John Bunyan The Pilgrims Progress Lecture 2 analyzing

John Bunyan, The Pilgrim’s Progress, Lecture 2 analyzing particular sections What general statements do these sections of The Pilgrim’s Progress allow you to make? 1

I. Sleep: what’s the problem? n A. Sleeping in the Arbour (42 -44) q q n n “His roll fell out of his hand. . . “ “O wretched Man that I am, that I should sleep in the day time. . . that I should so indulge the flesh. ” B. Other instances of sleeping? C. Compare Jesus and his disciples in the Garden of Gethsemane 2

II. Palace Beautiful (45 -55) n A. Lions (a trial of faith; the Clarendon Code) q n “A Christian man is never long at ease” (46). B. Prudence, Piety, and Charity (47, ff. ) q 1. Repetition n Narrative & Spiritual Purpose (What form do the questions and answers take? ) q n 2. Inward scrutiny “carnal cogitations” (50) &“inward sickness” (51) C. Records Room; armory; delectable mountain 3

III. More on Apollyon & Christian by William Blake: What issues are identified here? • “thou art one of my Subjects”; “How is it then that thou has ran away from thy King? • “your wages such as a man could not live on” • “I have. . . Sworn my Allegiance” (57) • “Apollyon broke out in a grievous rage. ” • “This sore Combat lasted for above half a day” • “Nay in these things we are more than Conquerours” (59). • “No man can imagine, unless he had seen and hard as I did” (61) See your editor’s notes on Apollyon. http: //www. iupui. edu/%7 Eengwft/blake. htm 4

IV. The Valley of the Shadow of Death n Psalm 23 “Yea though I walk through the valley of the Shadow of Death I will fear no evil. . ” q q q A. Bunyan uses a “landscape” of the “Old Testament” as if he and we could still walk through it. The Tree of Life is still growing, and you can eat its leaves. And you have to walk through the Quagg that King David once fell in. And this whole Valley was described by Jeremiah. (61 -3)(And see p. 105 for Lot’s wife. She’s still a pillar of salt. ) B. What can you say about the geography here, e. g. , mouth of hell, treacherous “exceeding narrow” path between ditch and quagg. C. Psychological analysis: Christian was so confounded, that he did not know his own voice” (65). 5

IV. Faithful n Faithful enters (67). He had a difficult time with Wanton (69). Why didn’t Christian see her on his path? q n Relation of allegory to carnality: What is the carnality that Bunyan rejects? The old Adam (70 -1) Moses as moral law (no mercy; why? (71). n Faithful’s relations according to the flesh (71). n Shame (72 ff). Pilgrims’ psychology 6

V. “The Soul of Religion is the practick part” (78); “There is therefore knowledge and knowledge”(80) n Talkative (74 ff. ) – What is the problem? What is theological point here? Learning by talk: “insufficiency of works”; “ignorantly live in the works of the Law”; “all is of Grace”; “things heavenly, or things earthly”; “things more Essential, or things Circumstantial” n “By an experimental confession of his Faith in Christ” n (81) n “you are some peevish, or melancholly man” (82) 7

VI. Vanity Fair: a Satire on the World (85 ff) n n The VF episode incorporates all known history (5000 years) (See p. 85 & note on p. 301). The pilgrims are outsiders, strangers, in this world. Why so? See their opposition to trade (90). See the contrast between Christianity and the Town of Vanity (91). n n n Witnesses for the prosecution & the jury (91 -95) Faithful’s martyrdom recapitulates the stories of all Christian martyrs (beginning with Stephen). VF is a compressed and caustic version of the (economically centered) “world. ” 8

VII. Christian & Hopeful n By-ends & Fair Speech // Expedience/casuistry(97 ff) q n n Lord Turn-about; Lord Time-server; Mr. Two-tongues Can Mr. Hold-the-World or Mr. Mony-love or Mr. Saveall “go against Wind and Tide”? Read carefully the kind of problems they consider. What is the status of “accommodation” in The Pilgrim’s Progress? 9