4 When the golden bait is set forth to catch us, we must 6ay as Demosthenes the orator did of the beautiful Lais, when he was asked an excessivo sum of money to behold her, ' I will not buy repentance so dear;' I am not so ill a merchant as to sill eternals fur temporals. If intemperance could afford more pleasure than temperance lleliogubalus should have been more happy than Adam in paradise. — 1'lutarch.
2 Cor. II. 11] against satan's devices. 15
then it pains him more than ever it delighted him. So doth sin ; it may please a little at first, but it will pain the soul with a witness at last ; yea, if there were the least real delight in sin, there could be no perfect hell, where men shall most perfectly be tormented with their sin.
The third remedy against this device of Satan is,
Remedy (3). Solemnly to consider, That sin will usher in the greatest and the saddest losses that can be upon our souls. It will usher in the loss of that divine favour that is better than life, and the loss of that joy that is unspeakable and full of glory, and the loss of that peace that passeth understanding, and the loss of those divine influences by which the soul hath been refreshed, quickened, raised, strengthened, and gladded, and the loss of many outward desirable mercies, which otherwise the soul might have enjoyed.1
It was a sound and savoury reply of an English captain at the loss of Calais, when a proud Frenchman scornfully demanded, When will you fetch Calais again, replied, When your sins shall weigh down ours.2 Ah, England ! my constant prayer for thee is, that thou mayest not sin away thy mercies into their hands that cannot call mercy mercy, and that would joy in nothing more than to see thy sorrow and misery, and to see that hand to make thee naked, that hath clothed thee with much mercy and glory.
The fourth remedy against this device of Satan is,
Remedy (4). Seriously to consider, That sin is of a very deceitful and bewitching nature.3 Sin is from the greatest deceiver, it is a child of his own begetting, it is the ground of all the deceit in the world, and it is in its own nature exceeding deceitful. Heb. iii. 13, ' But exhort one another daily, while it is called To-day, lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.' It will kiss the soul, and pretend fair to the soul, and yet betray the soul for ever. It will with Delilah smile upon us, that it may betray us into the hands of the devil, as she did Samson into the hauds of the Philistines. Sin gives Satan a power over us, and an advantage to accuse us and to lay claim to us, as those that wear his badge; it is of a very bewitching nature, it bewitches the soul, where it is upon the throne, that the soul cannot leave it, though it perish eternally by it.* Sin so bewitches the soul, that it makes the soul call evil good, and good evil ; bitter sweet and sweet bitter, light darkness and dark- ness light ; and a soul thus bewitched with sin will stand it out to the death, at the sword's point with God ; let God strike and wound, and cut to the very bone, yet the bewitched soul cares not, fears not, but will still hold on in a course of wickedness, as you may see in Pharaoh, Balaam, and Judas. Tell the bewitched soul that sin is a viper that will certainly kill when it is not killed, that sin often kills
1 Isa. lix.2, Ps. H. 12, Isa, lix. 8, 2 Chron. xv. 3, 4, Jer. xvii. 18. Jer. v. 2.
2 Quando peccata vestra erunt nostris graviora.
3 In Sardis there grew an herb, called Appium Sardis, that would make a man lie laughing when lie was deadly sick ; such is the operation of sin.
4 Which occasioned Chrysostom to say, when Eudoxia the empress threatened him, Go tell her, ' Nil nisi peccatum timeo,' 1 fear nothing but sin.
1G PRECIOUS REMEDIES [2 COR. II. 11.
secretly, insensibly, eternally, yet the bewitched soul cannot, nor will not, cease from sin.
When the physicians told Theotimus that except he did abstain from drunkenness and uncleauness, &c, he would lose his eyes, his heart was so bewitched to his sins, that he answers, ' Then farewell Bweet light -,'1 he had rather lose his eyes than leave his sin. So a man bewitched with sin had rather lose God, Christ, heaven, and his own soul than part with his sin. Oh, therefore, for ever take heed of playing or nibbling at Satan's golden baits.
The second device of Satan to draw the soul to sin is, Device (2). By 'painting sin ivith virtue's colours. Satan knows that if he should present sin in its own nature and dress, the soul would rather fly from it than yield to it ; and therefore he presents it unto us, not in its own proper colours, but painted and gilded over with the name and show of virtue, that we may the more easily be overcome by it, and take the more pleasure in committing of it. Pride, he presents to the soul under the name and notion of neatness and cleanliness, and covetousness (which the apostle condemns for idolatry) to be but good husbandry;2 and drunkenness to be good fellowship, and riotousness under the name and notion of liberality, and wantonness as a trick of youth, &c.
Now, the remedies against this device of Satan are these, Remedy (1). First, consider, That sin is never a whit the less filthy, vile, and abominable, by its being coloured and painted ivith virtue's colours. A poisonous pill is never a whit the less poisonous because it is gilded over with gold ; nor a wolf is never a whit the less a wolf because he hath put on a sheep's skin ; nor the devil is never a whit the less a devil because he appears sometimes like an angel of light. So neither is sin any whit the less filthy and abominable by its being painted over with virtue's colours. The second remedy against this device of Satan is, Remedy (2). That the more sin is painted forth under the colour of virtue, the more dangerous it is to the soids of men. This we see evident in these days, by those very many souls that are turned out of the way that is holy — and in which their souls have had sweet and glorious communion with God — into ways of highest vanity and folly, by Satan's neat3 colouring over of sin, and painting forth vice under the name and colour of virtue. This is so notoriously known that I need but name it. The most dangerous vermin is too often to be found under the fairest and sweetest flowers, and the fairest glove is often drawn upon the foulest hand, and the richest robes are often put upon the filthiest bodies. So are the fairest and sweetest names upon the greatest and the most horrible vices and errors that be in the world. Ah ! that we had not too many sad proofs of this amongst us.4
1 Vale lumen amicum. —Ambrose. ' ' Thrift,' ' economy.' — G.
3 Careful, clever.— G.