John Bunyan

Originally a High Anglican, the Bedfordshire tinker John Bunyan (1628 - 1688) led a footloose and fancy free life. His heart was first touched whilst playing tipcat, when he heard a voice saying “Wilt thou leave thy sins and go to Heaven or have thy sins and go to Hell?” Later Bunyan noticed four old women sitting at a door in the sun talking about new birth, the work of God on their hearts and of their own righteousness as too defiled to do them good. They spoke with “such pleasantness of Scripture language” Bunyan’s heart began to shake. His Christian wife introduced him to two religious works, Bayley’s Practice of Piety and Dent’s Plain Man’s Pathway to Heaven , which Bunyan duly read. He describes his conversion thus in his autobiographical book, Grace Abounding: “One day as I was travelling into the country, musing on the wickedness of my heart and considering the enmity that was in me to God, the Scripture came to mind, 'He hath made peace, through the blood of the Cross.' I saw that the justice of God and my sinful soul could embrace and kiss each other. I was ready to swoon, not with grief and trouble, but with joy and peace.”
As a result of these experiences, Bunyan was baptised and received into St John's church in Bedford and he began to follow the teachings of its pastor, John Gifford. When Gifford died in 1655, Bunyan started preaching and soon gained a popular reputation in the villages around Bedford as an eloquent and powerful speaker. As his popularity and notoriety grew, Bunyan increasingly became a target for slander and libel; he was described as "a witch, a Jesuit, a highwayman" and was said to have mistresses and multiple wives. In 1658, aged 30, he was arrested for preaching at Eaton Socon and indicted for preaching without a licence. He continued preaching, however, and did not suffer imprisonment until November 1660, when he was taken to the county gaol in Silver Street, Bedford for preaching outside a Parish Church whilst being unlicensed to preach. There he was imprisoned in Bedford from 1660 until 1672 for unlicensed preaching and wrote Grace Abounding in 1666.
Bunyan was released in January 1672, when Charles II issued the Declaration of Religious Indulgence. The same month he was appointed pastor by his congregation, but after a clamp down by the king on Non-conformism three years Bunyan found himseld back in prison. He refused all offers of freedom as he wass unable to agree to the prerequisite that he won’t preach again. It was during this second jail sentence that he completed the first part of Pilgrim’s Progress, an allegory based on Bunyan’s own spiritual life. Written in straightforward language, it achieved immediate popularity and Bunyan was soon freed and, as a result of its success, was never arrested again.