N00887:393
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.
Meditation. XL.
On throwing my Pen into the Fire. Dec. 31. 1700.
Thus at length, in the Thirty Eighth year of my Age, I have Resumed and Finished the Reflections which I had begun, (and written many of them,) and then thrown by, many years ago. And having made an End of Writing my Reflections on the Fire, the old and worn Pen, with which I wrote the last of them, shall be thrown into the Fire. But before it goes, it shall enter for me a very Solemn Admonition.
THus at length, in the Thirty Eighth year of my Age, I have Resumed and Finished the Reflections which I had begun, (and written many of them,) and then thrown by, many years ago. And having made an End of Writing my Reflections on the Fire, the old and worn Pen, with which I wrote the last of them, shall be thrown into the Fire. But before it goes, it shall enter for me a very Solemn Admonition.
There are Men, (as well as Pens,) who have written man, Good Things & thereby done considerable Service for the Churches of the Lord; but have been cast into the Fire after all: God has cast them into the Fire that never shall be Quenched. Many Learned, yea, many Devout, Writers have been Cast aways: because they have contented themselves with a mere Pen-and-Paper Piety: and going down to the Unquenchable and Everlasting Fire have had cause to say, Surgunt indcti e rapiunt coelum; ns, cum […] Doctrina, mergimur in Infernum. Some writers have the Fancy to place their Pictures before the Title page of their Books; but they that write