Required reading
A treatise on Satan's temptations by Richard Gilpin (Available from Amazon or free here) - Read Chapter 2 of Part 2.
My summary
This week Gilpin teaches us about Satan's advantages for introducing error. For his purposes, Satan uses our:
(i) spiritual fascinations (e.g. enchantments or witchcraft);
(ii) imperfection in knowledge;
(iii) bias of mind;
(iv) adventurous curiosity;
(v) atheistical debauchery.
What grabbed me
I appreciated Gilpin's point about our bad habits: 'Vicious habits do so much bias the mind, that the understanding must needs be defiled by them. Nothing can more prepare the mind to a wicked error than a wicked life. An error of indulgence being so grateful to corruption may readily find favour with the understandings of those that know not to do good, because they have accustomed themselves to do evil.'
A habitual sin is a terrible snare.
Next week's reading
Commence Chapter 3 of Part 2 by reading up to '(6) Sixthly, A more plausible argument for error than the learning and holiness of the persons that profess it, is that of inspiration, in which the devil soars aloft and pretends the highest divine warrant for his falsehoods; for 'God is truth,' and 'we know that no lie is of the truth.'
Now it's your turn
Please post your own notes and thoughts in the comments section below.
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