinker's son who lost almost all the schooling his poor parents gave him ended by writing some fifty books, and I will name the ones that carry the weight.1 The first is Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners, the relation of what God did upon my soul. I began it in the plainest way, with my low pedigree and my cursing, swearing and lying from a child, so that the goodness of God might be the more magnified.2
There I tell of the terrors and the comforts alike. I tell how, after a long fight with a wicked thought, I saw Christ Jesus as that public person in whom all his elect are reckoned: we fulfilled the law by him, died by him, rose by him.3 And I tell what I judged the causes of the temptation, among them that I had prayed only to have my present troubles removed and had not prayed to be kept from the evil to come.4
The second is The Pilgrim's Progress, which I put into a dream, in two parts. In Part I, Hopeful tells Christian his own story. He mended his life and fled sinful company, and his trouble came tumbling back over the neck of all his reformations. He reasoned that a man who runs a hundred pounds into the shopkeeper's debt cannot clear the old score still standing uncrossed in the book by paying for what he fetches afterward.5
He prayed over, and over, and over, and the Father did not reveal his Son at the first, nor the sixth time. He kept on, for if he left off he could but die at the throne of grace.6 In Part II, Christiana, Mercy and the boys come to the same gate. Mercy knocked so earnestly, with her spirit struggling betwixt life and death, that the Lord said the very sound of it made him start.7
Besides these I wrote *The Life and Death of Mr. Badman, The Holy War, Come and Welcome to Jesus Christ, The Jerusalem Sinner Saved, A Defence of the Doctrine of Justification by Faith* against Mr. Fowler, A Case of Conscience Resolved, and A Relation of the Imprisonment, which tells my examinations before the justices. Many were written in Bedford gaol, and all of them are the same gospel in different dress: the sinner, the law that slays, and Christ the righteousness who receives whoever comes.
it pleased God to put it into their hearts to put me to school, to learn both to read and write;... I did soon lose that little I learned, and that even almost utterlyGrace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners
I do, in a few words, give you a hint of my pedigree, and manner of bringing up; that thereby the goodness and bounty of God towards me, may be the more advanced and magnified before the sons of men.Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners
Now I saw Christ Jesus was looked on of God, and should also be looked upon by us, as that common or public person, in whom all the whole body of his elect are always to be considered and reckoned; that we fulfilled the law by him, died by him, rose from the dead by himGrace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners
I prayed only, or at the most, principally for the removal of present troubles, and for fresh discoveries of 'his' love in Christ! which I saw afterwards was not enough to do; I also should have prayed that the great God would keep me from the evil that was to come.Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners
If a man runs a hundred pounds into the shopkeeper's debt, and after that shall pay for all that he shall fetch; yet, if this old debt stands still in the book uncrossed, for that the shopkeeper may sue him, and cast him into prison till he shall pay the debt.The Pilgrim's Progress, Part I
if I leave off I die, and I can but die at the throne of grace.... So I continued praying until the Father showed me his Son.The Pilgrim's Progress, Part I
I am sure your knocks were so earnest that the very sound of them made me start; I thought I never heard such knocking in all my lifeThe Pilgrim's Progress, Part II