Author’s Preface
“Come and hear all ye that fear God, and I will declare what He hath done for my soul” (Ps 66:16).
A Brief Account of Publishing This Work
Written by its author and dedicated to those whom God has counted him worthy to bring to faith through his ministry of the Word.
Children, grace be with you. Amen. I have been taken away from you and confined so that I cannot carry out the duty God has given me toward you: to help you grow further in faith and holiness, etc. Still, I want you to see my fatherly care and desire for your spiritual and eternal well-being. Once again I look toward you all. Before, I looked from the heights of Shenir and Hermon; now I look from “the lions’ dens, from the mountains of the leopards” (Song 4:8). I long greatly to see you arrive safely at the desired haven.
I thank God whenever I remember you. Even while I am caught between the teeth of the lion in the wilderness, I rejoice. God has given you grace, mercy, and knowledge of Christ our Savior, with abundant faith and love. Your hunger and thirst to know the Father more fully through the Son, your tender hearts, your trembling at sin, and your serious and holy conduct before both God and people are a great refreshment to me. “For ye are our glory and joy” (1 Thess 2:20).
I have enclosed here a drop of the honey I took from a lion’s carcass (Judg 14:5-8). I have eaten some myself and been greatly refreshed by it. When we first meet temptations, they are like the lion that roared at Samson. But if we overcome them, the next time we see them we will find a nest of honey inside them. The Philistines do not understand me.
This is something of an account of God’s work in my soul, from the very beginning until now. In it you can see how I have been cast down and raised up, for he wounds, and his hands make whole. It is written in Scripture, “The father to the children shall make known Thy truth” (Isa 38:19). Yes, this was why I stayed so long at Sinai: to see the fire, the cloud, and the darkness (Exod 19:16-19), so that I might fear the Lord all my days on earth and tell my children about his wonderful works (Ps 78:3-5).
Moses wrote about the Israelites’ journeys from Egypt to the land of Canaan (Num 33:1-2). He also commanded them to remember their forty years of traveling in the wilderness. “Thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee, and to prove thee, and to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldst keep His commandments, or no” (Deut 8:2). This is what I have tried to do. I have also tried to publish it so that, if God wills, reading about his work in me may remind others of what he has done for their souls.
Christians benefit from often remembering the very beginnings of grace in their souls. “It is a night to be much observed unto the Lord, for bringing them out from the land of Egypt. This is that night of the Lord to be observed of all the children of Israel in their generations” (Exod 12:42). David says, “O my God, my soul is cast down within me; therefore will I remember thee from the land of Jordan, and of the Hermonites, from the hill Mizar” (Ps 42:6). He also remembered the lion and the bear when he went to fight the giant of Gath (1 Sam 17:36-37).
Paul habitually described his conversion before his judges (Acts 22), even when he was on trial for his life (Acts 24). He would think of the day and hour when he first met with grace, because he found that it sustained him. After God had brought the Israelites out of the Red Sea and far into the wilderness, they still had to turn all the way back toward it to remember their enemies drowning there (Num 14:25). For although they had sung his praise before, they soon forgot his works (Ps 106:12-13).
In this account of mine, you can see much, much, I say, of God’s grace toward me. I thank God that I can call it much, for it exceeded both my sins and Satan’s temptations. I can remember my fears, doubts, and sad months with comfort. They are like Goliath’s head in my hand. Nothing could compare, for David, with Goliath’s sword, the very sword that was meant to have been plunged into his own body. The very sight and memory of it proclaimed God’s deliverance to him.
Oh, the memory of my great sins, my great temptations, and my great fear of perishing forever! They bring freshly to mind the great help I received, the great support from heaven, and the great grace God extended to such a wretch as I am.
My dear children, recall the former days and the years long past. Remember, too, your songs in the night, and commune with your own hearts (Ps 77). Yes, search diligently, leaving no corner of your hearts unexplored for that hidden treasure: the treasure of your first and second experiences of God’s grace toward you. Remember, I say, the word that first took hold of you. Remember your terrors of conscience and your fear of death and hell. Remember, too, your tears and prayers to God, and how you sighed for mercy under every hedge. Do you have no hill Mizar to remember? Have you forgotten the enclosed field, the milk house, the stable, the barn, and places like them, where God visited your souls?
Remember, too, the word, the word, I say, on which the Lord has caused you to hope. If you have sinned against the light, if you are tempted to blaspheme, if you are drowning in despair, if you think God is fighting against you, or if heaven is hidden from your eyes, remember that it was this way with your father; “but out of them all the Lord delivered me.”
