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1. The original drawing by White, from which he engraved the portrait, is preserved in the print department of the British Museum. An accurate copy from it is prefixed to this edition of his Works.
2. These words were correctly given in an edition that I published in 1806.—Ed.
3. How strange to hear a sermon, on the day of sacred rest, from the words, ‘Keep holy the Sabbath day,’ accompanied by ‘a trible-bob grandsire,’ the men labouring and sweating most violently.—Ed.
4. From a copy in the Editor’s library.
5. All Diabolus’ army are by Bunyan clothed in steel armour.—Ed.
6. Very few persons can imagine what trumpery trash was circulated by hawkers and chapment in Bunyan’s time, and even to the period when the Tract Society was established. Lying wonders and lewd stories were eagerly read, to the destruction of millions. Thanks to the piety of Sunday-school teachers, their supplications were heard, and our youth, when taught to read, are now supplied with nutritious literary food, by the aid of that invaluable society.—Ed.
7. Bunyan, in his Grace Abounding, No. 4, thus records that awful period of his experience—’It was my delight to be taken captive by the devil at his will.’ In 1752, and even in Burder’s edition, the line is strangely altered to—
‘Then I was there, and grieved for to see.’—Ed.
8. Terms much used by writers in Bunyan’s time, meaning, as stated in the margin, ‘her soul.’—Ed.
9. ‘The battering rams’ are the books of Holy Scripture.—Ed.
10. ‘I felt such a clogging and heat at my stomach, by reason of my terrors, that I was, especially at some times, as if my breast-bone would split asunder.’—Grace Abounding, No. 164.
11. The death of the body, or loss of a limb, is as nothing compared with the eternal loss of a never-dying soul.—Ed.
12. This line, in the first edition, is at the bottom of a page. In many copies, viz., in that of 1752, printed both at London and at Glasgow; that with Mason’s notes, 1782; and that with Adam’s notes, 1795, &c., this line is omitted, and one inserted to make up the rhyme—
‘They are the only men that have science.’
13. It is not surprising that Bunyan wondered at the confidence with which these speculations were published. His knowledge of invisible things was drawn exclusively from the Bible, which is silent upon the subject of a plurality of worlds. He does not say there is no such thing, but that it cannot be demonstrated.—Ed.
14. Bunyan intended his marginal notes as a key to the text. How strikingly does this illustrate the first page of his ‘Pilgrim’—’I lighted on a certain place where was a den’; the margin is a key to show that it was written in ‘the jail.’ So, in the latter part of the ‘Holy War,’ the Diabolonians dashed young children in pieces; the margin explains this to mean ‘good and tender thoughts.’—Ed.
15. With what Christian simplicity is this most important history introduced. The author, a traveller in the world, delighted with its customs, would have perished in his sins, but that God called him to his service and salvation.—Ed.
16. Mansoul, or, as the margin reads, man, so fearfully and wonderfully made, was glorious in his original sinless state, but will be infinitely more glorious if saved to eternal bliss, by union with Christ.—Ed.
17. The name Shaddai, one of the names of God, means ‘the pourer forth,’ the source of existence, the all-bountiful, the all-mighty, in whom we live, and move, and have our being. If he withhold his blessings, the universe must perish. ‘Lord, what is man, that thou shouldst be mindful of him?’—Ed.
18. Professor, if thy heart be idolatrous, or devoted to the world and thy lusts, thy religion is vain, thou deceivest thine own soul. God says to all, ‘My son, give me thine heart’ (Prov 23:26).— Mason.
19. The five senses are the gates to Mansoul. While they were guarded, no enemy could injure the town; now they require a double watch.— Ed.
20. ‘Diabolus’ is frequently used in the New Testament. It is translated ‘a slanderer,’ ‘an accuser,’ and ‘adversary’; and, in Matthew 4:1; Revelation 12:9, 20:2, ‘The prince of devils.’ It is the same as ‘Satan’ in Hebrew.— Ed.
21. It must not be supposed that this is a reflection upon the unhappy sons of Africa who had been sold into slavery. The margin is the key to the meaning of the words; ‘blacks or negroes’ mean ‘sinners, the fallen angels.’ Negro slaves were believed to be convicted criminals sold to the whites for transportation. English convicts were, at that time, sold as slaves to the planters in the West Indies. A man, for merely being a Quaker, was thus sold as a slave in New England. The horrors that were disclosed in this diabolical traffic stamps a demon character upon every slave-dealer or holder. The principal of these are negroes, who steal their fellows; and, like black devils, sell them to the white devils, who hold these poor creatures in slavery.— Ed.
22. ‘And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon fought, and his angels, and prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven’ (Rev 12:7,8).
23. Mr. Burder supposes that the fall of the angels took place after the creation of man, because Job says that at the laying the foundation of the world, ‘The morning stars sang together, and the sons of God shouted for joy’ (38:7). But angels in a fallen state had forfeited their high and exalted titles and glory.— Ed.
24. This agrees with Milton as to the perfect freedom of the will before the fall:—
‘God made thee perfect, not immutable;
And good he made thee; but to persevere
He left it in thy power; ordained thy will
By nature free.’—Paradise Lost, B. v.
25. It is evident that Bunyan thought that a fury, whose every hair was a living snake, ought rather to be a male than a female, as generally pictured; but, query, was it in the original manuscript Diabolus, mistaken by the printer for Alecto. He had given this advice. Some editors have altered the name; but as it is Alecto in all Bunyan’s own editions, it is here continued.— Ed.
26. If devils cordially unite in the work of destruction, how ought Christians to unite in their efforts to promote the kingdom of Christ. We should be ‘wise as serpents,’ while ‘harmless as doves.’—Ed.
27. In this infernal conference the names are well chosen. Apollyon signified the Destroyer; Beelzebub, the Prince of Devils; Lucifer, the Morning Star, a fallen angel, the arch-devil; Alecto, a heathen name of one of the furies, whose head was covered with snakes, and who was full of vengeance; Tisiphone, another of the furies.— Burder.
28. ‘Legion’; a military term. Among the Romans, five thousand men. An indefinite number (Mark 5:9).— Mason.
29. Resistance to the first sin is of the utmost importance:—
‘Sin will at first, just like a beggar crave
One penny or one halfpenny to have;
And, if you grant its first suit, ‘t will aspire
From pence to pounds, and so will still mount higher
To the whole soul.’—Bunyan’s Caution.
30. ‘The dragon’; a scriptural name of the devil; see Revelation 12, 13.— Ed.
31. In the early editions this dangerous enemy is called All-pause when first introduced, but always afterwards Ill-pause.— Ed.
32. The will by which we determine for or against an action.
33. The Recorder is conscience, by which we judge of an action as good or bad, according to the light we enjoy, whether by the law of nature or by the written law. Conscience records our actions; and, in the day of judgment, the book of conscience is one of those which shall be opened.— Burder.
34. Satan may tempt, but cannot force the soul to sin (James 1:14); we are therefore commanded to resist the devil, that he may flee from us. To destroy this resistance, therefore, must be a great point with the enemy.— Burder.
35. The artful speech of Diabolus is founded upon the scriptural account of the first temptation. ‘Ye shall not surely die,’ said the father of lies, and he still persists in it. God says, Sinner, thou shalt die; Satan says, Thou shalt not die. Which of these ought we to believe?— Burder.
36. ‘That HE.’ According to Tyrwhitt, p. 113, HE was prefixed to proper names by the Saxons emphatically. Shakespeare thus uses it: ‘I stand to answer thee, or any he the proudest of thy sort.’ Bunyan uses it as a mark of contempt. A modern author would say, ‘That fellow, Mr. Ill-pause.’—Ed.
37. Resistance failed in our first mother. She paused, and it was an Ill-pause; whatever contradicts God’s Word should be instantly resisted as diabolical.— Burder.
38. The most imminent danger to the soul is when Satan finds a death-like, quiet, teachable auditory. So it was when Whitfield and Wesley, on their godlike mission, roused the people; who, to a frightful extent, were slumbering on the brink of eternal torments.— Ed.
39. Beware of flattery and hypocrisy, especially of that cunning craftiness of false teachers whereby they lie in wait to deceive unwary souls, and keep them in darkness. The white devil that elates the sinner with vain confidence, is much more dangerous than the black one who instigates to lust, profaneness, and despair.— Mason.
40. The breath of temptations, entertained for a moment, admits unbelief, and destroys primitive innocence. In a spiritual sense, man died; and, by the offence of one, judgment came upon all to condemnation (Rev 5:18).— Burder.
41. Then peace expired,
And every grace fell slaughter’d round her tomb.— Swain’s Redemption.
42. Her rash hand, in evil hour,
Forth reaching to the fruit, she pluck’d, she ate:
Earth felt the wound, and nature, from her seat,
Sighing through all her works, gave signs of woe,
That all was lost.— Paradise Lost, B. ix.
43. His noble passions, once the blissful seat
Of each celestial grace, became the den
Of fiends infernal.— Swain.
44. God’s image of holiness being obliterated, Satan, with all his horrid crew of lusts and vile affections, gained admittance; the understanding was perverted, and the affections estranged.— Mason.
45. O sinner, listen now to the voice of conscience, before his awful suggestions drive thee to despair.
O give it leave to speak,
For it will speak ere long! O hear it now,
While useful its advice, its accents mild.— Young.
46. The office and power of conscience, the old recorder, is beautifully described. He will sometimes speak, yea, war aloud, testifying for God, and against sin.— Burder.
47. This is the old device of Satan. It was thus he treated poor Christian, in the Pilgrim’s Progress, when first alarmed for his soul’s welfare—’They thought that some frenzy distemper had got into his head.’—Ed.
48. Liars ought to have good memories; just before this the devil said, ‘When Shaddai shall hear what is done, he will come.’ Now he tells them, ‘He hath shaken his hands of us,’ or entirely given us up.— Ed.
49. Conscience, in natural men, is very unequal and irregular in its opposition to sin; yet by fits and starts he will cry out, and so frighten the sinner, that he wishes him ‘a thousand miles off,’ so as to give him no disturbance. The powers of conscience cannot be utterly defaced.— Burder.
50. The will scorns to be a slave, but plunges into the worst of slavery—that to Satan and to sin; and in that slavery must perish, unless emancipated and redeemed by Christ.— Ed.
51. The will is a Lord, a person of great importance, a governing faculty; and there could be no sin till the will consented to the temptation. In fallen man, it is not subject to the law of God, but obstinately opposed to it, and therefore a fit deputy for the devil.—Burder.
52. The mind or judgment, whereby we distinguish between good and evil, lawful and unlawful (2 Cor 3:14; Titus 1:15).—Mason. How awfully has sin fettered man, and made him a slave.—Ed.
53. The unawakened sinner has no pleasure in the Holy Scriptures; they are to him like old, rent, torn law parchments, which are written in a language that he cannot understand, and he casts them away.—Ed.
54. What a progeny! but they are the genuine fruits of sin, which is of an impudent, scornful, and revengeful nature; and they have made the soul an enemy to justice, mercy, and truth.—Mason.
55. Relative severities are the duties we owe to God, to ourselves, and to man, as public and private prayer, obedience and affection to parents and relatives, and that duty so essential to our spirit’s welfare—’self-examination.’ These being neglected, the sinner becomes to every good work reprobate.—Mason.
56. Satan would conceal or obliterate the sacred Scriptures, prevent the practice of duty to God or to our neighbour, and make man merely carnal and brutish. Awfully has he succeeded; so that man has become that motley monster, half-beast, half-devil, uniting in himself the sensual appetites of the former with the diabolic temper of the latter.—Burder.
57. Great is the danger of seeking to be wise above what is written. The Bible is the limit of all real knowledge in matters of religion. To the law and to the testimony, if any doctrine or practice is not to be found there, reject it instantly and for ever; it is poisonous, and tends to death and hell.—Ed.
58. ‘Neither eyes nor ears’; no regard to reason nor danger, but hurried on by mere appetite to every fleshly indulgence.—Burder. How degraded! Man becomes a compound of devilish and beastly lusts. ‘Lord, what is man that thou should be mindful of him.’—Ed.
59. To ‘grammar’; to instil into the mind.—Ed.
60. Nothing could evidence more intrepid faithfulness than this severe, but just, reflection upon the open licentiousness and debauchery of Charles II and his courtiers. Nearly thirteen years of frightful imprisonment had not chilled his faithful spirit, nor cowed him in doing his duty. In serving God he was a stranger to fear.—Ed.
61. ‘What a vile set of wretches!’ the reader will exclaim; but are you sure that they do not rule your heart? Unbelief is the first, and how natural the gradation to Atheism, the last—the scorner’s seat.—Ed.
