Therefore if mine enemy hunger, let me feed him; if he thirst, let me give him drink. Now in order to do this, (1) We must see good in that, in which other men can see none. (2) We must pass by those injuries that other men would revenge. (3) We must show we have grace, and that we are made to bear what other men are not acquainted with. (4) Many of our graces are kept alive, by those very things that are the death of other men's souls.... The devil, (they say) is good when he is pleased; but Christ and His saints, when displeased.
John Bunyan[Mr. Gifford] made it much his business to deliver the people of God from all those false and unsound rests that by nature we are prone to make and take to our souls. He pressed us to take special heed that we took not up any truth upon trust - as from this or that, or any other man or men - but to cry mightily to God that He would convince us of the reality thereof, and set us down therein by his own Spirit in the holy word.
John BunyanThe Author's Way of sending forth his Second Part of the Pilgrim. Some things are of that nature as to make One's fancy chuckle, while his heart doth ache.
John BunyanThere is a warning here for true pilgrims. Beware of the talker, but also be careful not to judge too quickly those whom God has blessed with both genuine grace and a fluency to speak of divine mercy in ways more eloquent than others. The proof is in the life-not a perfect life, but a life that both delights in divine truth and magnifies God, the only giver of the sovereign grace that always produces the truly fruitful, fragrant life.
John Bunyan