SOURCE: Greaves, Richard. “Conscience, Liberty, and the Spirit: Bunyan and Nonconformity.” In John Bunyan and English Nonconformity, pp. 51-70. London: The Hambledon Press, 1992.

In the following essay, Greaves examines Bunyan's decision to pursue the path of nonconformity following the Restoration, noting that an important consideration in making this choice was his determination to continue preaching.

‘I was caught in my present practice and cast into Prison’, and thus commenced ‘a long and tedious Imprisonment, that thereby I might be frighted from my Service for Christ, and the World terrified, and made afraid to hear me Preach’.¹ Bunyan's candid reflection on his decision to pursue the path of Nonconformity and the consequences of that resolution underscores the relative rapidity with which the determination was made. Unlike ministers ejected in August 1662, Bunyan had little time to ponder the ecclesiological tenets that he would subsequently adduce to justify the separatist way...