The Works of John Bunyan, vol 3 - John Bunyan (the giving tree read aloud .TXT) 📗

or one halfpenny to have; And if you grant its first suit, ‘twill aspire From pence to pounds, and so will still mount higher To the whole soul.’—Bunyan’s Caution against Sin.

[17] Christian assemblies are the life, food, and nourishment of our souls; consequently the forsaking of them, and the profanation of the Sabbath, are usually the forerunners of apostacy.—Mason.

[18] Profane swearers use the language of hell before they arrive at their awful destination. Were God to answer their imprecations they would be miserable beyond conception. ‘Because of swearing the land mourneth.’—Ed.

[19] Profane cursing and swearing was awfully fashionable in Bunyan’s days. This led many pious persons to denounce oaths altogether; and the time is fast coming when the world will agree with the Quakers that an affirmation is the best test of truth. It is like the controversy of the teetotallers; some who would be ashamed of taking intoxicating liquors, except as medicine, will soon throw such physics to the dogs or on the dunghill.—Ed.

[20] This is one of Bunyan’s home-thrusts at Popery. Classing the mass, our lady-saints, and beasts, among the idols or objects of divine worship. He omits an oath very common among Irish labourers, which much puzzled me when a boy, ‘bloodunoons,’ meaning the bleeding wounds of the Saviour. How thankful ought we to be that, in our days, profane swearing stamps, upon any one who uses it, the character of a blackguard.—ED

[21] Out of public view—obscure, contemptible. See Imperial Dictionary.—Ed.

[22] Thank Heaven such enormous brutalities have fled before the benign enlightening influence of the gospel. To suffocate a man, in order to drive out an imaginary evil spirit, was like the popular trial for witchcraft. The poor woman, if cross, and old, and ugly, her hands and legs being tied together, was thrown into deep water; if she floated, it was a proof of guilt to hang her, if she sunk and was drowned, she was declared to be innocent!—Ed.

[23] Parallels to these important proverbs are found in all languages derived from the Hebrew. ‘There is nothing hid from God,’ and ‘There is nothing hid that shall not be known’ (Jer 32; Matt 10).

In French, ‘Leo murailles ont des oreilles—Walls have ears.’

Shakespeare, alluding to a servant bringing in a pitcher, as a pretence to enable her to overhear a conversation, uses this proverb, ‘pitchers have ears and I have many servants.’ May that solemn truth be impressed upon every heart, that however screened from human observation, ‘Thou God seest me.’—Ed.

[24] No period in English history was so notorious for the publication of immoral books, calculated to debauch the mind, as the reign of Charles II. It must have been more painfully conspicuous to Bunyan, who had lived under the moral discipline of the Commonwealth.—Ed.

[25]: From __________ chief, ‘my worthy arch and patron.’—King Lear; or from the Teutonic ‘arg,’ a rogue. It usually denotes roguish, knavish, sly, artful.—Ed.

[26] This is one among a multitude of proofs of the popularity and high esteem in which Bunyan was held, even while a prisoner for Christ’s sake.—Ed.

[27] Reader, bless God that you live in a happier day than that of Bunyan. The reign of Charles II was pre-eminently distinguished for licentiousness and debauchery. Still there were some who crucified the flesh, with its lusts, and held every obscene word in detestation and abhorrence; because it is written ‘be ye holy, for I am holy.’ Such must have sorely dazzled the owls of debauchery.

Can we wonder that they tormented and imprisoned them?—Ed.

[28] How often is suicide committed without poison, suffocation, the knife, or firearms. About forty years ago one of my neighbours was told by his doctor that, unless he gave up the bottle, it would send him into another world. He called his servant and ordered wine, saying, I had rather die than give up all my enjoyments. In about six months I saw his splendid funeral.—Ed.

[29] The remorse and stings of conscience seducers will feel in the next life, for being the instruments of so much wickedness and desolation in others, will prove to them a thousand hells.—Mason.

[30] Ungodly, Christless, prayerless families are little hells—filthy fountains, whose waters cast up mire and dirt; they are the blind and willing captives of sin and Satan, going down to the chambers of death and endless despair.—Ed.

[31] ‘In grain,’ material dyed before it is manufactured, so that every grain receives the colour, which becomes indelible.—Ed.

[32] By ‘a piece of money’ is here meant two hundred pounds. It probably means a portion or piece of his fortune.—Ed.

[33] From the Anglo-Saxon ‘Eggian,’ to incite, urge.—Ed.

[34] The Genevan or Puritan version of this passage is very striking: ‘he that feedeth the gluttons, shameth his father.’—Ed.

[35] This is one of the numerous passages of Holy Writ which are more expressive without than with the words supplied in italics: women are not exempt from the ‘rags’ which must ever follow drowsiness.—Ed.

[36] ‘Glout,’ to pout or look sulky; obsolete.—Ed.

[37] This is one of the hardest lessons a disciple has to learn in the school of Christ; not to hate the sinner, but the sin; especially under circumstances of such cruel deception.—Ed.

[38] Mixed, impure.

‘‘Tis true, the cause is in the lurch

Between the right and mongrel church.’—Hudibras.—Ed.

[39] Such were the sound reasons which animated the martyrs to resist unjust human laws, interfering with or directing the mode of divine worship; and such are the reasons which prevent conformity to national religions, to the payment of church rates, and similar ungodly impositions.—Ed.

[40] The Quakers braved the storm, met in public, and appeared to court persecution. Not so the Baptists; they met in woods and caves, and with such secrecy that it was not possible to detect them, unless by an informer. William Penn taunted them in these words: ‘they resolve to keep their old haunt of creeping into garrets, cheese-lofts, coalholes, and such like nice walks.’ And so would I, rather than be disturbed by constables.—Ed.