‘Christ purged his temple, so must thou thy heart.
All sinful thoughts are thieves, together met
To cozen thee.’—Herbert.
62. Thus Satan fixes his empire in the soul:—1. By enmity and aversion to Divine instruction; 2. By the blindness of the understanding, and perverseness of the will, by which the knowledge of its lamentable state and of God are concealed; and, 3. By a habit and delight in sin, rolling it as a sweet morsel under the tongue; all which, if grace prevent not, will drown men in destruction and perdition.—Mason. Reader, beware, these three strongholds are the greatest enemies to human happiness:—1. Indifferent carelessness; 2. Ignorance of the new birth and of spiritual religion, which is the strength of superstition—the cruel persecutor of the saints; 3. Lusts, which degrade the soul into slavery to Satan.—Ed.
63. Loveflesh was one of the corrupted Mansoulians, and, therefore, not bound to the place whence Spitegod and Love-no-light came; these were Diabolonians.—Ed.
64. How awful and complete is the revolution! The understanding is darkened, the conscience debauches, the will perverted, the image of God defaced, the law of God suppressed, and lusts triumphant; while the proud sinner defies God, loves midnight darkness, and wallows in sin. What an awful, but accurate, picture of apostate man! God, be merciful to us sinners.—Burder.
65. ‘Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world.’ ‘Not a sparrow shall fall without your Father.’ ‘The very hairs of your head are all numbered’ (Matt 10L29,30).—Ed.
66. ‘Ye have said, We have made a covenant with death, and with hell are we at agreement’ (Isa 28:15).—Ed.
67. ‘To strike hands’ means to enter into agreement, make a contract, or become security (Prov 17:18).—Ed.
68. How astonishing is the Divine benignity! Who can express it so well as in the words of Emmanuel himself, God so loved the world? So loved! How much he loved, no tongue can tell, no heart conceive. It is love unsought, unparalleled, free, and everlasting.—Burder.
69. ‘Breviat’; a summary or epitome; a word commonly used in Bunyan’s time.—Ed.
70. Early intimation was given to a lost world of God’s gracious designs in favour of rebel man. He was pleased to publish in his word this benevolent purpose.—Burder.
71. It is the interest of hell to keep men in ignorance of the gospel. His great instrument, in all ages and climes, has been a wicked priestcraft. All that tends to prevent anxious personal inquiry for salvation is from beneath, from the father of lies. ‘I believe as the church believes, and the church believes as I believe,’ is the wretched sophistry by which Satan entangles souls in his net.—Ed.
72. ‘They glory in their shame,
Reject the sustenance Divine,
To beggarly vile appetites descend;
Ask alms of earth, for guests that came from heav’n;
Sink into slaves; and sell for present hire
Their rich reversion, and (what shares its fate),
Their native freedom, to the prince who sways
The nether world.’—Young.
73. Odious atheistical pamphlets, and filthy ballads and romances, full of baldry. ‘Baldry’; obscenity. The abounding of such depraved publications affords a good criterion of the moral state of a country—China, very degraded; France, degraded; Italy, under the Pope’s nose, most degraded; few, in comparison, are now to be found in England, and they hide themselves as Christian knowledge progresses. In Bunyan’s time, under the depraved Charles II, they awfully abounded under the care of Mr. Filth.—Ed.
74. Not so, says the Scripture, it is a saying worthy of all acceptation, that Christ came to save sinners, even the chief of sinners.—See Bunyan’s Jerusalem Sinner Saved.—Ed.
75. ‘Brute’; generally spelt ‘bruit’; report, rumour, fame.—Imp. Dic.—Ed.
76. This is one of the great lies with which Satan and his emissaries would keep sinners in bondage, by leading them to think that Christ came not to save, but to destroy, and that true religion is a dull, melancholy, pursuit, tending only to misery and melancholy; the very reverse of all Christian experience and truth.—Ed.
77. Well may Satan be called the father of lies; all his object is to destroy souls. He is a merciless tyrant; his service is the vilest drudgery; his wages are pain, sorrow, sickness, temporal, and eternal death. O for that spiritual wisdom from heaven by which alone we can detect his devices.—Ed.
78. The strength of Satan’s kingdom lies in preventing men from thinking or examining for themselves.—Ed.
79. How do the most wretched slaves, even the devil’s dirtiest drudges, hug their chains, and try to imagine themselves free. The believer alone knows what liberty is; Christ’s service is perfect freedom, and his ways—all his ways, and none but his ways—are pleasantness and peace.—Ed.
80. Without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins; but with the blood-shedding of Jesus, the gospel of peace and salvation is brought to the guilty conscience. How malignantly the father of lies can pervert the plainest gospel truths.—Ed.
81. How many baptized infidels perish in a vain hope that Divine mercy will be extended to impenitent, unawakened sinners; forgetting that ‘a God all mercy, is a God unjust.’—Ed.
82. This shield of the devil is used to an extent that few persons imagine. All the impenitent disbelieve the punishment of sin, and use this shield to ward off conviction; and how many of the children of God, when in a state of doubt, use the same shield, to prevent the entrance of those promises which would bring consolation to their wounded souls! Strangely has sin perverted the faculties of Mansoul.—Ed.
83. How skilfully Satan plies his suggestions, to keep poor sinners from their knees. He knows that he cannot withstand godly, fervent, prayer.—Ed.
84. Reader, we have here presented to our view the whole armour of the devil—presumption, hardness of heart, a blasphemous tongue, unbelief, and a prayerless spirit. This is Satan’s armour; the very reverse of that which God has provided for Christian soldiers.—Burder.
85. Thus Satan deceiveth the world, promising liberty and pleasure, while slavery and destruction are his only aim. ‘All these things,’ said he to our Lord, ‘will I give thee, if thou wilt worship me.’ O that we may be enabled to say, ‘Get thee behind me, Satan.’—Burder. Satan first beguiles, then destroys, and lastly torments; he flatters only to betray and ruin.—Mason.
86. Reader, having accompanied Bunyan thus far in his Holy War, pause and consider whether you understand his spiritual meaning: the original perfection of human nature—the temptations of the enemy of souls—the loss of innocency—the admission of Diabolus into the heart of Mansoul—his reign of sin—the first intimations of Divine mercy—Satan’s precautions to prevent it—to resist the grace of God—and to keep the soul in slavery,—have I felt all this in my own experience?—Ed.
87. The army of forty thousand terrors of the law was not so fearful as one threatening of the new covenant. Read carefully Grace Abounding, No. 246.—Ed.
88. Mansoul’s spirit is first to be broken by the terrors of the law; there is no difficulty in understanding the very appropriate names of the captains. But why forty thousand convictions and terrors, unless from that number of valiant men ‘prepared for war,’ that went up with Joshua, who was feared ‘as they feared Moses?’ (Josh 4:13). The margin says, ‘The words of God.’ There are in the Bible 810,697 words, so that the 40,000 and above may refer to the number of those passages intended to convince of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment to come.—Ed.
89. ‘Boanerges,’ a powerful awakening ministry; ‘Conviction,’ an awful display of the requirements of the law; ‘Judgment,’ the dreadful expectation of the great day; ‘Execution,’ the destruction of impenitent sinners. These are means of conviction, although in many cases, as that of Lydia, the heart is gently opened to admit Emmanuel.—Ed.
90. ‘Harness’; dress or equipments for fighting men, or for horses.—Ed.
91. These are the usual means of conviction and conversion, but not the only means. Some are gently led to the Saviour, to others ‘in a dream, in a vision of the night; he openeth the ears of men, and sealeth their instruction’ (Job 33:15,16). The great question is, Do I love the Lord? Does that love lead to obedience?—Ed.
92. A son of thunder, meaning a powerful proclamation of the gospel, which when made effectual in the heart by the Holy Ghost, becomes the power of God to salvation.—Mason.
93. Although Bunyan was not a hireling preacher, but for a great portion of his life maintained himself and his family by the labour of his hands, yet he plainly intimates that itinerating and missionary labourers in the Lord’s vineyard must be maintained at the King’s cost while away from home.—Ed.
94. The distance to which man has fallen from God, is well set forth in the Church Homily on the Nativity: ‘Before he was beloved, now he is abhorred; before he was most beautiful and precious, now he is vile and wretched. Instead of the image of God, he is now the image of the devil; instead of being the citizen of heaven, he is the bond-slave of hell; having no one part of his former purity and cleanness, but is altogether spotted and defiled, and is nothing but a lump of sin, and condemned to everlasting death.’ What strange ideas must pass over the mind of an unconverted clergyman, who prides himself on the dignity of human nature, and yet reads this to his congregation.—Ed.
95. ‘Cap-a-pie’; armed all over from head to feet.—Imp. Dic.
96. To alarm and to persuade are the two principal means by which the devil tempts men; and it is not uncommon among Christians to feel the influence of both on one occasion. Now, as two things so dissimilar are not likely to arise out of the self-same mind, is not this an evidence of the power of some foreign and infernal influence over the human heart? Let us, then, be always awake to a sense of our danger, and put on the whole armour of God.—Mason.
97. ‘Faith cometh by hearing’; but, alas! how often, at the instigation of Satan, is the ear shut against the messages of grace. The Christian inquirer’s duty is to hear and search all things, and hold fast that which is good.—Ed.
98. The knowledge which Bunyan displays upon all subjects is very surprising. He had an opportunity, when in the army, of hearing about councils of war, at which, in that day, captains may have assisted; but now a captain is not called ‘a field-officer.’—Ed.
99. ‘So’; let it be so; let it be in that manner. ‘There is Percy; if your father will do me any honour, so; if not, let him kill the next Percy himself.’—Shake.; Imp. Dic.—Ed.
100. How wretchedly are poor sinners enslaved to the devil, ‘led captive by him at his will,’ and not daring to listen to God without his [the devil’s leave].—Burder.
101. The trumpeters are the ministers of the everlasting gospel of peace; they proclaim the glad tidings of salvation through the blood-shedding and finished work of the Son of God.—Mason.
102. Godly ministers cannot be too careful in their conduct to guard against the appearance of preferring the fleece to the flock. The worldling has, alas, continual proofs that many are influenced by their own profit instead of love to immortal souls.—Ed.
103. ‘The devils believe and tremble’; so when Paul reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come, Felix trembled. Alas! many tremble who never turn.—Burder.
104. ‘Cut it down; why cumbereth it the ground?’ (Luke 13:7). ‘A cumber-ground professor is not only a provocation to God, a stumbling-block to the world, and a blemish to religion, but a snare to his own soul also.’—Bunyan’s Barren Fig Tree, Preface.—Ed.
105. There is much energy in this speech; pungent addresses to the conscience are often blessed of God to the conversion of souls. O sinner! consult not flesh and blood—throw over that old Ill-pause; nor let procrastination or ‘a more convenient season’ destroy thy soul.—Ed.
106. Thus reasons the flesh—We will not know; we will not believe; we will not submit; we must not be disturbed; therefore begone ye faithful teachers, or we will persecute you.—Burder.
107. If the Holy Spirit would let sinners sleep on, all mankind would lie in carnal security until plunged into destruction and perdition. ‘Go into the highways and compel them to come in,’ is the command of Divine mercy and irresistible grace.—Ed.
108. How admirably is that great enemy ‘Prejudice’ pictured; old, angry, ill-conditioned, with Deafness under his command.—Ed.
109. How often do poor mistaken sinners rejoice in their sins and misery—glorying in their shame. Small cause for joy have they who reject the counsel of God against themselves. Miserable is the state of that man whose ears are shut against the gospel of salvation; who is deaf to all the calls of God.—Burder.
110. As our Lord began with Nicodemus, so it behoves his followers to commence with sinners. How startling the cry, Ye must be born again, or perish everlastingly. ‘If thou hast anything less than regeneration, believe me, thou canst never see heaven. There is no hope of heaven till then, till thou art born again.’—Archbishop Ussher’s Sermons.—Ed.
111. Pride and vain conceit puff up multitudes in every class of society. My soul, art thou thus puffed up, or hast thou fallen into the arms of Divine mercy? Almighty grace can bring the mountain low, and exalt the valley. A learned persecuting Saul may become a chosen vessel.—Ed.
112. The opposition of a raging devil and inbred lusts would lead the most able ministers to despair of success, but for the promise, ‘I am with you always’; and ‘All that the Father giveth me SHALL come to me.’—Mason.
113. Tradition, Human Wisdom, and Man’s Invention have too often been enlisted into the service of religion, but they are in their element when engaged on the contrary side. Let Diabolus and his Captain Anything have them, and welcome; the gospel of Jesus needs no such services.—Burder.
