The consequences of sin in Christian preaching highlight the inevitable destruction and alienation that follow disobedience to God’s law. Sin leads to ruin not only spiritually but also in practical life, as selfishness, greed, and wrong choices bring harm and loss (Galatians 6:7-8; Romans 6:23). Illustrations often use images of ruin, reaping a whirlwind, and the collapse of prosperity to convey these truths.
Idleness leads to vulnerability to the devil and spiritual ruin like the Dead Sea.
Rather do what is nothing to the purpose than be idle, that the Devil may find thee doing. The bird that sits is easily shot, when fliers scape the fowler. Idleness is the Dead Sea that swallows all the virtues, and the self-made sepulchre of a living man.
— Quarles
Idleness degrades a person to a useless state, like oysters growing for worms' banquet.
In such a world as ours, the idle man is not so much a biped as a bivalve; and the wealth which breeds idleness, of which the English peerage is an example, and of which we are beginning to abound in specimens in this country, is only a sort of human oyster-bed, where heirs and heiresses are planted, to spend a contemptible life of slothfulness in growing plump and 'succulent for the grave-worms' banquet.
— H. Mann
Extreme idleness is shown by a man who won't even turn his head from discomfort.
A favorite illustration among the Arabs of extreme idleness is the man that would not turn his head over on his pillow, though the muddy water leaking through the roof fell plump into his eye.
— Dr. Thomson
A lazy community suffers decay, poverty, and social disorder due to widespread idleness.
In a town of lazy men, I should expect to find crazy houses, shingles and weather-boards knocked off; doors hingeless, and all a-creak; windows stuffed with rags, hats, or pillows. Instead of flowers in summer, and warmth in winter, every side of the house would swarm with vermin in the hot weather, and with starveling pigs in cold. Fences would be curiosities of lazy contrivance; and gates hung with ropes, or lying flat in the mud. Lank cattle would follow every loaded wagon, supplicating a morsel, with famine in their looks. Children would be ragged, dirty, saucy; the schoolhouse empty; the jail full; the church silent; the grog-shops noisy; and the carpenter, the saddler, and the blacksmith would do their principal work at the taverns. Beecher.
Rich people’s idleness leads to indulgence in fleeting pleasures and eventual shame.
Idleness is very dangerous to those that are rich, and feel no want in this life; for, while they give themselves to it, voluptuousness overcomes reason, and they are snared in the deadly traps and deceits of the world, and are poisoned with carnal pleasures and fleshly delights, which are enjoyable for a little while, but at length leave them to shame and confusion. Cawdray.
Idlers see others enjoy blessings but cannot partake due to their own laziness.
In a workhouse at Hamburg, idlers are punished by being suspended in a basket above the tables, so that they can see and smell the things provided for the industrious, but are not allowed to taste them.
Idleness fosters sin, mental and physical harm, and is one of the seven deadly sins.
Idleness is the bane of body and mind; the nurse of naughtiness; the step-mother of discipline; one of the seven deadly sins; the cushion upon which the Devil chiefly reposes; a great cause not only of melancholy, but of many other diseases: for the mind is naturally active; and, if it be not occupied about some honest business, it rushes into mischief, or sinks into melancholy. Burton.
Ignorance is likened to darkness where harmful things grow unseen and unchecked.
Modern discoveries have shown that the seeds of epidemic and miasmatic diseases are generated and exert their activity during the night, and in places unvisited by the sun's beams,—a true picture of the cause of mental and moral ignorance.
Ungratefulness leads to betrayal and divine punishment, as shown by the ungrateful soldier.
A petted soldier of the Macedonian army was shipwrecked, and cast upon the shore, apparently lifeless. A hospitable Macedonian discovered him, revived him, took him to his home, and treated him in a princely manner, and, when he departed, gave him money for his journey. The rescued soldier expressed warm thanks, and promised royal bounty to his benefactor. Instead, when he came before Philip, he related his own misfortunes, and asked to be rewarded by the gift of the house and lands of his rescuer. His request was granted; and he returned and drove out his former host. The latter hastened to lay the true state of the case before the king; when he restored the lands, and caused the soldier to be branded in the forehead, "The Ungrateful Guest," as the reward of his baseness.
Intemperance causes enormous social and economic costs, destroying body and soul.
