Selected quad for the lemma: fire_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
fire_n	aaron_n	according_a	send_v	24	3	4.8834	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A44560	The spiritual bee, or, A miscellany of scriptural, historical, natural observations and occasional occurencyes applyed in divine meditations by an university pen	University pen.; Horsman, Nicholas, fl. 1689.; Howard, Luke, 1621-1699.; Penn, William, 1644-1718.	1662 (1662)	Wing H2872; ESTC R30341	60,423	277

the Countercharms of sound principles formerly instilled been to many on whom God hath suffered these Impostours to practise their Magick And how have the Devil's Instruments by this black Art and Spirituall Necromancy raised out of their graves errours long since dead and buried and putting a new guise on them made them walke up and down again And many have been wrought upon by such an unhappy Fascination that as Machates mentioned by Phlegon supposed he had caressed and happily enjoyed his Spouse when it was but a dead and rotten carcase So they have fallen in love with and espoused that for truth and religion which is but Heresy long since laid in it's grave XVI I Read that the Mahometans have set houres for their daily Oraisons in which they are so constant that not any secular matters whether impediments of businesse or divertisements of pleasure do keep them from praying five times a day whether they are fixed at home or abroad moving in a journy when their stinted times come they apply themselves to their O that I might call them true devotions and this doth every one from him that bears the Scepter to him that carryeth the Sheephooke How many are there called Christians that cannot afford to pray so many times in a weeke in a month as those Infidels in a day that can be content to crowd a whole Sennight's devotion into one Prayer and count them too lavish in their expences of time that make greater allotments of it for that businesse then they yea some think it enough if they summe up their lives and expire their last breath with a Lord have mercy upon me Christ commandeth us to pray for Daily bread Every day Manna must be gathered from Heaven It is as necessary to the Spirituall life of our soules as our often repeated meales and refections to the subsistance of our bodys We justly deem it strange and wonderfull in some that we read off who have lived without meat some whole Weekes others Months others years and a creditable authour telleth us of one who lived 15 years withous eating or drinking But here a long fasting and Abstinence from this Spirituall refection is a thing so frequent that it meriteth not so much admiration But what account Quercetan giveth of the former that in such strange fastings the inspired aire hath been sufficient in attraction to afford nourishment to such bodys is more truly applicable here for the soules of such are like Chameleons fed on the air and vanity XVII VVAlking in a hot summerday I was somewhat annoyed with a multitude of flies and gnats humming about me drive them off wholy from me I could not whatever means I used yet I could hinder them from setling on me And thus I find it sometimes with the thoughts and motions of my heart evill suggestions are very busy within me and though they much infest me and are troublesome to me and I endeavour to drive them away yet I cannot free my self wholly from them but they shall not rest there the birds might light on Abrahams sacrifice but they were soone driven thence Though Satan and the Corruption of my heart do send forth a noxious Offspring yet my heart shall not harbour nor cherish them Evil motions may arise within me or be injected into me against my will but I will not be Nurse to foster the breed nor host to lodge or entertaine such hellish guests As Vagrants that range the Country are wont to be served whom though we cannot prevent from passing through our town yet we do not permit them to make any abode there but whip them away and so send them to their own home I cannot hinder them from passing through me but I will looke to it that such straglers shall have the Law executed on them that they do not either make their stay there or returne thither any more These Malefactours may come to me for harbour or shelter but the only thing I shall do with them shall be to make their Mittimus and send them away XVIII THe Rabbines tel us according to their wonted vanity that Aaron Exod. 32. intended not to make a Calfe but cast the golden earrings into the fire to consume them but by the operation of Satan working by some Egyptian Magitians in the camp the form of a calfe came forth But surely it is very usuall for that old Serpent thus to over-act us and make us unwittingly advance his interest while we thinke with innocent intentions we drive on a good designe to use Zeale without knowledge as an Instrument to promote his own cause under the pretext of God's Where men thinke they are building a Church for God to make it a Chappel for himself Peter thought he had uttered that which would have pleased Christ Master pitty thy selfe yet the Devil it seem's had made him his spokes-man get thee behind me Satan That designe which to gaine Proselytes and Assistants had pro aris stamped upon it in the front holinesse to the Lord written on it when the other side is seen sometimes proveth to be only pro focis for the advancing of a carnal Interest which some have set up to be promoted and driven under that Maske Hence hath it proceeded that what David said the zeale of thy house hath eaten me up may be by a prodigious Inversion truely applyed to some their zeale hath eaten up the house of God XIX SErpents which in the cold of Winter growing impotent and languid retire themselves to their dens and caverns unable to hurt or to stand out against the least resistance when warmth returneth with the Sun renew their former strength and vigour relinquish the holes and retirements in which they lay folded up can use their force and their stinge again and appear dreadful to the most armed opposition Those Temptations which in the season of Adversity we seemed to be wholy freed from or had lost all their efficacy and force that it was an easy conquest to subdue them when the Sun shine of Prosperity cometh on it cherisheth and envigeurateth them their number is augmented their strength more prevailing and their assaults more frequent scarce a step we take in which we are not in danger of a Serpent's stinge XX. SOme Christians have been earnest and curious that they might know the very day of their conversion the time of their Spiritual Nativity when there was an accesse of joy among the Angels in Heaven because a new Saint was borue to it the day from which as the Epocha of their salvation they are to date the beginning of their Happinesse that they might set a marke upon it and make it signal in their Calendar in a scarlet-Text as the Day of their Second Birth But let it not be so much my care to know when I commenced Believer as to assure my selfe that the day is past and the happy work wrought The voice by which God raiseth a sinner from the dead is not