114. It is curious to note the order in which open profanity hides its ugly heads under the powerful alarms of conscience. Outward reformation gives up very gross sins, but change of heart abhors them all.—Ed.
115. Called ‘Highmind and Heady,’ founded by Mr. Puffup.—Ed.
116. Under awful convictions of sin, Bunyan suffered alarms in the night.—See Grace Abounding, No. 139.—Ed.
117. Six aldermen, or great vices, slain; Heady and Highmind dismounted, or pride laid in the dirt; conscience within and a faithful ministry without, shaking Mansoul with terror upon terror. How plainly is all this exhibited in Bunyan’s startling experience, published in Grace Abounding. Poor soul, mercy will prevail over all thy stubbornness.—Ed.
118. A famine in Mansoul; the pleasures of sin fail; the prodigal would be glad of the meanest service in his father’s house; the dreary winter of affliction succeeds the summer of gaiety; the messages of mercy are renewed, but unbelief yet prevails.—Ed.
119. ‘Now was I both a burden and a terror to myself, weary of life, afraid to die; gladly would I have been anything but a man.’ ‘I counted the state of a dog and toad far better than mine.’—Grace Abounding, No. 104 and 149. Painful and most distressing were the feelings of Bunyan, but it was ‘the bitter before the sweet, to make the sweet the sweeter.’—Ed.
120. ‘O the unthought of imaginations, frights, fears, and terrors, that are effected by a thorough application of guilt, yielding to desperation.’—Grace Abounding, No. 186.—Ed.
121. Harness, warlike equipments, and accoutrements.—Ed.
122. Sinners, when alarmed by the fears of hell, are willing to become religious externally, provided they may retain their lordly lusts: they are ready to assume the form of godliness, but dislike its power.—Burder.
123. In the uproar which soon after followed, upon Lord Understanding’s speech, we find a plain declaration of the third of these terms of peace; it was, that Mansoul should still live in all lewdness and vanity. This occasioned Boanerges, with the highest disdain, to give his decided refusal, referring to 2 Timothy 2:19.—Ed.
124. Unbelief ever suggests hard thoughts of God, and represents his service as an intolerable burden. This is hateful to God, but pleaseth the devil.—Burder.
125. ‘A low conge,’ a low flattering servile salutation or bow; thus, in the Pilgrim’s Progress, when Byeends meets Hold-the-world and Moneylove, he made them a very low conge, and they also gave him a compliment.’—Ed.
126. Unbelief slanders the gospel, as though it proclaimed nothing but wrath, whereas, while it denounces destruction to the obstinately rebellious, it proclaims free, sovereign, boundless mercy and everlasting love, through Jesus Christ, to sensible returning sinners.—Mason.
127. See Grace Abounding, No. 46. ‘I was never out of the Bible, either by reading or meditation, still crying out to God, that I might know the truth, and way to heaven and glory.’—Ed.
128. This is a blessed mutiny; unbelief is opposed and the hope of pardoning mercy cherishes, then as the margin says, ‘Sin and the soul are at odds.’—Burder.
129. This is the true language of antichrist to this day; when governors or laws infringe upon the rights of conscience in matters of the soul’s health, and salvation; it is the Christian’s duty to resist such wicked statutes. The answer is, ‘It is the law, and whether right or wrong, if it even lead your souls to perdition, you must obey; "demean yourself like a subject."‘—Ed.
130. See this solemn inward struggle faithfully narrated in Grace Abounding, No.86.
131. No small advantage is gained when sinful rashness is destroyed, prejudice thrown down into the dirt, and indifference about religion is discarded; while the will, that before was wholly on the part of Satan, begins rather to take the other side.—Burder.
132. The efforts of an enlightened understanding and a renewed conscience are offensive to Satan, as threatening to subvert his authority in the soul, and he would kill them if he could, but where the good work of grace is begun, they cannot be destroyed.—Burder.
133. Ministers should deal gently with awakened sinners. Their great Master ‘will not break the bruised reed,’ nor should they. Roughness discourages—gentleness attracts.—Burder.
134. Most of this language is from the book of Job.—Ed.
135. This old slander of the father of lies was well answered by the poor boy, while sweeping a chimney, who sung—
‘The sorrow of the mind,
Be banish’d from this place,
Religion never was designed,
To make our pleasures less.’
136. This is exemplified in Bunyan’s experience. ‘By the strong and unusual assaults of the tempter was my soul like a broken vessel, driven as with the wind, and tossed sometimes headlong into despair.’—Grace Abounding, No. 185.—Ed.
137. This is exemplified in Grace Abounding, No. 139 and 140.—Ed.
138. Paul may plant and Apollos water, but God alone can give the increase. To him, therefore, they wisely apply for further assistance.—Burder.
139. Bishop Wilkins, in his Gift of Prayer, gives an awful picture of man’s total depravity and departure from God by the fall. ‘What a world of mischief,’ says he, ‘is there in our several parts! our wills, our affections, our tongues, and eyes! And yet all these are but as little rivulets; the fountain, or rather the sea, that feeds them, is our corrupted nature.’—Mason.
140. Jesus Christ is our great advocate above. He receives, amends, and presents our prayers; and those petitions which have the glory of God for their object, cannot but be acceptable to him.—Burder.
141. How honourable a work is it to make known the gospel! Every saint is thus honoured, if by his walk and converse he wins souls to Christ; all disciples are priests under the new covenant; they are made ‘Kings and priests unto God.’ The angels desire to look into these things. ‘The highest peer in heaven covets to go on this design.’ How does God honour his saints! The pious mother, nurse, or servant, the godly artizan or mechanic, the humble Christian merchant or nobleman ‘that turn many to righteousness, shall shine as the stars for ever and ever?’ Can we wonder that some proud men should vainly boast themselves as possessing a monopoly of this glory?—Ed.
142. The powerful influences, gifts and graces, of the Holy Spirit, Faith, Hope, Charity, Innocence, and Patience, under the immediate command of Christ, lead on the new covenant forces to conquer Mansoul, after it had been convinced and alarmed by the terrors of the laws.—Ed.
143. ‘The three golden anchors.’ When Christiana was at the house of the Interpreter, she had a golden anchor given to her, for, said they, you shall have it with you, for it is of absolute necessity that you may lay hold of that within the veil, and stand steadfast in turbulent weather. Joel 3:16; Hebrews 6:19. Here we find two golden anchors, but where is the third?—Ed.
144. These standards are all scriptural: Faith in the holy Lamb that was slain; Hope, the anchor of the soul (Heb 6:9); Charity and the orphan Innocent with the doves; Patience and his arrows in the heart (Psa 38:2). Bunyan had seen the use of standards in the civil war.—Ed.
145. When Jesus comes to effect the conquest of the human soul, he is gloriously attended with these heavenly graces, faith, hope, love, innocence, and patience. Faith leads the van; patience brings up the rear; Jesus, the Captain of salvation, heads the noble army. Ride prosperously, gracious Majesty, conquering and to conquer.—Burder.
146. ‘Reformades,’ angel volunteer officers, not attached to any troop or company.—Ed.
147. No sigh, no murmur, his elect shall hear,
From ev’ry face he’ll wipe off ev’ry tear;
In adamantine chains shall death be bound,
And hell’s grim tyrant feel th’ eternal wound. Messiah.
148. The text states forty-four battering-rams and twelve slings, which the margin interprets to mean the sixty-six books of the Holy Bible. It would be a task for Aquinas to discover which are rams and which the slings. The whole of this paragraph is omitted in the second edition, 1684, but is re-inserted in later copies. In one printed at Edinburgh, 1742, the text is altered to ‘fifty-four battering-rams,’ and this emendation is contained in all the modern editions. Perhaps the error was in the printer mistaking Mr. Bunyan’s figures, 22 for 12. This would make the 39 books of the Old Testament, with the Gospels and Acts, the 44 battering-rams, and the 22 Epistles and Revelation the slings. Mighty weapons for pulling down the strong holds of the devil.—Ed.
149. The Lord, the eternal Spirit, must first give the hearing ear, and the understanding heart, ere any saving work can be begun.—Mason.
150. ‘Leaguer,’ the camp and trenches in which a besieging army are sheltered.—Ed.
151. This reference to Isaiah 53:12 must not be misunderstood by our youthful readers. It does not mean that Emmanuel would divide the spoil with Diabolus, but that he would take it all from him, and divide it at his (Emmanuel’s) pleasure.—Ed.
152. Here Emmanuel discovers the true character of Satan—a liar, a deceiver, a blasphemer, an usurper, the malicious enemy of God and man. Emmanuel claims the human soul as his own, his workmanship, his delight, his inheritance, his purchase. How well does this gracious address deserve the most cordial acceptation!—Burder.
153. Infatuated sinners! rejecting the counsel of God against themselves. Reader, is this thy case? Pause and examine. Remember ‘faith cometh by hearing.’ Hear, then, and your soul shall live.—Burder.
154. These terms may be found in Grace Abounding, No. 16. ‘Desires to reform my vicious life; to go to church twice a day, and say and sing with the foremost; yet retaining my vicious life.’—Ed.
155. Mark this. A cold, lifeless profession, without possessing Christ, the hope of glory, is not Christianity; an almost Christian is a very infidel. We cannot serve two masters, God and Mammon. Jesus is worthy of all our love and service; in him are treasured up every needful blessing for time and eternity.—Mason.
156. The proud heart of man is loth to stoop to that absolute submission and entire obedience to Christ which he justly requires. They will allow him to be a Lord in name, but not in authority. They would serve Jesus in general, if permitted to indulge in sin occasionally; all such partial submission is rejected. To be only ‘almost a Christian’ is to be no Christian at all. To show the importance of this, the author repeatedly gives a marginal note, ‘Mark this.’—Burder.
157. The word ‘salved,’ as used in Bunyan’s time, means helped, remedied, saved, healed, rescued. Thus, in his Come and Welcome, he says, ‘Such questions would have been, but fools’ babbles about, instead of a sufficient salve to, so weighty a question.’ Now, the word solved would be used.—Ed.
158. Reader, ‘mark’ these proposals of Loth-to-stoop. All the unconverted cherish this evil spirit; call to mind, with shame, the time when you felt its influences in keeping your soul from Christ; nor would you ever have overcome your pride and your love of sin, but that the Holy Spirit conquered you by his love and mercy.—Ed.
159. ‘The serpents that bit the people of old were types of guilt and sin. Now these were fiery serpents, and such as, I think, could fly (Isa 14:29). Wherefore, in my judgment, they stung the people about their faces, and so swelled up their eyes, which made it the more difficult for them to look up to the brazen serpent, which was the type of Christ’ (John 3:14).—Bunyan on Justification. How fitly are Goodhope and Charity qualified to gain such a post.—Ed.
160. It is worthy of notice, that, while warnings and convictions attack the ear, hope and love are exhibited to the eye. This was Bunyan’s mode of proclaiming the gospel, and it is well worthy of universal imitation by preachers of all denominations.—Ed.
161. The will may be called the feet of the soul; because by that the soul, yea, the whole man, is carried hither and thither, or else held back, and kept from moving. While my Lord Will-be-will was so active in the service of Diabolus, he is, very properly, ‘wounded in the leg.’—Ed.
162. Portions of the Word, probably from the sacred epistles of the New Testament.—Ed.
163. Prejudice and Anything have fled; Ill-pause has his brain-pan cracked—there can be no more procrastination; Love-no-good is slain—the will is wounded; the feeling is painfully wounded; Bragman and carnal security are slain; Mansoul trembles; and in great mercy the white flag is hung out in token of grace, but the heart does not yet surrender.—Ed.
164. This is exemplified by Bunyan’s experience, in Grace Abounding, Nos. 30-36.
165. Reader, the devil offers to set up ministers and lecturers! Take heed what ye hear.—Ed.
166. How common is it with sinners, under conviction and the fear of hell, to be content with mending their lives; they are willing to be reformed, but not to be justified and saved by grace.—Burder.
167. What a volume of evangelical truth is contained in these words! Old things must pass away, all must become new; we must be buried with Christ in baptism, and rise again to newness of life. No man is a Christian till Christ is formed in him the hope of glory. We must be in Christ, complete in his righteousness, then will love constrain him to good works. In Christ he becomes the glory of the universe.—Ed.
168. When Satan can no longer keep his dominion over the soul, he will endeavour to ruin it by temptations to despair, or to some abominable vices; as the poor trembling creature in the gospel, desirous of approaching Christ, ‘as he was yet a coming, the devil threw him down and tare him’ (Luke 9:42).—Burder.