It is estimated that four hundred and ninety million gallons of spirituous liquors were drank in this country in 1868, which, if loaded upon thirty-foot teams, holding ten barrels each, would reach nearly seven thousand miles. The annual cost of the five hundred thousand paupers made by intemperance amounts to thirty-five million dollars; of the insanity resulting from it, twelve million dollars: the expense to the country of the crimes committed by it is forty million dollars. Add to these amounts the cost of the liquor (about a billion dollars), the value of the grain, sugar, and property destroyed, the labor lost, and the sickness in hospitals; and we have the estimated enormous amount of one billion, six hundred and fifty million dollars annually expended in this country for this body-and-soul destroying curse.
A drunkard chooses his addiction over healing, showing the power of intemperance.
An old toper of sixty called on a doctor to get a remedy for inflamed eyes. The doctor told him he thought he could cure him; but it would be necessary for him to leave off drinking entirely. "Then farewell, eyes!" said the infatuated drunkard.
Intemperance devastates families, leaving no household untouched by its victims.
A lady, who opposed the strict temperance-principles of Gov. Briggs of Massachusetts while at a party, at his suggestion undertook to think over the families of her acquaintance, and note the effects of intemperance among them. After half an hour she returned, her eyes filled with tears, exclaiming, "O Gov. Briggs! how could you ask me to do such a thing at a party! I am appalled: it is so dreadful to find that I do not know a family that does not number one victim; and some have had all their brightest and best fall by it,—fathers, husbands, children. It is too dreadful to think of! I would not have believed it. You are quite right; and I will never ask you to drink wine, nor ever call you fanatical for not taking it."
Knowing God's will but not doing it fuels the eternal fire of hell.
Hell-fire burns with rage, and meets with fuel fully prepared for it, when God dooms unto it a head full of light and a heart full of lusts. Those who know God's will, but do it not, do but carry a torch with them to hell, to pile that fire which must forever burn them. Bp. Hopkins.
God's law restrains evil and protects us like a fence, not a prison.
No doubt the law restrains us; but all chains are not fetters, nor are all walls the gloomy precincts of a jail. It is a blessed chain by which the ship, now buried in the trough, and now rising on the top of the sea, rides at anchor, and outlives the storm. The condemned would give worlds to break his chain: but the sailor trembles lest his should snap; and when the gray morning breaks on the wild lee-shore, all strewn with wrecks and corpses, he blesses God for the good iron that stood the strain. The pale captive eyes his high prison-walls to curse the man that built it, and envy the little bird, that, perched upon its summit, sings merrily, and flies away on wings of freedom; but were you travelling some Alpine pass, where the narrow road, cut out of the face of the rock, hung over a frightful gorge, it is with other eyes you would look on the wall that restrains your restive steed from backing into the gulf below. Such are the restraints God's law imposes, — no other. It is a fence from evil, — nothing else. I challenge the world to put its finger on any one of these Ten Commandments, which is not meant and calculated to keep us from harming ourselves or hurting others. Dr. Guthrie.
Licentious living brings hidden misery despite outward appearances of happiness.
The life, opportunities, and seeming enjoyments of Col. Gardner were such as to secure him the name of "The Happy Rake." While being congratulated by his companions, one day, he could not forbear groaning, and saying, as a dog entered the room, "Oh that I were that dog!"
Sin and worldly distractions gradually crush and destroy a person's spiritual life.
One of the tortures of the Hohenslaufen family was that of a cell, which, at the prisoner's first entrance, presented an air of comfort and ease; so that it was not till he had been a few days confined, that he observed the dimensions of his chamber beginning to contract. The fact became more appalling every day. Slowly the sides drew closer; and the unhappy victim at last was crushed to death.
3570-3572. LIFE, Crises in. A young man was once under a state of deep inquiry about his eternal interests. Two or three of his companions learned that he was going to prayer-meeting; and they determined to change his purpose. They persuaded him, only this once, to go to the accustomed place of resort. He finally yielded. They plied their arts of amusements, gayety, and pleasure, and bound him at last in the snares of a female companion. It was his fatal moment. In a few weeks from that time, he had committed murder, and followed the deed with instantaneous self-destruction. Hoven.
Small flaws or sins can greatly diminish value and damage character over time.
