N00887:402
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.
The Fire in my Stove does abundance of Service, to all about it, yea, (as it is placed,) in two Rooms at once. My House is not now a Bethzenun, or place of Cold, (as the Jews called the Country that lay near the Snows of Lebanon:) but I have an April, or September there, in the midst of January: and yet the Fire which does all that Service, keeps out of Sight; no body Sees it; People feel the Effect, while they see not the Cause.
Methinks, It advises me, to Do Good, and yet Lie Hid, as much as ever I can. There are certain points of Religion, wherein the Religion will be very much lost, if the circumstances of Secrecy & Concealment, be not observed. Our Saviour says, Let thine Alms be in Secret; & again, Pray to thy Father in Secret; and once more, When thou Fastest appear not unto men to Fast An Affectation to have our doing such Duties divulged, will be a Dead Fly, to spoil the Savour of the Duties, And very particularly, To give no Alms, but what shall be Seen, Savours of too much Hypocrisy. Tis true, That Good (quod fit ••videtu•,) which is Seen to be done, is not always to blame; our Light should shine before men: But, (quod fit ut videatur) what is done to be Seen, ⟨p. 197⟩is indeed thrown away. The Hypocritical Jews, themselves, who laboured under an Invincible Itch, to have all their Alms as public as they could, yet had their Conscience calling them, to more of Concealment. Hence, The Treasury of the Silent, where some good men, silently & privately conveyed their Charity for maintaining the Children of the Poor, was a Treasury of the most famous Account in the Temple. And hence it was a Proverb among them, He that doth Alms in Secret, is greater than our master Moses himself. Briefly, An Humble Christian, will watch opportunities, to Do Good; but he cares not, whether there ever be in this world the least Notice taken of it. He will Pray for many and many a man by Name and yet the obliged man himself shall never know of it. He will convey Reliefs to the Needy, and yet the Needy themselves perhaps will never know from whence they came. He will a thousand other ways it may be, seek to be a Blessing unto his Neighbours, but never seek for them to Bless him, or know his Influences.