a kind of uneasinesse but where as familiars we have more freedome and openesse If we transfer this Experience to our spirituall Entercourse with God we shall find the case very coincident surely it would be far more gustfull and delightfull unto us if we did not by our neglect of it keep our selves still as strangers to him Frequency in our Accesses would breed a familiarity that we might converse with God with that freedome with which friends open their bosomes one to another we should be more enlarged in our Addresses and that would make them have a more pleasant relish to us By often treading the way we shall beat out a path to the throne of grace free from that uneasinesse and discouragement which in unfrequented waies we meet with want of Vse maketh that irksome which otherwise would be pleasant He who bestoweth the frequentests visits on Heaven finds himselfe most welcomed there and hath the best entertainment and he who cometh oftnest will still desire to come oftnest Therefore let those who esteem that as void of delight in its selfe which their own negligence only rendreth so learne to judge righteously and impute the effect to t is genuine cause Manna is here to be gathered if they would come out and bring pots to vessell it up The Table lies spread and Christ bids his Guests be merry Eat O Friends drink yea drink abundantly but they stand off as strangers and will not be among his Friends VIII SAltpeter though it self observed to be of a fiery nature yet being mixt with lue-warme water at first it contesteth with it but when overcome and dissolved by it the water becometh abundantly more cold then otherwise it would have been And that water which hath been warmed and after returneth to its native temper becoms more cold and more subject to be frozen then that which hath not felt the fire The convictions of the Spirit of God where they do not work a thorough change the heart becometh afterward benumm'd into a greater coldnesse and deadnesse A spirituall Relapse is very pernicious where God hath been knocking and sent away with a Repulse in judgment he will suffer another bar to be clapt on that dore and make the sinner more hardned He that hath conquered the good motions and desires which heaven kindled in him is given over to a more reprobate sense as the temper of Iron is more hardned by being quenched after it hath been heated in the forge No sinner doth more eagerly wallow in the mire then he that returneth to it after he was once washed and the Dog will not easily again cast up that Vomit which after his first disgorging he hath licked up Where the unclean Spirit after his departure for a season in his return findeth the soul empty of Christ swept and voided of all gracious dispositions and garnished with whatsoever vice may suit the entertainment of so unclean a Guest his reentrance as with new Attendance and his Hold is rendred sevenfold more impregnable then before he taketh to himselfe the black company of seven other spirits worse then himselfe and that mans last estate is worse then his first Lord let me never quench those sparkes which I should be alwaies quickning and kindling into a flame lest by so doing I make my selfe fewell for a flame that shall never be quenched IX PLiny as his Nephew tels us out of curiosity praying into the mountaine Vesuvius that he might discover the manner and causes of those fiery Eruptions in Natures Kill was devoured by them and made fewell to that by which he thought to have encreased his knowledge and so found his death in his too bold advance in quest of that Mystery of Nature Surely to be too curious in our Enquiries and researches into the Mysteries of God cannot but be dangerous God hath drawn a Veile over some things and if we are so bold as to go about to lift it up he may justly strike us with blindnesse even in those things which were before exposed to our view If we longe after such Forbidden fruit God may by a flaming sword set to turn to all points of the Compasse keep us not only from the tree of Life and Knowledge but from all other trees in his Paradise Moses might come to the Hill but not to the burning Bush Come not hither if he had it might have proved a consuming fire to him If the waves of the Sea have their limits set hither to shall ye goe much more man's presumption and curiosity And what security can he give himself that will boldly invade the Privacy's which an infinite wisedom hath lock●d up in concealement and breake down the Enclosures which the Allmighty hath set up Cannot we be content to be admitted into his House except we ransack his closet and Cabinet to be of his court except we be his Secretarys If we have an eare to heare where God hath no tongue to speake he may justly cause us to have no eye to read where he hath a hand to write T' is dangerous presumption to breake open God's Seale to goe in quest after the knowledge of that which he hath therefore hidden that we might not know it He who is not content to look on the Sun where his rayes are refracted through a cloud will but loose his sight by staring on him in his naked brightnesse X. ONe that had a thorne run into his foot of which he took small notice till it after caused an Inflamation and Gangrene which soon seis'd on his whole legge was yet unwilling to undergoe an excision to prevent it's further spreading but at length it seized on his vitalls and proved mortall The event of this disaster when told me made me consider how many inlets there are unto death and how the most contemptible thing may be Harbinger to that King of terrours examples of the like kind are frequent in story of Fabius choaked by a hair Pope Adrian by a gnat flying into his throat Anacreon by the stone of a grape c. One of the bravest Spirits that England ever gave a Cradle to or Ireland a Grave haveing received a light hurt beneath his high mind to stoop to the dressing of it by neglecting it lost his life And we read of another whom the prick of a needle under the naile of his thumbe sent out of the world Surely I cannot be certaine this day whether death may lodge with me before the next if the least pricke of my foot may make way for it if the smallest passage be a dore wide enough for it to come in at and the soul to goe out at Any thing from the bowe of death when our appointed time is come may be a sure Arrow to hit the marke a thorne may be as mortall as a sword Though nature had never expos'd our bodyes to the assaults of an army of 300 diseases for so many Pliny's List informes us we are infested