16. The obsolete verb, to kill.—Ed.
17. This is a curious mode of expressing the awful gradation of a sinner. 1. To go in the way of sinners. 2. To enter into their counsels. 3. To sit in the scorner's seat, here called 'the chair of pestilence.' This is from the vulgate Latin, which renders it pestilentiae.—Ed.
18. Pomponius Algerius, born in Capua, a young man of great learning, was student in the University of Padua, where he, not being able to conceal the verity of Christ's gospel which he learned by the heavenly teaching of God's grace, ceased not, both by doctrine and example of life, to inform as many as he could in the same doctrine, and to bring them to Christ; for which he was accused of heresy, and brought to Rome, where he was burned alive. He wrote this letter while in prison at Venice.—See Fox's Acts and Monuments, edit. 1631. vol. ii. p. 181.
Mr. Southey thought that this letter gave Bunyan some germ of his Pilgrim's Progress!! He takes it from the words, 'In this world there is no mansion firm for me, and therefore I will travel up to the New Jerusalem, which is in heaven.'—Life of Bunyan, p. xc.—Ed.
19. Thus the blood of the martyrs was the seedtime of the church, and it produced an abundant harvest. That God suffered the choicest of his saints to pass through such dreadful sufferings in their way to glory, is a proof that God's ways are not our ways, but they are infinite in wisdom and mercy.—Ed.
20. Consult Bunyan's admirable treatise, Of Antichrist and his Ruin.
21. How easily is this riddle resolved by those who visit the afflicted. The Christian poor beat the rich out and out in charity. The poor mother rises long before her usual time, and having fitted her own children for school, runs to her sick neighbour to do the same for her little ones, frequently sharing with them her own children's food; and then, like an angel of mercy, watches over and comforts her sick neighbour. Such is the unostentatious Christian charity found among the Christian poor. O that it may more and more abound.—Ed.
22. These home-thrusts at conscience, so constantly met with in Bunyan's works, should have the effect of exciting us to solemn self-examination. May we never be contented with the porch, but enter and enjoy the riches of Divine grace.—Ed.
23. The gradual spread of the gospel, like the leaven, must eventually leaven the whole. How astonishing has been its progress since Bunyan entered the celestial city. If his happy spirit hovers as a guardian angel about the saints at Bedford, how must he rejoice in the change. The iron hand of despotic oppression laid low; his old prison swept away; the meetings in dells, and woods, and barns, exchanged for large and commodious places of worship. How he must wonder at our want of gratitude, and love, and zeal, in return for such mercies.—Ed.
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