25. Multitudes of professors set up their rest in outward duties, and repose a carnal confidence in ordinances, without endeavouring after any lively communion with Father, Son, or Holy Spirit, in the exercise of faith and love.—Mason.
26. Conscience, if resisted, is little ease, whether rightly or wrongly informed. By little ease, is meant a prison not large enough either to lie down or stand upright in, with spikes in the walls; places of torment well known in former times of persecution for conscience sake.—Ed.
27. Ye cannot serve God and mammon. We must either, as lost sinners, fall into the arms of Divine mercy, and receive pardon as a free gift through the merits of the Saviour, or we must perish. It is a solemn, searching consideration.—Ed.
28. Difficult at any time, and impossible without Divine power; but most difficult when all the faculties of the soul become harrowed by a ‘certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation’ (Heb 10:27).—Ed.
29. If we seek salvation by works, such as sincere obedience or Christian perfection, we thereby bring ourselves under the law, and become debtors to fulfil all its requirements, though we intended to engage ourselves to fulfil it only in part (Gal 5:3). Let this be seriously considered.—Mason.
30. These ‘foolish men’ were a sect which sprung up in Bunyan’s time, and soon became extinct. They believed that the sufferings of Christ, to his death on Calvary, were only typical of what he suffers in the body of every believer. This was as contrary to the express declaration of Holy Writ, ‘He was ONCE offered’ (Heb 9:28), as is the absurd notion of the Papists in the mass, or continual sacrifice of Christ. What impious mortal dares pretend to offer up Christ to his Father.—Ed.
31. As the carnal Adam, having lost his original righteousness, imparts a corrupt nature to all his descendants; so the spiritual Adam, Christ Jesus, by his obedience unto death, conveys spiritual life to us; believers are made ‘the righteousness of God in him.’—Mason.
32. ‘Neck’ is from hniga, to bend or incline. In Bunyan’s time, these ancient words were well understood by the peasantry. To have the neck turned, so as to bend the back of the head towards the back of the body, would be as absurd as for faith to look to its own works for justification. This would indeed be bowing backward, instead of bending before, and looking to Jesus and his finished work for justification.—Ed.
33. Modern editors have altered this to ‘imperfections,’ but Bunyan would have us look to the most perfect of our works, and see how polluted they are.—Ed.
34. Faith looks at things which be not, as though they were. Sense judges from what it sees and feels, faith from what God says; sense looks inward to self, faith looks outward to Christ and his fullness.—Mason.