Once a famous ruby was offered to England. The report of the crown-jeweller was, that it was the finest that he had ever seen or heard of; but that one of its facets—one of the "little" cuttings of the face—was slightly fractured. The result was, that almost invisible flaw reduced its value by thousands of pounds; and it was rejected from the regalia of England. Again: when Canova was about to commence his great statue of the great Napoleon, his keenly observant eye detected a tiny red line running through the upper portion of the splendid block, that, at infinite cost, had been fetched from Paros; and he refused to lay a chisel on it. Once more: in the story of the early struggles of the elder Herschel while he was working out the problem of gigantic specula, or telescope lenses, you will find that he made scores upon scores, ere he got one to satisfy him. A scratch like the slenderest spider-line sufficed to vitiate what had cost him long weeks of toil and anxiety. Grosart.
Tiny sins can secretly destroy a person’s character like insects ruining timber.
In certain harbors, if you plant the largest timbers as foundations for your wharves, you will find, after a time, that a little insect has been at work, piercing, like a tiny thread of fire, the taken pile; so that, if a hand touch it, it will crumble like wood burned in the flame. Perhaps you have seen sections of piles, or ship's timbers, which were thus riddled through and through by these madrepores. Did the sight not awaken a thought in your mind with regard to your own danger in cherishing those little sins which eat away and destroy the fibre and strength of a good character? Beware of little sins! As an old writer expresses it, "A ship may be sunk by a cargo of sand, as well as by a cargo of mill-stones." Beecher.
A single small sin can cause gradual decay and ruin a promising life.
A company was walking in Sudbrook Park, when Dr. Ellis drew attention to a large sycamore-tree, decayed to the core. "That fine tree," said he, "was killed by a single worm." Two years previously, the tree was as healthy as any in the park, when a woodworm, about three inches long, was observed to be forcing its way under the bark of the trunk. It then caught the eye of a naturalist who was staying there; and he remarked, "Let that worm alone, and it will kill the tree." This seemed very improbable; but it was agreed, that the black-headed worm should not be disturbed. After a time, it was discovered that the worm had tunnelled its way a considerable distance under the bark. The next summer, the leaves of the tree dropped off very early; and, in the succeeding year, it was a dead, rotten thing, and the hole made by the worm might be seen in the very heart of the once noble trunk. "Ah!" said one who was present, "let us learn a lesson from that single tree. How many who once promised fair for usefulness in the world and the church have been ruined by a single sin!"
Neglecting a small wound led to fatal consequences, illustrating sin’s danger.
Gen. Norris, having, as he thought, received a slight wound in the wars of Ireland, neglected the same, presuming that the balsam of his own body, without calling in those other auxiliaries of art, would work a cure; but his arm gangrened, and both arm and life were lost together.
Lustful pleasure is outwardly sweet but inwardly bitter and leads to repentance.
As pills that are outwardly fair, gilt, and rolled in sugar, but within are full of bitterness; even so lustful pleasure is no sooner hatched but repentance is at hand, ready to supplant her; for pleasure and sorrow are twins. Cawdray.
Despite warnings, people persist in lust, ignoring conscience and risking ruin.
I have some here who have had warnings so terrible, that they might have known better: they have gone into lusts which have brought their bodies into sickness; and perhaps this day they have crept up to this house, and they dare not tell to their neighbor who stands by their side what is the loath-someness that even now doth breed upon their frame. And yet they will go back to the same lusts: the fool will go again to the stocks, the sheep will lick the knife that is to slay him. You will go on in your lust and in your sins, despite warnings, despite advice, until you perish in your guilt. How worse than children are grown-up men! The child who goes for a merry slide upon a pond, if he be told that the ice will not bear him, starteth back affrighted; or, if he daringly creepeth upon it, how soon he leaves it if he hears but a crack upon the slender covering of the water! But you men have conscience, which tells you that your sins are vile, and that they will be your ruin: you hear the crack of sin as its thin sheet of pleasure gives way beneath your feet; ay, and some of you have seen your comrades sink in the flood, and lost; and yet ye go sliding on. Worse than childish, worse than mad, are you, thus presumptuously to play with your own everlasting state. Spurgeon.
Lying is a hateful vice with severe consequences deserving strong opposition.
Lying is a hateful and accursed vice. If we did but discover the horror and consequences of it, we should pursue it with fire and sword, and more justly than other crimes. Montaigne.
Lying can lead to fatal consequences, as shown by a man feigning death struck by lightning.
