Repent and Believe: Pocket Puritans series (Thomas Brooks)

Repent and Believe

In the Pocket Puritans Series

Portions taken from Precious Remedies Against Satan’s Devices

The Puritans believed in the reality of the devil and in his deadly antagonism to the souls of men. To keep us in our lost and condemned state, he employs two devices against us: he persuades us that repentance is easy and that believing in Christ is impossible. Brooks masterfully uncovers Satan’s devices and skillfully prescribes the remedies against them.

In the words of Sinclair Ferguson: “To read the work of a Puritan doctor of the soul is to enter a rich world of spiritual theology to feed the mind, heart-searching analysis to probe the conscience, Christ-centered grace to transform the heart, and wise counsel to direct the life. This series of ‘Pocket Puritans’ provides all this in miniature, but also in abundance.”

About the Author

Little is known about Thomas Brooks as a man, other than can be ascertained from his many writings. Born, probably of well-to-do parents, in 1608, Brooks entered Emmanuel College, Cambridge, in 1625. He was licensed as a preacher of the gospel by 1640 at the latest. Before that date he seems to have spent a number of years at sea, probably as a chaplain with the fleet.

After the Civil War, Brooks became minister at Thomas Apostle’s, London. He was soon sufficiently renowned to be chosen as preacher before the House of Commons on 26 December, 1648. Three or four years later he moved to St Margaret’s, Fish-street Hill, London, but encountered considerable opposition as he refused baptism and the Lord’s Supper to those clearly ‘unworthy’ of such privileges.

The following years were filled with written as well as spoken ministry. In 1662 he fell victim to the notorious Act of Uniformity. Still, Brooks remained in his parish and preached the Word as opportunity offered. Treatises continued to flow from his agile pen. In 1677 or 1678 he married for the second time, ‘she spring-young, he winter-old’. Two years later he went home to his Lord.