Spiritual Warfare

“We must not confide in the armour of God, but in the God of this armour, because all our weapons are only mighty through God.”

“Christ will bear no equal, and Satan no superior, therefore you cannot serve both.”

“The soldier is summoned to a life of active duty and so is the Christian.”

“If thou dost not stumble at this stone, the devil hath another at hand to throw in the way.”

“In heaven we shall appear, not in armor, but in robes of glory. But here our arms are to be worn night and day.”

“He that stands still and suffers his enemies to double blows upon him without resistance, will undoubtedly be conquered in the issue.”

“And as men's diversions increase from the world, so do their entanglements from Satan.”

“I beseech you observe this; Take heed for ever of reasoning with Temptation, of consulting and casting about in your thoughts, what will become of it? what trouble may come by this if I hearken not to this?”

“You yet live, and your wounds, though many, may all be healed; and your foes, though many, may all be driven, like vanishing smoke, before you.”

“Many a valiant person dares fight in a battle or a duel, who yet will be timorous and fearful if suddenly surprised in a midnight alarm.”

“They advance the colours of Satan, blasphemies and lies, in the very face of God; as if they sent challenges to heaven, and dared their Maker to the combat.”

“They give Satan an advantage; they make the work of repentance more difficult; they make a man's life a burden, and they render death to be very terrible unto the soul.”

“To return to sin gives the devil more power over a man that ever.”

“The result is the first religious war: the City of God versus the City of Man.”

“The first sufferers had the hardest task; they that first entered the lists for Christ, wanted those helps to suppress fear which they have left unto us.”

“Luther says, it was no less miracle to overcome the flame of lust in this temptation, then it was for those three men to be kept safe in the fiery furnace.”

“Hence in the sixth place from all these it follows, that faith is an overcoming grace: this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith, saith Saint John, Epistle 1 chap. 5. v. 4.”

“When the messenger of Satan buffeted Paul by wicked suggestions, (as is supposed) he mourned before God on account of it.”

“Satan was the strong man armed whom Christ came to dispossess and to deliver from him those who were led captive by him at his will.”

“We cannot have a better guide than God; and therefore never think of God but as ‘our God and our Father’, and labour to answer all Satan’s temptations in that kind from hence.”

“We are to encounter accursed and damned enemies; therefore, if they begin to fall before the Spirit in us, they shall fall.”

“There are such in the world, that will so visibly act the devil's part, that they would debauch your consciences with the most horrid perjuries, perfidiousness, and impiety, that they may triumph over your miserable souls.”

“For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil.’ He came to untie the band, and to destroy the works of the devil.”

“A self-denying man will stand by God’s cause and people, when others shrink for fear and shame.”

“This temptation many times is strong, it hath always been the way of the enemies of the truth to come with this argument to those who are weak; Such and such have yielded, and will ye stand out?”

“Surely, says Satan, if you should seek repentance and grace with tears, as Esau, you shall not find it!”

“Though they were as Iron that reasoned against Jeremiah, yet Jeremiah was to be as Steel when Iron Strikes against Steel.”

“You shall set your foot on the neck of that enemy: and as soon as both your feet are over the threshold of glory, you shall cast back a smiling look, and say, now, Satan, do your worst; now I am there where you canned not come.”

“The principles of these contrary thoughts are like Jacob and Esau; they struggle in the same womb, and oftentimes Esau will come first forth, and for a while seem to carry the birthright.”

“Men naturally are in the house of bondage, they are enslaved to Satan.”

“Where this striving and resistance is in mind and heart, there is the Spirit, for else all would go full sway with corruption.”

“Sometimes Satan makes use of a good man's bad ways, to spoil and harden the heart of them that come after.”

“Therefore, by comparing these two Scriptures, you see that those who have most of the precious things of this world are the most likely to be shot at; the devil shoots at them more than he does others.”

“In paradise there was a tempter, but none in heaven; Satan was long since cast out thence, and the saints fill up the vacant rooms of the apostate angels.”

“It is not spitting at Satan's name, nor crossing yourselves, nor leaning to your own resolutions, that will get you the victory.”

“So when temptations assault thee, and the devil with all his black legions besets thee round, thou art not in a worse condition than at the first, when all thy sins did not only besiege thee, but possess thee.”

“Again, Will not Satan labor might and main to keep your graces low and poor?”

“Believers, by the virtue and strength of Christ, conquerors over the devil.”

“It is their constant work to feed their lusts, to starve their souls; and the design of their master is, that the one may ruin the other.”

“The devil, nor men of the world, can kill thy righteousness, or love to it but by thy own hand; or separate that and thee asunder without thy own act.”

“We are bid to contend earnestly, to strive as in an agony for the faith—that is, the doctrine of faith.”

“Sin and Satan do sometimes work more violently and more strongly in the souls of saints than at other times.”

“The devil sinned from the beginning, and drew men after him, and set up his design; and Christ was promised from the beginning, and in the end appeared to break this design of Satan.”

“But it was Christ, and Christ alone, who came into the world to destroy the works of the Devil.”

“We should do more good with our prayers at home than they shall do by fighting abroad; as Moses did more good in the mount by prayer than they did in the valley by fighting.”

“Christ must fight his way into the soul, though he have a right to enter, as into his dearly purchased possession.”

“Satan's outward malignity may fall innocuous, like Balaam's stifled curse.”

“Sin betrays us into the devil's hands—who writes all his laws in blood.”

“For I am ready not to be bound only, but to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus.”

“That which overcomes the world must be superhuman, of almighty power.”

“If the devil cannot destroy our faith—yet if he can disturb it, if he can hinder and stop its actings, he knows all the other graces will be lame and inactive.”

“As the Naturalists observe the reason why the Lion hath that courage and boldness, is, because he hath a heart compacted and filled with strong spirits.”

“Christian bravery is that in which we are followers of primitive saints, of martyrs, reformers, and covenanters.”

“The third remedy against this device of Satan, is, to consider, That all the cross providences which befall the saints are for some noble good that God intends to confer upon them.”

“But you will say again, If I could once get thither, I had no cause to fear, I should never fall if I were once in heaven; but I fear the vileness of my own heart, I fear I shall be defiled with my corruptions and by Satan.”

“We will also do what we can to bring about the destruction of Satan's kingdom, whenever we have an opportunity.”

“No more God's free men, nor our own men, but slaves; and the rattling of the chains of divers lusts upon us are evidences of it.”

“His iron-bands and chains are upon thee in the prison-house, how canst thou escape?”

“Consider, will a small candle when it is enlightened scatter all the darkness that is about us; and will not a beam of grace in the soul scatter and triumph over temptations and corruptions?”

“The devil will never long keep dominion over us who beseech the Lord to cast him forth.”

“If ever the devil was abroad, and the malice of hell in the hearts of men, it was at that day.”

“Prayer is nothing but the promise reversed, or God's Word formed into an argument.”

“It is a powerful and effectual indwelling principle, inclining and pressing unto actions agreeable and suitable unto its own nature.”

“The more men sin, the more are they inclined unto sin.”

“To let it alone, is to let it grow; not to conquer it, is to be conquered by it.”

“Christ is the crown of crowns, the glory of glories, and the heaven of heavens.”