Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners (1666) is a spiritual autobiography by English author and Puritan preacher John Bunyan. Written while Bunyan was serving a lengthy prison sentence for preaching without a license, Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners is both a record of Bunyan’s personal experience, the story of his conversion, and a document of a time of historical and political crisis in England. The restoration of King Charles II to the throne in 1660—which followed years of sectarian violence and the 1649 execution of his father Charles I—initiated a period of religious and political repression. Nonconformist Christians, and preachers especially, were forbidden from practicing their faith, a crime for which Bunyan was arrested. He was tried and convicted in 1661, spending the next twelve years in Bedford County Gaol.

Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners, written and published during this period, is the story of Bunyan’s life, focusing on his conversion to Puritanism and his personal trials as a man punished for his beliefs. Containing numerous biblical references, Bunyan’s work is similar to Saint Augustine’s Confessions in its compositional structure—beginning with the author’s sinful youth, it moves through his process of conversion to his growth as a Christian and rise to the status of preacher. Where it differs, however, is in its detailed description of Bunyan’s arrest and imprisonment, a time he relied on his belief in God to carry him safely through.

While less popular than The Pilgrim’s Progress, a Christian allegory Bunyan began writing in jail, Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners is an important and powerful work which has inspired generations of Christians, including John Brown and Martin Luther King Jr.

This edition of John Bunyan’s

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