Dæmonologia Sacra; or, A Treatise of Satan's Temptations: In Three PartsGilpin, Richard
Religion
Dæmonologia Sacra; or, A Treatise of Satan's Temptations: In Three Parts
Gilpin, Richard
Devil -- Early works to 1800; Temptation -- Early works to 1800
1. First, He useth his skill _to dress up an object of lust that
it may be taking and alluring_. He doth not content himself with a
simple proposal of the object, but doth as it were paint and varnish
it, to make it seem beautiful and lovely. Besides all that wooing
and importunity which he useth to the soul by private and unseen
suggestions, he hath no doubt a care to gather together all possible
concurring circumstances, by which the seeming goodness or conveniency
of the object is much heightened and enlarged. We see those that have
skill to work upon the humours of men place a great part of it in
the right circumstantiating a motion, and in taking the tempers and
inclinations of men at a right time. And they observe that the missing
of the right season is the hazard of the design, even there where
the object and inclination ordinarily are suitable. There is much in
placing a picture in a right position, to give it its proper grace and
lustre in the eyes of the beholders. When a man is out of humour he
nauseates his usual delights, and grows sullen to things of frequent
practice. It is likely Eve was not a stranger to the tree of knowledge
before the temptation, but when the serpent suggests the goodness of
the fruit, the fruit itself seems more beautiful and desirable, ‘good
for food, and pleasant to the eyes,’ [Gen. ii. 9.] Though we are not
able to find out the way of Satan’s beautifying an object that it may
affect with more piercing and powerful delights, yet he that shall
consider that not only prudence, in an advantageous management of
things, adds an additional beauty to objects proposed, but also that
art, by placing things in a right posture, may derive a radiancy and
beam of beauty and light upon them, as an ordinary piece of glass may
be so posited to the sunbeams that it may reflect a sparkling light
as if it were a diamond,—he that shall consider this, I say, will not
think it strange for the devil to use some arts of this kind for the
adorning and setting off an object to the eye of our lusts.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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