169. Thus was the promise fulfilled, ‘In that day shall the deaf hear the words of the book’ (Isa 29:18); and, ‘The ears of the deaf shall be unstopped’ (35:5). What a blessing to be able to say, ‘Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth.’ The way is strait from Eargate to Conscience, the house of the Recorder, and to the Heart, the castle. ‘He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.’ May God bestow ‘the hearing ear’ upon every reader.—Burder.
170. When the soul listens to the threatenings of the holy law, conscience fears and quakes; and till enlightened with the knowledge of the gospel, and the gracious designs of God, it can think and talk of nothing but ‘death and destruction.’—Burder. See this part of the Holy War, in Bunyan’s experience, recorded in Grace Abounding, Nos. 84-88.—Ed.
171. Bunyan’s relief from a state of intense misery was by an assault on Eargate. It was under a sermon upon Christ’s love.—’Thou art fair, my love’; then was old Prejudice slain, and his officers; although other fears afterwards terrified him, yet Prejudice was slain. Read the narrative in Grace Abounding, Nos. 89-92.—Ed.
172. No faculty or power of the soul can be injured by a death unto sin and a life unto holiness. Peace and happiness increase as we live near to God. My young friends, if Satan tells you that religion is a dull or melancholy thing, call to mind the happiness, nay, ecstasies of Paul and David when living under its holy influences.—Ed.
173. See Grace Abounding, No. 113.—Ed.
174. Conversion proceeds. The carnal will has no rest; Prejudice is slain; Aversion-to-good, Treachery, Blindness, and that most dangerous foe to the soul, old Ill-pause, with his traditions, antiquity and longbeard, are slain. ALL these were Diabolonians, not one native power of the soul was injured.—Burder.
175. ‘Behold he prayeth.’ Prayer is the first sign of spiritual life; Emmanuel was in Mansoul; the answer may be deferred, but praying breath was never spent in vain.—Ed.
176. When the conscience is alarmed, and sends its battering-rams against the heart or affections, the castle, and so the whole soul, will be quickly reduced, and fall into the arms of Divine mercy.—Ed.
177. There is joy in heaven over the repenting sinner. The heart, which was deemed impregnable, is taken by invincible grace.—Burder.
178. Bunyan was for seven or eight weeks in this painful state. Peace in and out twenty times a day; comfort now, and trouble presently; peace now, and before I could go a furlong as full of fear and guilt as ever heart could hold.—Grace Abounding, No. 205.
179. At our Lord’s ascension, when he triumphed over all the force of death and hell, obtained eternal redemption for us, and received all power in heaven and earth for his elect, till their number is accomplished. Then will be the everlasting triumph.—Mason.
180. By the Reformades we are to understand the angel volunteers, who desire to look into the wonders of salvation, and who rejoice over every sinner who finds salvation in Christ. It is here very strikingly and beautifully expressed.—Ed.
181. Compare this, and the two following paragraphs, with the Grace Abounding, Nos. 189-192.—Ed.
182. Sin-sick soul, Christ is an all-sufficient physician; only follow his advice, and the efficacious prescriptions of his Word (Hosea 6:3).—Mason.
183. It is common with convinced sinners, before they obtain clear views of the gospel, to remain in terror and alarm. They feel themselves condemned by the faithful preaching of the Word; but all will be well—will issue in fervent prayer and happy peace.—Burder.
184. Neither the bearer of this petition, nor the prayer itself, can be acceptable. It is the language of those who have been conquered by terror and power, and not by love; thus it ends with the words of Abonibezek, relative to the seventy kings that he had brought down to slavery (Judg 1:7).—Ed.
185. Heady and Highmind are long since slain—Mansoul feels her misery. As a condemned malefactor, expecting execution, what can she sue for but mercy? ‘God be merciful to me a sinner.’ For the ropes about their heads, see 1 Kings 20:31.—Ed.
186. It is a token of true conversion when the soul can, as it were, with one eye, behold its total defilement by sin, and abhor itself in dust and ashes; and with the other be struck with the glory and excellency of Christ’s person and work, and the all-sufficiency of his salvation.—Mason.
187. See Grace Abounding, No. 186.—Ed.
188. No unconverted person can imagine with what rapidity these ideas pass through the mind of the convinced sinner, nor the distraction and misery of such a state of wretched uncertainty. The recollection of these feelings is the only key to the forty-second Psalm. ‘Deep calleth unto deep; all thy waves and thy billows are gone over me.’—Ed.
189. ‘Fame’; or rumour, or public report; thus, Genesis 45:16.
190. Although the spirit of prayer prevails, yet what a clinging is there to old Gooddeeds. O you that hope for salvation in some supposed good deeds, listen to the answer which naturally suggests itself, ‘Let good works save thee’; what need of grace. If salvation be attainable by the law, then the death of Christ was needless.—Ed.
191. How humbling to human pride is this! But unless our desires for mercy be accompanied with a broken and a contrite spirit, they will be rejected; but the broken heart God will not despise (Psa 34:18, 51:17; Isa 57:15). ‘He will regard the prayer of the destitute’ (Psa 102:17).—Ed.
192. This language is peculiarly striking; there may be a mixture of pride in our deepest humility, and sin mingled with our holiest duties.—Ed.
193. Will-be-will is brought low; Boastings, Bragman, Ill-pause are dead; the soul is humbled, and uses such striking but just terms, ‘I see dirt in mine own tears.’ Redemption draws nigh. Beveridge says, ‘Repentance needs to be repented, our tears want washing, and the very washing of these tears needs still to be washed over again in the blood of the Redeemer.’—Ed.
194. All converted souls will confess that if God the Spirit had not arrested and stopped them in their mad career, they would have lived, died, and perished for ever in their sins.—Mason.
195. How much must this have deepened their sense of sin. The law enters that sin may abound, that it my appear exceedingly sinful, and render the grace of God infinitely precious.—Burder. The recollection of such dreadful suspense is invaluable to prevent backsliding, by hatred to sin.—Ed.
196. See Grace Abounding, Nos. 210-212.—Ed.
197. ‘O! how gladly now would I have been anybody but myself, anything but a man, and in any condition but my own; for there was nothing did pass more frequently over my mind than that it was impossible for me to be forgiven my transgression, and to be saved from wrath to come.’—Grace Abounding, No. 149; see also No. 140.—Ed.
198. I thought also of Benhadad’s servants, who went with ropes upon their heads to their enemies for mercy (1 Kings 20:31).—Grace Abounding, No. 251.—Ed.
199. This godly sorrow was a prelude to joy unspeakable and full of glory. This sort of weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning. They went forth weeping, bearing precious seed, but were soon to return with joy, bringing their sheaves with them.—Burder.
200. ‘Death and the deep’; or bottomless pit.—Ed.
201. The distinction between inbred sins and the evil suggestions of the enemy is very difficult to be drawn. The gold, silver, and precious stones will be purified and polished; while the wood, hay, and stubble will be burned up (1 Cor 3:12,13). The natives or powers of the soul are pardoned, while the corruptions and lusts are to be crucified. Reader, this is solemn, searching heart-work.—Ed.
202. The work of conversion is accomplished—the heart taken; the victory of Emmanuel over Mansoul is proclaimed; the heavenly host rejoices; Diabolus is driven from the town, but the King of glory has not yet entered—his gracious presence is not yet felt in the soul; the gates are open; he will enter, and will not tarry. Is this to show that Heart Castle is to be prepared for him, after it has been occupied by infernals? ‘The preparation of the heart is with him,’ and then comes ‘the answer of the tongue’ (Prov 16:1).—Ed.
203. I had such strange apprehensions of the grace of God that I could hardly bear up under it; it was so out of measure amazing, when I thought it could reach me, that I do think, if that sense of it had abode long upon me, it would have made me incapable of business.—Grace Abounding, No 252.—Ed.
204. For the meaning of ‘their steps were enlarged,’ consult Psalm 18:36 and Proverbs 4:12. It is here most admirably introduced. After having been shut up and environed by the most distressing fears and awful alarms of conscience, the soul is now at liberty, and walks in peace; the Rock of ages supporting their hopes, full of heavenly anticipations and holy enjoyments.—Ed.
205. What a change! ‘When the Lord turned again the captivity of Zion, we were like them that dream. Then was our mouth filled with laughter, and our tongue with singing; then said they among the heathen, The Lord hath done great things for them. Who is like unto thee, pardoning iniquity, transgression, and sin? Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity. Blessed is the man to whom God imputeth righteousness without works’ (Rom 4:6).—Burder.
206. ‘There is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus.’ The four captains no longer denounce the wrath of God; the end of their ministry is accomplished, and their awful speeches are no more heard. This is well expressed in the margin. When faith and pardon meet together, judgment and execution depart from the heart.—Burder.
207. Reader, have you experienced this holy joy, ‘unspeakable, and full of glory?’ What can we render to God for such a blessing. Our light afflictions, which grind us to the earth, are but for a moment in comparison with ‘an eternal weight of glory.’ ‘The inhabitants shall not say, I am sick’; there is no cause of sickness or pain, for they are ‘forgiven their iniquity’ (Isa 33:24).—Ed.
208. Man bestows favours on the most worthy, but God extends mercy to enemies, rebels, and beggars; whom he strips of their filthy rags of pride and self-righteousness, blots out their sins by the blood of his cross, and arrays with the best robe of salvation.—Mason.
209. ‘Sealed with the Holy Spirit’ to the day of redemption, to show forth faith by works ‘with meekness of wisdom’—a brave show; see Ephesians 1:13, 4:30; James 2:18, 3:13.—Ed.
210. O pardoned sinner, how can you sufficiently magnify the exceeding riches of Divine grace! In vain the soul attempts to measure the breadth and length, the depth and height, of the love of Christ; it surpasseth knowledge.—Burder.
211. During the siege, the flags were unfurled one at a time, beginning with mercy, and ending with judgment; but now mercy and truth are met together, righteousness and peace have kissed each other (Psa 85:10).—Ed.
212. ‘And me,’ shows the personal interest of the author in this soul’s conflict with the prince of darkness. The war is to be carried on, therefore must Mansoul learn the art of war, and see the King in his beauty, glory, and power, that he may have confidence in him. Christ, by faith, dwells in the heart, and all is rapture and ecstacy; and they, for a time, see nothing of the Diabolonians who yet lurked in their walls.—Ed.
213. This is the fear which is the beginning of wisdom, arising from a sense of total dependence upon the Lord for spiritual strength; a fear of losing his presence. ‘Hold up my goings that my footsteps slip not’ (Psa 17:5).—Ed.
214. ‘Furniture,’ as an old military term, means warlike equipments.
‘To deeds of armes and proof of chivalrie,
They gan themselues addresse, full rich aguiz’d,
As each one had his furniture deviz’d.’—Spencer.—Ed.
215. This is the language of first love; but let the caution in the margin be noticed, ‘Say, and hold to it, Mansoul.’ Happy, indeed, are those who continue in this good mind all their days! Alas! the sequel of the story shows how changeable a creature is man.—Burder. Without Christ we can do nothing (John 15:5).—Mason.
216. When the glory of Christ’s person and work is clearly manifested, the renewed soul, transported with joy at the sight, finds him to be the fairest among ten thousand fair, and altogether lovely.—Mason.
217. Well may the soul rejoice when Jesus comes to dwell in it. ‘If a man love me, he will keep my words; and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him’ (John 14:23).—Burder.
218. Throughout this war, Credence or Faith is never lost sight of. Here we have exemplified the scripture maxim, ‘That Christ may dwell in your hearts BY FAITH’ (Eph 3:17). Purifying your hearts by faith (Acts 15:9).—Ed.
219. Much judgment is displayed in this distribution of the soldiers, particularly in quartering Boanerges and Conviction in the house of Conscience.—Burder.
220. The convert’s anxious desire is, that Emmanuel should not only reign in the heart or castle, but also visit and govern the head or judgment, and all the powers of the soul.—Ed.
221. ‘What is it’; the meaning of the word manna, put in the margin of the Bible.—Ed.
222. These sweet views of Christ, and the comforts of his Spirit, are not uncommon at the soul’s espousals to him after conversion, when he brings her into his banqueting-house; and his banner over her is love (Cant 2:4).—Mason.
223. This is the gospel feast—a feast of fat things, meat indeed, and drink indeed; not of nature, but from heaven. The music is such as saints and angels sing before the throne; the word of Christ, in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs.—Burder.
