HOW many fruitless Blasts have I been spending upon this sullen Fire! ‘Twas not, though, the Greenness of this VVood· that made it so uneasie to be Kindled; but, ‘twas alone the greatness of the Loggs, on which the Fire could take no hold, but by the intervention of such smaller Sticks as were at first wanting here: VVitness· that I had no sooner laid on a little Brushwood, but the Flame, from those kindled Twiggs, invading and prevailing on the Billets· grew suddenly great enough to threaten to make the House it self part of its Fuel, and turn it to such Ashes as it makes haste to reduce the VVood into. Me-thinks the blaze of this Fire should light me to discern something instructive in it: These Blocks may represent our Necessary, these Sticks our less important, Religious practices, and this aspiring Flame, the subtile Inhabitor of that of Hell. ‘Twil be but succeslesly, that the Devil can attempt our grand Resolves, till he have first Master’d our less considerable ones; and made his successes against these, not only Degrees, but Instruments, in the Destroying of the other: Our more neglected and seemingly trivial Affections, having once receiv’d his Fiery impressions, do easily impart them to higher Faculties, and serve to Kindle solider Materials. It is therefore the safest way, to be faithfull ev’n to our lesser Determinations, and watchfull over our less predominant Passions, and whensoever we find our selves tempted to violate the former, or neglect the latter, not so barely to cast one Eye upon the seeming inconsiderableness of what we are intic’d to, as not to fix the other upon the Consequences that may attend it; and therein, to consider the importance of what such slighted things may, as they are manag’d, prove Instrumental, either to endanger, or preserve.
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