This first critical edition is one of few reprints of a book which was originally published in 1680, two years after The Pilgrim's Progress, when it was described by Bunyan as 'the Life and Death of the Ungodly, and their travel from this world to Hell', in contrast to Christian's journey to heaven. In fact, Badman is not a true sequel to the great allegory; rather, it is a very different book, a dark, coarse, vigorous delineation of provincial vice. From his apprenticeship until he becomes a prosperous shopkeeper, Badman gives free rein to greed, lust, and the exploitation of others, including his virtuous wife. Puritan moral abstraction is almost buried under realistic detail in a work which looks both back to the medieval homily and forward to the novel. It is an indispensable work for the study of seventeenth-century Puritan society and its mythology; as with the same editors' The Holy War, it contains a full introduction and commentary.

The six treatises which make up this concluding volume of Bunyan's Miscellaneous Works were all published posthumously, in the 1692 Folio edited by Charles Doe. Most of them seem to have been composed in the final ten years of his life, while he was the height of his fame as a preacher and writer. They are characteristic Bunyan productions, designed to edify, exhort, and comform the saints, and brimful of his conviction that the Christian pilgrimage is a strenuous affair, calling for constant vigilence, self-examination and courage. The theme of endurance under persecution is prominent, and in a late millenarian work, Of Antichrist, and His Ruine, Bunyan offers a sombre, but eloquent account of the approaching downfall of the great enemy of the ture church, the Antichrist. Unlike many of his contemporaries, Bunyan is careful not to name dates, or interpret the apocalyptic texts too literally, but a striking feature of this work is his belief that kings would be God's chosen intruments in the destruction of Antichrist.

Bunyan died in August 1688 from a fever contracted while riding to London in heavy rain. He had made the journey to deliver the manuscript of his latest work, The Acceptable Sacrifice to the press, and to preach to a Dissenting congregation in Whitechapel. Perhaps surprisingly, in view of his enormous popularity as a writer, Bunyan left unpublished a considerable number of manuscripts. These eventually passed into the hands of his close friend and disciple, Charles Doe, a comb-maker from Southwark who, in 1692, published twelve of them, together with ten other works, in a folio volume. Apart from The Acceptable Sacrifice and the Last Sermon, which are edited from first editions of 1689, texts of the other six works in the present volume are based on those in Doe's 1692 Folio. The most ambitious of these is a lengthy commentary on the first ten chapters of Genesis. No book of the Bible had attracted more attention from learned exegates, and the middle of the seventeenth century saw fierce controversies over its interpretation. Bunyan, though clearly aware of these great debates, seldom enters into them. Instead he offers a typological reading, enabling him to draw out the contemporary significance of the Genesis story for persecuted Dissenters.

As defender of the faith and protector of his flock, at a time of great dissent on matters of theology and religious practice, Bunyan spent much of his energies on disputes, both in person and on the printed page. It was, indeed, such issues that had originally launched him into print in 1656-7 (see Volume I in this series). Six of Bunyan's controversial works, from a much later period of his life, are presented in the present volume. Bunyan directed the earliest of these works, A Defence of the Doctrine of Justification, by Faith (1672) at the latitudinarian rector Edward Fowler. A long-term dispute with some Baptists over open membership resulted in his A Confession of my Faith, and A Reason of my Practice (1672), Differences in Judgment About Water-Baptism, No Bar to Communion (1673) and Peaceable Principles and True (1674). Controversies concerning the status of women and the correct day for Sabbath observance led him to write A Case of Conscience Resolved (1683) and Questions About the Nature and Perpetuity of the Seventh-Day-Sabbath (1685). These polemical works display something of the rough and tumble world of the mechanick preachers of Bunyan's time. They add to our understanding of Bunyan's background, religious stance, and imaginative power and technique. They also reveal some of his personal human foibles.

