A treatise on Satan's temptations - Gilpin - XXXII - Chapter 13 & 14 of Part 3

Required reading
A treatise on Satan's temptations by Richard Gilpin (Available from Amazon or free here) - Read Chapter 13 and 14 of Part 3.

My summary
This week Gilpin starts his discussion of the temptation of Christ given in Matthew 4:3 'Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple'.

Gilpin observes:
(i) that Satan is not discouraged easily, nor doth he always desist upon the first repulse, but frequently renews the assault when he is strongly and resolutely resisted;
(ii) that when Satan is upon any design, if an occasional advantage occur from our way of refusal, he will not let it slip, but improves it to what it may lead to, though it be contrary to that which he was first labouring for;
(iii) that Satan is sometime permitted to exercise his power upon the bodies of those that are dear to God;
(iv) that the holiness or sanctity of a place will be no privilege against temptations;
(v) that Satan is willing to graitfy us with nominal and imaginary privileges and defences against himself;
(vi) that Satan's designs are large, and that he projects the ensnaring or deluding of others by such temptations as seem only to concern those that are under the immediate trouble of them;
(vii) that it is Satan's policy in tempting, to run from one extreme to another;
(viii) that as distrust on the one hand, so presumption on the other, is one of his grand designs.

What grabbed me
I liked the point about swinging to extremes: 'The avoiding of one extreme gives the soul such a swing, if care be not used to prevent it, that they are cast more than halfway upon the other. Peter, in an extreme of modesty, refused the washing of his feet by Christ ; but when he understood the danger, then he runs as far wrong another way — ' Not my feet only, but my hands and my head,' John xiii. 9. Thus some are so for purity of churches, that they exclude the weak ; others so for unity, that they admit the open scandalous and profane. '

The middle road may be difficult to walk on but that is what we must do.

Next week's reading
Read Chapter 15 and 16 of Part 3.

Now it's your turn
Please post your own notes and thoughts in the comments section below.