Old Paths In Portrait

“When Satan assaults any poor soul, he suffers nothing to appear to the eye but pleasure, profit, a sweet satisfaction of our desires, and a phantasma of happiness. There is also wrath, and judgment, and torment, and sting of conscience belonging to it! These must be, but these shall not be seen. All the way is white snow, that hides the pit. Green grass tempts us to walk; the serpent is unseen. If temptations, like plaises [a large European flounder] might be turned on both sides, the kingdom of darkness would not be so populous. If David could have foreseen the grief of his broken bones ere he fell upon Bathsheba, those aspersions of blood and lust had not befallen him. If Achan could have foreseen the stones about his ears before he filched those accursed things, he would not have fingered them. But as it is said of Adam and Eve after their fall, ‘Then their eyes were opened;’ then, not before. Judas was blind till he had done the deed, then his eyes were opened, and he saw it in its true horror.”

-Thomas Adams  British Puritan Minister 1580–1653

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