[41] Sink them is an unusual kind of oath, wishing that body or mind might be depressed. Shakespeare uses the word in reference to mental suffering: ‘If I have a conscience, let it sink me.’—Ed.

[42] Noddy, a simpleton; see Imperial Dictionary.—Ed.

[43] Fraudulent bankruptcy is a sore and prevailing evil. It is thieving under the protection of the law. How many live in state, until their creditors get a few shillings in the pound, and the bankrupt gets the curse of God upon his soul!—Ed.

[44] Quean, a slut, a strumpet; see Imperial Dictionary.—Ed.

[45] Witness the shepherd boy’s song in the Pilgrim:—

He that is down need fear no fall,

He that is low, no pride;

He that is humble ever shall

Have God to be his guide.

This poor boy, in his very mean clothes, carried more heart’s ease in his bosom, than he that was clad in silk and velvet.—Ed.

[46] For this use of the word lap, see Proverbs 16:33.—Ed.

[47] In the reign of Edward II, the price of provisions was regulated by Act of Parliament. Twenty-four eggs were ordered to be sold for one penny, but the penny of that period contained as much silver as the threepenny piece of Bunyan’s, and of our time.

I have bought, within the last forty years, the finest eggs at four a penny in Normandy.—Ed.

[48] ‘Slither,’ slippery, deceitful; obsolete, except in Lincolnshire.—Ed.

[49] Purses were worn, in Bunyan’s time, hanging to the girdle, or slung over the shoulder, as they now are in some parts of Germany.

A pickpocket was then called ‘a cut-purse.’—Ed.

[50] Many ecclesiastical instruments of terror, spoliation, and death, began with, ‘In the name of God. Amen.’ That sacred name has been, and now is, awfully profaned and prostituted to the vilest purposes.—Ed.

[51] This is a sad mistake; such getting is a curse: ‘Cursed is the deceiver’: ‘I will curse your blessings,’ saith Jehovah by his prophet Malachi.—Ed.

[52] Modern editors, not so well aware as Bunyan of the value of tar as a medicine for sheep, altered the word to ship. A halfpenny worth of tar will serve a sheep, but not a ship.—Ed.

[53] This was attempted when Bunyan was released from his cruel imprisonment by the King’s pardon, which one instrument included the names of nearly five hundred suffers; and because the fees upon a pardon were twenty pounds, ‘the covetous clerks did strive to exact upon us,’ says Whitehead, ‘by demanding that sum upon every name.’ Further application to the King put an end to this exaction.—Ed.

[54] When the labourer’s wages were eightpence or tenpence per day, in 1683, wheat averaged forty-five shillings per quarter.

How comparatively happy is the present state of our agricultural labourers; and so would be that of the farmer, if rent was as low now as it was at that period.—Ed.

[55] To lie at catch, to watch for an opportunity to take an unfair advantage. See the conversation between Faithful and Talkative in the Pilgrim’s Progress.—Ed.

[56] Augustine had so strong a sense of fair dealing, that when a bookseller asked for a book far less than it was worth, he, of his own accord, gave him the full value thereof!! See Clark’s Looking-glass, edit. 1657.—Ed.

[57] ‘Fondness,’ an inordinate desire to possess. ‘I have such a fond fantasy of my own.’—Sir. T. More.—Ed.

[58] Cheating, either in quality, weight, or price of commodities, is not common in Mahometan countries, where the punishment is very severe; that of nailing the dealer’s ears to his door-posts. It is a foul disgrace to Christian countries that these crimes are so common.—Ed.

[59] Malapert, dexterous in evil-speaking. ‘It is blasphemous to say that God will not hear us for our presumptuous malapertness unless we invoke the saints.’—Tyndale.

[60] This is a phrase in heraldry to signify that the armorial bearings are marked with some sign of disgrace. Thus John de Aveones having reviled his mother in the King’s presence, he ordered that the tongue and claw of the lion which he bore in his arms should be defaced. In many cases a baton is inserted as a mark of illegitimacy.—Ed.

[61] From a fine Persian drawing in the editor’s cabinet, it appears that the nose jewel lies on the right cheek, and is fixed by a ring cut through to form a spring; one edge of the cut going inside, and the other meeting outside the nostril, so as to be readily removed as occasion required.—Ed.

[62] An attempt at something new, a foolish innovation, generally used with the word new; as, ‘In holiday gown, and my new fangled hat.’—Cunningham.—Ed.

[63] A tuft of hair worn on a man’s forehead, or a projecting conspicuous part of the women’s caps worn by the fashionables of that time.—Ed.

[64] No one, except he has blown a ram’s horn, or attended the Jewish ceremony of the New-year, Tizri 1 (Sept.), can imagine the miserable sounding of a ram’s horn. Bunyan, with all his powers and popularity, was, to an extraordinarily degree, ‘a humble man.’—Ed.

[65] A professor of Christianity who indulges in sin, is the worst of Atheists. Such conduct is practical hypocrisy and Atheism.—Ed.

[66] The general opinion, to a late period, was, that the frog or toad was poisonous. Bartolomeus calls the frog ‘venomous,’ and that in proportion to the number of his spots. Bunyan, who was far in advance of his age, throws a doubt upon it, by the words ‘as we say.’—Ed.

[67] Outward reformation without inward grace is like washing a sow, which you may make clean, but never can make cleanly; it will soon return to the mire, and delight in filth more than ever.—Mason.

[68] Mr. Clark relates this singular story on the authority of ‘Disci de Temp.’ The writers in the Middle Ages are full of such narrations; see especially the first English