N00887:129
Christianus per ignem. Or, A disciple warming of himself and owning of his Lord:…
Christianus per ignem. Or, A disciple warming of himself and owning of his Lord: with devout and useful meditations, fetched out of the fire, by a Christian in a cold season, sitting before it. A work though never out of season, yet more particularly, designed for the seasonable and profitable entertainment, of them that would well employ their leisure [sic] by the fire-side. : [Three lines in Latin from Alsted]Christianus per ignem. Or, A disciple warming of himself and owning of his Lord: with devout and useful meditations, fetch'd out of the fire, by a Christian in a cold season, sitting before it. A work though never out of season, yet more particularly, designed for the seasonable and profitable entertainment, of them that would well employ their liesure [sic] by the fire-side. : [Three lines in Latin from Alsted]
Boston: printed by B. Green for Benjamin Eliot, 1702
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Christianus per Ignem. Or, A Disciple WARMING himself And OWNING hi… › Meditation 6: Meditation VI.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
Meditation VI.
On the Fire of Hell.
Descendamus viventes, et non descendamus morientes. Chrys.
IN some Countries 'tis a Custom, when a Light is brought into the Room, to wish [Deus det vobis Lucem AEternam,] God grant you Everlasting Light: But when I come to a Fire in a Room, it shall be my wish, God save me from Everlasting Fire! I find my self unable to bear the Fire: if the Fire on my Hearth were to touch my Flesh, I should soon cry out of it; the Torture of being scorched in the Fire would be intolerable; perhaps there is no other Torment more intolerable, than that which the Fire gives to our Nerves, when it ⟨p. 72⟩seizes on them. And yet I am led now to think, of something that is more intolerable than the Fire, and that on the score of its being so, is called the Fire. I remember, Bernard advises us to Meditation on Hell, saying, you must often go down into Hell by your Meditation while you Live, and you shall be sure not to go down to Hell when you die. And another Pathetically says; Whether you think of it or no, Hell fire burns, and your not thinking of it, will bring you thither That there is a punishment reserved for wicked men, in the Future State, there are few men sunk down into such Brutishness in their wickedness as to Deny, Tho' ungodly men don't livelily Believe it, and for the support of their Ungodliness, are at pains to make themselves Question it, yet they have their Waking Hours, wherein their Guilty Souls, are terrified with Apprehensions of, A strange punishment for the Workers of Iniquity, in another world. It is asserted in Scripture, it is affirmed by Reason; the Demonstrations of it are Irrefragable, That there is another World, wherein a due punishment is reserved by the Wrath of God, for all His Enemies. This punishment, as it is called, Hell, so it is called, Fire, and from the Temper of the Fire now before me, I may Learn, that the Fire of Hell, will be intolerable. If there were nothing else to prove it, but This, here would be proof enough. There are Impious men,