These treatises, written in the year of Bunyan's death, 1688, are edited from the first editions: one of which was published in his lifetime, the others posthumously. Variations in the traditional typological method of biblical interpretation, they concentrate on Old Testament events as prophecies that eventually found fulfillment in the New Testament. Solomon's Temple, his House of the Forest of Lebanon, and the water flowing from beneath the altar of the Temple, help to demonstrate how these are all shadows of the true reality to come in the life and faith of Christ. In a wider context, the book provides examples of another kind of "similitude"--the creative techniques by which Bunyan sought to capture the imagination, and which encompasses simile, metaphor, emblem, symbol, analogy, and above all, allegory.

The treatises in this volume were first published when the persecution of nonconformists was reaching a fierce climax. Seasonable Counsel, subtitled Advice to Sufferers, presents Bunyan's reflections on how believers were to understand and respond to this experience. His own sufferings are reflected in his essentially practical discussion of the many issues raised and in the vigorous speech-based language of the mature preacher and writer. A Discourse upon the Pharisee and the Publicane is an exposition of the parable in Luke xviii. The work gives Bunyan's ultimate thoughts on justification by faith, which show a development from his earlier position. There is a shrewd analysis of the characters, with a lively and original discussion of body language. The introduction to this volume relates Bunyan's arguments and experience to their context, including contemporary ideas on persecution and toleration and on the connection between faith and justification.

This third volume in a twelve-volume series provides reliable, modern scholarly texts for three important but lesser-known works, all of which were written in the mid-1660s, early in Bunyan's career, while he was imprisoned in Bedford. Christian Behaviour is a manual of the good works required of the Christians towards their families and neighbors, The Holy City a rapturous meditation on the millennial kingdom of Christ, and The Resurrection of the Dead a defense of the doctrine of bodily resurrection. Each presents themes later developed in Bunyan's famous allegories, offering insight into the development of Bunyan's thought and the background of his greatest achievements.

A scholarly edition of The Miscellaneous Works of John Bunyan: Barren Fig-Tree; Strait Gate; Heavenly Footman by Graham Midgley. The edition presents an authoritative text, together with an introduction, commentary notes, and scholarly apparatus.

A scholarly edition of The Miscellaneous Works of John Bunyan: Good News for the Vilest of Men; The Advocateship of Jesus Christ by Richard L. Greaves. The edition presents an authoritative text, together with an introduction, commentary notes, and scholarly apparatus.

A scholarly edition of The Miscellaneous Works of John Bunyan: Treatise of the Fear of God; Greatness of the Soul; Holy Life by Richard L. Greaves. The edition presents an authoritative text, together with an introduction, commentary notes, and scholarly apparatus.

A scholarly edition of The Holy War by Roger Sharrock and James F. Forrest. The edition presents an authoritative text, together with an introduction, commentary notes, and scholarly apparatus.

A scholarly edition of The Miscellaneous Works of John Bunyan: The Poems by Graham Midgley. The edition presents an authoritative text, together with an introduction, commentary notes, and scholarly apparatus.

A scholarly edition of The Miscellaneous Works of John Bunyan: Some Gospel Truths Opened; Vindication of "Some Gospel Truths Opened" and Few Sighs from Hell by T. L. Underwood and Roger Sharrock. The edition presents an authoritative text, together with an introduction, commentary notes, and scholarly apparatus.

A scholarly edition of The Miscellaneous Works of John Bunyan: Instruction for the Ignorant; Light for Them That Sit in Darkness; Saved by Grace; Come and Welcome to Jesus Christ by Richard L. Greaves. The edition presents an authoritative text, together with an introduction, commentary notes, and scholarly apparatus.

A scholarly edition of The Pilgrim's Progress by Roger Sharrock. The edition presents an authoritative text, together with an introduction, commentary notes, and scholarly apparatus.

A scholarly edition of Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners by Roger Sharrock. The edition presents an authoritative text, together with an introduction, commentary notes, and scholarly apparatus.