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
4. Fourthly, Error is also eminently serviceable to Satan for the
bringing in _divisions, schisms, rents, hatreds, heart-burnings,
animosities, revilings, contentions, tumults, wars, and whatsoever
bitter fruits, breach of love, and the malignity of hatred can
possibly produce_. Enough of this might be seen in the church of
Corinth. The divisions that were amongst themselves were occasioned
by it, and a great number of evils the apostle suspected to have been
already produced from thence, as debates, envyings, wraths, strifes,
backbitings, whisperings, swellings, tumults, 2 Cor. xii. 20. He
himself escaped not from being evilly entreated by those among them
that were turned from the simplicity of the gospel. The quarrelsome
exceptions that they had raised against him he takes notice of. They
charged him with levity, in neglecting his promise to come to them,
2 Cor. i. 17. They called him carnal, one that walked according to
the flesh, chap. x. 2: they taunted him as a contemptible fellow,
ver. 10. They undervalued his ministry, which occasioned, not without
great apology, a commendation of himself; nay, they seemed to call him
a false apostle, and were so bold as to challenge him for a proof of
Christ speaking in him, 2 Cor. xiii. 3.
If the devil had so much advantage from error that was but in the
bud, and that in one church only, what may we imagine hath he done by
it, when it broke out to an open flame in several churches! What work
do we see in families when an error creeps in among them! The father
riseth up against the son, the son against the father, the mother
against the daughter, the daughter against the mother. What sad divided
congregations have we seen! what fierceness, prejudices, slanders,
evil surmises, censurings, and divisions hath this brought forth! what
bandying of parties against parties, church against church, hath been
produced by this engine! How sadly hath this poor island felt the smart
of it! The bitter contests that have been betwixt presbyterian and
independent, betwixt them and the episcopal, makes them look more like
factious combinations, than churches of Christ. The present differences
betwixt conformists and nonconformists, if we take them where they
are lowest, they do daily produce such effects as must needs be very
pleasing and grateful to the devil, both parties mutually objecting
schism, and charging each other with crime and folly. What invectives
and railings may be heard in all companies, as if they had been at
the greatest distances in point of doctrine! But whosoever loseth, to
be sure the devil gains by it. Hatreds, strife, variance, emulations,
lyings, railings, scorn, and contempt, are all against the known
duty of brotherly kindness, and are undoubted provocations against
the God of love and peace. What can we then think of that can be so
useful to Satan as error, when these above-mentioned evils are the
inseparable products of it? The modestest errors that ever were among
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