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

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4. Fourthly, This malice in Satan must be great.

(1.) First, If we consider the greatness of his wickedness in so great and total an apostasy. He is so filled with iniquity, that we can expect no small matters from him as to the workings of such cursed principles; not only is he wicked, but the spirit and extract of wickedness, as the phrase signifies, Eph. vi. 12, [πνευματικὰ τῆς πονηρίας.]

(2.) Secondly, The Scripture lays to his charge all degrees, acts, and branches of malice; as [1.] Anger, in the impetuous haste and violence of it. Rev. xii. 12, ‘Great wrath,’ θυμός, there signifies excandescentia, the inflammation of the heart and whole man, which is violent in its motion, as when the blood with a violent stream rusheth through the heart and sets all spirits on fire; and therefore this wrath is not only called great, but is also signified to be so, in its threatening ‘a woe to the inhabitants of the earth.’ [2.] Indignation is more than anger, as having more of a fixed fury; and this is applied to him, Eph. iv. 27, in that those that have this παροργισμὸς, are said ‘to give place to the devil,’ which is true not only in point of temptation, but also in respect of the resemblance they carry to the frame and temper of Satan’s furious heart. [3.] Hatred is yet higher than wrath or indignation, as having deeper roots, a more confirmed and implacable resolution. Anger and indignation are but short furies, ira brevis furor, which, like a land-flood, are soon down, though they are apt to fill the banks on a sudden; but hatred is lasting, and this is so properly the devil’s disposition, that Cain, in hating his brother, is [in] 1 John iii. 12 said to be the proper offspring and lively picture of that ‘wicked one,’ who is there so called rather than by the name of the devil, because the apostle would also insinuate that hatred is the masterpiece of Satan’s wickedness, and that which gives the fullest character of him. [4.] All effects of his cruelty arise from this root; this makes him accuse and calumniate, this puts him upon breathing after those murders and destructions which damned spirits are now groaning under.