Bunyan's Hearty Prayer

About this time I met with some ranters’ books, that were put forth by some of our countrymen, which books were also highly in esteem by several old professors; some of these I read, but was not able to make any judgement about them: wherefore as I read in them, and thought upon them, seeing myself unable to judge, I would betake myself to a hearty prayer in this manner:

O Lord, I am a fool, and not able to know the truth from error!
Lord, leave me not to my own blindness,
either to approve of, or condemn, that doctrine:
if it be of God, let me not despise it;
if it be of the devil, let me not embrace it!
Lord! I lay my soul in this matter only at thy foot; let me not be deceived,
I humbly beseech thee.

I happened to come into several people’s company, who, though strict in religion formerly, yet were also drawn away by these ranters. These would also talk with me of their ways, and condemn me as legal and dark: pretending that they only had attained to perfection, that they could do what they would and sin not. Oh! these temptations were suitable to my flesh, I being but a young man, and my nature in its prime; but God, who had, as I hoped, designed me for better things, kept me in the fear of his name, and did not suffer me to accept such cursed principles. And, blessed be God, who put it into my heart to cry to him to be kept and directed, still distrusting my own wisdom; for I have since seen even the effects of that prayer, in his preserving me, not only from ranting errors, but from those also that have sprung up since. The Bible was precious to me in those days.

And now methought, I began to look into the Bible with new eyes, and read as I never did before, and especially the Epistles of the apostle St. Paul were sweet and pleasant to me, and indeed then I was never out of the Bible, either by reading or meditation: still crying out to God, that I might know the truth, and way to heaven and glory.

​~ excerpt from ‘​Life of Bunyan’ by Himself; ch.III.