There is
a reprobate in Dante, who, all the time he was repenting, had his eye on
his next opportunity. Now, our Presumption was like that. He presumed
on his youth, on his temptations, on his opportunities, and especially on
his future reformation and the permanence and the freeness of the gospel
offer. When he was in the Interpreter's House he did not hear what the
Interpreter was saying, the blood was roaring so through his veins. His
eyes were so full of other images that he did not see the man in the iron
cage, nor the spider on the wall, nor the fire fed secretly. He had no
more intention of keeping always to the way that was as straight as a
rule could make it, than he had of cutting off both his hands and
plucking out both his eyes. When the three shining ones stripped him of
his rags and clothed him with change of raiment, he had no more intention
of keeping his garments clean than he had of flying straight up to heaven
on the spot. Now, let each man name to himself what that is in which he
intentionally, deliberately, and by foresight and forethought sins.
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