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

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[4.] Fourthly, The motion being made, if there be need, he doth irritate and stir up the mind to the embracement of it; and this he doth two ways:—

First, By an earnestness of solicitation; when he urgeth the thing over and over, and gives no rest; when he joins with this an importunity of begging and entreating with the repeated motion; when he draws together and advantageously doth order a multitude of considerations to that end; and when in all this he doth hold down the mind and thoughts, and keep them upon a contemplation of the object, motions, and reasons. Thus he provoked David, 1 Chron. xxi. 1; and this kind of dealing occasioned the apostle to name his temptations and our resistance by the name of ‘wrestlings,’ in which usually there appears many endeavours and often repeated, to throw down the antagonist.

Secondly, He doth irritate by a secret power and force that he hath upon our fancies and passions. When men are said to be carried and led by Satan, it implies, in the judgment of some,179 more than importunity; and that though he cannot force the spring of the will, yet he may considerably act upon it by pulling at the weights and plummets—that is, by moving and acting our imaginations and affections.