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
A39905	The blessednesse of being bountifull, or, Our blessed Saviours usual proverb, opened, asserted, and practically improved by Simon Ford.	Ford, Simon, 1619?-1699.	1674 (1674)	Wing F1477; ESTC R5927	44,979	151

and noted Champions and defenders or Saviours and deliverers of any Communities of men from great and publick calamities Yea they bestowed like Honours upon the Heavenly Bodies and Earthly Elements The Sun and the Moon and divers of the noted Stars yea the Earth it self and the Sea that encompasseth it the Fire and the Aire and Rivers and Springs and whatever else contributed to the support of man were either reputed Gods themselves or the special residencies of some Deities who by them communicated their particular Bounties to mankinde And where these Heathen Idolatries have been exploded yet even there men have generally thought such persons worthy the highest Acknowledgements that Humane Nature was capable of Which they have expressed in Panegyricks and Poems in Statues and other magnificent Structures in Coyns and other publick Inscriptions and whatever other lasting Monuments they could devise to render them as to their Names and Memories who could not be in their Bodies immortal Let now for a close of this Head the sordid self-ended sort of men shew us any Instances if they can of like Honours done to those who without doing good to any but themselves have spent their Time in finding riches as a nest and gathering them like Isa 10. 14. eggs to sit on Yea rather let the experience of all Ages speak and it will tell us that there are no sort of men in the world whom the generality of Mankinde have treated with more curses and bitter scoffs whiles they lived or hissed off the stage of this life with more open reproach and infamy when they died So that I hope I have sufficiently demonstrated that whether we respect the nature of the Acts themselves or the concurrent Judgement of God and Man it is more honourable by far to give than to receive 2. The Pleasure which accrews to men from Acts of Bounty doth no less exceed that which ariseth from those of Covetousness and Parsimony Of which there needs no farther evidence in Reason than what I before intimated upon the former Head viz. the greater agreeableness of such actions to the native largeness and generosity of the soul of man and the Principles of Vniversal Justice There being no such satisfactory pleasure in the world attainable by Humane Nature as is the inward content which a vertuous man takes in reflecting upon those things which he hath done with the approbation of his own Reason and Conscience and no greater grief than when they complain that they are violenced and oppressed by unnatural and unreasonable Lusts and Passions But to make this also more evident by particular Instances 1. It is an undenyable Argument of the Pleasure that Giving yields beyond Receiving that God whose infinite Perfection placeth him beyond all capacity of Receiving as was said before can be supposed to have no other motive to Give as he doth continually but the inward satisfaction he findes in Beneficence it self Whence some tell us that his Name El-shaddai hath the Notion of a full breast in it to which nothing can be so pleasurable as to vent it self into the mouth of the sucking Infant which is pained with its own fulness and findes its only ease in being emptied And indeed the complacency that he is said to have taken in all the works of his Creation when he had finished them implyed in that so often repeated Phrase God saw Gen. 1. 10 12 18 21 25 31. Psal 145. 16. that it was good the readiness that is in him to satisfie the desires of every living thing the constant unweariedness of his Bounty the greatest evidence of the pleasure taken in any action continually Psal 104. 24. filling the earth with his riches the invitations he so frequently Ps 50. 15. gives to men to call upon him opening the mouths of their holy desires wide that he may fill them Ps 81. 10. and in all things making their requests Phil. 4. 6. known to him with the delight he professeth to take in Prov. 15. 8. the prayers of good men which invite his Bounties sufficiently argue the divine pleasure that is in giving being the satisfaction which God himself chooseth for himself And to be sure be the pleasure of receiving what it will it cannot pretend to so high an Original 2. The like may secondly be argued from the example of our Lord Jesus who seems by his actions to have preferred the pleasure of seeing his spiritual seed Isa 53. 10. Heb. 2. 10. 5. 9. and bringing many sons to glory by being the Author and Captain of their Salvation before the infinite satisfactions and delights of his Fathers Bosom wherein he rejoyced Pro. 8. 30. alwayes before him from all eternity and that so far that he deprived himself in a sort of the very pleasures of Divinity for a Time by becoming Man that he might be the Redeemer and Saviour of Mankinde The very prospect of this great work cheered his heart before he undertook it he rejoyced in the Pro. 8. 31. habitable part of Gods Earth and his delights were with the Sons of men when he entred upon that Body the Father had prepared for him though he knew he was to make it a Sacrifice yet he did it as he professeth with delight to Heb. 10. 5 7. do his Fathers will therein he spent all his Time on Earth in going about and doing good gratis Acts 10. 38. to those miserable Creatures that could not any way requite him did divers of his great works in Joh. 7. 4 5. silence and privacy and forbad Luk. 5. 14. 8. 56. Joh. 6. 15. the publication of them and refused the Honours that men offered him for those that were of too publick benefit to be concealed and when he knew that his dolefull Hour was come how did he complain the minutes moved slowly till he had opportunity offered to accomplish that bloody Luk. 12. 50. Baptisme that he foretold he was to be baptized withall His Cross on which he suffered he is said Col. 2. 15. to triumph upon as a Conquerour in a Chariot of State And after his Death his Resurrection and Ascension into Heaven again he looked on as a Joy set before him Heb. 12. 2. not surely on his own account only but because he also knew he was going to prepare Mansions Joh. 14. 2. for us as our Harbinger to lead us the way into the Holy Place as our forerunner and to lie as our Heb. 6. 20. Lieger there to do us good Offices by his intercession till he had saved us to the utmost So that our 7. 25. Saviours Practice is a full and further evidence of the Pleasure that is in Giving more than Receiving 3. Gods holy Angels as of all Creatures they nearest approach to the Divine Nature so herein they proportionably imitate his perfections that like him they are continually employed in doing good upon the like motives of the