Selected quad for the lemma: fire_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
fire_n	earth_n	water_n	world_n	5,553	5	4.9981	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A44684	Of charity in reference to other mens sins by John Howe ...	Howe, John, 1630-1705.	1681 (1681)	Wing H3033; ESTC R19382	22,776	72

lax rule of Morals have you than other Christians Do you not profess subjection to the known rules of the Bible concerning Christian and civil conversation You do not sure profess Rebellion and hostility against the Lord that bought you Doth not your Baptismal Covenant which you are supposed to avow bind you to as much strictness as any other Christian And can there be any other more sacred bond But if in other things than matters of civil conversation such delinquent persons were of a stricter profession suppose it be in matters of Religion and Worship doth that delinquency prove that in those other things you are in the right and they are in the wrong Doth the wickedness of any person against the Rules of the common as well as his own stricter profession prove the profession he is of to be false Then wherein the profession of Protestants is stricter than of other Christians the notorious sins of wicked Protestants will conclude against the whole profession And the wickedness of a Christian because Christianity is a stricter profession than Paganism will prove the Christian Religion to be false Who doubts but there may be found of the Roman Communion better men than some Protestants And of Pagans better men than some Christians But then they are better only in respect of some things wherein all Christians or all men do agree in their sentiments not in respect of the things wherein they differ And the others are worse in things that have no connexion with the matter of difference Enough is to be found to this purpose in some of the Ancients writing on the behalf of Christians which we need not in so plain a case Nor can it be thought that men of any understanding and sobriety will make this any argument one way or other Or think them at all justifiable that glory in other mens wickedness upon this or any other account For such therefore as are of so ill a mind and think being of a different party gives them license they ought to know they make themselves of the same party and that upon a worse account than any difference in the Rituals of Religion can amount to Upon the whole your Reason then alledg what you will is no Reason and argues nothing but shortness of discourse and want of reason or that you would fain say something to excuse an ill practice when you have nothing to say But I must add 2. That you have much reason to the contrary both upon the common account and your own 1. Upon the common account That the Christian world should while it is so barren of serious Christians be so fertile and productive of such Monsters made up of the sacred Christian profession conjoyn'd with even worse than Paganish lives And the more of sanctity any pretend to the more deplorable is the case when the wickedness breaks forth that was concealed before under the vizor of that pretence Is this no matter of lamentation to you Or will you here again say your unrelatedness to their party makes you unconcern'd If it do not justifie your rejoycing it will sure you think excuse your not mourning Will it so indeed Who made you of a distinct party Are you not a Christian Or are you not a Protestant And what do you account that but Reform'd primitive Christianity And so the more it is reform'd the more perfectly it is it self Who put it into your power to make distinguishing additions to the Christian Religion by which to sever your selves from the body of other Christians in the world so as not to be concern'd in the affairs of the body If this or that member say I am not of the body is it therefore not of the body Is it not the Christian Name that is dishonoured by the scandalous lives of them that bear that name Whose Laws are they that are broken the Laws of this or that party or are they not the laws of Christ Will you say you are unrelated to him too or have no concern with Him Can any Party be united within it self by so sacred tyes as all true Christians are with the whole body of Christ I know no way you have to be unconcern'd in such cases as the matter of your humiltation when they occur within your notice but by renouncing your Christianity Nor indeed would that serve the turn For what ●ill you do with your humanity Are you not still a man if you would be no longer a Christian And even that methinks should oblige us to bewail the depravedness dishonour of the nature and order of humane creatures That they who were made for the society of Angels vea and of the blessed God himself should be found delighting and wallowing in worse impurities than those of the Dog or Swine The more strictness in morals they have falsly pretended to the greater is your obligation to lament their violating those sacred rules which you also profess to be subject to and not the less Do I need to tell you that even among Pagans where a profession of greater strictness had once been entred into an apostacy to gross immoralities hath been the matter of very solemn lamentation As in the School or Church should I call it of Pythagoras where when any that had obliged themselves to the observation of his vertuous precepts did afterwards lapse into a vicious course a Funeral and solemn mourning was held for them as if they were dead 2. On your own For when our Saviour saith Wo to that man by whom offence cometh doth he not also say Wo to the world because of offences And who would not fear and lament his share in that Wo Are you proof against all hurt by another's sin What if it encourage you to sin too What if harden you in it How many do some mens sin dispose to Atheism and to think there is nothing in Religion And if you felt in your selves an inclination to rejoyce in them that it self argues the infection hath caught upon you seiz'd your spirits and corrupted your vitals So that you have cause to lament even your having rejoyced To be afficted and mourn and weep to turn your laughter to mourning and your joy to heaviness Jam. 4. One would think them indeed but half men and scarce any Christians that can allow themselves so inhumane and unhallowed a pleasure as rejoycing in another's sin 'T is very unworthy of a man to take pleasure in seeing his fellow-man turning beast There is little in it of the ingenuity that belongs to humane nature to delight in the harms of others much less of the prudence to make sport of a common mischief And would a Christian rejoyce in the disadvantages of his own cause and in the dishonour and reproach of the very name which he himself bears To conclude One would think no more should be needful to repress in any this ill inclination than to consider What sin is wherein they rejoyce And what Charity is which is violated by their doing so What to rejoyce in sin that despites the Creator and hath wrought such Tragedies in the Creation that turned Angels out of Heaven Man out of paradise that hath made the blessed God so much a stranger to our world broken off the intercourse in so great part between Heaven and Earth obstructed the pleasant commerce which had otherwise probably been between Angels and Men So vilely debas't the nature of man and provok't the displeasure of his Maker against him that once over-whelm'd the world in a deluge of water and will again ruin it by as destructive fire To rejoyce in so hateful a thing is to do that mad part to cast about firebrands arrows and death and say Am not I in sport And to do that which so highly offends against Charity so divine a thing the off-spring of God! the birth of Heaven as it is here below among us mortals the beauty and glory of it as it is there above in its natural seat The eternal bond of living union among the blessed spirits that inhabit there and which would make our world did it universally obtain in it another Heaven Consider from whom and from what Region that must proceed which is so contrary to God and Heaven If any will yet in despight of divine love it self laugh on at so foul and frightful a thing as sin is 't is too likely to prove the Sardonian laughter i. e. as some explain that Proverb of them that dye laughing Conclude their lives and their laughter both together and only cease to laugh and to live in the same last breath FINIS Max. Tyr. Dissert 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Tertul. * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2 Pet. 2. 2. Jambl. de vit Pyth.