Kaina kai palaia Things new and old, or, A store-house of similies, sentences, allegories, apophthegms, adagies, apologues, divine, morall, politicall, &c. : with their severall applications / collected and observed from the writings and sayings of the learned in all ages to this present by John Spencer ...

[ 375] A Graceless sinner will continue to be a sinner still.

THe Scolopendra,* 1.1 having devoured the bait, when she feeleth the hook to prick her, casteth up all that is in her belly, till she have got up the hook, but as soon as that is out of her bowels, she suppeth all that up which before she had cast from her: How excellently hath Nature in the property of this fish set before our eyes the sad condition of a graceless sinner? who after he hath devoured Sathan's morsels,* 1.2 feeling the hook of his conscience, and being pricked with some remorse, rids the stomach of his soul by confession, and never leaveth fasting, and praying, and sighing, and sobbing, till the hook be out, and the wound of conscience healed with the balm of Gilead, but that being done, resorbet interiora omnia, he returneth to his former vomit, and greedily gourmandizeth the bait which before he had vomited up; being void of true grace, he resolves to be a sinner still.

Notes

• * 1.1

  Plinii hist. nat. lib. 9. cap. 43.
• * 1.2

  Dan Featlie's Sermons.