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

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Of Satan’s maintaining his possession.—His first engine for that purpose is his finishing of sin, in its reiteration and aggravation.—His policies herein.

Having explained the five ways by which Satan through the power of lust causeth blindness of mind in tempting to sin, I shall next lay open Satan’s devices for the keeping and maintaining his possession, which are these:—

1. First, He endeavours, after he hath prevailed with any man to commit an iniquity, to finish sin: James i. 15, ‘After if is conceived and brought forth, then it is finished;’ which notes its growth and increase. This compriseth these two things, its reiteration and its aggravation.

(1.) First, Its reiteration is, when by frequent acts it is strengthened and confirmed into a habit. There are various steps, by which men ascend into the seat of the scornful. Nemo repentè turpissimus, It is not one act that doth denominate men ‘wise to do evil.’ In Ps. i. 1 seq., David shews there are gradations and degrees of sin: some walk in the counsel of the ungodly; some by progress and continuance of sin ‘stand in the way of sinners;’ some, by a hardness of heart and fixedness in wicked purposes, ‘sit in the seat of the scornful.’ To this height doth he labour to bring his proselytes; yet he further designs,