I could have written much more in this account about my temptations and troubles over sin, and about God’s merciful kindness and work in my soul. I could also have adopted a much more elevated style than I have used here and made everything more ornate than I seem to have done. But I dare not. God was not playing when he put me through temptation. Neither was I playing when I sank as though into the bottomless pit, when the agonies of hell seized me. So I must not play in telling about these things. I must speak plainly and simply and set down what happened as it was. Let anyone who likes it accept it; let anyone who does not like it produce something better. Farewell.
My dear children,
The milk and honey lie beyond this wilderness. May God be merciful to you and grant that you will not be sluggish about entering and taking possession of the land.
John Bunyan
Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners
1. In this account of God’s merciful work upon my soul, it will be fitting to begin with a few words about my ancestry and upbringing. This will allow God’s goodness and generosity toward me to be more highly honored and magnified before others.
2. As many people know, I came from a family of low standing and little importance. My father’s household belonged to the lowest and most despised rank of families in the land. So, unlike others, I cannot boast here of noble blood or high birth in earthly terms. Yet, considering everything, I magnify the heavenly Majesty because through this door He brought me into the world to share in the grace and life that are in Christ through the gospel.
3. Yet despite my parents’ low standing and lack of importance, God was pleased to put it into their hearts to send me to school to learn both reading and writing. I learned these as well as other poor people’s children did. But to my shame, I confess that I soon lost almost entirely what I had learned, long before the Lord worked His gracious work of conversion upon my soul.
4. As for my life in my natural condition, while I was without God in the world, it was indeed “according to the course of this world and the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience” (Eph 2:2-3). I delighted in being “taken captive by the devil at his will” (2 Tim 2:26). I was filled with every kind of unrighteousness. From childhood, it worked so powerfully and showed itself so strongly in both my heart and my life that few could equal me in cursing, swearing, lying, and blaspheming God’s holy name, especially considering how young I was.
5. Yes, I was so settled and rooted in these things that they became like a second nature to me. As I have soberly considered since, they so offended the Lord that even in childhood He frightened and terrified me with dreadful dreams and visions. Often, after spending one day after another in sin, I suffered greatly in my bed while asleep, imagining devils and wicked spirits. As I thought then, they were continually trying to drag me away with them, and I could never get rid of them.
6. At that age, I was also deeply distressed and troubled by thoughts of the dreadful torments of hellfire. I continually feared that I would finally find myself among those devils and hellish fiends who are bound there in chains and bonds of darkness until the judgment of the great day.
7. These things distressed my soul when I was only a child, nine or ten years old. Even in the middle of my many games and childish follies, among my foolish companions, I was often deeply dejected and troubled by these thoughts. Yet I could not let go of my sins. Yes, even then I was so overcome with despair of life and heaven that I often wished either that there were no hell or that I had been a devil. I supposed that devils only tormented others, so if I had to go there, I might torment others rather than be tormented myself.
8. After a while, those terrible dreams left me, and I soon forgot them. My pleasures quickly wiped out their memory, as though they had never happened. So, with even greater eagerness, in keeping with the strength of my nature, I continued to give free rein to my sinful desires and delighted in every kind of violation of God’s law. Until I married, I was the very ringleader of all the young people who kept company with me, in every kind of vice and ungodliness.
9. Yes, the desires and fruits of the flesh had such power over this poor soul of mine that, unless a miracle of precious grace had intervened, I would not only have perished under the stroke of eternal justice. I would also have exposed myself to the punishment of those laws that bring some people into disgrace and public shame before the world.
10. In those days, thoughts of religion were deeply unpleasant to me. I could not bear it myself or bear to have anyone else practice it. Seeing someone read books about Christian piety felt like being in prison. Then I said to God, “Depart from me, for I desire not the knowledge of Thy ways” (Job 21:14-15). I now gave no thought to anything good. Heaven and hell were both out of sight and out of mind, and salvation and damnation were among the last things I thought about. O Lord, You know my life, and my ways were not hidden from You!
11. But I clearly remember this: although I could sin with the greatest delight and ease, and take pleasure in my companions’ wickedness, even then my spirit would tremble whenever I saw wicked acts committed by people who professed goodness. One occasion stands out above all the others. While I was at the height of my foolishness, I heard a man swear who was considered religious. It struck my spirit so powerfully that it made my heart ache.
