A77614:128
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 seventh Remedy against this Device1 of Satan, is, solemnly to consider, that God doth often most plague and punish those, whom others think he doth most spare and love; that is, God do's plague and punish them most with spiritual judgements (which are the greatest, the sorest, and the heaviest) whom he least punishes with temporal punishments; there are no men on earth2 so internally plagued, as those that meet with least external plagues. Oh! the blindness of mind, the hardness of heart, the searedness of Conscience, that those souls are given up to, who in the eye of the world, are reputed the most happy men, because they are not outwardly afflicted and plagued as other men. Ah souls! 'twere better that all the temporal plagues that ever befell the children of men since the fall of Adam, should at once meet upon your souls, then that you should be given up to the least spiritual plague, to the least measure of spiritual blindness, or spiritual hardness of heart, &c. nothing ⟨p. 85⟩will better that man, nor move that man, that is given up to spiritual judgements; let God smile or frown, stroke, or strike, cut or kill, he minds it3 not, he regards it not; let life, or death, heaven, or hell, be set before him, it stirs him not, he is made up on his sin, and God is fully set to do Justice upon his soul; this mans preservation, is but a reservation unto a greater condemnation. This man can set no bounds to himself, he is become a brat of fathomless perdition. He hath guilt in his bosom, and vengeance at his back, wherever he goes; neither ministry, nor misery, neither miracle, nor mercy, can mollify his heart; and if this soul be not in hell on this side hell, who is? who is?4
The seventh Remedy against this Device1 of Satan, is, solemnly to consider, that God doth often most plague and punish those, whom others think he doth most spare and love; that is, God do's plague and punish them most with spirituall judgements (which are the greatest, the sorest, and the heaviest) whom he least punishes with temporall punishments; there are no men on earth