Thomas Brooks — Precious Remedies Against Satan's Devices (1652), remedies against the device of drawing near occasions of sin

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; if they be in adversity, he will tempt them to distrust God…

Satan knows that if he should present sin in its own nature and dress, the soul would rather flee from it, than yield to it, and therefore he presents it to us, painted and gilded over with the name and shew of virtue, t…

So Satan cheats them—giving them an apple in exchange for a paradise!

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…

Consider Christian, that all your trials and troubles, calamities and miseries, crosses and losses, which you meet with in this world—is all the hell that you shall ever have! Here and now you have your hell. Hereafter y…

Sin is a plague, yea, the greatest and most infectious plague in the world; and yet, ah! how few are there that tremble at it, that keep at a distance from it!