Thomas Brooks at the Beach

After he began preaching, Thomas Brooks wrote a book to remind us of the devices of Satan—and the “precious remedies” God has given us to combat them. On this episode of 5 Minutes in Church History, Dr. Stephen Nichols takes a look at the next Puritan book we should bring to the beach.

It’s the middle of June, and we are still at the beach. We have with us another Puritan, another Thomas, actually. This is Thomas Brooks, and like Thomas Watson, Brooks was a student at Emmanuel College. When he entered Emmanuel College, Cambridge, in 1625, among his classmates was none other than John Milton. After Brooks graduated, he went on to be a chaplain of a military fleet for about a decade. This required significant travel. Then, in the 1640s, he served as a minister in London. Around 1650, he started preaching and later was officially installed at St. Margaret’s, Fish-street Hill, London. Like Thomas Watson and so many other Puritans, Brooks was technically ejected in 1662 from this pulpit, but it appears that he continued to preach, and he also continued to write. He married Martha Burgess, and they had no children. She died in 1676. Three years later, he married Patience Cartwright. They were married for several months. And then, in 1680, Thomas Brooks died.

Back in 1652, he published his book Precious Remedies against Satan’s Devices. Let’s get a handle on that title. Let’s go to the end of it first, Satan’s Devices. Brooks observes that we must pay attention to four things or we will be thrown off course in this Christian life. First, we must study our Lord. We start with Christ and who He is. Second, we must study Scripture. We must know God’s Word. We must study it. We must meditate upon it. We must make it part of our mental furniture. Third, we must know our own hearts, our own dispositions, our own weaknesses, our own vulnerabilities. And then, finally, we must know Satan’s devices. Brooks got that word from Paul. In 2 Corinthians 2:11, Paul says, “Lest Satan should get an advantage of us: for we are not ignorant of his devices” (KJV).

Brooks does not want us to be ignorant, but he wants us to know about Satan’s devices. Brooks tells us that Satan has many devices to fit all sizes of people. Satan has many temptations tailored fit for a variety of dispositions and a variety of circumstances. Make no mistake about it, Brooks says, Satan is indeed a roaring lion. He’s clever, he’s malicious, he’s a true enemy of God, and he’s a true enemy of God’s people.

But there’s not only Satan’s devices; there are also precious remedies. In fact, every device not only has a precious remedy, but it also has multiple remedies to speak to it, which is to say that God’s Word is not only equal to the task, but it is equal and then some. Remember that old lion’s mouth you would use to represent greater than or lesser than in equations? Well, the lion’s mouth is definitely open toward precious remedies. They are greater.

One example comes early in the book. Brooks tells us that one of Satan’s devices is to lead us to think that sins are not a big deal. They are just little things. “‘Ah,’ sayeth Satan,” Brooks tells us, “it is but a little pride, a little worldliness, a little uncleanness, a little drunkenness, etc. As Lot said of Zoar, ‘It is but a little one, and my soul shall live’” (Gen. 19:20). What is the precious remedy? The precious remedy, according to Thomas Brooks, is “First, solemnly consider that those sins which we are apt to account small, have brought upon men the greatest wrath of God.” As Dr. R.C. Sproul said, “Sin is cosmic treason.” There is no such thing as a little sin.

Don’t be caught by Satan’s device here to manipulate our thinking and to diminish what, in fact, sin is. That’s Thomas Brooks reminding us of Satan’s devices, and even more importantly, reminding us of those precious remedies.