Selected quad for the lemma: fire_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
fire_n	day_n	night_n	pillar_n	4,391	5	10.4587	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A52564	Essays divine and moral by Bridgis Nanfan, Esquire.	Nanfan, Bridgis.	1680 (1680)	Wing N145; ESTC R22027	58,916	216

those Devils those Impieties that have lain so long leiger They must be thus exorcis'd before we can fashion an entertainment garnish the best lodgings in our souls give a respectful audience to those tutelary Angels to that Legatus à latere Christ Jesus himself In the Reign of Tiberius it was judged an heinous crime in Paulus the Praetor for taking a Chamber-pot in his hand when he wore a Ring that had the Engravement of Caesar 7. It must needs then be an offence of a deeper die after we have once lodged God in our hearts instead of Myrrh and Cassia incense of a pure life to make him nauseate those dwellings with the ordure and filth of corrupt affections This is a Catholicon a Medicine for all diseases When we are entangled with macerating cares the thoughts of a true and powerful friend clears the mind of its disturbances builds a confidence in us equal to a victory so though misfortunes like violent Surges rowl in upon us yet if the Heavens be serene that we have but a gleam of our Maker such beams such coruscations issuing from his grace dispel all Mists and Fogs that incurtain our souls brighten every affliction make every wound and scar received in his warfare marks of honour and beauty 8. The Ancient Hebrews would memorize on their Gates and Porches the favours the Lord had been pleased at any time to confer upon them Such gentle dews of acknowledgment exhaled from us by God are showred down in whole Cataracts of Love and Bounty If such gratitude in Heaven that a cup of cold water given in the name of Christ ushers in a sure Reward shall we who have not activity to inspirit the meanest action without the Master-spring of God's Omnipotent Power satiate our selves with the affluence his goodness affords us and not give a retribution of thanks Shall he that formed all find only a repugnancy in him whose reason as an Heavenly Intelligence should sit on the Sphere of his active abilities to give them perfect motion Remember now thy Creatour 9. This the Persian Decree that cannot be reverst the first word of command given unto the Young Souldiers fighting under the Banner of the Church Militant This ranks our thoughts and affections that they run not into disorder These few words make● us more than Archimedes to take the transcendent height of Heaven and though but a ladder of few rounds yet when we ascend the uppermost step our heads are reared above the Clouds where we look upon the great Magnifico's of the World as so many Anticks below us dancing Galliards to no better Musick than what pleasure and vanity as so many deceitful Syrens sing us 10. Is it not time therefore to sound a retreat to such that run a full career in pursute of their own vanities with this excellent piece of Scripture Remember now thy Creatour Let such learn to put by insinuating pleasures with that brave resolved answer Hippolitus gave to the inchantments of an alluring Syren Procul impudicos corpore à casto amove Tactus Shall we throw the remembrance of him behind us who made himself the Pattern to mould us into so enamouring a shape whose hands as Saint Basil hath it were to man as a Womb enobled that shape with a soul though clogg'd with the rags of flesh journies from East to West rides about the Circumference descends to the Centre ascends to the top of the Universe posts from Earth to Heaven in a moment 11. And when like foolish School-boys we had robbed God's Orchard of that Fruit impaled with his own mandate and so heaped coals of fire upon our own heads though by this we had sunk our selves to the lowest abyss of misery yet would he not like friends that take their farewel with our felicity leave us forlorn but rather than we should eternally perish and so cancel the benefit of our Creation tore a limb of the Diety made a divorce between God and God betwixt himself and his beloved Son that he might be a Sacrifice for so grand an offending When he had thus repaired the old defacements caused by Adam new minted coyned us full of Glories steering us from a troubled Sea into safe harbour this Watch-man that slumbereth not still kept Sentinel knowing the storm being once allay'd we would put our weather-beaten Vessels to Sea again 12. This not all though sufficient to engage our remembrance but every Creature the riches of Nature made by the hands of the Almighty kneaded of the same Elements and only beholden to man for their names are so subservient as to pay themselves to him as constant Tribute I need not take care to put more weight into God's ballance when the least mite of his favour will at any time turn the Scale of our best deservings but joyn wonder with the Psalmist What is man that thou art so mindful of him or the Son of man that thou so regardest him But let us not Fata fugiendo in fata ruere while we hale off the Sands fall foul on the Rocks to prevent a forgetfulness of our Maker take such boldness with this Superspiritualis spiritus stiled so by Damascen as one friend will with another The Effigies of him whose endeeredness to us hath merited some extraordinary value is commonly drawn in the liveliest colours set in the most obvious and eminent place that we may enjoy a living shew for a dead substance 13. But this great and terrible Jehovah glorious in his incomprehensible Attributes whose sacred name I adore afar off not daring to approach but with a prostrate countenance much more with a rude Pencil venture at his Dimensions who is great without quantity and good without quality can he be circumscribed with lines whose Centre is every where and Circumference no where Who spans the Poles with his fingers and holdeth the whole World in his fist Shall fading colours set forth the glory of his countenance who is cloathed with light as with a garment With what eyes shall we behold this Father of light when the face of his servant Moses carried too radiant a lustre for the Israelites to behold without a darkning Veil 14. Nay by what measures shall we estimate the Creatour when the Creature it self the Sun a Creature without so much as Vegetation appears too resplendent for the eye of man to fix on without dropping a tear as a repentance for his boldness But then let hot sullenness have that predominancy over us because we cannot see beyond our Horizon have a full draught of his ineffable Majesty refuse to know so much as we can Without unravelling the ruffled skein of the Trinity we may comprehend that which may be the material cause of our salvation To remember him as our Creatour and in the acceptance of his Son's merits our Redeemer as one that by day goeth before us in a pillar of a cloud and by night in a pillar of fire is a Sphere large enough for

