To his most dear and precious ones, the sons and daughters of the Most High God, over whom the Holy Ghost hath made him a Watchman.
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 I am 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 meal for a sacrifice [Lev. ii. 2, v. 12], 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’ [Zech. iv. 10].
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 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 shut up ‘ under the chains of darkness till the - judgment of the great day [Jude 6], 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 can no sooner tempt, but we are ready to assent; he can no sooner have a plot upon us, but he makes a conquest of us. If he doth but shew men a little of the beauty and bravery 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 David be proud of his people, Satan will provoke him to number them, that he may be yet prouder, 2 Samuel xxiv.
If Peter be slavishly fearful, Satan will put him upon rebuking and
denying of Christ, to save his own skin, Mat. xvi. 22, chap. xxvi. 69-75. If Ahab’s prophets be given to flatter, the devil will straightway become a lying spirit in the mouths of four hundred of them, and they shall flatter Ahab to lis ruin, 1 Kings xxii. If Judas will be a traitor, Satan will quickly enter into his heart, and make him sell his master for money, which some heathens would never have done, John xiii. 2. If Ananias will lie for advantage, Satan will fill his heart that he may lie, with a witness, to the Holy Ghost, Acts v. 3. Satan loves to sail with the wind, and to suit men’s temptations to their conditions and inclinations. If they be in prosperity, he will tempt them to deny God, Prov. xxx. 9; if they be in adversity, he will tempt them to distrust God; if their knowledge be weak, he will tempt them to have low thoughts of God; if their conscience be tender, he will tempt to scrupulosity; if large, to carnal security; if bold-spirited, he will tempt to presumption; if timorous, to desperation; if flexible, to inconstancy; if stiff, to impenitency, &ec.
From the power, malice, and skill of Satan, doth proceed all the soul-killing plots, devices, stratagems, and machinations, that be 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 several stratagems he hath to keep souls in a mourning, staggering, doubting, and questioning condition.
He hath several devices to destroy the great and honourable, the wise and learned, the blind and ignorant, the rich and the poor, the real and the nominal saints.
One while he will restrain from tempting, that we may think ourselves secure, and neglect our watch; another while he will seem to fly, that he may make us proud of the victory; one while he will fix men’s eyes more on others’ sins than their own, that he may puff them up; another while he may fix their eyes more on others’ graces than their own, that he may overwhelm them, &ec.
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.
Beloved, I think it necessary to give you and the world a faithful account of the reasons moving me to appear in print, in these days, wherein we may say, there was never more writing and yet never less practising, and they are these that follow, &e.
Reason 1. First, Because Satan hath a greater influence upon men, and higher advantages over them (having the wind and the hill, as it were), than they think he hath, and the knowledge of his high advantage, is the highway to disappoint him, and to render the soul strong in resisting, and happy in conquering, &c.
Reason 2. Your importunity, and the importunity of many other ‘ precious sons of Sion,” Lam. iv. 2, hath after much striving with God, my own heart, and others, made a conquest of me, and forced me to do that at last, which at first was not a little contrary to my inclination and resolution, &ec.
Reason 3. The strange opposition that I met with from Satan, in the study of this following discourse, hath put an edge upon my spirit, knowing that Satan strives mightily to keep those things from seeing the light, that tend eminently to shake and break his kingdom of darkness, and to lift up the kingdom and glory of the Lord Jesus Christ, in the souls and lives of the children of men, &c!
Reason 4. Its exceeding usefulness to all sorts, ranks, and conditions of men in the world. Here you have salve for every sore, and a plaster for every wound, and a remedy against every disease, especially against those that tend most to the undoing of souls, and the ruin of the State, &ec.
Reason 5. 1 know not of any one or other that have writ of this subject; all that ever I have seen have only touched upon this string, which hath been no small provocation to me, to attempt to do something this way, that others, that have better heads and hearts, may be the wore stirred to improve their talents in a further discovery of Satan’s Devices, and in making known of such choice Remedies, as may enable the souls of men to triumph over all his plots and stratagems,” &c.
Reason 6. I have many precious friends in several countries, who are not a little desirous that my pen may reach them, now my voice cannot. I have formerly been, by the help of the mighty God of Jacob, a weak instrument of good to them, and cannot but hope and believe that the Lord will also bless these labours to them; they being, in part, the fruit of their desires and prayers, &e.
