Twenty sermons preached at Oxford before His Majesty, and elsewhere

1. The Devil, who is thy deadly enemy, a bloody-minded adversary, a murdering and merciless-minded Spirit, a murderer from the beginning, ⟨p. 63⟩a merciless tormentor, who being in plagues and torments, and thereby even at his wits end, would fain ease himself in tormenting thee. When the Devil, as we read, was dispossessed of a child wherein he was, he rends and tears, leaves him foaming, that there was little hope of life in him: Mar. 9.20. But now when a man shall be delivered into the hands of this merciless Spirit, when God shall say to the Devil, take him, do what thou wilt with him, do thy worst to him: When thou shalt be thus put into the hands of one that hates thee, and delights in thy ruin, how will he tear thee into pieces? How will he torment thee? In how desperate and wretched a case will thy soul and body be?

1. The Devil, who is thy deadly enemy, a bloody-minded adversary, a murthering and merciless-minded Spirit, a murtherer from the beginning, ⟨p. 63⟩a merciless tormentor, who being in plagues and torments, and thereby even at his wits end, would fain ease himself in tormenting thee. When the Devil, as we read, was dispossessed of a child wherein he was, he rends and tears, leaves him foaming, that there was little hope of life in him: Mar. 9.20. But now when a man shall be delivered into the hands of this merciless Spirit, when God shall say to the Devil, take him, do what thou wilt with him, do thy worst to him: When thou shalt be thus put into the hands of one that hates thee, and delights in thy ruine, how will he tear thee into pieces? How will he torment thee? In how desperate and wretched a case will thy soul and body be?

But the tormentor within thee is far more heavy, painful, and grievous,