A77614:232
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.
BY casting in a multitude of vain thoughts, whilst the soul is in seeking of God, or in waiting on God, and by this device he hath cooled some mens spirits in heavenly services, and taken off (at least for a time) many precious1 souls from religious performances. I have no heart to hear, nor no heart to pray, nor no delight in reading, nor in the society of the Saints, &c. Satan doth so dog, and follow my soul, and is still a casting in such a multitude of vain thoughts concerning God, the world, and my own soul, &c. that I even tremble to think of waiting upon God in any religious service; oh! the vain thoughts that Satan casts in, do so distaste my soul, and so grieve, vex, perplex, and distract my soul, that they even make me weary of holy duties, yea, of m• very life; oh! I cannot be so raised and ravished, so heated and melted, so quickened and enlarged, so comforted and refreshed as I should be, as I might ⟨p. 183⟩be, and as I would be in religious services, by reason of that multitude of vain thoughts that Satan is injecting, or casting into my soul, &c.