Pirates do not use to set upon poor empty vessels; and beggars need not fear the thief. Those that have most of God, and are most rich in grace— shall be most assaulted by Satan, who is the greatest and craftiest pirate in the world.
God will have nothing to do with proud persons, he will never dwell with them, he will never keep house with them.
He that dwells in the highest heavens, will never dwell in a haughty heart.
For a close, remember this, that your life is short, your duties many, your assistance great, and your reward sure; therefore faint not, hold on and hold up, in ways of well-doing, and heaven shall make amends for all!Precious Remedies Against Satan's Devices
The main reason why men dote upon the world, and damn their souls to get the world, is, because they are not acquainted with a greater glory!Precious Remedies Against Satan's Devices
Afflictions are God's furnace, by which he cleanses his people from their dross. Affliction is a fire to purge out our dross, and to make virtue shine. Afflictions are medicines which heal soul diseases, better than all the remedies of physicians.Precious Remedies Against Satan's Devices
When the sword is in the scabbard, the traveler is easily surprised; and when the guard is asleep, the city is quickly conquered. The strongest creature, the lion, and the wisest creature, the serpent, if they be dormant, are as easily surprised as the weakest worms. So the strongest and wisest saints, if their graces be asleep, if they be only in the habit and not in the exercise, may be as easily surprised and vanquished as the weakest Christians in all the world, as you may see in David, Solomon, Samson, Peter. Every enemy insults over him that has lost the use of his weapons.
A humble soul being once in a great conflict with Satan said thus to him: "Satan, reason not with me—I am but weak. If thou hast anything to say, say it to Christ; He is my advocate, my strength, and my Redeemer, and He shall plead for me." A humble soul is good at turning Satan over to the Lord Jesus, and this increases Satan's hell.
True repentance includes a sense of the mischievousness of sin: that it cast angels out of heaven, Adam out of Paradise; that it laid the first cornerstone in hell and brought in all the curses, crosses, and miseries that are in the world; and that it renders men liable to all temporal, spiritual, and eternal wrath; yea, it hath left men without God, Christ, hope, or heaven.
No godly man falls in any common calamity till his glass be run and his work done; so I say of all those dear servants of the Lord that have fallen by the pestilence in the midst of us. Their hour was come and their course was finished. Had God had any further doing work, or suffering work, or bearing work, or witnessing work for them in this world, 'twas not all the angels in heaven nor all the malignant diseases in the world that could ever have cut them off from the land of the living.
Many have and many do miserably pervert the Scriptures by turning them into vain and groundless allegories. Some wanton wits have expounded Paradise to be the soul, man to be the mind, the woman to be the sense, the serpent to be delight, the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil to be wisdom, and the rest of the trees to be the virtues and endowments of the mind. O friends! It is dangerous to bring in allegories where the Scripture doth not clearly and plainly warrant them and to take those words figuratively which should be taken properly.
God had but one Son without corruption, but He had none without temptation (Heb. 2:17–18). Pirates make the fiercest assaults upon those vessels that are most richly laden; so doth Satan upon those souls that are most richly laden with treasures of grace, with the riches of glory. Pirates let empty vessels pass and repass without assaulting them; so doth Satan let souls that are empty of God, of Christ, of the Spirit, of grace pass and repass without tempting or assaulting of them.
Satan's masterpiece is first to work Christians to blot and blur their evidences for glory by committing this or that heinous sin, and then his next work is to rob them of their evidences for glory that so, though at the long run they may get safe to heaven, that yet Jacob-like they may go halting and mourning to their graves. Satan knows that whilst a Christian's evidences are bright and shining, a Christian is temptation proof. Satan may tempt him, but he cannot conquer him; he may assault him, but he cannot vanquish him.
Bad men have their good moods, as good men have their bad moods; a bad man may, under pangs of conscience, a smarting rod, the approaches of death, or the fears of hell, or when he is sermon sick, cry out to the Lord for grace, righteousness, and holiness; but he is the only blessed man that hungers and thirsts after righteousness at all times. Heaven is for that man and that man is for heaven that hungers and thirsts in a right manner after the righteousness of justification and after the righteousness of sanctification.