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

178 страница из 220

[4.] Fourthly, He comes on with a softer plea of infirmity, and endeavours to persuade men that they may yield under pretence of being forced, and that their strivings and reluctances will lessen the evil to an apparent sin of infirmity; and thus he bespeaks them, Have not God’s children infirmities? They sin, though with reluctancy, and dost not thou resist?—doth not the fear that is in thy heart shew an unwillingness? Mayest thou not plead, the evil that I would not do, that do I? If thou yield, will not God account it a rape upon thine integrity? If this arrow stick not,

[5.] Fifthly, Then he extenuates the offence by propounding some smaller good or convenience that may follow that evil. And this, though it be a way of arguing directly contrary to that rule, ‘Do not evil that good may come,’ yet it oft proves too successful; and it is like that common stratagem of war, when, by the proposal of a small booty in view, the enemies are drawn out of their hold into a fore-contrived danger. Thus Satan pleads, This one act of sin may put you into a capacity of honouring God the more. Some have admitted advancements and dignities against conscience, upon no better ground but that they might keep out knaves, and that they might be in a condition to be helpful to good men. Surely the devil prevailed with Lot by this weapon, when he offered the prostitution of his daughters to the lusts of the Sodomites, that the strangers, as he thought them, might be preserved; by this evil, thinks he, a greater may be avoided. Herod’s conscience could not at first consent to the cutting off the head of John Baptist, but when Satan suggests the obligation of his oath, he concludes that in the killing of John he should escape the violation of the oath. Thus a pretended good to come becomes a pander to a present certain iniquity. Now if after all these arguings the conscience carrieth an apprehension of danger, then,