res of holiness are far more pleasant to the holy,
than the pleasures of sin to the sinner. O that I could get you to
believe this! O that you had a heart to feel it and know it! O that
you had a heart to taste God's pleasures and to make proof of them; to
taste and see how gracious the Lord is!

None can know, however, the joys of being holy and pure but the holy.
If an Angel were to come down from heaven, even he could not explain
them to you, nor could he in turn understand what the pleasures of sin
are. Do you think that an Angel could be made to understand what are
the pleasures of sin? I trow not. You might as well attempt to
persuade him that there was pleasure in feasting on dust and ashes.
There are brute animals who wallow in the mire and eat corruption.
This seems strange to us: much stranger to an Angel is it how any one
can take pleasure in any thing so filthy, so odious, so loathsome as
sin. Many men, as I have been saying, wonder what possible pleasure
there can be in any thing so melancholy as religion. Well: be sure of
this,--it is _more_ wonderful to an Angel, what possible pleasure there
can be in sinning. It is _more_ wonderful, I say. He would turn away
with horror and disgust, both because sin is so base a thing in itself,
and because it is so hateful in God's sight.

Let no persons then be surprised that religious obedience should really
be so pleasant in itself, when it seems to them so distasteful. Let
them not be surprised that _what_ the pleasure is cannot be explained
to _them_. It is a secret till they try to be religious. Men know
what sin is, by experience. They do not know what holiness is; and
they cannot obtain the knowledge of its secret pleasure, till they join
themselves truly and heartily to Christ, and devote themselves to His
service,--till they "taste," and thereby try. This pleasure is as
hidden from them, as the pleasures of sin are hidden from the Angels.
The Angels have never eaten the forbidden fruit, and their eyes are not
open to know good and evil. And we _have_ eaten the forbidden
fruit,--at least Adam did, and we are his descendants,--and our eyes
_are_ open to know evil. And, alas! on the other hand, they have
become blinded to good; they require opening to see, to know, to
understand good. And till our eyes _are_ opened spiritually, we
_shall_ ever think religion distasteful and unpleasant, and shall
wonder how any one can like it. Such is our mise