12. But God did not abandon me entirely. He continued to pursue me, now with judgments rather than convictions of sin, yet judgments mixed with mercy. Once I fell into a creek of the sea and barely escaped drowning. Another time I fell out of a boat into the Bedford river, but mercy still kept me alive. On another occasion, I was in a field with one of my companions when an adder happened to cross the road. With a stick in my hand, I struck her across the back. After stunning her, I forced her mouth open with my stick and pulled out her sting with my fingers. Had God not been merciful to me, I might have brought about my own death by this reckless act.
13. I have also taken note of this with thanksgiving. When I was a soldier, I was selected with others to go and besiege a certain place. Just as I was ready to go, one of the company asked to go instead of me. I agreed, and he took my place. When he reached the siege, he was shot in the head with a musket bullet while standing guard, and he died.
14. Here, as I said, were judgments and mercy. But neither awakened my soul to righteousness. So I continued to sin and became more and more rebellious against God and careless about my own salvation.
15. Soon after this, I married. It was a mercy to me that I found a wife whose father was considered godly. We began our life together as poor as could be, without so much as a dish or a spoon between us. But she brought these two books: The Plain Man’s Pathway to Heaven and The Practice of Piety, which her father had left her when he died.
I sometimes read these books with her and found some things in them that rather pleased me, though all this time I felt no conviction of sin. She also often told me what a godly man her father had been. She spoke of how he rebuked and corrected vice, both in his own household and among his neighbors, and what a strict and holy life he had lived, in both word and deed.
16. These books and her account of her father did not reach my heart and awaken it to my sad and sinful condition. Yet they did stir some desire for religion in me. Because I knew no better, I eagerly embraced the religion of the times. I went to church twice a day, among the first to arrive, and very devoutly spoke and sang as the others did, while still keeping my wicked way of life.
At the same time, I was so overcome by a spirit of superstition that I adored with great devotion everything belonging to the church: the altar, the priest, the clerk, the vestments, the service, and everything else. I considered everything within it holy. I thought the priest and clerk especially fortunate and undoubtedly greatly blessed because, as I then believed, they were God’s servants and held leading positions in the holy temple, doing His work there.
17. Before long, this notion took such a strong hold on my spirit that whenever I saw a priest, however filthy and debauched his life might be, I felt my spirit bow before him, revere him, and attach itself to him. Yes, because of my love for them, whom I supposed to be God’s ministers, I thought I could have lain at their feet and let them trample on me. Their name, their clothing, and their work so intoxicated and bewitched me.
18. After I had been like this for a considerable time, another thought came into my mind: were we Israelites or not? Finding in Scripture that they had once been God’s own special people, I thought, “If I belong to this race, my soul must surely be happy.” Again, I felt a great longing to settle this question, but I did not know how. At last I asked my father, who told me, “No, we were not.” Then my spirits fell as far as that hope was concerned, and remained so.
19. But all this time, I was unaware of the danger and evil of sin. I was kept from considering that sin would damn me, whatever religion I followed, unless I was found in Christ. Indeed, I never thought of Him or even whether there was such a person. So a person, while blind, wanders, but wears himself out with vanity, because he does not know the way to the city of God (Eccl 10:15).
20. But one day, among all the sermons our parson preached, he spoke about the Sabbath day and the evil of breaking it through work, games, or anything else. Despite my religion, I still took great delight in every kind of vice, and that was especially the day when I indulged in it for pleasure. So his sermon struck my conscience. I thought and believed that he had preached it specifically to show me my wrongdoing. At that time I felt what guilt was, though I cannot remember ever having felt it before. For the moment, it weighed heavily on me, and when the sermon ended, I went home with a great burden on my spirit.
21. For that moment, this numbed the very strength of my greatest delights and made my former pleasures bitter to me. But wait, it did not last. Before I had even finished dinner, the trouble began to leave my mind, and my heart returned to its old course. Oh, how glad I was that the trouble had left me and the fire had been put out, so that I could sin again without restraint! Once I had satisfied my hunger, I shook the sermon out of my mind and returned with great delight to my old habit of sports and games.
22. But that same day, in the middle of a game of tip-cat, I had struck the small wooden stick once from the hole and was just about to strike it a second time. Suddenly a voice darted from heaven into my soul, saying, “Will you leave your sins and go to heaven, or keep your sins and go to hell?” This left me utterly bewildered. Leaving my small wooden stick on the ground, I looked up to heaven. It was as though, with the eyes of my understanding, I had seen the Lord Jesus looking down on me, intensely displeased with me. It was as though He were sternly threatening me with some terrible punishment for these and other ungodly practices.
