Divine fire

“ But much more, as the Gods by the fire of lightning divide matter, and separate from it things which are essentially immaterial, but which are vanquished and bound by it, and render them impassive from being passive; thus also the fire that is with us, imitating the energy of divine fire, destroys every thing which is material in sacrifices, purifies the things which are offered, liberates them from the bonds of matter, and renders them, through purity of nature, adapted to the communion of the Gods. ”

“ And yet what I have said as to the strength and quality and boundlessness of this fire is as nothing when compared to its intensity, an intensity which it has as being the instrument chosen by divine design for the punishment of soul and body alike. It is a fire which proceeds directly from the ire of God, working not of its own activity but as an instrument of divine vengeance. As the waters of baptism cleanse the soul with the body, so do the fires of punishment torture the spirit with the flesh. ”

“ The whole of the ancient world believed that the origin of fire must be divine. And the various steps can be clearly traced by which the worship, originally accorded to the nature-power itself, was transferred to a spirit behind the power, and centred at last on the supreme Deity.
For primitive man, as Max Müller well points out, the phenomena of fire would present a dual aspect—on the one hand as a fatal and destructive element, on the other hand, as a beneficent and even homely agency. ”

“ What says the Esoteric teaching with regard to Fire? “Fire is the most perfect and unadulterated reflection, in Heaven as on Earth, of the One Flame. It is Life and Death, the origin and the end of every material thing. It is divine Substance.” Thus, not only the Fire-Worshipper, the Parsi, but even the wandering savage tribes of America, which proclaim themselves “born of fire,” show more science in their creeds and truth in their superstitions, than all the speculations of modern physics and learning. ”

“ It is literally to be consumed by fire.’ Whether he is correct in regarding such an event as the fulfillment of the prophecies, and the demonstration of the anger of the Creator against the incorrigible assumption of an erring and influential church, I know not; but the divine hand alone seems to me to hold the element of fire in check by a miracle as great as that which protected the cities of the plain, till the righteous Lot had made his escape to the mountains. ”

“ The Holy Ghost, Who proceedeth from the Father and the Son is called a fire, because His action in our souls purifies us from sin and fills us with divine love. As the action of fire may be said to be irresistible, it is right that the Holy Ghost be represented by that symbol, since He was to give spirit and wisdom to Christians, which all their adversaries should not be able to resist or gainsay. ”

“ Because of its mysterious origin and its uncontrollable power for good or ill, fire was supposed from the earliest times to be divine. The Bible tells us that the Lord went before the children of Israel in their journey from Egypt to the Promised Land in a pillar of fire by night. From the earliest hours of religious history the sun has been worshiped as a god. All the tribes of antiquity had a fire god. ”

“ The fire burned the sacrifice and was thereby similar to the priest, the fire carried the sacrifice to the gods, and was thereby an intercessor between men and the gods: fire itself, however, represented also something divine, a god, and when honor was to be shown to this god, then fire was as much the subject as the object of the sacrifice. ”

“ It is a mistake to suppose the figure of fire to be, in the Scriptures, arbitrary and variable in its signification. On the contrary, while constantly resorted to, as a figure of speech, and as a symbol, both real and ritual, it stands out with a meaning, fixed and invariable,—a meaning which springs out of its essential nature and its familiar phenomena and effects, and is incorporated in the language and institutions of the Word, by express divine sanctions. The two most conspicuous phenomena of fire are its consuming power, and the torture which its contact inflicts upon sentient beings. ”

“ That the fire of divine wrath, which kindles judgement upon a people, is just and holy, for it is fire fetched from between the cherubim. The fire on God's altar, where atonement was made, had been slighted, to avenge which fire is here fetched from heaven, like that by which Nadab and Abihu were killed for offering strange fire. If a city, or town, or house, be burnt, whether by design or accident, if we trace it in its original, we shall find that the coals which kindled the fire came from between the wheels; for there is not any evil of that kind in the city, but the Lord has done it. ”

“ By holy fire, however, was meant not so much the natural visible element which was kindled, as that subtle substance contained in fire or heat which was supposed to contain the life principle, and which was sent in response to the cravings of pious devotees for procreative energy, which blessing, among various peoples, notably the Jews, was indicative of special divine favor. ”

“ They, secretly, in purpose and thought, determined upon idolatry, and the fire accordingly fashioned the vessels thrown upon it into an idol, and then they committed idolatry openly. As, then, the Three Children, having thoughts of righteousness, received in themselves the fire of God, and worshipped the Lord in truth, so now faithful souls receive that divine and heavenly fire, in this world, in secret; and that fire forms a heavenly image upon their humanity. ”

“ 2 There is a dreadful hell,
And everlasting pains,
There sinners must with devils dwell
In darkness, fire, and chains. ”

“ A great hand reaches out from the unseen and regulates the affairs of man. It reaches out from that great spiritual Flame which nourishes all created things, the never dying fire that burns on the sacred altar of Cosmos—that great fire which is the spirit of God.
If we turn again to the races now dead, we shall, if we look, find the cause of their destruction. The light had gone out. When the flame within the body is withdrawn, the body is dead. When the light was taken from the altar, the temple was no longer the dwelling place of a living God. ”

“ FIRE in the spiritual sense signifies love, 380. The fire of the angelic sun is divine love, 34. The fire of the altar and of the candlestick in the tabernacle among the Israelites, represented divine love, 380. The fire of the natural sun has existed from no other source than from the fire of the spiritual sun, which is divine love, 380. The fires of the west signify the delusive loves of evil, 77. ”