Reason 7. Lastly, Not knowing how soon my glass may be out, and how soon I may be cut off by a hand of death, from all opportunities of doing further service for Christ or your souls in this world, I was willing to sow a little handful of spiritual seed among you; that so, when I put off this earthly tabernacle, my love to you, and that dear remembrance of you, which I have in my soul, may strongly engage your minds and spirits to make this book your companion, and under all external or internal changes, to make use of this heavenly salve, which I hope will, by the blessing of the Lord, be as effectual for the healing of all your wounds, as their looking up to the brazen serpent was effectual to heal theirs that were bit and stung with fiery serpents. I shall leave this book with vou as a legacy of my dearest love, desiring the Lord to make it a far greater and sweeter legacy than all those carnal legacies are that are left by the high and mighty ones of the earth to their nearest and dearest relations, &c.
Beloved, I would not have affection carry my pen too much beyond my intention. Therefore, only give me leave to signify my desires for you, and my desires to you, and I shall draw to a close.
My desires for you are, ‘ That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the
inner man; that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith, that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; and to know the love of Christ that passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God, Eph. iii. 16-19; and That ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increased in the knowledge of God, strengthened with all might according to his glorious power, unto all patience and longsuffering, with joytulness,’ Col. i. 10, 11; That ye do no evil,’ 2 Cor. xii. 7; That your love may abound yet more and more in know- ledge, and in all judgment; That ye may approve things that are excellent, that ye may be sincere, and without offence till the day of Christ,” Philip. 1. 27, iv. 1; and that our God would count you worthy of this calling, and fulfil all the good pleasure of his goodness, and the work of faith with power; That the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you, and ye in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ,” 2 Thes. i. 11, 12. And that you may be eminent in sanctity, sanctity being Zion’s glory, Ps. xciii. 5; that your hearts may be kept upright, your judgments sound, and your lives unblameable. That as ye are now my joy,” so in the day of Christ you may be my crown; that I may see my labours in your lives; that your conversation may not be earthly, when the things you hear are heavenly; but that it may be as becomes the gospel,” Philip. 1. 9, 10. That as the fishes which live in the salt sea yet are fresh, so you, though you live in an uncharitable world, may yet be charitable and loving; That ye may, like the bee, suck honey out of every flower; that ye may shine in a sea of troubles, as the pearl shines in the sky, though it grows in the sea; that in all your trials you may be like the stone in Thracia, that neither burneth in the fire nor sinketh in the water; That ye may be like the heavens, excellent in substance and beautiful in appearance; that so you may meet me with joy in that day wherein Christ shall say to his Father, Lo, here am 1, and the children that thou hast given me,” Isa. viii. 18. My desires to you are, That you would make it your business to study Christ, his word, your own hearts, Satan’s plots, and eternity, more than ever; That ye would endeavour more to be inwardly sincere than outwardly glorious; to live, than to have a name to live; That ye would labour with all your might to be thankful under mercies, and faithful in your places, and humble under divine appearances, and fruitful under precious ordinances; That as your means and mercies are greater than others’, so your account before God may not prove a worse than others’; That ye would pray for me, who am not worthy to be named among the saints, that I may be a precious instrument in the hand of Christ to bring in many souls unto him, and to build up those that are brought in in their most holy faith; and “that utterance may be given to me, that I may make known all the will of God,” Eph. vi. 19; That I may be sincere, faithtul, frequent, fervent, and constant in the work of the Lord, and that my labour be not in vain in the Lord; that my labours may be accepted in the Lord and his saints, and I may daily see the travail of my soul, &e.
But, above all, pray for me, that I may more and more find the power and sweet of those things upon my own heart, that I give out to you and others; that my soul be so visited with strength from on high, that I may live up fully and constantly to those truths that I hold forth to the world; and that I may be both in life and doctrine ‘a burning and a shining light,” that so, when the Lord Jesus shall appear, ‘1 may receive a crown of glory which he shall give to me in that day, and not only to me, but to all that love his appearance,” &c., John v. 35 and 2 Tim. i. 8.
For a close, remember this, that your life is short, your duties many, your assistance great, and your reward sure; therefore faint not, hold on and hold up, in ways of well-doing, and heaven shall make amends for all.
I shall now take leave of you, when my heart hath by my hand subscribed, that I am,
Your loving pastor under Christ, according to all pastoral affections and engagements in our dearest Lord,
THOMAS BROOKS.