13. He, who ‘puts his feet into a net,’ cannot get them out, when he has a mind; so he that lets himself down, into habits of sin, cannot rise up the moment he wishes it; and he ‘that walketh in the meshes of a net,’ entangles his steps in walking, and when he tries to extricate himself to walk, he is tied and bound that he cannot. ‘For it very often happens that a man, beguiled by the delightfulness of this world, reaches after the gloriousness of the honour thereof, that he attains to the effecting of his desires, and rejoices to have attained the object which he sought after; but seeing that the good things of this world, when not possessed, are objects of love, and very often, when possessed, grow worthless, he learns by the act of obtaining how worthless that is which he sought after. Whence being brought back to himself, he looks out how without sin to get quit of that which he sees himself to have gotten with sin; but the very same dignity which entangled him, holds him fast,...
