How did John Bunyan become a christian?

John Bunyan, answered from the texts and cited to the page.

John Bunyan answers

Not in a day, and not by a stroke. Ask me how I became a Christian and I must tell you first how long I was one in my own opinion and nothing of the kind in God's. When my neighbours began to say I was godly, an honest man made over, it pleased me mightily; I was a poor painted hypocrite, proud of my godliness, and did all I did to be seen of men or spoken well of by them.1

I gave up the ringing, then hankered after it, and stood in the steeple door, then fled from it for fear the steeple should fall on my head. The dancing I was a full year parting with. And whenever I kept this commandment or that, I had great peace, and thought no man in England could please God better than I.2 That was the whole of my religion: I was ignorant of Jesus Christ and going about to establish my own righteousness, and had perished in it had God not shown me more of my state by nature.3

The showing was terrible. I was tossed for years, and above all by the sentence about Esau, who sold his birthright and afterward found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears. It lay in my mind all day, all week, all year, and held me down.4 I searched the Word for a promise and thought I had found one in Mark, that all manner of sins shall be forgiven, but I put it from me, supposing it belonged to those who sinned in a natural estate, not to one who had had light and then slighted Christ.5

I feared my sin was that unpardonable one. I was a burden and a terror to myself, weary of my life and afraid to die, and would gladly have been anybody but myself.6 What turned me was not any goodness I found in myself. It was Christ's righteousness, reckoned to the sinner as he stands, laden with sin and guilt, as the father in the parable called for the best robe and put it on the prodigal, who had brought no qualification.7

That robe was in the father's house, not in the prodigal's heart. When I saw it so, I saw that my good frame and my bad frame could neither add to it nor take from it. I will not tell you the road was short. Hopeful, in my Pilgrim's Progress, who is more than half my own story, was bid to go to the mercy-seat and entreat on his knees; he did so over and over, and the Father did not reveal his Son at the first, nor the sixth time, and he thought a hundred times twice told of leaving off.

What kept him there was this: without that righteousness all the world could not save him, and he could but die at the throne of grace.8 So I tell every sinner who fears he is too vile: come, and wait for it. Though it tarry, it will surely come.

Sources

  1. I was proud of my godliness, and, indeed, I did all I did, either to be seen of, or to be well spoken of, by man.
    Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners
  2. I thought no man in England could please God better than I.
    Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners
  3. I was all this while ignorant of Jesus Christ, and going about to establish my own righteousness; and had perished therein, had not God, in mercy, showed me more of my state of nature.
    Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners
  4. that scripture would lie all day long, all the week long, yea, all the year long in my mind, and hold me down
    Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners
  5. I thought it was rather to be understood as relating more chiefly to those who had, while in a natural estate, committed such things as there are mentioned; but not to me
    Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners
  6. I was both the burden and a terror to myself, nor did I ever so know, as now, what it was to be weary of my life, and yet afraid to die.
    Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners
  7. This best robe, then, being in the father's house, was not in the prodigal's heart; neither stayed the father for further qualifications, but put it upon him as he was, surrounded with sin and oppressed with guilt.
    Justification by an Imputed Righteousness
  8. if I leave off I die, and I can but die at the throne of grace. And withal, this came into my mind, 'Though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry.'
    The Pilgrim's Progress, Part I