retire into himself and appeal to the Chancery of Heaven for Mercy 9. We have no reason then to be sadded or cast down if we see another wear richer Robes bespangled with brighter Glory because the Merchandise he trafficks for hath such a supervaluation so strange an impost set upon it He that sufficiently batteled in the pleasures of a luxuriant life bids us Envy not at the glory of a sinner for thou knowest not what shall be his end O consider what real and substantial sorrow they exchange for counterfeit pleasures for fleeting vanity an endless misery If Dives in his life time had seen those pits of confusion heard the shrietches and yellings of the damned put his Finger in that scorching flame been stretched upon the wrack but for one moment he would have made his life more tragical torn off his Purple and Fine Linnen and put on a Pilgrim's Habit would have fasted himself to a Skeleton set Lazarus at his own Table and sate himself at the Gate 10. 'T is not a Hell hereafter that excuses but here a corroding conscience must center within them that like the Hand-writing upon the Wall imbitters their delicious fare damps their Frolickings puts them into shiverings and tremblings though encircled with a Corone of Princes finds them out in their Retirements and in a croaking Mandrake Groan pronounces their accounts must be ballanced their pleasures audited that there must be sorrow in its Achme misery pulled up to an unimagined height It ends not here but commonly they close up all with some sad Catastrophe A Plebeian hath seldom any eminent part in a Tragedy but mighty Princes fond Lovers warlike and haughty Heroes compose the Scenes We cannot call that a fair day which hath a ruddy Morn and bright Noon if the Evening shuts up it self with adismal blackness Attend but the Exits of those wretched persons see this Squib run to the end of the Rope and it shall bespatter it self in pieces Let us not pass a Judgment upon a Pomegranade by a fair out-side denote him happy that flutters in an opulent fortune for their Jealousie and Fear ought to run parallel with their felicity O unhappy is our condition if God thinks us not worthy to wrastle with miseries to bear in our Bodies the Marks of our Lord Jesus 11. The Destroyer must needs come in upon us if the Scarlet Line hang not in the Window or finds not blood sprinkled upon the Lintel and Side Ports God's anger is screwed up to a strange pitch when he passeth by us with his Rod when he will not so much as brandish his Sword at us S. Austin saith That an offender sometimes so exasperates his Maker that he will not chastise him in this life Their condition is very forlorn whom the Lord leaves to a future punishment How deadly will the blow be when God shall put fire to the Mine he hath been so long digging How deep the Cup how bitter the Potion that he hath been so long brewing If many of the Saints of God out of the Sence of their own unworthiness have had strange Titubations in the naming of that great and terrible day of the Lord a day that the powers of Heaven shall be shaken how much should an Impenitent tremble quake when he considers that at this grand Assize the Lord will come with Fire and with his Chariots like a Whirlwind to render his anger with fury and his rebuke with Flames of Fire 12. 'T is now time that we remove from the Waters of Babylon take down our Harps from the Willows and prepare to sing the Songs of Sion in a Glorious Land wade out of this Valley of Tears and get up unto Mount Nebo Moses glorious prospect that we may see the Riches of the Celestial Jerusalem and yet we can view but an imperfect Landskip For if the knowledge of all the Sages in the World concentred in one person he could give but a blurred Copy a dark Figure a faint resemblance of that extasied Glory prepared for the Saints and Servants of God 'T was the most desired wish of S. Austin to have seen Rome when she was the Worlds Metropolis heard S. Paul in the Pulpit and seen our Saviour in the Flesh But there he shall have his wish strangely superlative see a City whose Foundations are garnished with all manner of precious Stones where the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the Temple of it and in that Temple hear S. Paul and Myriads of Angels tuning their Harps and singing perpetual Hallelujahs to the Glorious Trinity and which transcends admiration see the Lamb wear the same Dress checkered with the rich Robes of the Deity 13. There we shall have those Dotes Beatorum which the Schoolmen so much talk of Visio Dilectio Fruitio in such perfection as no Line or Plummet wrought by natures hand can fathom their Abyss When there is Summum bonum in summo gradu it will be hard defining how good how great they are Here we speculate and spell our Saviour in his Word in his last Will and Testament But there we shall behold the Word it self Christ Jesus God hid Moses in a Cleft of the Rock and covered him with his Hand while his Glory passed by he saw his Back parts only in transitu But when the great day of exaltation cometh that the Lord maketh up his Jewels he will take us out of the Clefts and Vaults of the Earth the Cabinets where he treasures up his Dust and set us on such elated Thrones as Zacheus his little Stature shall be no hinderance to take a full view of the Beatifical Vision We shall not look with admiration only but with love and delight Here our eyes are commonly bleared with envy when they behold the Grandeur of another but we shall rejoyce at the Saints Coronation have not the least tincture of emulation if we see a bigger Crown a brighter Glory Our love to Christ must needs be insuperable which made us Coheirs with him in Glory that when one drop of his Blood had more of value than to make an adequatory Oblation for the sins of the whole World he would set a running all the Sluces and Rivulets of his Body nay would have abated nothing of the whole series of his passion if but for the laving of thy one individual person And if Christ so loved us in the flesh espoused us when we were full of loathsomeness and deformity he will flame out with greater Fires put us into his own Bosom when the Refiner hath melted off our Dross washed us with his Fullers Soap when he seeth us mounted to the Zenith of our Glory 15. Aeneas though esteemed pious among the Heathens never had a nearer access to Apollo's Temple than to the Threshold or Porch of it The Israelites durst not touch the Borders of the Mount for fear of being stoned or thrust through with a Dart. And the Jews entred not into the Sanctum