Читать книгу Dæmonologia Sacra; or, A Treatise of Satan's Temptations. In Three Parts онлайн

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2. Secondly, Diligence is not only discovered in laboriousness, but also in a peculiar readiness to espy and to close in with fit occasions, which may in probability answer the end we drive at. In this is Satan admirably diligent; no occasion shall slip, or through inadvertency escape him. No sooner are opportunities before us, but we may perceive him suggesting to us, ‘Do this, satisfy that lust, take that gain, please yourselves with that revenge.’ No sooner obtains he a commission against a child of God, but presently he is upon his back, as he dealt with Job; he lost no time, but goes out immediately from the presence of the Lord and falls upon him. Besides what he doth upon solemn and extraordinary occasions, these that are common and ordinary are so carefully improved by him, that everything we hear or see is ready to become our snare, and Satan will assay to tempt us by them, though they lie something out of the way of our inclination, and be not so likely to prevail with us.

3. Thirdly, It is also a discovery of his diligence, that he never fails to pursue every advantage which he gets against us to the utmost. If the occasion and motion thereupon incline us, so that if we are persuaded by them, he follows it on, and is not satisfied with either a lower degree of acting sinfully, or with one or two acts; but then he presseth upon us to sin to the height, with the greater contempt of God and grievance of his Spirit, the greater scandal and offence to our brethren; and having once caused us to begin, he would never have us to make an end. His temptations roll themselves upon us like the breaking in of waters, which, by the fierceness of their current, make a large way for more to follow. He knows how to improve his victories, and will not, through slothfulness or pity, neglect to complete them. Hence it is that sometimes he reaps a large harvest where he had sown little, and from one temptation not only wounds the soul of him that committed it, but endeavours to diffuse the venom and poisonous steam of it to the infection of others, to the disgrace of religion, the hardening the hearts of wicked men, and the turning the ignorant out of the way of truth. In like manner, if he perceive the spirits of men grow distempered and wounded, he then plies them with threatenings, fills them with all manner of discouragements, dresseth every truth with the worst appearance, that it may be apprehended otherwise than it is, and puts such interpretations on all providences, that everything may augment the smart of the wound, till they be overwhelmed with terrors.