The Pilgrim's Progress
John Bunyan · 1678
A man with a heavy burden on his back sets out for the Celestial City: an adventure story, and an allegory of the Christian life.
1666 · Doubt & assurance · The gospel
Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners
To the Chief of Sinners
Before he wrote The Pilgrim's Progress, Bunyan wrote down his own spiritual journey. It is not a tidy success story. He describes years of fear, temptation and voices in his head, of reading a Bible verse one day and feeling hope, and the next day being sure he was lost.
Readers who have struggled with anxiety or doubt often find this book unexpectedly modern. It is short, numbered in small paragraphs, and easy to read a little at a time.
Bunyan kept adding to the book for the rest of his life. This edition follows his own words as he left them in the last edition printed before he died (1688), checked against the first (1666), in modern spelling. The cover shows a dream he describes: poor Christian women sitting in the sun on a mountain, a wall between him and them, and one narrow gap in it, which he says was Christ.
- About 3 hours to read (44,000 words)
- Easy, friendly reading
- Anyone who has wrestled with doubt, or who loved The Pilgrim's Progress and wants to meet its author.
Read it your way
Free to read and download. Paperbacks are coming soon. They will be printed on demand and sold at cost: we make nothing on them.
For churches, schools and local printers: the print-ready files are exactly what we send to Lulu, with the cover's spine sized to the page count. Print as many as you like.
Then & Now
What did 1688 look like?
Here is a paragraph from “Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners,” as it was first printed and as you'll read it in this edition.
As printed in 1688
215. This was a wonderment to me, yet truly, I am apt to think it was of God for the word of the Law, and Wrath must give place to the word of Life and Grace; because, though the word of Condemnation be glorious, yet the word of Life and Salvation doth far exceed in glory, 2 Cor. 3. 8, 9, 10, 11. Mar. 9. 5, 6, 7. Joh. 6. 37. Also that Moses and Elias must both vanish, and leave Christ and his Saints alone. p. 106
Today
214. This was a wonderment to me; yet truly‸ I am apt to think it was of God; for the word of the law and wrath must give place to the word of life and grace; because, though the word of condemnation be glorious, yet the word of life and salvation doth far exceed in glory (‸2 Cor‸ 3:‸8–12; Mark 9:‸5–‸7‸‸‸). Also, that Moses and Elias must both vanish, and leave Christ and His saints alone.
About this edition
Faithful, and easier to read
Bunyan's Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners in the words and italics of the sixth edition (1688), the last printed in his lifetime, newly transcribed from the page images, in modern spelling, with the passages that edition cut kept from the first (1666).
88.5% of the words are exactly as printed. Most of the rest are spelling and punctuation; only 3.2% changed in grammar or wording. Every change is recorded, and you can see each one in Then & Now.
Open Then & Now- First published
- 1666
- Made from
- The sixth edition (London, 1688)
How this edition was made
Sources
- Our transcription (CC0) of Grace Abounding, the sixth edition (London: Nath. Ponder, 1688): Kraken OCR of the British Library copy (EEBO microfilm, archive.org) corrected by six witnesses and the page images, the words the film lost in the gutter supplied from the 1692 copy, the 1666 first edition or the RTS text
- EEBO-TCP A30143: Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners (London, George Larkin, 1666), the first edition, a witness and the text of the passages 1688 cut
Checked against
- CCEL ThML of Grace Abounding (a later printing's text), the previous edition's source, kept as source/grace.ccel.witness.xml
- Grace Abounding (London, Robert Ponder, 1692), the seventh edition, a photograph of a printed copy (archive.org bunyangraceabounding5ed), read with Kraken: the witness for the words the 1688 film lost in the gutter
- GLM-OCR, Tesseract and archive.org's OCR of the 1688 scan, voters in the transcription (2026-11-01; the GLM and Tesseract texts in source/ocr/)
- The Works of John Bunyan, ed. George Offor (1855), vol. 1, archive.org scan and OCR, the witness for the passages added after 1666 (previous edition)
- Grace Abounding, Religious Tract Society edition (1905), 'as nearly as possible' the eighth edition: Project Gutenberg #654, transcribed by David Price; a voter in the transcription
- Source files
- This edition on GitHub
- Licence
- Public domain (CC0): copy and share freely
- Found a mistake?
- Tell us
About the authorJohn Bunyan 1628–1688A Bedford tinker and preacher, author of The Pilgrim's Progress.