A77614:126
Precious Remedies against Satan's Devices
Precious remedies against Satan's devices or, salve for believers and unbelievers sores. Being a companion for those that are in Christ, or out of Christ; that are high, or low, learned, or illiterate, staggering, or wandering; that slight, or neglect ordinances, under a pretence of living above them; that are growing (in spirituals) or decaying; that are tempted, or deserted, afflicted, or opposed; that have assurance, or that want assurance; that are self-seekers, or the common-wealths caterpillars; that are in love sweetly united, or that yet have their spirits too much embittered, &c. By Thomas Brooks, a willing servant unto God, and the faith of his people, in the glorious gospel of Christ, at Margarets fish-street hill.Precious remedies against Satans devices or, salve for believers and unbelievers sores. Being a companion for those that are in Christ, or out of Christ; that are high, or low, learned, or illiterate, staggering, or wandering; that slight, or neglect ordinances, under a pretence of living above them; that are growing (in spiritualls) or decaying; that are tempted, or deserted, afflicted, or opposed; that have assurance, or that want assurance; that are self-seekers, or the common-wealths caterpillars; that are in love sweetly united, or that yet have their spirits too much imbittered, &c. By Thomas Brookes, a willing servant unto God, and the faith of his people, in the glorious gospel of Christ, at Margarets fish-street hill.
London: printed by M. Simmons for John Hancock, 1653
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
The sixth Remedy against this Device1 of Satan, is, seriously to consider the end and the design of God, in heaping up mercy upon the heads of the wicked, and in giving them (a quietus est) rest2 and quiet from those sorrows and sufferings that others sigh under. David in that 73 Psal. 17, 18, 19, 20 verses, shows the end and design of God in this, saith he, When I went into the Sanctuary of God, then I understood their end: Surely thou diddest set them in slippery places: thou castedst them down into destruction. How are they brought into desolation as in a moment, they are utterly consumed with terrors. As a dream when one awaketh, so, O Lord, when thou awakest: thou shalt despise their image. So in the 92 Psal. 7. When the wicked spring as grass, and when all the workers of iniquity do flourish, it is that they shall be destroyed for ever. Gods setting them up, is but in order to his casting them down; his raising them high, is but in order to his bringing ⟨p. 83⟩them low. Exod. 9. 16. And in very deed, for this cause have I raised thee up, for to show in thee my power, and that my name may 3be declared throughout all the earth. I have constituted and set thee up as a But-mark, that I may let fly at thee, and follow thee close with plague upon plague, till I have beaten the very breath out of thy body, and got my self a name, in setting my feet upon the neck of all thy pride, power, pomp, and glory. Ah souls! what man in his wits would be lifted up, that he might be cast down, would be set higher then others, when 'tis but in order to his being brought down lower then others. There is not a wicked man in the world, that is set up with Lucifer, as high as Heaven, but shall with Lucifer be brought down as low as Hell. Canst thou think seriously of this oh soul? and not say, O Lord, I humbly crave that thou wilt let me be little in this world, that I may be great in another world; and low here, that I may be high for ever hereafter: Let me be low, and feed low, and live low, so I may live with thee for ever; let me now be clothed with rags, so thou wilt clothe me at last with thy Robes; let me now be set upon a dunghill, so I may at last be advanced to sit with the upon thy Throne; Lord, make me rather