Several small books from Bunyan's pen appeared from year to year. In
1688, the year of his death, five of his works were published,
"Jerusalem Sinner Saved, or a Help to Despairing Souls;" "The Work of
Jesus Christ as an Advocate;" a poetical composition entitled, "The
Building, Nature, and Excellency of the House of God;" the "Water of
Life;" and "Solomon's Temple Spiritualized." "The Acceptable Sacrifice"
was going through the press at the time of his death.
Besides these, Bunyan had prepared the manuscript of fourteen or more
works. Ten were published soon after his death, by his devoted friend,
Charles Doe, who said he thought the best work he could do for God was
to get Bunyan's books printed and sold.
In the summer of 1688, a young man, in whom Bunyan was deeply
interested, told him that his father was about to disinherit him, and
begged the preacher to see him. Though scarcely recovered from an
illness, he at once rode on horseback to Reading, met the father,
obtained a promise of forgiveness, and returned homeward through London,
where he was to preach near Whitechapel.
His forty miles to London were made through a pouring rain. Drenched and
weary, he reached the home of his friend, Deacon John Strudwick, Holborn
Bridge, Snow Hill. With his usual determination to do what he thought to
be his duty, he preached Sunday, Aug. 19, 1688. Twelve days later, Aug.
31, he was dead. In two months he would have been sixty years old. He
was buried in Mr. Strudwick's vault, in the Dissenters' burying-ground
at Bunhill Field. The mother of John Wesley sleeps close by. This place
was called Bunhill or Bonehill, from a vast quantity of human remains
removed to it from the charnel house of St. Paul's Cathedral in 1549.
Bunyan died as he had lived, in complete trust and faith. He asked those
who stood around his bedside to pray, and he joined fervently with
them. "Weep not for me," he said, "but for yourselves. I go to the
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will, no doubt, through the
mediation of his blessed Son, receive me, though a sinner, where I hope
we ere long shall meet to sing the new song, and remain everlastingly
happy, world without end, Amen."
His blind Mary had gone before him; and Elizabeth, his noble wife, died
four years after him, in 1692.
Bunyan's preaching was natural, simple, and earnest, with now and then
an appropriate comparison and anecdote. He said, "I have observed that a
word cast in by-the-by hath done more execution in a sermon than all
that was spoken besides. Sometimes, also, when I have thought I did no
good, then I did the most of all; and at other times, when I thought I
should catch them, I have fished for nothing."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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