Two scoundrels sought to obtain money from Archbishop Leighton; one feigning death, and the other soliciting charity on this account. When the solicitor returned to his accomplice, he found him dead indeed, killed by lightning, as he feigned to be.
Lying destroys credibility and is punished severely, illustrating the value of truthfulness.
When Aristotle, who was a Grecian philosopher, and the tutor of Alexander the Great, was once asked what a man could gain by uttering falsehoods, he replied, "Not to be credited when he shall tell the truth." On the contrary, it is related that when Petrarch, an Italian poet, a man of strict integrity, was summoned as a witness, and offered in the usual manner to take an oath before a court of justice, the judge closed the book, saying, "As to you, Petrarch, your worth is sufficient." From the story of Petrarch we may learn how great respect is paid to those whose character for truth is established; and from the reply of Aristotle, the folly as well as wickedness of lying. In the country of Siam, a kingdom of Asia, he who tells a lie is punished, according to law, by having his mouth sewed up.
Malice is self-destructive, like setting one's own house on fire through anger and revenge.
As we account him a mad and foolish man that would set his own house on fire; so may we think of him that sets his own heart on fire, and burns himself through anger, malice, and revenge. Cawdray.
Hatred and malice are like murder, killing others spiritually without physical contact.
Malice is the Devil's picture. Lust makes men brutish; and malice makes them devilish. Malice is mental murder: you may kill a man, and never touch him. "Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer." T. Watson.
Corrupt manners spread like invasive thistles, ruining fertile ground and providing refuge for evil.
The Spaniards carried with them the seed of the thistle to the plains of South America. In this congenial soil it spread, and covered many square miles with its prickly vegetation. These thistle forests grow so tall and dense, that a mounted horseman may be lost in them. They furnish a safe retreat to the jaguar and robber. A single seed, perhaps, has multiplied, covering and rendering worse than useless sections of fertile land as large as some of our smaller States. Not unlike this is the spread of corrupt manners.
Sin inevitably grows and cannot be held in by moderation or partial restraint.
You cannot, though you may think you can, preserve a moderation in sin. If you commit one sin, it is like the melting of the lower glacier upon the Alps: the others must follow in time. As certainly as you heap one stone upon the cairn to-day, the next day you will cast another; until the heap, reared stone by stone, shall become a very pyramid. Set the coral insect at work: you cannot decree where it shall stay its work. It will not build its rock just as high as you please: it will not stay, until it shall be covered with weeds, until the weeds shall decay, and there shall be soil upon it, and an island shall be created by tiny creatures. Sin cannot be held in with bit and bridle.
— Spurgeon
A wise man's saying highlights the peril and divine judgment awaiting tyrants and murderers.
Thales Milesius, one of the wise men of Greece, being asked what was the most difficult thing in life, answered, "For a tyrant to live to old age." The application may be extended to the cruel, bloodthirsty, and murderers.
Murmuring against God harms ourselves, not Him, like arrows that fall back on the shooter.
I have read of Caesar, that, having prepared a great feast for his nobles and friends, it so fell out, that the day appointed was so extremely foul, that nothing could be done to the honor of the meeting: whereupon he was so displeased and enraged, that he commanded all them that had bows to shoot up their arrows at Jupiter, their chief god, as in defiance of him for that rainy weather; which when they did, their arrows fell short of heaven, and fell upon their own heads, so that many of them were very sorely wounded. So all our murmurings, which are as so many arrows shot at God himself,—they will return upon our own pates' hearts: they reach not him; but they will hit us: they hurt not him; but they will wound us. Therefore it is better to be mute than to murmur: it is dangerous to provoke a "consuming fire." T. Brooks.
Murmuring is a root sin that breeds many other sins and blasphemy against God.
As the River Nile bringeth forth many crocodiles, and the seorpion many serpents, at one birth, so murmuring is a sin that breeds and brings forth many sins at once. It is like the monster hydra,—cut off one head, and many will rise up in its room. It is the mother of harlots, the mother of all abominations, a sin that breeds many other sins; viz., disobedience, contempt, ingratitude, impatience, distrust, rebellion, cursing, carnality: yea, it charges God with folly; yea, with blasphemy. The language of a murmuring soul is this: "Surely God might have done this sooner, and that wiser, and the other thing better." T. Brooks.
Breaking one commandment breaks the whole chain, endangering salvation.