23. No sooner had this thought entered my mind than the following conclusion suddenly took hold of my spirit, for the earlier warning had brought my sins before my eyes again: I had been a great and grievous sinner, and it was now too late for me to seek heaven. Christ would not forgive me or pardon my transgressions. Then I began to dwell on this too. As I thought about it and feared that it might be true, I felt my heart sink into despair. I concluded that it was too late and therefore resolved to go on sinning. For I thought, “If this is how things stand, my condition is certainly miserable. I will be miserable if I leave my sins, and only miserable if I continue in them. The worst that can happen is that I will be damned. If I must be damned, I might as well be damned for many sins as for a few.”
24. So I stood there in the middle of my game, in front of everyone who was present, but I told them nothing. Having reached this conclusion, I returned to my game in desperation. I well remember how quickly this despair took possession of my soul. I became convinced that I could never find any comfort except what I could get from sin. Heaven was already lost, so I must not think about it.
I therefore felt a great desire to take my fill of sin. I kept considering what sin I had not yet committed, so that I could taste its sweetness. I hurried as much as I could to fill my belly with its delicacies, afraid that I might die before I had satisfied my desire. I greatly feared that. I declare before God that I am not lying about these things or inventing this way of speaking. These really were my desires, strong and wholehearted. May the good Lord, whose mercy is beyond searching out, forgive my transgressions!
25. I am very certain that this temptation from the devil is more common among poor creatures than many people realize. He overwhelms their spirits with a corrupt, seared state of heart and a numbed conscience. Quietly and slyly, he feeds this state with such despair that, although these souls feel little guilt, they continually reach a secret conclusion within themselves that there is no hope for them: “for they have loved sins, therefore after them they will go” (Jer 2:25; Jer 18:12).
26. So I went on sinning with a very greedy mind, still resentful that I could not get as much satisfaction from it as I wanted. This continued for about a month or more. But one day I was standing at a neighbor’s shop window, cursing, swearing, and acting like a madman, as I usually did. The woman of the house was sitting inside and heard me. Although she too was a very immoral and ungodly wretch, she declared that I swore and cursed so fearfully that hearing me made her tremble. She also told me that I was the most ungodly fellow for swearing she had ever heard in her life, and that by doing this I could corrupt all the young people in the whole town if they so much as kept my company.
27. This rebuke silenced me and filled me with inward shame, before the God of heaven too, as I thought. As I stood there with my head hanging down, I wished with all my heart that I could be a little child again. Then my father could teach me to speak without this wicked habit of swearing. For I thought, “I am so accustomed to it that it is useless to think of changing.” I thought it could never happen.
28. But how it happened, I do not know. From that time forward, I gave up swearing so completely that I was greatly amazed to see it myself. Before, I had not known how to speak without putting an oath before my words and another after them to give them authority. Now I could speak without swearing, better and more pleasantly than I ever had before. All this time I did not know Jesus Christ, and I did not give up my sports and games either.
29. Soon afterward, I began keeping company with a poor man who professed to be religious. As I thought at the time, he spoke pleasantly about the Scriptures and matters of religion. I began to like what he said and feel drawn to it, so I turned to my Bible and began taking great pleasure in reading it, especially its historical parts. As for Paul’s letters and similar Scriptures, I could not stand them. I was still ignorant both of the corruption of my nature and of my need for Jesus Christ to save me, and his worth as my Savior.
30. So I began to make some outward changes in both my speech and my life. I set the commandments before me as my way to heaven and tried to keep them. Sometimes I thought I kept them fairly well, and then I would feel comfort. Yet now and then I would break one, and this would trouble my conscience. Then I would repent, say I was sorry, and promise God to do better next time. In this way I would find relief again, for at that time I thought I pleased God as well as any man in England.
31. I continued like this for about a year. Throughout that time, our neighbors regarded me as a very godly man, a changed and religious man. They were greatly amazed to see such a remarkable and widely noticed change in my life and conduct. There really was such a change, although I still knew nothing of Christ, grace, faith, or hope. As I have clearly seen since, if I had died then, my condition would have been most dreadful.
32. But, as I say, my neighbors were amazed at my great conversion from outrageous godlessness to something like a moral life. Truly, they had good reason to be. This conversion of mine was as great a change as Tom of Bedlam, the madman, becoming sane. So they began to praise me, commend me, and speak well of me, both to my face and behind my back. Now, they said, I had become godly. Now I had become a thoroughly honest man.
