Required reading
A treatise on Satan's temptations by Richard Gilpin (Available from Amazon or free here) - Read Chapters 14, 15 and 16.
My summary
Now that Gilpin has explained the five ways by which Satan through the power of lust causes blindness of mind in tempting to sin, he now lays open Satan's devices for the keeping and maintaining his possession.
Satan keeps us by:
(i) the finishing of sin, in its reiteration and aggravation;
(ii) keeping us from coming to the light;
(iii) feigning himself dispossessed and cast out.
What grabbed me
I appreciated Gilpin's comments on habitual sin: 'After sin is once committed, he renews his motions and solicitations to act it again, and then again, and so onward till they be perfect and habituated to it. ln this case he acts over again the former method by which he first ensnared them, only with such alterations as the present case doth necessitate him unto. Before, he urged for the committing of it but once. How little is he to be trusted in these promises ! Now, he urgeth them by the very act they have already done. Is it not a pleasant or profitable sin, to thy very experience ? hast thou not tasted and seen ? hast thou not already consented ? Taste and try again, and yet further ; withdraw not thy hand. A little temptation served before, but a less serves now ; for by yielding to the first temptation our hearts are secretly inclined to the sin, and we carry a greater affection to it than before ; for this is the stain and defilement of sin, that when once committed it leaves impressions of delight and love behind, which are still the more augmented by a further progress and frequent commission, till at last by a strong power of fascination it bewitches men that they cannot forbear ; all the entreaties of friends, all their own promises, all their resolves and purposes, though never so strong and serious, except God strike in to rescue by an omnipotent hand, can no more restrain them than fetters of straw can hold a giant. God himself owns it as a natural impossibility, ' Can the Ethiopian change his skin ? no more can ye do good,' [Jer. xiii. 23;] and the reason of that impossibility is from hence, that they are ' accustomed to do evil' Such strong and powerful inclinations to the same sin again arc begot in us by a sin already committed, that sometime one act of sin fills some men with as vehement and passionate desires for a further enjoyment, as custom and continuance doth others.'
A one-off sin can easily become a frequent sin.
Next week's reading
Read Chapter 17.
Now it's your turn
Please post your own notes and thoughts in the comments section below.
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