That is the first cup the devil gives; and the good wine makes you swell with self-important dignity, as its fumes enter your heart and puff it up with an accursed pride.

The daughter of Zion in this land, now lies on the ground, in such piteous circumstances, as we now behold her; with her garments rent, her face disfigured, her nakedness exposed, her limbs broken, and weltering in the blood of her own wounds, and in no wise able to arise...

At the outset of the evil, the heart becomes vacant, the precious stores of the Lord vanish one by one, and there is room for something else. Heavenly-mindedness is gone, and then the heart is ready to mind earthly things. Then comes the suggestion and allowance from the traitor within, and straightway the lumber of Tobiah is introduced by degrees, and the soul becomes a wholesale warehouse for the household stuff of sin.

There is indeed something very mysterious in it, that so much good, and so much bad, should be mixed together in the church of God...