But oh, when I learned that these were their words and opinions about me, I was immensely pleased. Although I was still nothing but a poor hypocrite with a painted appearance of goodness, I loved being spoken of as someone who was truly godly. I was proud of my godliness. Indeed, everything I did was done either to be seen by others or to be spoken well of by them. I continued like this for about a year or more.
33. Now you must know that, before this, I had taken great delight in ringing church bells. But as my conscience began to grow tender, I thought this practice was merely frivolous, so I forced myself to give it up. Yet I still longed for it. I would therefore go to the church bell tower and watch, although I did not dare ring the bells. But I thought that watching did not fit with religion either. Still, I pushed myself to keep watching.
Soon afterward, I began to think, “What if one of the bells should fall?” Then I chose to stand under a main beam that stretched across the tower from side to side, thinking I could stand safely there. But then I would think again, “If the bell falls while swinging, it might hit the wall first and then rebound onto me and kill me despite this beam.” This made me stand in the tower doorway. “Now,” I thought, “I am safe enough. If the bell falls now, I can slip out behind these thick walls and be protected in spite of it.”
34. After this, I would still go to watch them ring, but I would go no farther than the tower doorway. Then another thought came into my head: “What if the tower itself should fall?” As I stood watching, this thought, “For all I know, it might,” kept shaking my mind so much that I no longer dared stand in the doorway. I was forced to flee, afraid that the tower would fall on my head.
35. Another thing was my dancing. It took me a full year to give that up completely. But throughout this time, whenever I thought I had kept this or that commandment, or had said or done anything I thought was good, I felt great peace in my conscience. I would think to myself, “God cannot help being pleased with me now.” Yes, to put it in my own way, I thought no man in England could please God better than I could.
36. But what a poor wretch I was! All this time I was ignorant of Jesus Christ and was trying to establish my own righteousness. I would have perished in it if God, in his mercy, had not shown me more of my natural condition.
37. One day, however, God’s good providence brought me to Bedford to work at my trade. In one of the streets there, I came upon three or four poor women sitting in the sun at a doorway, talking about the things of God. I was now willing to listen to such discussions, so I drew near to hear what they were saying. By this time, I too could talk readily about matters of religion. But I can say that I heard them without understanding, for what they said was far above and beyond my reach.
They talked about a new birth, God’s work in their hearts, and how they had become convinced of their miserable natural condition. They talked about how God had visited their souls with his love in the Lord Jesus. They spoke of the words and promises that had refreshed, comforted, and sustained them against the devil’s temptations. They also discussed particular suggestions and temptations from Satan, telling one another which had afflicted them and how they had been upheld under his attacks.
They also talked about the wretchedness of their own hearts and their unbelief. They despised, dismissed, and abhorred their own righteousness as filthy and unable to do them any good.
38. It seemed to me that joy itself made them speak. They spoke so pleasantly in the language of Scripture, and everything they said showed such signs of grace, that to me they seemed to have discovered a new world. They seemed to be “people that dwelt alone, and were not to be reckoned among their neighbours” (Num 23:9).
39. At this, I felt my own heart begin to tremble, and I began to suspect that my condition was bad. I saw that, in all my thoughts about religion and salvation, the new birth had never entered my mind. Neither did I know the comfort of the word and promise, or the deceitfulness and treachery of my own wicked heart. I paid no attention to secret thoughts. Nor did I understand what Satan’s temptations were or how to withstand and resist them, and so on.
40. So, after hearing and considering what they said, I left them and returned to my work. But their conversation went with me, and my heart stayed with them. Their words had deeply affected me for two reasons. Through them I became convinced that I lacked the true marks of a genuinely godly man. Through them I also became convinced of the happy and blessed condition of someone who was such a man.
41. I therefore often made a point of going back again and again to be with these poor people, for I could not stay away. The more I went among them, the more I questioned my own condition. As I still remember, I soon found two things within me that sometimes amazed me, especially when I considered what a blind, ignorant, vile, and ungodly wretch I had been just before this. One was a great softness and tenderness of heart, which made me yield to conviction from what they asserted on the basis of Scripture. The other was a strong inclination in my mind to meditate continually on it, and on every other good thing I heard or read about at any time.
