August 4, 2009

Precious remedies against Satan's devices - Brooks - X - 3.4 to 3.5

Required reading
Precious Remedies Against Satan's Devices by Thomas Brooks (available from Amazon or free on the internet, here for example) - Chapter 3, Devices 4 and 5.

My notes and thoughts
Device 4: 'By working them to make false inferences from those blessed and glorious things that Christ hath done.'  This is a tricky device as at face value it appears to make much of Christ and little of man.  But as Remedy 2 suggests, those who understand 'the great and glorious things that Jesus Christ hath done, and is a-doing for us, should be so far from taking us off from religious services and pious performances, that they should be the greatest motives and encouragements to the performance of them that may be, as the Scriptures do abundantly evidence.'  If we truly understand what Christ has done, we should be the most motivated to do good works for him.

Device 5: 'By presenting to them the paucity and poverty of those that walk in the ways of God.'  This device is similar to Device 2 which presented the sufferings of being a Christian.  However Device 5 focuses on the monetary loss.

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