to preach in a church in a country village (before the restoration
of king Charles) in Cambridgeshire, and the people being gathered
together in the church-yard, a Cambridge scholar, and none of the
soberest of 'em neither, enquired what the meaning of that concourse
of people was, it being upon the week day, and being told, That one
Bunyan, a tinker, was to preach there, he gave a boy twopence to
hold his horse, saying, He was resolved to hear the tinker prate;
and so went into the church to hear him. But God met with him there
by his ministry, so that he came out much changed, and would, by
his good will, hear none but the tinker for a long time after, he
himself becoming a very eminent preacher in that county afterwards.
This story I know to be true, having many a time discoursed with
the man, and, therefore, I could not but set it down as a singular
instance of the power of God that accompanied his ministry.'[197]

Bunyan's veneration for the Scriptures, as the only source and
standard of religious knowledge, led him into frequent controversies.
In common with the Christian world, he wholly depended upon the
enlightening influence of the Holy Spirit to impress the Divine
truths of revelation upon the mind, and also to illustrate, open,
and apply the sacred writings to the heart of man. Unable to read
the Bible in the original languages in which it was written, he
wisely made use of every aid that might enable him to study its
contents with the greatest advantage. It was his habit to examine
the two translations then in common use. The present authorized
version, first published in 1611, is that to which he usually
refers; comparing it with the favourite Puritan version made by the
refugees at Geneva, and first printed in 1560. He sometimes quotes
the Genevan, and so familiar were the two translations, that in
several instances he mixes them in referring from memory to passages