Selected quad for the lemma: fire_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
fire_n	body_n	earth_n	element_n	4,634	5	9.8975	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A29868	Religio Medici	Browne, Thomas, Sir, 1605-1682.	1642 (1642)	Wing B5166; ESTC R4739	58,859	162

Now the necessary Mansions of our restored self are these two contrary incompatible places we call Heaven and Hell to define them or strictly to determine what and where these are surpasseth my divinity That elegant Saint which seemed to have a glimpse of Heaven hath left but a negative description thereof Which neither eye hath seene nor eare hath heard nor can enter into the heart of man he was translated out of himselfe to behold it but being returned into himselfe could not expresse it Saint Iohns description by Emeralds Chrysolites and precious stones is too weake to expresse the materiall Heaven we behold Briefely therefore where the soule hath the full measure and complement of happinesse where the bound●esse appetite of the spirit remaines compleatly satisfied that it can neither desire addition nor alteration that I thinke is truly Heaven and this can onely be in the enjoyment of that essence whose infinite goodnesse is able to terminate the desires of it selfe and the unsatiable wishes of ours where ever God will thus manifest himselfe there is Heaven though within the circle of this sensible world Thus the sense of man may be in Heaven anywhere within the limits of his owne proper body and when it ceaseth to live in the body it may remaine in its owne soule that is its Creator And thus we may say that Saint Paul whether in the body or out of the body was yet in Heaven To place it in the Empyriall or beyond the tenth Sphere is to forget the worlds destruction for when this sensible world shall be destroyed and shall then be here as it was there an Empyriall Heaven a quasi vacuitie when to aske where Heaven is is to demand where the presence of God is or where we have the glory of that happy vision Moses that was bred up in all the learning of the Egyptians committed a grosse absurdity in Philosophy when with the eyes of flesh he desired to see God and petitioned his Maker that is truth it selfe to contradiction Those that imagine Heaven and Hell neighbours and conceive a vicinity betweene those two extreames upon consequence of the Parable where Dives discoursed with Lazarus in Abrahams bosome doe too gros●ely conceive of those glorified creatures whose eyes shall easily out-see the Sunne and behold without a Perspective the extreamest distances for if there shall be in our glorified eyes the faculty of sight and reception of objects I could thinke the visible species there to be in as unlimitable a way as now the intellectuals I grant that two bodies placed beyond the tenth Spheare or in a vacuity according to A●istotles Philosophy could not behold each other because there wants a body or Medium to have and transport the visible rayes of the object unto the sense but when there shall be a generall defect of either Medium to convey or light to prepare and dispose that Medium and yet a perfect vision we must suspend the rules of our Philosophy and make all good by a more absolute piece of Opticks I cannot tell how to say that fire is the essence of hell I know not what to make of Purgatory or conceive a flame that can neither prey upon nor purifie the substance of a soule those flames of sulphure mentioned in the Scriptures I take not to be understood of this present Hell but of that to come where fire shall make up the complement of our tortures and have a body or subject wherein to manifest its tyranny Some who had the honor to be Text in divinity are of opinion it shall be the same specificall fire with ours This is hard to conceive yet can I make good how even that may prey upon our bodies and yet not consume us for in this materiall world there are bodies that passed invincible in the powerfullest flames and though by action of the fire they fell into ignition and liquation yet will they never suffer a destruction I would know how Moses with an actuall fire calcind or burnt the golden Calfe into powder for that mysticall mettle of gold whose solary and celestiall nature I adore exposed unto the violence of fire growes only hot and liquifies but consumeth not so when the consumable and volatile pieces of our bodies shall be refined into a more impregnable and fixed temper like gold though they suffer from the action of the flames they shall never perish but lie immortall in the armes of fire And surely if this frame must suffer onely by the action of this element there will many bodies escape and not onely Heaven but earth will not be at an end but rather a beginning For at present it is not earth but a composition of fire water earth and aire but at that time ●poyled of those ingredients it shall ap●eare in a substance more like it selfe its ashes Philosophers that opinioned the worlds destruction by fire did never dreame of annihilation which is beyond the power of sublunary causes for the ●ast and proper action of that element is ●ut vitrification or a reduction of a body ●nto Glasse and therefore some of our Chymicks factiously affirme yea and ●rge Scripture for it that at the last fire all shall be crystallized and reverbera●ed into Glasse which is the utmost action of that element Nor need we feare ●his terme annihilation or wonder that God will destroy the workes of his Creation for man subsisting who is and then truly appeares a Microcosme the world cannot be said to be destroyed For the eyes of God and perhaps also of our glorified selves shall as real●y behold and contemplate the world in ●ts Epitome or contracted essence as ●ow it doth at large in its dilated substance In the Syen of a Plant to the eyes of God and to the understanding of man there exist though in an invisible way the perfect leaves flowers and fruit thereof for things that a●e in poss● to the sense are actually existent to the understanding Thus God beholds all things who contemplates as fully his workes in their Epitome as in their full volume and beheld as amply the whole world in that little compendium of the sixth day as in the scattered and dilated pieces of those five before Men commonly set ●orth the torments of Hell by fire and the extremity of corporall afflictions and describe Hell in the same method that Mahomet doth Heaven This indeed makes a noyse and drums in popular eares but if this be the terrible piece thereof it is not worthy to stand in diameter with Heaven whose happinesse consists in that part that is best able to comprehend it that immortall essence the translated divinity of God the soule I thanke God and with joy I mention it I was never afraid of hell nor never grew pale at the description of that place I have so fixed my contemplations on Heaven that I have almost forgot the Idea of Hell and am afraid rather to lose the joyes of Heaven then endure the