224. Bunyan was fond of introducing spiritual riddles in godly company, and it must have been a very profitable pastime. The types of Christ in the Old Testament are excellent riddles. So when the Pilgrims are entertained by Gaius, nuts and riddles are introduced.
‘Hard texts are nuts (I will not call them cheaters),
Whose shells do keep their kernels from the eaters,
Ope then the shells, and you shall have the meat,
They here are brought for you to crack and eat.’
Care being taken not to spoil tender teeth in cracking them.
225. The slings are books of Scripture, probably referring to the epistles of the New Testament. These are powerful instruments, both defensive and offensive, when properly mounted upon a renewed heart and mental powers.—Ed.
226. Does this nameless engine at Mouthgate mean prayer? The unseen prayer of faith has performed wonderful exploits. The silent ejaculations of the heart, the ‘groanings which cannot be uttered.’—Ed.
227. The Bible, the only guide to all, but especially to my Lord Mayor, ‘the understanding.’—Ed.
228. The understanding is chief magistrate directed by the study of the Scriptures, knowledge of God in Christ, is to bear away, another office being appointed for Conscience; the image of Satan is to be utterly destroyed, and that of God renewed in the soul.—Burder.
229. What a work of labour and time is here set to Mansoul. The strongholds of Satan are to be pulled down, and all the materials of which they were constructed are to be clean removed out of the town. This can only be effected by the indwelling of Christ in the soul. He comes to destroy the works of the devil to pull down his strong-holds, and to purify the soul.—Ed.
230. A jury of good men and true. What a contrast between them and Judge Lord Hategood, with the jury who tried Faithful—Blindman, Nogood, Malice, Lovelust, Liveloose, Heady, Highmind, Enmity, Liar, Cruelty, Hatelight, and Implacable.—Ed.
231. Christian, is it possible that thoughts so desperately wicked were ever injected by Satan into your heart? How thankful will you be to have them tried and destroyed; see Grace Abounding, No. 101.—Ed.
232. The sinner is not satisfied with his own destruction, but is ever leading others into the same awful state; sin is a spreading plague, the unconverted heart is a mystery of iniquity.—Ed.
233. See the woeful end of such, in Romans 2:5; Jeremiah 6:14.—Mason.
234. The gossips at a christening reminds me of a singular circumstance that took place at the christening of a friend’s child about forty years ago. Our host rapped hard on the table, and said, ‘Ladies and Gentlemen, I hear some talking politics, and some religion; I beg you to recollect that we have nothing now to do with politics or religion, but are at a christening, so fill your glasses.’—Ed.
235. ‘There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked’ (Isa 57:21). Till convinced of sin, and Christ becomes the sinner’s friend, there is no peace, no mercy, no hope, no heaven.—Mason. Alas! how many slumber into hell, under the misguiding influence of false peace.—Ed.
236. A similar circumstance, in the trial of Faithful, took place in the examination of the witness Envy, who commenced his testimony without being sworn, probably arising from what Bunyan had seen at the assizes.—Ed.
237. ‘With names of virtue she deceives
The aged and the young;
And while the heedless wretch believes,
She makes his fetters strong.’
238. Bonnets or caps were commonly worn by men. ‘To vail the bonnet’ was to take it off and bow, cap in hand—equivalent to taking off the hat and bowing at the present day. ‘As for vailing bonnet before great rulers.’—Holland’s Pliny, b. xxviii.—Ed.
239. There is in the renewed soul a sincere detestation of all sin. As the jury were unanimous in their verdict, so all read Christians will most cordially doom their lusts to death.
Yes, my Redeemer, they shall die,
My heart hath so decreed;
Nor will I spare the guilty things
That made my Saviour bleed.—Burder.
240. The accuracy with which these criminal trials are narrated is surprising. The imprisonment, indictment, court, jury, witnesses, verdict, sentence—all is in the same order as if written by my Lord Chief Justice. What a contrast is here exhibited to the behaviour of the judge and jury in the trial of Faithful, in the ‘Pilgrim’s Progress’! that was brutal, as the then Judge Jeffries; this dignified and constitutional, as the present Judge Campbell. Thanks be unto God for so vast a reformation, clearly foreseen by Bunyan.—Ed.
241. What a blessed season! no unbelief to be found at that time in Mansoul. Christian, call to mind the time when Christ led you into his banqueting-house, and his banner over you was love; you could find no unbelief then. Alas! the troubler makes his appearance again quite soon enough.—Ed.
242. Unbelief, that giant sin, was apprehended and condemned—but, alas! he escapes. This incident is introduced by the author with great skill. He eludes justice, and flies to hell, to meditate new mischief. Ah! where is the believer who is at all times wholly free from the assaults of this arch-rebel? Where is the Christian who has not occasion to say, and that with tears, ‘Lord, I believe, help thou mine unbelief?’—Burder.
243. The conversion of sinners, which is daily and hourly creating joy among the angels in heaven and saints on earth, adds to the torments of Diabolus and his host in hell, and of all his slaves in the world.—Ed.
244. The cross, in the market-place of most towns, was the place of public proclamations and executions. The slaying of our sins at the cross, denotes that they are to be publicly abandoned, so that the Christian becomes a living epistle, ‘known and read of all men’ (2 Cor 3:2).—Ed.
245. This probably alludes to Elisha putting his hands upon the king’s hands, when shooting the arrow of deliverance (2 Kings 13:16). The conquest and crucifixion of sin can never be effected without Divine assistance. Prayer brings the aid of the Holy Spirit; and thus we are enabled to conquer our sinful thoughts and propensities.—Ed.
246. The greatest proof of our attachment to Christ is the destruction of our sins; not suffering them to reign in our bodies, but crucifying the flesh, with its affections and lusts. But, indeed, our sins struggle much, and die hard; and our own native strength is insufficient for their mortification. The Spirit, therefore, is introduced, as helping in this work; for, ‘If ye, through the Spirit, do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.’—Burder.
247. The happy effects of a Christian’s experience are—a conviction, by the Word and Spirit of revelation, of our insufficiency, and Christ’s all-sufficiency; an insight into gospel mysteries; God’s veracity, faithfulness, and immutability.—Mason. It should be noticed, that at this period of the Christian’s life, experience is but a young gentleman.—Ed.
248. David, having determined to encounter Goliath, comforted himself with his past experience. ‘Thy servant slew both the lion and the bear; he who delivered me from their paws, will deliver me out of the hand of this Philistine.’—Ed.
249. By ‘the holy law,’ we are not limited to the ten commandments, but to the law and testimony—the whole revealed will of God. It as much embraces the new commandment as the ten. What a mercy that the soul in Christ finds in the law and covenant everlasting comfort and consolation.—Ed.
250. Well may the Christian exult in the blessings of this new and everlasting covenant, ‘ordered in all things and sure,’ The world, life, death, things present, and things to come, all is ours, if we are Christ’s. This charter was set upon the castle gates; may it be inscribed in indelible characters on our hearts, while every power of the soul is filled with joy, and while sin, abolished, shall hide its ugly head!—Burder.
251. The ministry of the Holy Ghost, who alone can open our understandings to behold the wondrous things of God’s law, or the Bible; who taketh of the things of Jesus, and shows them unto us. ‘He shall teach you all things’ (John 14:26). Thanks be to God for an omnipresent, omniscient Comforter.—Ed.
252. Here is a proper display of veneration for the Bible. The use of the ministry is solely that the people might understand law and judgment, statute and commandment; that they might be documented in all things, i.e., furnished with written evidence to establish every doctrine.—Ed.
253. Mark, reader, how Bunyan, as the result of Divine teaching, leads the soul to enter directly into communion with God the Holy Spirit. Here is no need for any man to introduce you. O the blessedness of communion with this Friend, that cleaveth closer than a brother! who ever liveth, and never slumbereth—always near, even in our hearts—able and willing to help and save to the uttermost.—Ed.
254. Having shown Mansoul that the secret of being the wisest and most blessed of all people is to seek the teaching and communion of the Holy Spirit in the heart, he comes to human ministry, and probably draws his portrait from his pastor Mr. Gilford, or from his own conduct. How much is contained in the words, ‘Moral virtues, and civil and natural duties!’ Here is love to God, because he first loved us, with all heavenly blessednesses; the whole armour of God, to fit us for the good fight; and the eternal reward of grace, and not of works: an inexhaustible fund for Christian training.—Ed.
255. ‘Whips and chastisements.’ ‘A wounded spirit who can bear?’ ‘Methought I saw as if the sun did grudge to give me light.’—Grace Abounding, No. 187.—Ed.
256. Reader, conscience is the teacher with authority as God’s only vicegerent. Be guided by him in all things; swerve not one jot or tittle from his dictates; especially, in your choice of a minister, examine him for yourself prayerfully and carefully by the Word (1 Tim 3). There are thousands of Diabolonians in the world, under the flimsy disguise of apostolical descent. When you have made your choice, ‘Esteem him very highly in love for his works’ sake’; but do not puff him up with pride. One of Bunyan’s hearers said to him, ‘What an excellent sermon you have preached’; to which he replied, ‘The devil told me so before I left the pulpit.’—Ed.
257. Admirably judicious is this charge to conscience. Its office is to compare the heart and walk of the Christian with the Word of God, and so to judge whether it be good or bad. It has no new doctrines to reveal; it is not the legislator but the minister of the law, ever looking up to the Holy Spirit for his teaching. The office of conscience is one of great purity, yet it is subject to defilement, and must be purified by the blood of Christ (Heb 9:14).—Burder.
258. With very great respect for the opinions of Mason, Adams, and Burder, in their notes upon the ‘Holy War,’ I differ with them as to Bunyan’s meaning with regard to these noble captains. All the commentators agree in interpreting the captains to mean gospel ministers, and so giving nine elders to every Christian. Their names are Boanerges, Conviction, Judgment, and Execution, and under Emmanuel’s reinforcement, Faith, Hope, Charity, Innocence, and Patience, ‘sent or brought’ by Emmanuel from his Father’s court. They are ‘the fences, guards, walls, gates, locks, and bars to Mansoul.’ If any one of these fail in his duty, the enemy would enter. If they mean ministers of the gospel, this would be trusting indeed to an arm of flesh. No Christian would trust them, if they were all popes, cardinals, archbishops, or bishops. It surely must mean the graces of the Holy Spirit, which being cherished and kept in lively exercise, are the Christian’s safe-guard and defence from Diabolus and all the Diabolonians in hell or on earth. ‘Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that are builders in it: except the Lord keep the city, the watchmen waketh in vain’ (Psa 127:1).—Ed.
259. ‘Physiogonomy’ and ‘characteristical’ are unusually hard words for Bunyan to use; the meaning is that these Diabolonian skulkers cannot be so disguised as to avoid a prayerful scrutiny. The Word is the test. The aid of the Spirit is needful; therefore must our prayer be, ‘Search me, and try me,’ and crucify any of these Diabolonians, who, lurking in my soul, are enemies to its peace and happiness.—Ed.
260. Christian, mark well your duty not only publicly to put on Christ, but at the market-cross deny and crucify sin. The drunkard, in the presence of his companions, is to deny himself, and to denounce the misery of his former indulgences; and so of every class or grade of sinners.
‘I’m not ashamed to own my Lord.’—Ed.
261. How needful a caution is this, lest we should be deceived by spiritual pride, self-righteousness, self-seeking, and superstition!—Burder.
262. If by sin we lose the sense of being clothed with the garments of salvation, how does the soul feel its nakedness and vileness! ‘O wretched man!’ is the cry; the conscience is wounded, God dishonoured, and the Holy Spirit grieved.—Ed.
263. ‘Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled.’ A smile from Jesus puts vigour and life into the soul.—Ed.
264. How blessed is the Christian who lives in the holy enjoyment of his high and heavenly privileges! Every day is a feast-day, bringing fresh discoveries of grace and foretastes of glory.—Ed.
265. This is a beautiful representation of the holy enjoyment of Divine things, when the soul is emancipated from sin, and enjoys a little heaven on earth. It is in Bunyan’s Grace Abounding, No. 252—’I had strange apprehensions of the grace of God, so that I could hardly bear up under it; it was so out of measure amazing, that I think if it had abode long upon me, it would have made me incapable of business.’—Ed.
266. Carnal security, or comfort and security in the flesh, instead of living on Christ by faith.—Ed.
267. Vices are so disguised, that no merely human vigilance or sagacity can detect them lurking in the walls of Mansoul; hence the necessity of the cry, ‘Search me, and try me, O God.’—Ed.
