The Holy War – John Bunyan

9. 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.
10. '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.
11. '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.
12. Harness, warlike equipments, and accoutrements.--Ed.
13. 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.
14. 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.
15. 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.
16. '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.
17. 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.
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