The Entire Book: Seasonable Counsel – By John Bunyan
Acacia John Bunyan – Online Library
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Seasonable Counsel:
O R,
Advice To Sufferers.
By J O H N.B U N Y A N.
L O N D O N,
Printed for Benjamin Alsop, at the
Angel and Bible in the Poultry, 1684.
Published four years before John Bunyan’s death.
Edited by George Offor.
ADVERTISEMENT BY THE EDITOR.
THIS valuable treatise was first published in a pocket volume in 1684, and has only been reprinted in Whitfield’s edition of Bunyan’s works, 2 vols. folio, 1767.
No man could have been better qualified to give advice to sufferers for righteousness’ sake, than John Bunyan: and this work is exclusively devoted to that object. Shut up in a noisome jail, under the iron hand of persecution, for nearly thirteen years, in the constant fear of being hanged as a malefactor, for refusing conformity to the national liturgy, he well knew what sufferings were, and equally well did he know the sources of consolation. It was wisely ordered by Divine Providence, that before the king pardoned him, he had a legal return under the hand and seal of the sheriff of Bedfordshire, certifying the reasons of this frightful imprisonment. This is entered in the minutes of the Privy Council on the 8th and 15th of May, 1672; and it proves that he was thus cruelly punished for "being at conventicles for nonconformity" and for no other cause. In this "Advice" we find his opinion on the origin of persecution