268. I have not been able to find any illustration of this saying. It probably means, that without any inquiry into the former state of Mansoul—its lost, helpless, hopeless, miserable condition, and its cry, Lord, save, I perish! Carnal-security, proud of the elevation of Mansoul, considered it safe, without the trouble of prayer or watchfulness. How essential it is that we examine premises before we jump at conclusions, or take things by the end!—Ed.
269. Carnal-security, the offspring of Self-conceit and Fear-nothing, is one of our most subtle enemies, and needs our utmost vigilance. To rejoice in our fortifications, or the doctrines of grace, is our duty and privilege; but all our trust must be in our living union to our ever-living Head.—Ed.
270. ‘Led by the nose’; to discover by any strong smell; to be led without resistance, or inquiring the reason.—Ed.
271. A child in religion would naturally inquire why Carnal-security was not forthwith seized, tried, and executed. But by the time that he had rendered himself liable to punishment no jury could have been found in Mansoul to convict him. God’s ways are not as our ways; he is permitted to carry on his treason, that the solid peace of Mansoul might be promoted. Thus ‘the bitter comes before the sweet, to make the sweet the sweeter.’—Ed.
272. O Christian, beware of the first step in backsliding! While you seek the Saviour’s face, and walk humbly with God, you are safe.—Ed.
273. Christ and the Spirit, and consequently peace, withdraw from the carnally secure.—Mason.
274. ‘Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall’ (Prov 16:18).—Ed.
275. This is an obsolete term, alluding to a man being as much alarmed at the twitter of a sparrow, as at the blast of a trumpet urging him to deeds of war.—Ed.
276. Carnal-security has got into the scorner’s seat—a fearful state. Lord Erskine said, ‘I respect Lawyer Dalton’s doubts more than some men’s certainties.’ The late venerable Rowland Hill, when appealed to by one of those carnally-seucre professors, said to him, ‘Sir, as you have no doubts, then I shall both doubt of you and for you.’ Doubts of the merits or willingness of Christ to save are very sinful, and there are seasons when the Christian rises above all doubts; but while we have a sinful heart of unbelief, doubts, like clouds, will arise to obscure the Sun of righteousness.—Ed.
277. Sin grieves the Holy Spirit, and causes the Lord to hide his face. In humble, close walking with God, is our safety, comfort, and peace; but departing from the Lord’s ways brings darkness and distress to the soul.—Mason.
278. Samson; see Judges 16.
279. Godly-fear cannot be stupefied with Forget-good’s cordial. He is not like the man who ‘lost his locks.’
‘So Samson, when his hair was lost,
Met the Philistines to his cost;
Shook his vain limbs with sad surprise,
Made feeble fight, and lost his eyes.’—Watts.
280. The sermon and its effects remind us strongly of Bunyan’s Barren Fig-tree. ‘Cut it down! Fetch out the axe! The Lord shakes the sinner, and whirls him upon a sick-bed. Death, fetch him away to the fire—fetch this barren professor to hell! Death and hell are at his bed-side, with grim looks, staring him in the face.’ This passage in the ‘Holy War’ probably led the author, two years after, to preach and publish that smart sermon, so full of thunder and lightning, from the text put into the mouth of Boanerges.—Ed.
281. How does a carnal careless walk obscure the eye of faith, whose evidences become weaker, until revived by the Word and Spirit of God!—Mason. ‘I could, for whole days together, feel my very body, as well as my mind, to shake and totter under a sense of the dreadful judgment of God.’—Grace Abounding, No 164. A miserable state for a warrior surrounded by active enemies.—Ed.
282. Preaching captains were not uncommon in Bunyan’s time; even Queen Elizabeth permitted lay preachers. Sir J. Checke, the High Sheriff of Oxford, preached in his sheriff’s gown and gold chain, in St. Mary’s pulpit, at Oxford University. If men of similar piety and talent would volunteer; it would not be a bad example for our gracious Victoria to follow.—Ed.
283. Mansoul had withdrawn from a faithful ministry, and sat under the preaching of milder and unfaithful men, but Godly-fear having roused them to burn Carnal-security’s house, they flock to the awakening alarms of a faithful Boanerges.—Ed.
284. See Psalm 25:3, 27:14, 37:7, 62:5; Lamentations 3:26; Hosea 12:6.—Ed.
285. When roused from carnal security by godly fear, the soul feels, more than ever, the value and essential importance of prayer. No poor harassed sinner had experienced this dread state of uncertainty more than Bunyan; a suspense like a sharp, a cold, a tedious winter to a poor man destitute of common comforts. All these feelings are remarkably displayed in the Grace Abounding—’I felt also such a clogging and heat at my stomach, by reason of my terror, that I was, especially at some times, as if my breast bone would have split asunder.’—No. 164. ‘It was like the mark that the Lord God did set on Cain, even continual fear and trembling. Thus did I wind, and twine, and shrink under the burden that was upon me.’—No. 165.—Ed.
286. The apostle calls covetousness ‘idolatry’ (Eph 5:5; Col 3:5). It is a worshipping of mammon, and justly deserves the stigma which Bunyan puts on it.—’That horrible villain, the old and dangerous Lord Covetousness.’ His vigour increases with his age, contrary to other vices.—Ed.
287. Converted persons have still the world, the flesh, and the devil to cope with—enemies without and within, lurking in the walls, in holes, and dens in Mansoul; but the Lord has promised to give grace and glory (Psa 74:11).—Mason.
288. Emmanuel gives a strict charge to destroy all Diabolonians, but this was neglected, and the consequence was that they became to Mansoul what the Canaanites were to Israel. ‘If ye will not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you, then it shall come to pass, that these which ye let remain of them shall be pricks in your eyes, and thorns in your sides, and shall vex you in the land wherein ye dwell’ (Num 33:55).—Burder.
289. Thus poor sinners are in league with hell against their own souls. May the Lord, by his Word and Spirit, break the horrid confederacy!—Mason.
290. The gate-keeper of Pluto’s palace in hell, with three heads, every hair being a snake; supposed by some to represent the word, flesh, and devil; or the consumer of mankind.—Ed.
291. As there is joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, so likewise is there joy in hell over one backsliding saint. But almighty grace must prevail. O for watchfulness unto prayer!—Mason.
292. Satan renews his temptations with double force; while lasciviousness, murder, and mischief unite with him in cunning devices to ruin the soul. Three means of destruction are proposed in hell:—1. A vicious life; 2. Despair of mercy; 3. Prevailing pride. Either of these would prove our ruin, did not grace prevent.—Burder. Beware, O believer, lest a moment’s want of watchfulness produce the bitter fruits of repentance!—Ed.
293. Ignorance and carnal security, or idleness, are the strongholds of sin in the soul. The more we study to become acquainted with Divine truth, and labour to show forth the glory of God, the safer and happier we must become.—Ed.
294. Well may our pious author reiterate the caution—’Take heed, Mansoul!’ Vices in the disguise of virtues are especially dangerous. So when the pilgrims were led astray, and entangled in a net, by a black man in white raiment, they said, ‘We did not imagine that this fine-spoken man had been the flatterer.’—Ed.
295. Coarse, home-spun, brown woollen cloth.—Ed.
296. Bunyan does not pretend to fast forty days; and he shows the evils of Lent, because after so long a fast, there was a need of mirth; and thus Lord Lasciviousness, alias Harmless-mirth, is hired, and soon produces great mischief. Who can tell the miseries that have followed Easter festivities, after Lenten hypocrisies?—Ed.
297. A reckless, profligate fellow; under the disguise of good zeal.—Ed.
298. By a market-day is meant any time when the affairs of this world most occupy the mind: a honey-moon, birthdays, or other periods of rejoicing—as Christmas or Twelfth-day; and on times when deeply occupied with the cares of life. These are the times for Satan’s attacks. Take heed then, Mansoul; while diligent in business, be fervent in spirit, watching unto prayer.—Ed.
299. This scheme is contrived with consummate skill. First let the Christian be drawn into a light, vain, worldly walk—’Make him as vile as you can’; and then assault him with doubts and fears about his salvation.—Burder. ‘Look to it; take heed, Mansoul!’—Ed.
300. ‘Took pepper in the nose.’ Godly-fear was easily excited, and quickly saw the disguise which Anger had put on, and turned him out neck and crop. This proverb was often used in Bunyan’s time; thus—
‘For every man takes pepper i’ the nose
For the waggynge of a strawe, God knowse,
With every waveryinge wynd that blowese.’
Elderten’s Lenten Stuffe, 1570.—Ed.
301. Backsliding from God naturally produces clouds that grow blacker and blacker as corruptions grow stronger and stronger; grace in the soul becomes sick and weakly.—Burder.
302. This is one of those shrewd hits which abound in Bunyan’s works. The devil swears by the mother of God, ‘Saint Mary’—a singular mode of connecting his Satanic majesty and Popery, by his using a common popish oath.—Ed.
303. In the same proportion as sin is encouraged, the ordinances, ways, and will of God will be neglected.—Mason.
304. To get a foot in, or footing, is to gain admittance. ‘A foot in their dish’ is the further familiarity of eating and drinking together.—Ed.
305. The immoral contagion had spread; evil thoughts abounded. ‘For this cause many are sickly among you’ (1 Cor 11:30).—Ed.
306. A swift and lively, but disorderly dance. The prospect of the misery and destruction of Mansoul set all the devils a-dancing.
‘Wherein that dancer greatest praise hath won
Which with best order can all order shun.’—Sir John Davies.
Where could Bunyan have picked up this very expressive but rare word?—Ed.
307. To back a friend, is to support him. To turn the back upon him, or give him the back, is to desert him.—Ed.
308. Although Satan is the father of lies, he certainly speaks truth here. Sin will do more hurt to the soul than a legion of devils.—Burder.
309. Here again we have Satan telling truth.—Ed. Apostacy is generally a gradual affair; a sure poison, but slow.—Burder.
310. Satan’s malice is like a throat and stomach—’insatiable.’ He seeks to fill it with the souls and bodies of men; but his torment is, that it is a gulf bottomless and for ever insatiable.—Ed.
311. Doubts are dangerous and potent, as well as numberless enemies; they are dishonourable to God’s free, sovereign, unasked, unmerited, and everlasting love and mercy in Christ Jesus.—Mason.
312. At the season when the affairs of the world fill the heart, beware of being ‘overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this world.’ Be sober, be vigilant, O my soul; attend to the author’s repeated warning, ‘Take heed, Mansoul!’—Ed.
313. Some may imagine this to be an incredible number of doubts, but when the nine divisions of this army are presently enumerated, it will be readily acknowledge that our doubts are innumerable.—Ed.
314. According to Milton, Cerberus was the parent of Melancholy, a fit leader of Doubters.
‘Hence, loathed Melancholy,
Of Cerberus and blackest Midnight born,
In Stygian caves forlorn,
‘Mongst horrid shapes, and shrieks, and sights unholy!’—L’Allegro.—Ed.
315. To ‘gather up the heels,’ or ‘take to the heels,’ implies great haste.—Ed.
316. This is an awful state, when we encourage evil thoughts and propensities in the heart, and pray to God against them. ‘If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me’ (Psa 66:18).—Ed.
317. Hand-to-hand combat; wrestling.—Ed.
318. Awful is the state of that soul, when it is difficult, by the conduct, to know whether it is a professor or one of the profane. Alas, how common a case! Eleven thousand acts of piety, holy thoughts, and aspirations after God, were lost by the wretched backslider.—Ed.
319. Mr. Prywell represents holy jealousy and careful self-examination; which, when prayerfully used, is sure to detect the plots of Satan.—Ed.
320. A hint or intimation.—Ed.
321. Military dress and equipments.—Ed.
322. To besiege or environ with troops.—Ed.
323. Reader, how wise are these regulations! seek earnestly to follow them. Examine all things watchfully; search out evil diligently. If evil thoughts have been harboured, let sincere penitence drive them out. Be humble, prayerful, thankful; and you will be safe and happy.—Ed.
324. Incredulity is general-in-chief of all the Doubters, to show that incredulity, or unbelief, is the source of all the doubts and fears that distress the Christian.—Ed.
325. Volunteers.—Ed.
326. If evil thoughts are subdued and kept in irons, i.e., checked instantly when they appear, they will die in such a prison. The idea was naturally suggested to the author by the number of pious persons who perished in prison, in Bunyan’s time, for conscience sake. The Quakers alone have a list of about four hundred of their Society who thus perished.—Ed.
327. This must not be mistaken for Popish or Protestant confessions, penances, or absolutions. The narrative is entirely spiritual and internal. Conscience, not man, accuses; the open confession is unreservedly to God, accompanied by godly sorrow, watchfulness, and prayer, with fruits meet for repentance.—Ed.
