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PRECIOUS REMEDIES

AGAINST

SATAN'S DEVICES:

BEING,

A COMPANION FOR CHRISTIANS

OF

ALL DENOMINATIONS.

BY THOMAS BROOKS,

Late Minister of the Gospel at St. Margaret's, Fish-Street-Hill,

FIRST AMERICAN EDITION.

PHILADELPHIA:

PUBLISHED BY JONATHAN POUNDER,

NO. 9, CROWN STREET.

HARVARD UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

4 3 X 3 8 9

J. RAKESTRAW, PRINTER.

PREFACE.

Beloved in our dearest Lord,

CHRIST, the Scripture, your own Hearts, and Satan's Devices, are the four prime things that should be first and most studied and searched; if any cast off the study of these, they cannot be safe here, nor happy hereafter. * It is my work, as a Christian, but much more as a Watchman, to do my best, to discover the fulness of Christ, the emptiness of the creature, and the snares of the great deceiver; which I have endeavoured to do, in the following discourse, according to that measure of grace which I have received from the Lord. God once accepted a handful of meat for a sacrifice, and a gripe of goat's hair for an oblation: and I know that you have not so learned the Father, as to despise the day of small things.

Beloved, Satan being fallen from light to darkness; from felicity to misery; from heaven to hell; from an angel to a devil, is so full of

* If a minister had as many eyes as Argus, to watch; as many heads as Typheus, to dispose; and as many hands as Briareus, to labour, he might find employment enough for them all.

malice and envy, that he will leave no means unattempted, whereby he may make all others eternally miserable with himself; he being shut out of heaven, and reserved under chains of darkness till the judgment of the great day,' makes use of all his power and skill, to bring all the sons of men into the same condition, and condemnation with himself. Satan hath cast such sinful seed into our souls, that now he no sooner tempts, but we are ready to assent; he no sooner has a plot, but he makes a conquest; if he do but shew men a little of the glory of the world, how ready are they to fall down and worship him.

Whatever sin the heart of man is most prone to, that the devil will help forward. If Peter be slavishly fearful, Satan will put him upon rebuking and denying of Christ to save his own skin.

A man may as well tell the stars, and number the sands of the sea, as reckon up all the devices of Satan; yet those which are most considerable, and by which he doth most mischief to the precious souls of men, are in the following Treatise discovered, and the remedies against them prescribed.

From the power, malice, and skill of Satan, doth proceed all the soul-killing plots, devices, stratagems, and machinations, that are in the world. Several devices he hath to draw souls to sin, and several plots he hath to keep souls from all holy and heavenly services; and also

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