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

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6. Sixthly, He sometimes smothers and chokes it with the cares of the world, as those that received seed among thorns. By earnest engagements in business, all that time, strength, and affection which should have been laid out in the prosecution of heavenly things, are wholly taken up and spent on outward things. By this means that light that shines into the hearts of men is neglected and put by.

7. Seventhly, He staves off men from coming to the light, by putting them upon misapprehensions of their estate in judging themselves by the common opinion. Satan hath so far prevailed with men, that they are become confident of this conceit, that men may take a moderate liberty in sinning, and yet nevertheless be in a good condition; that sin is not so great a matter in God’s esteem, as in the judgment of some rigorous precisian; that he will not be so extreme to mark what we do amiss, as some strict professors are. What can be of greater hindrance to that ingenuous search, strict examination, and impartial judging or shaming ourselves for our iniquities, which the light of Scripture would engage us unto, than such a conceit as this! And yet that this opinion is not only common, but ancient, is manifest by those warnings and cautions given by the apostle to the contrary: Gal. vi. 7, ‘Be not deceived; God is not mocked: whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap;’ Eph. v. 6, ‘Let no man deceive you with vain words: for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience.’ If it had not been usual for men to live in uncleanness, covetousness, and such like offences, which he calls ‘sowing to the flesh,’ and yet in the midst of these to think they were not under the hazard of wrath, or if men had not professedly and avowedly maintained such an opinion, it had been superfluous for the apostle to have warned us with so much earnestness, ‘Be not deceived; let no man deceive you with such vain words,’ [1 Cor. vi. 9.]