328. How subtle and insidious is sin! in what holes and corners it conceals itself! breaking out occasionally when we thought ourselves near to perfection, and making us cry out, ‘O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me?’—Ed.
329. We are here presented with a very curious, but accurate, division into classes of all our doubts and fears, each under the most appropriate captain, ancient-bearer, or ensign, and standard. As all Christians are more or less subject to their painful visits, it will be useful to scrutinize our doubts; and, having ascertained their nature or class, then prayerfully to compare them with the sacred Oracles, and find that key which opens all the gates in Doubting Castle.—Ed.
330. ‘The roaring of the drum,’ alluding to that roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. The roaring of a lion is a terrific noise in the night; but Satan has no more power to hurt the saints of God than has the noise of a drum. It may annoy, terrify, and drive us to the bosom of Christ, but it cannot destroy.—Ed. ‘It is for want of hope [a sound scriptural hope, arising from faith, and its purifying effects upon the soul], that so many brisk professors, that have so boasted and made brags of their faith, have not been able to endure the drum in the day of alarm and affliction.’—Bunyan’s Israel’s Hope Encouraged.
331. ‘Those tumultuous thoughts, that, like masterless hell-hounds, roar and bellow, and make a hideous noise within me.’—Grace Abounding, No. 174.—Ed.
332. Bunyan’s general knowledge is truly astonishing. Where could he have scraped acquaintance with the names of the furies? These names are, however, most appropriately applied to such objects of terror.—Ed.
333. ‘Often, after I had spent this and the other day in sin, I have in my bed been greatly afflicted, when asleep, with the apprehensions of devils, and wicked spirits, who laboured to draw me away with them; of which I could never be rid.’—Grace Abounding, No. 5. Here we see the drum of Diabolus.—Ed.
334. The Christian’s motto should be—’No parley with the tempter; not for a moment.’ Never forget the fatal parley he had with Eve.—Ed.
335. A season of doubt and fear encourages the assaults of death and hell. How often has Captain Sepulchre put Mansoul to its dumps! It is a blessing when it excites to prayer and examination.—Ed.
336. Rely not upon frames, feelings, or experience, but go prayerfully to the law and to the testimony; that alone should be ‘a lamp to our feet, and a light to our path.’—Ed.
337. ‘When I cried to God for mercy, this would come in—It is too late, I am lost; God hath let me fall, not to my correction, but my condemnation.’—Grace Abounding, No. 163.—Ed.
338. A personal prying into the Scriptures is a most important duty. As the reader will presently see, these golden slings beat down and frightened the high lords and soldiers, the renowned Doubters under Diabolus.—Ed.
339. ‘Words,’ or texts of Holy Writ.—Ed.
340. Satan has various modes of attack. If he succeed not as the roaring lion, he will assume the crafty serpent; if he prevail not by fear, he will resort to flattery.—Burder.
341. For whim, caprice, petulance, or peevishness.—Ed.
342. ‘Gladly would I have been in the condition of a dog or horse, for I knew they had no souls to perish under the everlasting weight of hell or sin, as mine was like to do.’—Grace Abounding, No. 104.—Ed.
343. ‘All the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them’; ‘all these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me’ (Matt 4:8).—Ed.
344. The infernal liar promises great things, which he is neither able nor willing to perform. Wonderful liberty, meaning frightful slavery; all sensual gratifications, but does not hint that they are destructive to body and soul; perfect freedom from religious fears and straits, but does not add that after all this comes a portion in the burning lake.—Ed.
345. I much doubt whether human ingenuity ever invented a speech so worthy of the terms ‘flattering, fawning, deceitful, and lying.’ It is worthy the mouth of the god of this world, the prince of the power of the air. It is a marvelous invention of an unlettered mechanic, presenting itself to the imagination with all the force and power of reality.—Ed.
346. The intention of Diabolus is to fill the soul with doubts, and, if possible, with despair. He places his forces at Feel-gate; that is, he would lead the soul to doubt by trusting to his religious frames and feelings, instead of looking only to Jesus.—Burder.
347. So valuable to the soul is prayer, that Diabolus attempts to prevent it, by rendering Mouthgate impassible. Nothing can be more expressive than the terms, ‘to land up,’ or block up, ‘the way with dirt,’ so as to prevent the soul’s approach to a pure and holy God.—Ed.
348. To really harmless mirth, to be merry and wise, there can be no objection.
‘Religion never was designed
To make our pleasures less.’
But beware of Jolley and Grigish. If mirth produces them, be sure that it is not harmless, and at once put them to the cross.—Ed.
349. ‘Quat,’ now spelt ‘squat,’ to lie or sit close, still, or lurking—
‘Squat like a toad.’—Milton.
In a Glasgow edition, 1720, it is altered to ‘quiet.’ In 1752, it is ‘lay so close.’—Ed.
350. Stinking and loathsome is sin in the sight of God. May we be sensible of the filthiness of sin, as David was:—’Mine iniquities are gone over my head; my wounds stink and are corrupt, because of my foolishness’ (Psa 38:4,5).—Ed.
351. A curious idea, but fully borne out both by reason and Scripture. Gluttony or drunkenness injures the mind. Peter says, ‘Add to knowledge temperance’ (2 Peter 1:6).—Ed.
352. Anything means indifference about religion, a conformity or opposition to it, as convenience requires.—Burder.
353. Loosefoot may signify a careless walk and conversation.—Burder.
354. The books, chapters, or verses of holy Writ.—Ed.
355. Night, or a time of desertion, was the best for the enemy; for then self-confidence prevailed, the soul depended upon a fancied inherent strength of its own, which is perfect weakness. In the Lord alone have we righteousness and strength for the battle.—Mason.
356. Behaviour, deportment.—Ed.
357. The night of darkness and desertion was not a proper season for this effort. It seems intended to show the effects of the prevalence of a self-confident spirit, which cannot issue well; for faith, hope, and experience were wounded.—Burder.
358. Misery without remedy and without end; eternal death; the being cut off from God, the root and fountain of happiness.—Mason.
359. If this word was coined by Bunyan, he could not have introduced anything more appropriate. No word in common use could convey an idea of the wretchedly uneasy state of the soul in such a siege. Evil thoughts and imaginations are hurricaning within him; it is a tempest rushing upon him at once from all quarters; like Bunyan’s feelings, as described in Grace Abounding, No. 187.—Ed.
360. Again Diabolus determines to attack Mansoul by Feel-gate. The cry was incessantly to be Hell-fire! Hell-fire! Christian, depend not upon your frames or feelings, but upon the immutable and unchangeable Word of God. The terrors of hell will get hold upon him who trusts to his experience, instead of fixing all his hopes in the Lord Jehovah.—Ed.
361. The heart. It is a blessed presage when that is right with God; then may the soul, in the strength of the Lord, exult and say, ‘Rejoice not against me, O mine enemy; for when I fall, I shall rise again.’—Mason.
362. ‘I could neither eat my food, stoop for a pin, chop a stick, or cast mine eye to look on this or that, but still the temptation would come, Sell Christ for this, or sell Christ for that; sell him, sell him.’—Grace Abounding, No. 135. None but the experienced Christian knows the terror of Diabolus’ drum.—Ed.
363. How hard but just a blow is this to the pompous pride both of the military and clerical orders. In Bunyan’s time, both these professions were filled with the friends and followers of Diabolus. The black coats are, in our day, much reformed.—Ed.
364. Such is the dreadful nature of unbelief! It is in the minister of confusion, lying, vanity, and blaspheming against the faithfulness of a covenant God.—Mason.
365. Imagine a poor harassed soul, a member of a Christian church, in this lamentable state. What would the pastor, elders, and church do with him? How would some argue, He is a disgrace to us, and ought to be cast out! Alas! poor soul, he would get rid of the Doubters if he could. While the fear of God is in his heart, pray for him, cherish him, but cast him not out.—Ed.
366. ‘Stroy,’ obsolete, means destroy—
‘Some they stroye and some they brenne.’
It was altered, in 1707, to ‘make destruction.’—Ed.
367. This is an awful representation of the state of a soul overwhelmed with distressing doubts of God’s love, and fear of eternal destruction. ‘Torment’ and ‘Noease’ take possession of the feelings. The understanding is darkened, and the conscience wounded; while a crowd of idle thoughts, vanities, and blasphemies increase the confusion and dismay.—Ed.
368. For a most solemn, encouraging, and admirable treatise on the ‘Fear of God,’ see Bunyan’s Works.—Ed.
369. ‘Nothing now, for two years together, would abide with me, but damnation, and an expectation of damnation.’—Grace Abounding, No. 142.—Ed.
370. In the midst of all this misery, the castle is safe; or, in other words, the heart remains right with God, Godly-fear being the keeper of it. In many a soul where distressing doubts prevail, perhaps for years, yet the fear of God is in the heart, so that it still cleaves to him and opposes sin.—Burder.
371. Prayer must be by the aid of the Holy Spirit and the understanding also. Faith makes it availing in the name of Christ. See Bunyan’s admirable treatise on ‘Praying in the Spirit.’—Ed.
372. The Christian’s life is a warfare against the world, the flesh, and the devil; but an evil heart of unbelief is that spiritual Goliath which we should constantly intreat the Captain of our salvation to subdue.—Mason.
373. This is an illustration of that text, ‘The Spirit helpeth our infirmities, for we know not what we should pray for as we ought’ (Rom 8:26). And blessed be God, ‘He will give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him’ (Luke 11:13).—Burder.
374. ‘Now hell rageth, the devil warreth, and all the world resolveth to do the best they can to bring the soul into bondage and ruin. Also, the soul shall not want enemies in its own heart’s lust—as covetousness, adultery, blasphemy, unbelief, hardness of heart, coldness, ignorance; with an innumerable company of attendants hanging at its heels, ready to sink it into the fire of hell every moment.’—Bunyan’s Law and Grace. Who can number his thoughts, even his evil thoughts, that, like legions, war against the soul’s peace?—Ed.
375. ‘Which burden also did so oppress me, that I could neither stand, nor go, nor lie, either at rest or quiet.’—Grace Abounding, No. 165.—Ed.
376. When temptations beset, sin invades, lusts rage, evil tempers arise, and we are in danger of falling, then is the time to look up and cry, Lord save, or I perish.—Mason. These vexations are the holy thoughts and feelings, which Diabolus and his crew prevent or suppress.—Ed.
377. Alluding to the sufferings of Christian and Hopeful in the dungeon of Giant Despair, in Doubting Castle.—Ed.
378. When the shield of faith is wanting, the soul is exposed to all the fiery darts of the wicked one. ‘This is the victory, even our faith.’—Mason.
379. How true is this remark of the enemy of souls! Our holiest services must be sanctified in the name of the Redeemer. Diabolus can tell truth when it is to his purpose, in distressing a saint, or destroying a sinner.—Ed.
380. Portions of Scripture were the weapons with which our Lord conquered Satan, when tempted in the wilderness. Poor tried soul, you may rely with the most perfect confidence on the Scriptures for support in the most trying hour. ‘Though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come’ (Habb 2:3). Any other support is but like a broken reed.—Ed.
381. ‘A-to-side,’ obsolete, aside, in private, or out of hearing.—Ed.
382. The design of this is to show that the soul is to live by faith, and not by sense. The Spirit of God puts honour upon faith, and makes him chief-captain of the town. This is a prelude to victory over the Doubters.—Burder.
383. A state of spiritual ease and prosperity has its dangers; we must, by the Word and Spirit, in the strength of Jesus, fight every inch of our way to heaven and glory.—Mason.
384. ‘Satan trembles when he sees
The meanest saint upon his knees.’
385. The great object of Satan is to allure Mansoul to sin. He can never win the heart, or castle, unless sin opens the gates.—Ed.
386. ‘Penny-wise, and pound-foolish’ is a well-known proverb, showing the folly of those who lose a pound to gain a penny. ‘Get i’ th’ hundred and lose i’ th’ shire’ is an obsolete proverb, meaning that as a shire or county contains many divisions called hundreds, it would be foolish to lose a county for the sake of gaining a small part of a county called a hundred.—Ed.
387. Great is the danger when the heart, here called the castle, which should be the temple of the Lord, is turned into a warehouse.—Burder.
388. Well may Bunyan say, ‘Look to it, Mansoul!’ How rarely do men grow rich and prosperous without entertaining these Diabolonians—profusion, prodigality, pride, &c.! These are more destructive to the soul than an army of external foes.—Burder.
389. ‘Terrene and terrible,’ dreadful to mortals.—Ed.
