Excerpt from The Entire Works of John Bunyan, Vol. 1 of 4: Edited, With Original Introductions, Notes, and Memoir of the Author When Charles the First ascended the throne, the men who had any knowledge of public rights, or of the nature of the safeguards by which alone they can be defended, still stood apart from the people. Acquaintance with Church principles or Christian privileges, however instinctively coveted, was, as yet, no branch of popular knowledge. A great change had taken place since men rested with implicit confidence in the truth of whatever was told them, and surrendered whatever they were asked to give. They were awakening to a. New sense both Of their rights and their duties. But nothing was really clear to their apprehension; and the mass of the people in England seemed, for a time, to have exhausted their activity in passing from torpid indifference into ignorant perplexity. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

All Loves Excelling is John Bunyan's sermon on Ephesians 3:17-18, 'That ye ... may be able to comprehend with all saints, what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge.' It was first titled 'The Saints' Knowledge of Christ s Love' and is worthy of being ranked alongside Sibbes and deals with a much neglected subject area. The subject matter of this work which was first preached, is greatly needed today. On the one hand, experiences of the Spirit are being claimed from which the glory of the redeemer and the wonder of his love are quite absent, while on the other, an almost total attention to the understanding and practising of scripture truth is having the effect of marginalising the experiential element in true, spiritual knowledge. Bunyan's description of Christ's love to believers and how they ought to know it, cuts in both the above-mentioned directions. From some 440 Bible references he shows how knowing Christ's love is the message of Scripture and also the essence of heaven, partly possessed and expressed on earth. Those who know it are rich beyond measure and they are the people who 'sweeten the churches and bring glory to God and to religion'.