N00887:219
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.
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.
I Know not, whether there are more Coals at this Time, in my Fire, than there are Thoughts, in my mind, which may take Fire from them. Lord, Graciously and Mercifully Touch my Pen with a Coal from thine Altar, that so it may in an Holy strain write some of those Things, which a polluted Sinner, that yet serves at thine Altar, is now for that Service Meditating.
And now, first, Methinks, I should be as loth to commit a Sin, as to handle a Coal. If I should go to take up a Coal in my Hand, it would both Smut me, and Scorch me. I am certain, a Sin taken into my Heart, would have the like, and worse effects upon me. Every Sin is of a Filthy consequence, and by it, even the Conscience is defiled. And Sin admitted, and allowed, will scald the Conscience, at last into as much anguish, as ever the bloody hand of Ravilliac, burning with his Knife in it, suffered at his Execution. Oh, that I were now as much afraid of every ⟨p. 121⟩Sin, and all the Works of the Flesh, as of a Coal to be clapped upon my Flesh. The Purest Nazarites, once contaminated with Sins against the Holy Laws of God, may have that Lamentation made upon them, Lam. 4 8. Their Visage is now blacker than a Coal. Wherefore, Let me take heed, lest I Blacken my self by the Coals, and not Abhorring that which is Evil, It is the Wise mans Dissuasive, relating to the particular Sins of Unchastity, Prov. 6. 27, 28. Can a man take Fire in his Bosom, and his Clothes not be burnt? Can one go upon hot Coals, and his Feet not be burnt? So,—Now let me by this Consideration, be Dissuaded and Affrighted from all other Sins. They are so many Coals; why should I meddle with them! I remember Old Mela, in his Book, De Situ Orbis, tells of a silly people, who had not known Fire, and when they first saw it, they were so taken with it, as to Embrace it, until it horribly burnt 'em. O my Soul, Thou knowest, that Sin is a Coal; it will infallibly do thee a Damage; be not then like that silly people; keep at a due distance from such a Dangerous Evil. What a Frozen Creature am I? A principle, as cold, as the Venomous Juice, with which the Salamander does Extinguish the ardent Coals on which it is cast, [whence the Vulgar Error, of its Living in the Fire] surely hath possession of me, or else I should esteem every Sin, too dangerous a