42. Through these things, my mind had now turned so completely that it clung like a horse-leech to a vein, still crying, “Give, Give” (Prov 30:15). Yes, it was so fixed on eternity and the things of the kingdom of heaven, as far as I understood them, though God knows I still understood very little, that neither pleasures, profits, persuasion, nor threats could loosen it or make it release its hold. Although I say it with shame, it is certainly true: it would then have been as difficult for me to turn my mind from heaven to earth as I have often found it since to turn it back from earth to heaven.
43. There is one thing I must not omit. There was a young man in our town to whom my heart had once been more closely attached than to anyone else. But he was a most wicked creature, given to cursing, swearing, and sexual immorality, so I broke with him and gave up his company. About three months after I had left him, I met him in a certain lane and asked how he was. In his old manner of swearing and wild behavior, he answered that he was well. “But, Harry,” I said, “why do you curse and swear like this? What will become of you if you die in this condition?” He answered me in great anger, “What would the devil do for company, if it were not for such as I am?”
44. About this time, I came across some Ranters’ books published by some of our countrymen. Several people who had long professed religion also held these books in high esteem. I read some of them but could not form a judgment about them. So, as I read and thought about them, knowing I could not judge, I would turn to heartfelt prayer in this way: “O Lord, I am a fool and cannot tell truth from error. Lord, do not leave me to my own blindness, either to approve or condemn this doctrine. If it is from God, do not let me despise it. If it is from the devil, do not let me embrace it. Lord, in this matter I lay my soul at your feet alone. I humbly beg you not to let me be deceived.”
Throughout this time, I had one close religious companion, the poor man I mentioned before. But about this time, he too became a most devilish Ranter and gave himself over to every kind of filthiness, especially sexual immorality. He would also deny that there was a God, an angel, or a spirit, and laugh at every exhortation to sober living. When I tried to rebuke his wickedness, he would laugh all the more. He claimed that he had gone through all religions and had never found the right one until now. He also told me that, before long, I would see everyone who professed religion turn to the Ranters’ ways. Therefore, abhorring those cursed principles, I immediately gave up his company. I became as much a stranger to him as I had previously been a close companion.
45. This man was not the only temptation to me. Since my work took me into the countryside, I happened to find myself among several people who had formerly been strict in religion but had also been swept away by these Ranters. They too would talk with me about their ways and condemn me as legalistic and in darkness. They claimed that only those who could do whatever they wanted without sinning had reached perfection. Oh, these temptations appealed to my flesh! I was still a young man, and my nature was in its prime. But God, who had, as I hoped, intended me for better things, kept me in the fear of his name and did not allow me to accept such cursed principles.
Blessed be God, who put it into my heart to cry to him to keep and direct me, while I continued to distrust my own wisdom. Since then, I have seen the effects of that prayer in his preserving me, not only from the Ranters’ errors but also from those that have sprung up since. The Bible was precious to me in those days.
46. Now I felt that I was beginning to look into the Bible with new eyes and to read as I never had before. The letters of the apostle St. Paul were especially sweet and pleasant to me. Indeed, I was never away from the Bible then, either reading it or meditating on it. I kept crying out to God that I might know the truth and the way to heaven and glory.
47. As I went on reading, I came upon this passage: “To one is given, by the Spirit, the word of wisdom; to another the word of knowledge by the same Spirit; and to another faith,” etc. (1 Cor 12). Although, as I have since seen, the Holy Spirit intends this Scripture to refer especially to extraordinary things, it then took hold of me with the conviction that I lacked ordinary things: the understanding and wisdom that other Christians had. I pondered this passage and did not know what to do. The word “Faith” especially troubled me. I could not help sometimes questioning whether I had any faith at all. But I was reluctant to conclude that I had none. “If I do that,” I thought, “then I will count myself an utter outcast indeed.”
48. “No,” I said to myself, “although I am convinced that I am an ignorant fool and lack those blessed gifts of knowledge and understanding that other people have, I will take the risk of concluding that I am not entirely without faith, even though I do not know what faith is.” For I had been shown, and that too by Satan, as I have since seen, that those who conclude they are in a faithless state have neither rest nor peace in their souls. I was reluctant to fall completely into despair.
49. This suggestion therefore made me afraid for a while to recognize my lack of faith. But God would not allow me to ruin and destroy my soul in this way. Against this sad and blind conclusion of mine, he continually stirred up questions within me. I could not rest content until I came to some certain knowledge of whether I had faith or not. These questions kept running through my mind: “But what if you really lack faith? How can you tell that you have faith?” Besides, I saw clearly that if I did not have it, I was certain to perish forever.
