I SAW a bottle hanging up in a fruit-tree. Inside was a sweet liquid poison. Wasps and flies of all kinds buzzed into the bottle, sipped, and died. They left the fruit for the sugared poison.
Now, the devil has his poison-traps for souls, to draw them off from the gospel fruit. He knows man’s taste, and he makes the mixture palatable and sweet. How agreeable it tastes to the flagrant sinner: “There is no hell, no devil.” How pleasant it tastes to the self-righteous: “You can be saved by your attention to religious duties, to sacraments, and the like.” And how does the pleasure-seeker sip up the fatal sweetness “Enjoy the world, for God will never put you into hell.” The attraction lies not in what is truth, but in what is sweet. But take heed, reader, lest the sweetness of which your soul sips end in endless death.