N00887:161
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 11: Meditation XI.
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 XI.
On throwing a piece of Leather into the Fire.
ONE casting into the Fire, a bit of Leather, its moving, its wriggling, its twisting one way and another, carried some show of Sense with it: It seemed as if it had the same sense in it, which there would have been in the Creature to which it once belonged: One is ready to expect a Cry from it. A thing wholly Insensible, does in the Fire I see, put on a Semblance of mighty Sensibility.
An Hypocrite is one without a principle of Life: He is one altogether destitute of that Life, wherein God is Known, and Served, and Glorified. He has no Living Sense of Spiritual and Eternal Objects. But when an Hypocrite is cast into the Fire of some Affliction, he seems as if he had some Life in him: his Prayers, and his Vows, and his Devout Resolutions, and various Devotions, look very Sensibly, when some Grief or Fear is Afflicting of him. One would think, who but a Child of God, could be so serious, and so Sensible, as we see this Afflicted Hypocrite? Oh, There's no Relying ⟨p. 89⟩on the Shows, that men make in their Affliction. I will mention but one Observation to confirm it. I have often been concerned with Criminals under the Sentence of Death, having their Souls in a Fire of Agony. In this Fire, and Fright, Oh, the sorrow for Sin, and hatred of it, Oh, the hope in Christ, and love to God, and resolutions never to Sin on any Terms any more, which these Wretches have now Showed unto me. I could scarce imagine it possible for any but Regenerate Souls to speak so sensibly well; many of these have been Reprieved, and Pardoned by the Government; but of them all I never knew two, but what proved afterwards mere Devils Incarnate. All I will add is This; If men be not Religious in Prosperity, as well as in Adversity, there is no true Life of Religion in them. They that never stir, but in the Fire, let them then stir never so promisingly, are yet alienated from the Life of God. O my Soul, Read,