Christ, the Scripture, your own hearts, and Satan's devices, are the four prime things that should be first and most studied and searched. So Thomas Brooks wrote, and this book is his treatment of the fourth, set alongside the gospel remedies he finds in the first two.

The detailed handling of Scripture, together with the account of the malfunctions, diseases and spiritual cares of members of the body of Christ, is an outstanding example of Brooks' knowledge of both. Alexander Grosart, who edited the nineteenth-century edition of Brooks' Works, recorded the words of a missionary deeply perplexed by her circumstances, who turned to prayer and to what she called her dear little help-book.