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 Chris- tian, 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;1 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 ;2 and I know that you have not so 'learned the Father,' as to despise 'the day of small things ' [Zech. iv. 1 ()].
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 con- demnation, 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 bravery3 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
1 If a minister had as many eyes as Argus, to watch, and as many heads as Typheus, to dispose, and as many hands as Briareus, to labour, he might find employment enough for them all. [(1.) Argus, surnamed Panoptes, all-seeing. Cf. iEschylus, Prom. Apollod. Ov. II. cc. (X.) Tvpheus, i.e. Typhoeus. Cf. Pindar, Pyth. i. 31 ; viii. 21 ; 01. iv. 12. (3.) Briareus, i.e. iEgseon. Cf Apollod. i. 9, \ 1 ; Hesiod, Theog. 957.— G.]
2 Gripe or ' handful.' Cf. Exod. xxv. 4 ; xxxv. 26. — G. s Finery. — G.
4 THE EPISTLE DEDICATORY.
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 be- come a lying spirit in the mouths of four hundred of them, and they shall flatter Ahab to his 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 dis- trust 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 in- constancy ; if stiff, to impenitency, &c.
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 our- selves 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, &c.
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 con- siderable, 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, &c.
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 advan- tage, 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 inclina- tion and resolution, &c.
THE EPISTLE DEDICATORY. 5
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.1
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 plas- ter 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, &c.
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 some- thing this way, that others, that have better heads and hearts, may be the more 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 strata- gems,2 «Sic.