Grace Abounding: Spiritual Autobiography, Experience, and Bunyan's Individualism

Abstract

Abstract: The Puritan spiritual autobiographies, following the inward reflection of Augustine's Confession, absorbed English Empiricism in the 17^th century. The Puritan experience includes physical experience, i.e., outer signs of grace, and spiritual experience, i.e., inner signs of grace. In his spiritual autobiography, Grace Abounding, John Bunyan tries to reveal his subjectivity by framing the Bible and his faith through his experience. However, this attempt is unacceptable in puritanism with the Bible as the ultimate authority. Bunyan, therefore, is so frightened that he finally gives up this attempt, and returns to his submission to the Bible, and fails to achieve the indispensable subjectivity, which is essential to modern individualism. Based upon his experience and the Bible, Bunyan criticizes the antinomian inclination of the Ranters, and the Quakers' doctrine which attaches more importance to experience than the Bible. Bunyan's is a rebellious submission to the Bible, and his is not the modern individualism in the real sense.

Key words: John Bunyan, Grace Abounding, spiritual autobiography, experience, individualism

Chen Xijun. Grace Abounding: Spiritual Autobiography, Experience, and Bunyan's Individualism[J]. Foreign Literature Studies, 2020, 42(4): 126-136.

References

[1] Bainton, Roland H.Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther. Abingdon-Cokesbury Books, 1950.
[2] Bell, Robert.“Metamorphoses of Spiritual Autobiography.” ELH, vol. 44, no. 1, Spring 1977, pp. 108-26.
[3] Bottrall, Margaret.Every Man a Phoenix. John Murray, 1958.
[4] Bruss, Elizabeth W.Autobiographical Acts: The Changing Situation of a Literary Genre. The Johns Hopkins UP, 1976.
[5] Buckley, Jerome H.The Turning Key: Autobiography and the Subjective Impulse Since 1800. Harvard UP, 1984.
[6] Bunyan, John.Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners. Edited by Rogers Sharrock, Oxford UP, 1962.
[7] ---. The Pilgrim's Progress: From This World to That Which Is to Come. The Clarendon Press, 1960.
[8] ---. “Some Gospel-Truths Opened.” The Miscellaneous Works of John Bunyan, Vol. 1, edited by T. L. Underwood and Roger Sharrock, Clarendon Press, 1980, pp. 96-123.
[9] Bush, Douglas.English Literature in the Earlier Seventeenth Century, 1600 - 1660. Oxford UP, 1962.
[10] Camden, Vera.“‘That of Esau': Hebrews xii. 16, 17 in Grace Abounding.” John Bunyan: Reading Dissenting Writing, edited by N. H. Keeble, Peter Lang, 2002, pp. 133-64.
[11] Carlton, Peter J. “Language, Convention, Authority.” ELH, vol. 51, no. 1, Spring 1984, pp. 17-32.
[12] Davies, Michael.Graceful Reading: Theology and Narrative in the Works of John Bunyan. Oxford UP, 2002.
[13] Fox, George.George Fox: An Autobiography. Edited by Rufus M. Jones, Ferris & Leach, 1903.
[14] Greene, Donald J.“Augustinianism and Empiricism: A Note on Eighteenth-Century English Intellectual History.” Eighteenth Century Studies, vol. 1, no. 1, Autumn 1967, pp. 33-68.
[15] Hill, Christopher.The Century of Revolution, 1603-1714. Routledge, 2002.
[16] Ingle, H. Larry.First Among Friends: George Fox and the Creation of Quakerism. Oxford UP, 1994.
[17] James, William.The Varieties of Religious Experience. Longmans, 1917.
[18] Johnson, Galen Kelly.“Prisoner of Conscience: John Bunyan on Subjectivism, Individualism, and Christian Faith.” Doctoral dissertation, Baylor University, 2002.
[19] Jones, Rufus M.Introduction. George Fox: An Autobiography. Ferris & Leach, 1903, pp. 15-45.
[20] Kendall R. T.Calvin and English Calvinism to 1649. Oxford UP, 1979.
[21] Locke, John.An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Collated and annotated by Alexander Campbell Fraser, Dover Publications, Inc., 1959.
[22] Mascuch, Michael.Origins of the Individualist Self: Autobiography and Self-Identity in England, 1591-1791. Stanford UP, 1996.
[23] Miller, Perry.The New England Mind: The Seventeenth Century. Beacon Press, 1961.
[24] Morris, John N.Versions of the Self: Studies in English Autobiography from John Bunyan to John Stuart Mill. Basic Books, 1966.
[25] Mullett, Michael.John Bunyan in Context. Keele UP, 1996.
[26] Newey, Vincent.“‘With the eyes of my understanding': Bunyan, Experience, and Acts of Interpretation.” John Bunyan: Conventicle and Parnassus: Tercentenary Essays, edited by N. H. Keeble, Clarendon Press, 1988, pp. 189-218.
[27] Nussbaum, Felicity A.“By These Words I Was Sustained: Bunyan's Grace Abounding.” ELH, vol. 49, no. 1, Spring 1982, pp. 18-34.
[28] Nuttall, Geoffrey F.The Holy Spirit in Puritan Faith and Experience. Basil Blackwell, 1946.
[29] Owens, W. R. Introduction. Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners, Penguin Books, 1987, pp. vii-xxiii.
[30] Payne, Rodger M.The Self and the Sacred: Conversion and Autobiography in Early Protestantism. The U of Tennessee P, 1998.
[31] Pelikan, Jaroslav.Reformation of Church and Dogma (1300-1700), Vol. 4. The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine, The U of Chicago P, 1984.
[32] Pooley, Roger.“Spiritual Experience and Spiritual Autobiography: Some Contexts for Grace Abounding.” The Baptist Quarterly, vol. 32, no. 8, Oct. 1988, pp. 393-402.
[33] Ross, Hugh McGregor, editor. George Fox Speaks for Himself: Texts That Reveal His Personality--Many Hitherto Unpublished. William Sessions Limited, 1991.
[34] Sharrock, Roger.John Bunyan. Macmillan, 1968.
[35] Sim, Stuart and David Walker. Bunyan and Authority: The Rhetoric of Dissent and the Legitimization Crisis in Seventeenth-Century England. Peter Lang. 2000.
[36] Smith, Nigel.Perfection Proclaimed: Language and Literature in English Radical Religion, 1640-1660. Clarendon Press, 1989.
[37] Stachniewski, John. Introduction. Grace Abounding with Other Spiritual Autobiographies, by John Bunyan, Oxford UP, 1998, pp. ix-xliii.
[38] Stoeffler, F. Ernest.Rise of Evangelical Pietism. E. [J]. Brill, 1965.
[39] Taylor, Charles.Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity. Harvard UP, 1989.
[40] Watkins, Owen C.The Puritan Experience: Studies in Spiritual Autobiography. Schocken Books, 1972.