Suppose a boat on the Ganges, full of people: the wind roars, the thunder peals, the waters are swollen, and the current rapid. You hear shrieks from the boat, between the thunder-peals. They fear the rocks before them; and the question is, How can they be saved? Suppose the people on shore throw out to them a chain. They catch it, and already rejoice in the prospect of deliverance; when, alas! suddenly, as both they and the people on shore begin to pull, one link of the chain breaks, — not ten links, but one. What can they then do? "Overboard with the chain, or it will sink us sooner," cries one man from the boat. What shall they do then? "Cast themselves on the mercy of God," says another. Yes: and so say I to the sinner; for if one commandment be broken, — one link of the chain, — all is broken.
— Leupolt
Pleasure can be like poisoned flowers, killing many in subtle and hidden ways.
It is said to have been a plan sometimes practised in the middle ages, to send poisoned flowers to princes or great persons, when a plot was laid against their life. Whether the fact be true or not, the moral it may suggest is true. Pleasure's poisoned flowers have killed their thousands, and not only rich, but poor; and that in the most insidious and imperceptible way.
— Bowes
Beautiful pleasures often hide deadly sins, like venomous serpents beneath flowers.
It is said that where the most beautiful cacti grow, there the venomous serpents are to be found at the root of every plant. And it is so with sin. Your fairest pleasures will harbor your grossest sins. Take care, take care, of your pleasures. Cleopatra's asp was introduced in a basket of flowers: so are our sins often brought to us in the flowers of our pleasure.
— Spurgeon
Prodigals fall from indulgence to ruin, ending in degradation and loss.
We never find the Scripture commending any prodigal but one, and him, too, only for his ceasing to be so; whose courses, if we reflect upon, we shall see his prodigality bringing him from his reveling companions and his riotous meats to the swine and to the trough, and from imitating their sensuality, by a natural consequence, to take up with their diet too. Dr. South.
Prodigality often accompanies and fuels other costly vices and sins.
Prodigality is the Devil's steward and purse-bearer, ministering to all sorts of vice; and it is hard, if not impossible, for a prodigal person to be guilty of no other vice but prodigality; for men generally are prodigal because they are first intemperate, luxurious, or ambitious. And these, we know, are vices too brave and costly to be kept and maintained at an easy rate: they must have large pensions, and be fed with both hands, though the man that feeds them starves for his pains. Dr. South.
Profanity shocks even those from pagan backgrounds, showing its sinfulness.
After Dr. Scudder's return from India, he was upon a steamboat with his son, when he heard a person using profane language. Accosting him, he said, "This boy was born and brought up in a heathen country and a land of idolatry; but, in all his life, he never heard a man blaspheme his Maker until now." The man apologized, and moved away ashamed.
Envying the wicked's prosperity ignores the costly consequences they face.
When a sollier was to die for taking a bunch of grapes against the general's command, he went to execution eating his grapes. One of his fellows rebuked him, saying, "What! are you eating your grapes now?" The poor man answers, "I prithee, friend! do not envy me these grapes! for they do cost me dear." So they did indeed; for they cost him his life. I thus let no man envy the prosperity of the wicked.
— Spencer
Unresolved conflict destroys both parties, leaving only bitterness behind.
"We could soon finish you up!" said some lemons to a bottle of carbonate of soda. "I could soon take the taste out of you!" answered the soda. "Let us try our strength," said the lemons. "With all my heart!" said the soda. And to work they went, trying with all their might to extinguish each other. Fizz went the lemons; fizz went the soda; and they went on fizzing, till there was nothing of either of them left, and only a nauseous puddle showed where the fight had been.
Remorse for murdering his father haunted a man until his early death.
The cruel Al Montaser, having assassinated his father, was afterwards haunted by remorse. As he was one day admiring a beautiful painting of a man on horseback, with a diadem encircling his head, and a Persian inscription, of which he inquired the meaning, he was told that it signified, "I am Shinnych, the son of Kosru, who murdered my father, and possessed the crown only six months." He turned pale, as if struck by a sentence of death. Frightful dreams interrupted his slumbers; and he died at the early age of twenty-five.
— Whitecross
A landlord's harshness caused a child's death and his own torment and death.
