23 'Hideth his sins,' is quoted from the Genevan, or Puritan version.—Ed.
24 'Pother;' to be, or cause to be, as one involved in dust, in a cloud; to perplex, to puzzle, to confound.—Ed.
25 This is an allusion to a custom, nearly obsolete, originating in the feast of tabernacles, of sacrificing to Vacina at the harvest home. The Papists substituted St. Bartholomew for the heathen goddess. Upon his day, the harvest being completed, an image of straw was carried about, called the corn, or Bartholomew, baby; and masters, mistresses, men, and maidens danced and rioted together; thus, under the guise of harmless joy, much evil was perpetrated.—Ed.
26 'A blandation,' an obsolete word, which means wheedling, flattering speech, soft words.—Ed.
27 Knowing the certainty that this wrath to the uttermost will be poured out, our blessed Lord exhorts all to 'fear God, who is able to destroy both body and soul in hell.' In that doleful pit, the soul, re-united with the body, will suffer under the outpourings of Divine wrath.—Mason.
28 Bunyan probably here refers to his own experience when he was in prison, and was threatened by the judge to be hung for not going to parish church. 'I thought with myself, if I should make a scrabbling shift to clamber up the ladder, yet I should, either with quaking or other symptoms of faintings, give occasion to the enemy to reproach the way of God. I was ashamed to die with a pale face and tottering knees in such a cause as this.'—Grace Abounding, No. 334.—Ed.
29 This wish has been felt while in a desponding state, under the terrors of the law, and a fearful looking for of fiery indignation. Thus Bunyan says, 'I blessed the condition of the dog and toad, and counted the estate of everything that God had made far better than this dreadful state of mine.' Grace Abounding, No. 104.—Ed.
30 Alluding to the old proverb of bringing a noble to ninepence, and ninepence to nothing.—Ed.
31 At the popular game of nine pins—Ed.
32 In our comparatively happy days, we have little if any conception of the manner in which our forefathers desecrated the Sabbath. When Popery clouded the country, mass was attended on the Lord's day morning early; it was a recital of certain unknown words, after which parties of pleasure, so called, spent the day in places attractive for the frivolity or wantonness of their entertainments—in dancing, and carousing; the evening being devoted to the theatres or ball rooms. This was afterwards encouraged by our English 'heads of the church,' in a book of lawful sports to be used on Sundays. Even in our time a flood of iniquity continues to flow on those sacred days, which human laws cannot prevent. As the influence of the gospel spreads, the day will become sanctified and this will ever prove a correct standard of its progress.—Ed.