Tolle Lege: Precious Remedies Against Satan’s Devices

Each year I try to pick out some particular study of theology and plan some reading on it.  This year I am devoting some reading to spiritual warfare and the first book on my list was Thomas Brook’s Precious Remedies Against Satan’s Devices.  If by spiritual warfare you are thinking casting out demons and such this is not the book to read; it deals with the much more ordinary and common warfare which Satan wages on our souls every day.  There are four main sections to the book and an appendix.  The first section deals with several devices Satan uses to draw the soul to sin, the second several devices he uses to keep men from holy duties, the third several devices he uses to keep souls in a sad doubting condition, and the fourth several devices he has against particular sorts and ranks of men.  After presenting a particular device he then presents remedies to counter it.  What are the remedies?  Truth, scriptural truth; this is why I think you should read this book.  It gives an awareness of the real spiritual battle you wage every day, it exposes Satan’s lies, and it gives you truth to meditate on to counter those lies.  I don’t think every section will be equally helpful to all.  I found the first most powerful and from there the book dwindled in its impact on me.  Regardless I think the first section should be read by all Christians.  Brooks is one of the more accessible Puritan writers and the paperback version has likely been modernized in language (though I didn’t read this version most of the Puritan Paperbacks I have compared have been).

Many long to be meddling with the murdering morsels of sin, which nourish not, but rend and consume the belly, the soul that receives them. Many eat that on earth that they digest in hell. Sin’s murdering morsels will deceive those that devour them. Adam’s apple was a bitter sweet; Esau’s mess was a bitter sweet; the Israelites’ quails a bitter sweet; Jonathan’s honey a bitter sweet; and Adonijah’s dainties a bitter sweet. After the meal is ended, then comes the reckoning. Men must not think to dance and dine with the devil, and then to sup with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven; to feed upon the poison of asps, and yet that the viper’s tongue should not slay them.

As long as there is fuel in our hearts for a temptation, we cannot be secure. He that hath gunpowder about him had need keep far enough off from sparkles.

Thou art as well able to melt adamant, as to melt thine own heart; to turn a flint into flesh, as to turn thine own heart to the Lord; to raise the dead and to make a world, as to repent. Repentance is a flower that grows not in nature’s garden.