Chryses, a rich landlord, ordered his steward to turn out a poor widow with four children, one of them too sick to be moved, because she could not pay her rent. They were driven out amid many tears and much crying. Chryses lay down to rest in his summer-house; but a brook which flowed near seemed to imitate the crying of the poor children. Then he heard distant thunder, which seemed to him as the voice of justice. He arose, and sent his servant to bring back the poor widow; but she could not be found. He heard that the sick child had starved in the wood, and was filled with remorse. His gardens and luxuries became hateful to him. He became delirious. Every sound was an accusing voice. So he died.
Defying God's Sabbath law can bring sudden loss and destruction despite human effort.
An infidel defied the law of the sabbath, and boasted that he would do all the work on a certain piece of ground on Sunday, and have the best crop in town. All was done up to threshing the wheat, which was being done, when a flash of lightning fired the barn; and the result of a summer's labor was destroyed.
Breaking the Sabbath can lead to a downward path culminating in serious sin and punishment.
A poor man, hung some time ago for the crime of murder, said the first step to his getting into crime was breaking the sabbath.
Ignoring the Sabbath rest harms mental health and leads to ruin and despair.
A distinguished merchant, who for twenty years did a vast amount of business, remarked to Dr. Edwards, "Had it not been for the sabbath, I have no doubt I should have been a maniac long ago." This was mentioned in a company of merchants, when one remarked, "That is the case exactly with Mr. —. He was one of our greatest importers. He used to say, that the sabbath was the best day in the week to plan successful voyages; showing that his mind had no sabbath. He has been in the insane-hospital for years, and will probably die there." Many men are there, or in the maniac's grave, because they had no sabbath. They broke a law of Nature, and of Nature's God, and found "the way of the transgressor to be hard." Such cases are so numerous, that a writer remarks, "We never knew a man work seven days in a week who did not kill himself or kill his mind."
Slander is like deadly poison, invisible yet fatal in its destructive power.
This slander is compared to poison: "the tongue is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison." The deadliest poisons are those for which no test is known. There are poisons so destructive, that a single drop insinuated into the veins produces death in three seconds; and yet no chemical science can separate that virus from the contaminated blood, and show the metallic particles of poison glittering palpably, and say, "Behold! it is there." F. W. Robertson.
A household fined members for slander to prevent evil speaking and its consequences.
A gentleman writes, that he once saw the title, "Slander Book," printed on the binding of a small ledger. On examining it, he found that the various members of the household were charged so much apiece for each slander. The accounts were very neatly and correctly kept, credits entered, &c., as in a merchant's office. He was informed that this plan of fining for slander originated with a young girl, with a view to prevent evil speaking and its consequences.
Early smoking led to a tragic decline into addiction and death, too late to help.
A clergyman advised a mother that he had seen her son smoking, only to be repulsed. Two years later, she was glad to ask him to do something for her besotted son; but it was too late. The son died in a few years a drunkard and a suicide.
The soul's ruin is worse than any physical or societal destruction.
Suppose a luxuriant harvest shooting into perfection, waving in the wind, ripening in the sun, and flattering the fond hope of the husbandman by the fair promise of abundance. Should you see this hope blasted, and the whole produce of the fields destroyed by a universal blight or an overwhelming tempest, you would weep over the desolation, and turn with horror from the scene. Suppose a community cemented by friendship, inspired by patriotism, obedient to the laws, rising in opulence, in dignity, in character. Again: suppose it divided by suspicion, irritated by parties, distracted by violence, its cities depopulated, its fields drenched with the blood of their inhabitants, and anarchy and civil discord completing its destruction. Were you witness of this mournful tragedy, were you spectators of these acts of violence, did you behold this "wide-spread ruin," what language could describe the agitation of your feelings? But what are these when compared to the destruction of man? What can so affect our feelings as the soul of man in ruins?—this fair temple of God broken down by vice, and made the abode of every frightful monster and detestable abomination; this efflux of the divinity, sinking into depravity and wretchedness and infamy, till it is swept by the bosom of destruction, and driven by an avenging God into the pit of everlasting misery! R. Watson
Momentary sin pleasures cost the eternal kingdom of heaven.
When Lysimachus was engaged in a war with the Getz, he was so affected with the torments of thirst, that he offered his kingdom to his enemies for permission to quench it. His exclamation when he had drank the water with which they furnished him is wonderfully striking: "Ah, wretched me! who, for such a momentary gratification, have lost so great a kingdom!" This is the case of those, who, for the momentary pleasures of sin, part with the kingdom of heaven.
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