The Holy War – John Bunyan

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.
10. 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.
11. 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.
12. 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 allsufficiency of his salvation.--Mason.
13. See Grace Abounding, No. 186.--Ed.
14. 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.
15. 'Fame'; or rumour, or public report; thus, Genesis 45:16.
16. 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.
17. 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.
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