Selected quad for the lemma: fire_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
fire_n	fruit_n	good_a	tree_n	12,773	5	9.6998	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A54855	A sermon preached at St. Margarets in Westminster before the Honourable the House of Commons in Parliament assembled, upon the 29th day of May, being the anniversary day of the King's and kingdomes restauration by Thomas Pierce ...	Pierce, Thomas, 1622-1691.	1661 (1661)	Wing P2198; ESTC R11580	14,298	44

Restauration To sum up all in a word and to carry on my Metaphor the most I can to their advantage who will not be carried to any duty which is not honourable and brave The Battles of Leuctra and Mantinéa were not half so full of glory to that immortal Theban Epaminondas as the two victories of a Christian over his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That unruly Element of double fire his anger and his lust which his greatest felicities do most enkindle And this I hope may be enough for the second importance of the word Then as 't is a particle of connexion betwixt the business of the Time and the time it self LAst of all let us beware that the manifold enjoyments of our Deliverance do not make us forgetful of our Deliverer because of the greatness of the danger of not performing the Duty THEN when it becomes incumbent on us by many unspeakable obligations For let a man's sin be never so great in point of nature or degree ingratitude will give it an aggravation And ingratitude taking its stature from precedent obligations so as the sins we commit run higher or lower as the graces we receive have been more or less there are not any so very capable of provoking Gods Fury as the men whom he hath pleas'd to take most into his favour The reason of it may be taken from the Athenians in Thucydides 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The least unkindness from a Friend is of greater smart then the hardest usage from an enemy The very sight of Brutus more wounded Caesar to the heart then all the rest of his Assassinates had done with Daggers David indeed was somewhat troubled that they who hated him did whisper together against him Psal. 41. 7. but 't was his greatest cross of all that they who had eaten of his Bread should ingratefully lift up the heel against him And in that he said he could have born it from an enemy he did significantly imply he could not bear it from a friend And as it was David's Cordolium the Type of Christ so also was it Christ's the Son of David who did not weep over other Cities from which he met with an ill Reception but he wept over Ierusalem the Royal City which he had so much obliged yet found so cruel And no doubt but our Saviour is so much more keenly and nearly touch't that the most obliged Christians should break his precepts then that the ignorant Iewes should offer violence to his Person that we may rationally suppose him thus speaking to us Had the Iewes or Heathens spit upon me by their impurities and buffeted me by their blasphemies and stript me by their sacriledge and murder'd me by their rage from such as these I could have born it But that you should war against me and in the behalf of that base Triumvirate the World the Flesh and the Devil having sworn to me in Baptism that you would fight under my Banner against all Three That you who have the priviledge to be called by my Name to be admitted into my House to have a place at my Table to hear my Word and to partake of my Supper to be miraculously brought from the house of Bondage injoying your Kings as at the first and your National Councils as at the beginning and sitting your selves as so many Princes under your Vines and Fig-trees injoying the liberty of your persons the propriety of your estates the important benefit of your Lawes and the glory to be subjected by a most honourable obedience that such as you should despise me and cast my Law behind your back this is that I can least endure My greatest favour thus abus'd will be converted into fury And indeed if we consider that as God on the one side accepteth according to what a man hath so withall on the other side of them who have received much much in proportion shall be required we may with good Logick infer and strongly argue within our selves that an honest Heathen is far better than a Christian Knave And if an Heathen shall be extirpate for being barren much more the Christian if he is fruitless shall be cast into the fire A fruitless Tree which should by nature bear fruit being fit to make fewel and nothing else According to that of our Blessed Saviour which is at once of universal and endless verity Every Tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire And we who are grafted into the vine must not only bear fruit but such fruit too as Christ expects to reap from us A Bramble cannot be censur'd for not bearing fruit because it is in its nature to bring forth none It was therefore the Fig-tree and not the Bramble on which our Saviour bestow'd a curse Mat. 21. 19. Nor was it the Bramble but the Fig-tree which he commanded to be cut down Luk. 13. 7. we must one day be call'd to dreadful reckoning for all the uses we have made of our this daies talent God's injur'd Iustice must needs be satisfied and sure much more his injur'd Mercy either sooner or later either in this or another world And if in stead of being thankful for all the blessings we now enjoy more especially for that which we this day celebrate we shall but turn them into wantonness and grow the worse for the effects of so great a goodness what can we reasonably expect but that the powers of Hell should once again be let loose upon us and ours For since to continue in our impieties is the greatest dishonouring of God that can be a filling up the measure of our iniquities and so the vials of his wrath He must de stroy us se defendendo if for nothing but to defend and secure his Glory What then remains but that we take up the words of the Royal Prophet and together with them his resolution VVe will take the Cup of Salvation and call upon the Name of the Lord. The Cup of Salvation that is to say the Cup of Thanks for that salvation which he hath wrought as Iunius and Tremellius do rightly explicate the Trope And mark the force of the Copulative by which these Duties are tyed together Without the Cup of Salvation that is the Cup of Thanks giving unto the Author of our salvation all our calling upon his Name will be quite in vain For when we spreadout our hands he will hide his eyes and when we make many prayers he will not hear Isa. 1. 15. And then to thank him as he requires is not only to entertain him with Eucharistical words with the meer Calves of our lips or a Doxologie from the teeth outwards but to imitate and obey him and to love him after the rate of his favour towards us that we may not forfeit all our interest in the temporal salvation we this day celebrate nor bring a reproach on the Author of it