In the preface to his autobiographical Grace Abounding to the Cheifest of Sinners Bunyan wrote:
I have sent you here enclosed, a drop of that honey, that I have taken out of the carcase of a lion (Judg 14:5-9). I have eaten thereof myself also, and am much refreshed thereby. (Temptations, when we meet them at first, are as the lion that roared upon Samson; but if we overcome them, the next time we see them, we shall find a nest of honey within them.) The Philistines understand me not. It is ‘something of’ a relation of the work of God upon my own soul, even from the very first, till now; wherein you may perceive my castings down, and raisings up; for he woundeth, and his hands make whole. It is written in the Scripture (Isa 38:19), “The father to the children shall make known the truth of God.” Yea, it was for this reason I lay so long at Sinai (Deut 4:10,11), to see the fire, and the cloud, and the darkness, that I might fear the Lord all the days of my life upon earth, and tell of his wondrous works to my children (Psa 78:3-5).