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

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[6.] Sixthly, Satan is also forced to this by the prevailing power of knowledge and principles of light. Where the gospel in profession and preaching displays abroad his bright beams, then whatever shift men make to be wicked in secret, yet ‘the light is as the shadow of death to them,’ and it is even ‘a shame to speak of these things in public,’ Eph. v. 12. Here Satan cannot rage so freely, but is put to his shifts, and is forced to be silent, whilst the power of the gospel cuts off half his garments. Men begin to reform; some are clean escaped from error, 2 Pet. ii. 18; others abandon their filthy lusts and scandalous sins, and so ‘escape the pollutions of the world, through the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ,’ ver. 20. Yet under all these great alterations and appearances of amendment, the devil is but seemingly ejected; for in the place mentioned, when the light declines, those that were escaped from error, and those that had fled from sinful pollutions, were both entangled again and carried to the same pitch, and a great deal further, of that sin and error in which they had been formerly engaged.