[12] This mode of infusing new vigour into plants and trees is thus described in the Gemara—'They lay dung in their gardens, to soften the earth. They dig about the roots of their trees, and sprinkle ashes, and pluck up suckers, and make a smoke beneath to kill vermin.'—Ed.
[13] Among the superstitions of the ancients, Michaelis states that both the Greeks and Asiatics had a superstition that a tree might be rendered fruitful by striking it, at the intercession of a friend, three times with the back of an axe.—Ed.
[14] However painfully unpleasant these terms may appear to eyes or ears polite, it is a homely but just representation, and calculated to make a lasting impression on every reader. Afflictions, trials, crosses, are used as a means of creating or reviving spiritual life, as manure is applied to vegetation.—Ed.
[15] Mahomet professed descent from Ishmael, and that he came to revive the religion which God had revealed to Abraham, who taught it to Ishmael. Mahometanism is the religion of the outcast of God.—Ed.
[16] Bunyan had been haunted with the temptation 'to sell and part with Christ,' and, under a fear that he had fallen under that temptation, the case of Esau made a dreadful impression upon his soul; extreme horror and anguish seized upon his spirit; 'he was like a man bereft of life and bound over to eternal punishment,' for two years. At length, after an awful storm, he found peace in the promise, 'his blood cleanseth from ALL sins,' and a proof that he had not sold Christ.—See Grace Abounding, No. 139-160.
[17] How solemn a thought! What an appeal to perpetual watchfulness. Why have I not made shipwreck of faith? Most emphatically may we reply, Because God has sustained my soul.—Ed.
[18] Bunyan's tongue and pen are here fired by his vivid imagination of eternal realities. With such burning words, we need no messenger from the invisible world to alarm the consciences of sinners. What angel could arouse more powerfully, alarmingly, convincingly, the poor sinner, than the whole of this chain of reasoning.—Ed.
[19] This picture is drawn by a master hand: the master is laid by for a season; or, as Bunyan quaintly expresses it, 'a little a to side': when raised from affliction earthly affairs absorb his attention, and he forgets his good resolves. According to the old rhyme:—
'The devil was sick, the devil a saint would be
The devil to well, the devil a saint was he.'—Ed.
[20] This is referred to in the Pilgrim, at the Interpreter's house, by the representation of a man in an iron cage, who says, 'I cannot get out, O now I cannot!' The awful account of Spira's despair must have made a strong impression upon Bunyan's mind. It commences with a poem.