ABSTRACT
Bunyan was considered to be a powerful preacher. A sense of the sheer strength of his preaching is expressed in the spiritual autobiography of Charles Doe, a comb-maker from Southwark who became a friend and disciple of Bunyan's. Doe was so taken by Bunyan's forceful preaching that he took it upon himself to sell Bunyan's works; in A Collection of Experience, he claims to have sold about 3,000 of Bunyan's books. John Donne was one of the best-known clergymen of his time, as was John Bunyan in his. Despite obvious social and religious differences, their careers may be seen to parallel each other. Donne and Bunyan were highly effective preachers, and both published sermons. As noted by Bunyan editor Graham Midgley, sermons built around a single metaphor were common in the seventeenth century. Throughout the course of the sermon, Bunyan expands the central metaphor by providing and explicating examples which do not appear in the biblical parable.
