ABSTRACT
Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners occupies a unique position within the traditionally agreed canon of texts by John Bunyan. The efforts to restore the perceived subject of Grace Abounding to presence have taken a number of forms. The reading of Grace Abounding is offered within a framework which takes the symbols of cross and sepulchre within Christian writings to be a 'reconciliation of father and mother, the formative male and female impulse'. Grace Abounding is seen to conform to the basic pattern of 'ministerial' autobiography, with three parts, describing the author's 'conversion, calling, and ministry'. Jeremy Tambling's analysis of Grace Abounding as a confessional text, rather than as 'autobiography' is persuasive, yet his stress on what he terms 'the genesis of secrecy', on the importance of the private space as the primary location of interpellative power, leads to a partial reading of the text.