390. Portions from the Bible, probably meaning the epistles of the New Testament.—Ed.
391. How heartily, or, as Bunyan says, ‘roundly,’ can we fight our implacable foes, when thus armed with ‘the Word of God, the sword of Emmanuel, and faith’—the shield of Credence! These are invincible weapons when the Holy Spirit enables us to use them.—Ed.
392. ‘Kept by the power of God through FAITH unto salvation’ (1 Peter 1:5).—Ed.
393. ‘Dints,’ blows or strokes.—Ed.
394. Election-doubters are the devil’s life-guard. When the will, strengthened by faith, attacks them, they are put into disorder, but not destroyed. These doubts are first attacked, for until they are routed the soul has no peace.—Ed.
395. The presence of the Lord decides the contest. Doubts and fears cannot stand before the gracious manifestation of himself to the soul.
‘But if Emmanuel’s face appear,
My hope, my joy begins;
His name forbids my slavish fear,
His grace removes my sins.’—Burder.
396. How gladly is Jesus received! None but those who have experienced it can tell how delightful and welcome is his presence to the soul that has long been vexed with an army of doubts. O let us beware of sin and unbelief, which caused him to withdraw and the doubts to enter. Well may the soul be humbled in the dust in the recollection of its backsliding.—Burder. Strewing the streets with flowers, and decorating the fronts of the houses, was customary, in Bunyan’s time, in all royal processions.—Ed.
397. ‘Giving them the Holy Ghost; - purifying their hearts by faith’ (Acts 15:8,9).—Ed.
398. The side notes are Bunyan’s key to the text, which, he says,
‘Lieth there in the window.’
See last lines of his address ‘To the Reader.’—Ed.
399. Though comforts are cheering, let not the believer rest in them, neither be high-minded, but fear; looking to Jesus for strength and grace to persevere.—Mason.
400. ‘The joy of the Lord is our strength.’ When this is possessed, there will be a double diligence in searching out and destroying our sins.—Burder.
401. Thus was the victory completed, and by this we are taught that doubts of the love of Christ, contrary to the declarations of his Word, should be utterly suppressed, as being infinitely dishonourable to our faithful covenant God, and unspeakably pernicious to our own souls.—Burder. Still we are not to forget the danger of their rising from the tomb again to distress us, unless we are found constantly watchful and prayerful. When Greatheart and the Pilgrims had killed Despair, and destroyed Doubting Castle, and are rejoicing over the ruins, Bunyan thus warns them—
‘Though Doubting Castle be demolished,
And the Giant Despair hath lost his head,
Sin can rebuild the castle, make it remain,
And make Despair, the giant, live again.’—Ed.
402. Poor Mansoul., having by grace overcome his doubts and fears, having died to sin and risen again to newness of life, is now fit to comfort his brethren in church fellowship. As the Pilgrim was frighted by the lions before the house Beautiful, to prevent his entering into communion with a church, so here they suffer persecution from these lions, here called ‘Bloodmen,’ and an appropriate title it is for all persecutors. All those who enforce human laws to compel our presence at, or support to, any form of worship, are bloodmen. Bless God that they can only scratch us now; but if they had the power of the same spirit that now scratches would devour the saints of God.—Ed.
403. The Blood men, or persecutors, are all rugged villains; they are strengthened by new doubts arising from persecution for Christ’s sake. From Fox’s Martyrs Bunyan had obtained a good estimate of their character. Persecutor, read your character—a rugged villain, a mastiff who would fasten upon relative, prince, and even the Prince of princes.—Ed.
404. O the folly of this lying Diabolus! He tried his Bloodmen upon Christ. They, by putting him to death, crushed the head of Satan, shook his power, and will annihilate it, and fill hell with fresh torments. He pursues the same course with the saints of God, and their blood and groans become the fruitful seed of the church. So does Satan aid in destroying himself.—Ed.
405. Satan’s uniform aim is to destroy body and soul in hell for ever. But blessed be God, he shall not be able to take the feeblest lamb out of the embraces of covenant love.—Mason.
406. Faith, Patience, and Self-denial are admirably placed in opposition to the Bloodmen, persecutors. How well they behaved in the time of our pilgrim fathers is well known; and in our happier times they are invaluable guards to support us in the loss of friends or property.—Ed.
407. ‘Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.’ This is the imperative command of Emmanuel to his followers, set forth in his sermon on the mount. Your lusts must be crucified, your doubts destroyed, your persecutors pitied and prayed for.—Ed.
408. ‘Fives, nines, and seventeens.’ Why these odd numbers are given would not be a bad riddle to give our young friends. Five infernal spirits were the leaders of the Satanic army. It consisted of nine companies of Doubters, and eight of Bloodmen, or persecutors. First, five fallen angels; second, nine classes of doubts; and if this was not enough to enslave the soul, they were to be aided by eight classes of persecutors. This may account for the grouping of these dangerous enemies in fives, nines, and seventeens.—Ed.
409. Many are led captive by Satan at his will, blinded to their misery and fate by the god of this world, in whose delusive arms many of them sleep till death and judgment awake them to behold their awful and remediless state. Lord, pity them!—Mason.
410. These are the three grades of Bloodmen, but all are influenced by hatred to Christianity and a love of plunder. God hates robbery for offerings, yet some blind fanatics will seize their neighbour’s goods to save their own pockets in adorning their temples. May God in mercy convert them, as he did Saul of Tarsus.—Ed.
411. Persecutors, who die in impenitence, must appear at the day of judgment, when these ungodly men shall be judged of all their ungodly deeds, and all their hard speeches against Christ in his members (Jude 15).—Ed.
412. ‘Down boys,’ deep, knowing, determined fellows; as ‘down bout,’ a tough battle, a set to at hard drinking. In 1696, it was altered to ‘town boys’; an unmeaning name. This was continued in 1707; but was restored to ‘down boys’ in 1720.—Ed.
413. ‘Length of my foot,’ a proverb meaning similarity of disposition.—Ed.
414. In our best estate we are too prone to question the truth of God’s Word and his faithfulness; we believe him able, but harbour doubts as to his willingness to save us. Lord, increase our faith!—Mason.
415. Hanging is a bad business; it does not deter men from crime, but the sight of it hardens them in iniquity.—Ed.
416. Cowering, stooping, squat.—Ed.
417. No bribe can save them.—Ed.
418. Thus believers, by the almighty power of grace, are enabled to take those captives whose captives they were (Isa 14:2,3).—Mason.
419. Enemies to faith, hope, and love. The soul, by reason of its depravity, is subject to many doubts and unbelieving fears, which Adam, before the fall, was a stranger to.—Mason.
420. How common it is for vice to disguise itself under the name of virtue! To understand the difference between Evil-questioning and Honest-inquiry is of the most solemn importance. Honest inquiry is the essential duty of every Christian. Leaving all human aids, our hopes of salvation depend upon our seeking the influence of the Holy Spirit to guide us, that we may understand the Sacred Scriptures; and by a diligent prayerful study of the Bible ALONE, be led into spiritual truth; to the knowledge and obedience of him who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Evil questioning is a trusting to our own perverted reason; bringing to the proud bar of our depraved judgment the truths of revelation, wresting and condemning them to our own destruction. Christian inquirer, your duty is perfectly clear—you must make honest inquiry, without evil questioning.—Ed.
421. ‘Conventicle,’—from ‘convene,’ to meet together—a term of reproach given to meetings of Christians, who, refusing to unite with the churches of Antichrist, met in a more private manner, as our Lord and his apostles did (Luke 22:12; Acts 1:13,14).—Ed.
422. Narrated, made known their treasonable designs.—Ed.
423. Though ignorant persons cavil and object, we are bold to affirm, that election by free grace is consonant to the whole tenor of Scripture; a comfortable doctrine, exciting to obedience. ‘We love him, because he first loved us’ (1 John 4:19).—Mason.
424. ‘A martyr’ is a witness, generally applied among Christians to those who seal with their blood a testimony of love to Christ, and are put to death for their attachment to the gospel; not like the Jesuits under Elizabeth, they came to poison or destroy her, and to overturn the Government, and were put to death as traitors. But if any Christian was put to death for doubting the doctrine of election, he would be entitled to the crown of martyrdom—Ed.
425. Those who deny election deny, though perhaps unwittingly, the omniscience and sovereignty of God; and unavoidably assert, sometimes without perceiving it, that salvation is not of grace but of works.—Burder.
426. The great mass of mankind in Christendom, because they were baptized in infancy, call themselves Christians, and find shelter under these pleas from the necessity of personal prayerful investigation. They never knew the pangs of the new birth, nor the cry, ‘What must I do to be saved?’ or, ‘Lord, save, I perish!’ It is a most extensive and most fatal error, in which myriads of souls have met their doom.—Ed.
427. Thus we are to lay aside every weight, and every besetting sin (Heb 12:12)—whatsoever does not tend to promote the glory of God, and our progress in the Divine life of faith.—Mason.
428. The reader must keep in mind that the sentence and execution is not against the persons who held these errors, but allegorically the errors themselves must be eradicated or destroyed from the soul of the believer.—Ed.
429. Great is the advantage of meditation; a practice, alas! in which Christians in general are too backward. Much is lost by letting the Word slip, which ought to be laid up and pondered in the heart. This is the way to become spiritually rich.—Burder.
430. The cruelty of these punishments breathes the spirit of the times in which our author lived. Every painful feeling, however, is dissipated by the reflection that it is an allegory, representing how these Diabolonian sinful thoughts ought to be exterminated. To clip the promises is certainly as high a crime as clipping the current coin.—Ed.
431. How closely does carnality cleave to us throughout our pilgrimage! Even the apostle complained of this foe—’I am carnal.’ The grave is the only secure prison in which he can be for ever shut up. He will never break prison from thence.—Ed.
432. Self-love and Self-denial can no more live together in the soul, than can the service of God and mammon. Reader, if a thought of self-love interferes with love to Christ, drag it to Self-denial, and it will be brained without the formality of a trial, and God will approve the execution.—Ed.
433. Self-denial must be opposed to self-love. ‘If, through the Spirit, we mortify the deeds of the body, we shall live’; and shall also happily experience that ‘to be spiritually-minded is life and peace.’ But, after all, that villain Unbelief, the worst of all the gang, still lurks secretly in the soul, yet is uniformly opposed whenever he dares to appear.—Burder.
434. ‘There I shall bathe my weary soul
In seas of heavenly rest,
And not a wave of trouble roll
Across my peaceful breast.’—Watts.
‘Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly!’—Ed.
435. Thus completely is boasting excluded. ‘By grace are ye saved, through faith: and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God’ (Eph 2:8).—Ed.
436. For a most admirable treatise on the resurrection of the body, and its re-union with the soul in bliss unspeakable and eternal, see The Resurrection of the Dead.—Ed.
437. ‘Blessings abound where’er he reigns,
The prisoner leaps to lose his chains,
The weary find eternal rest,
And all the sons of want are blest.’—Watts.
438. Holiness of heart and life are indispensable of true discipleship to the holy Jesus; not to justify us, but to evidence our election to eternal life. ‘As he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation’ (1 Peter 1:15). A holy walk preserves communion with our Lord, who is our righteousness and strength.—Mason.
439. How blessed are those who are kept unspotted from the world! who live in the land of Beulah, waiting to be translated to the celestial city; and who, if defiled, are enabled to apply to the fountain opened, and wash away their stains. ‘Blessed are the people that are in such a case.’—Ed.
440. Sin hurled the angels out of heaven; sin deprived man of paradise and the favour of God; sin crucified the Lord of life and glory; sin will confine myriads of devils and men in the bottomless pit of misery for ever. May we hate it with a perfect hatred; and the grace of Jesus eradicate the love, and destroy the dominion of it, in our hearts.—Mason.
441. ‘To make a hand on,’ to waste, spoil, or destroy.—Halliwell.—Ed.
442. In this truly evangelical speech, the Lord Jesus is represented as recapitulating his gracious dealings with the souls of his people. Salvation is uniformly ascribed to the free mercy of the Father, and the precious blood of the Son. Every gracious soul will cordially say, ‘Not unto me, not unto me, O Lord, but to thy name be all the glory.’ Emmanuel then informs them of his intention to take down the present town of Mansoul, and to rebuild it in a more glorious manner; in other words, to remove the believer to glory, and raise up his mortal body to everlasting honour and happiness, when sin, sorrow, and temptation shall never more be known. Till this event takes place, he directs his people to keep their garments white and clean—that is, to be holy in all manner of conversation and godliness; to watch carefully against sin, which is the only thing that can hurt them; and to live every day [in holiness and good works] by faith in the Word of God.—Burder.
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