A77614:434
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 first Proposition or Conclusion I shall lay down is this.
The first Proposition or Conclusion I shall lay downe is this.
That though Satan hath his Devices 1to draw souls to sin, yet we must be careful, that we do not lay all our temptations upon Satan, that we do not wrong the Devil, and father that upon him, that is to be fathered upon our own base hearts; I think that oftentimes men charge that upon the Devil, that is to be charged upon their own hearts. And the Lord said unto the 2woman, What is this that thou hast done? and the woman said, the Serpent beguiled me, and I did eat. Sin and shifting came into the world together. This is no small baseness of our hearts, that they will be naught, I very naught, and yet will father that naughtiness upon Satan. Man hath an evil root within him; that were there no Devil to tempt him, nor no wicked men in the world to entice him, yet that root of bitterness, that cursed sinful nature that is in him, would draw him to sin, though he knows before hand, that the wages of sin is eternal death. For out of the ⟨p. 317⟩heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, 3fornications, thefts, false witnesses, blasphemies. The whole frame of man is4 out of frame, the understanding is dark; the will cross, the memory slippery, the affections crooked, the conscience corrupted, the tongue poisoned, and the heart wholly evil, only evil, and continually evil. Should God chain up Satan, and give him no liberty to tempt, or entice the sons of men to vanity, and folly; yet they would not, yet they could not but sin against him, by reason of that cursed nature that is in them, that will still be a provoking