I have remarked above that the form of all Satan's temptations is the same. He first plies his temptation upon a man's faith, and then draws him away from the Word. Upon this follow various sins against the second table. This procedure of Satan we may see plainly manifested in our own experience. That which follows therefore in the present chapter, is a particular description of sin, what it is in the act, and what it is afterwards, when the act is performed. For, while sin is in the act, it is not felt. If it were truly felt, we should return to the right way, warned by the sorrows which sin ever brings upon the sinner. But because these sorrows lie hidden, after we have departed from integrity of soul and from faith, we go on without concern into the act itself. Just as Eve sinned in eating the fruit, after she had been persuaded by Satan, contrary to the Word of God, "that she should not die" but that the only effects would be, "that her eyes would be opened," and that she would become wiser. After she had drunk in this poison of Satan through her ears, she stretched forth her hand to the forbidden fruit, plucked it and ate it with her mouth; and thus she sinned with all the senses of her mind and of her body. And yet she did not even then feel her sin. She ate the fruit with pleasure and entreated her husband also to do the same. The essential principles are the same in all temptations and in all sins, whether of lust, of anger, or avarice, etc. While the sin is in the act, it is not felt; it terrifies not, it stings not, but it rather flatters the passions and delights. And no marvel that the case should be so with us when we are infected with this poison of original sin, from the sole of the foot to the crown of the head, and especially when we reflect that the sins of paradise took place in nature while it was yet sound and perfect. Hence it is that we see in the cases of profane men, of fanatical spirits and of those who have no faith, or who have fallen from the faith, how secure and unconcerned they are, how vehement and pertinacious in defending their errors; so much so that they will not hesitate even to die in the defence of them. Such is the nature of sin, while it remains unfelt. But afterwards when the sin is made manifest by the law, then it comes down upon the man with all its intolerable weight.