Satan's Feigned Retreat

 

Image Source: Daemonologia sacra : or, A treatise of Satans temptations 

Gilpin, Richard, 1625-1700

(Internet Archive)

Posted at Purely Presbyterian:

Richard Gilpin
Daemonologia Sacra, or A Treatise of Satan’s Temptations, pp. 379-381

Satan is willing to gratify us with nominal and imaginary privileges and defences against himself. He will willingly allow us such defences as are altogether insignificant and delusive. And his policy here is centered upon these two things:

1. Satan Loves To Inculcate Superstition.

1. First, He doth industriously prompt us to self-devised inventions, such as were never appointed or blessed of God to any such use; but only found out by the bold superstitions of men. Of this we have an instance in Balak, who carried Baalam from place to place in his prosecution of his design of cursing Israel; neither can we imagine that a commodious prospect of Israel was all he aimed at, seeing he discovers his mind in this variation of places, “Peradventure it will please God that thou mayest curse them from thence” (Num. 23:27); clearly implying that he had a confidence that the place might contribute something to his design, and that there was some inherent virtue in those consecrated places; and therefore did he begin with the high-places of Baal, and then to the held of Zophim, and then to the top of Peor (Num. 22:27, 23:14, 28).

Among the papists we find too much of this. What power they attribute to holy water, blessed salt, sign of the cross, hallowed earth, consecrated places, relics, baptized bells, exorcisms, and abundance of such stuff, may be seen in many of their writings, too tedious to be related. [1]

2. Satan Loves Dead Orthodoxy & Formalism.

2. Secondly, He is also willing that men use those real defences and helps which God hath commanded, so that they use them in a formal manner, which indeed deprives them of all the life and efficacy that might be expected from an instituted means. Thus he readily permits ignorant persons, without any disturbance or molestation, to use the repetition of the Lord’s prayer, ten commandments, and creed, or any other prayer, while they persuade themselves that the very saying of the words is a sufficient defence against the devil all that day.

The reasons of Satan’s policy in such gratifications are these...

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