Friday, June 16, 2006
From 'Precious remedies against Satan's devices' by Thomas Brooks
'Device 10. By working them to be frequent in comparing themselves and their ways with those that are reputed or reported to be worse than themselves. By this device the devil drew the proud pharisee to bless himself in a cursed condition, 'God I thank thee that I am not as other men are extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican (Luke 18:11). Why saith Satan, you swear but pretty oaths, as 'by your faith and troth,' but such swear by wounds and blood; you are not and then a little wanton, but such and such do daily defile and pollute themselves by actual uncleaneness and filthiness; you deceive and overreach your neighbors in things that are but toys and trifles, but such and such deceive and overreach others in things of greatest concernment, even to their ruin and undoings; you do but sit, and chat, and sip with the drunkard; you are only a little proud in heart and habit, in looks and words.
Remedy (1). The first remedy against this device of Satan is, solemnly to consider this, That there is not a greater nor a cleaner argument to prove a man a hyprocrite, than to be quicksighted abroad and blind at home, than to see 'a mote in another man's eye, and not a beam in his own eye' (Matthew 7:3-4); than to use spectacles to behold other men's sins rather than looking-glasses to behold his own; rather to be allways holding his finger upon other men's sores, and to be amplifying and aggravating other men's sins than mitigating his own.
Remedy (2). The second remedy against this device of Satan is, To spend more time in comparing your internal and external actions with the Rule, with the Word, by which you must be judged at last, than in comparing of yourselves with those that are worse than yourselves. That man that, compareing his self with others that are worse than himself, may see to himself and others, to be an angel; yet comparing himself with the word, may see himself like the devil, year a very devil. 'Hath not I chosen twelve, and one of you is a devil?'(John 6:70). Such men are like him, as if they were spit out of his mouth.
Satan is called 'the god of this world' (2 Cor. 4:4), because as God at first did but speak the word, and it was done, so, if the devil doth but hold up his finger, give the least hint, they will do his will, though they undo their souls for ever. Ah, what monsters would these men appear to be, did they but compare themselves with a righteous rule, and not with the most unrighteous men; they would appear to be as black as hell itself.
p. 89-90
We like to compare ourselves to the people who are around us. We think we are not as bad as they are. We should remember to compare our lives to the standard from the Word of God.
Related Tags: Thomas Brooks, 'Precious remedies against Satan's devices', pharisee, Satan, Word of God, sin
Remedy (1). The first remedy against this device of Satan is, solemnly to consider this, That there is not a greater nor a cleaner argument to prove a man a hyprocrite, than to be quicksighted abroad and blind at home, than to see 'a mote in another man's eye, and not a beam in his own eye' (Matthew 7:3-4); than to use spectacles to behold other men's sins rather than looking-glasses to behold his own; rather to be allways holding his finger upon other men's sores, and to be amplifying and aggravating other men's sins than mitigating his own.
Remedy (2). The second remedy against this device of Satan is, To spend more time in comparing your internal and external actions with the Rule, with the Word, by which you must be judged at last, than in comparing of yourselves with those that are worse than yourselves. That man that, compareing his self with others that are worse than himself, may see to himself and others, to be an angel; yet comparing himself with the word, may see himself like the devil, year a very devil. 'Hath not I chosen twelve, and one of you is a devil?'(John 6:70). Such men are like him, as if they were spit out of his mouth.
Satan is called 'the god of this world' (2 Cor. 4:4), because as God at first did but speak the word, and it was done, so, if the devil doth but hold up his finger, give the least hint, they will do his will, though they undo their souls for ever. Ah, what monsters would these men appear to be, did they but compare themselves with a righteous rule, and not with the most unrighteous men; they would appear to be as black as hell itself.
p. 89-90
We like to compare ourselves to the people who are around us. We think we are not as bad as they are. We should remember to compare our lives to the standard from the Word of God.
Related Tags: Thomas Brooks, 'Precious remedies against Satan's devices', pharisee, Satan, Word of God, sin