“ Although earth, air, water, and the sun were long venerated as objects of worship, as containing the life principle, in process of time it is observed that fire attracted the highest regard of human beings, and on their altars the sacred flame, said to have been kindled from heaven, was kept burning uninterruptedly from year to year, and from age to age, by bands of priests "whose special duty it was to see that the sacred flame was never extinguished." ”

“ As Fire in the Rig Veda is not only the altar-fire, but also common, every-day fire, so, too, in the epic this god is the material flame, and as such even performs his greatest deeds for his worshippers. ”

“ In the burning bush God makes Himself known as dwelling in the midst of the fire. Elsewhere in Holy Scripture the connection between fire and the Holiness of God is clearly expressed: ‘The light of Israel shall be for a fire, and the Holy One for a flame.’ The nature of fire may be either beneficent or destructive. The sun, the great central fire, may give life and fruitfulness, or may scorch to death. All depends upon occupying the right position, upon the relation in which we stand to it. ”

“ Fire is a frequently recurrent emblem of the Holy Spirit, both in the Old and New Testament. It is not the destructive, but the vitalising, glowing, transforming, energy of fire, which is expressed. The fervour of holy enthusiasm, the warmth of ardent love, the melting of hard hearts, the change of cold, damp material into its own ruddy likeness, are all set forth in this great symbol. John's water baptism was poor beside Messiah's immersion into that cleansing fire. Fire turns what it touches into kindred flame. The refiner's fire melts metal, and the scum carries away impurities. ”

“ In later years, forms and symbols crept into the service, for abstract teachings did not hold the masses of the people. Fire was conceived to be a symbol of the God of Light, and even today there seems to be a certain charm in the conception that "a pure and undefiled flame is certainly the most sublime natural representation of Him who is in Himself Eternal Light." There must have been a sublimity in the sight of the pure flames, rising to heaven from the mountain-tops, while prayers and hymns of praise were poured out to the one great Spirit, by whatever name known. ”

“ There is no higher, more perfect symbol of divinity than fire. God's whole consciousness, apart from individual thoughts, is fire. The Holy Scriptures therefore usually admit of God appearing under the form of a fire, as a fiery bush, a flame. The world is none other than a rotating globe of fire. ”

“ To the chanting of prayers, the frenzy of flame,
We sang thy hosannahs, oh strength-giving Fire:
I pledged love to thee from the pyre!
7
Oh, Fire, I know
That thy light with an ultimate splendor our being shall
⁠drench;
It shall flare up before eyes that Death fain would finally
⁠quench.
With swift knowledge it burns, and with joy heaven-high
At the vastness of vistas unfolding afar.
Who has summoned those visions to being? And why?
Who has rayed them in colors befitting a star?
Beyond life is the answer. ”

“ For in her teaching, which is but symbolized or at most occasioned by those physico-psychical fever-heats, the Fire is, at bottom, so spiritual and so directly busy with the soul alone, that it is ever identical with itself in Heaven, Hell, Purgatory, and on earth, and stands for God Himself; and that its effects are not the destruction of a foreign substance, but the bringing back, wherever and as far as possible, of the fire-like soul’s disposition and quality to full harmony with its Fire-source and Parent, God Himself. ”

“ This little flame should be the star of our life; it alone can guide our trembling ark across the tumult of the great waters; it alone can enable us to escape the temptations of the sea, the storms and the monsters which are the offspring of night and the deluge. Faith in God, in a holy, merciful, fatherly God, is the divine ray which kindles this flame. ”

“ We realise the world better if we imagine it, not as a Progress to Prim Perfection, but as the sustained upleaping of a Fountain, the pillar of a Glorious Flame. For, after all, we cannot go beyond the ancient image of Heraclitus, the "Ever-living Flame, kindled in due measure and in the like measure extinguished." That translucent and mysterious Flame shines undyingly before our eyes, never for two moments the same, and always miraculously incalculable, an ever-flowing stream of fire. ”

“ Then said Christian, What means this?
The Interpreter answered, This Fire is the work of Grace that is wrought in the heart; he that casts Water upon it, to extinguish and put it out, is the Devil; but in that thou seest the Fire notwithstanding burn higher and hotter, thou shalt also see the reason of that. So he had him about to the backside of the wall, where he saw a man with a Vessel of Oil in his hand, of the which he did also continually cast (but secretly) into the Fire. ”

“ The fire of their hearth is as a sacred flame to them, which must be tended and cared for with unremitting zeal, which harks back to the days [149] of paganism when the fire was looked upon as the most sacred thing in their religion, and was kept ever burning in their temples and public places ”

“ The Vedic hymns give us the many different channels whence the phenomenon of fire proceeds, at one time coming in one way and then in another, to attract man’s attention and to awaken his drowsy faculties. Fire comes from the skies where it shines as the sun, from the waters, since it comes as lightning, from the moist and rain-laden clouds, from the stones, and from wood, in the shape of sparks, from dried leaves and herbs placed on the altar to receive and nourish the sacrificial flame. ”

“ It is fire as the source of light and heat; it is fire, not so much as burning up what it seizes into ashes, but rather as laying hold upon cold dead matter, making it sparkle and blaze, and turning it into the likeness of its own leaping brightness; it is fire as springing heavenwards, and bearing up earthly particles in its shooting spires; it is fire, as least gross of visible things;—in a word, it is fire as life, and not as death, that is the symbol of God. ”

“ Fire means love, zeal, swift energy. This, then, is another side of this great promise, that into the torpor of our sluggish lives He is waiting to infuse a swift Spirit that shall make us glow and flame with earnestness, burn with love, aspire with desire, cleave to Him with the fervour of conviction, and be, in some measure, like those mighty spirits that stand before the Throne, the seraphim that burn with adoration and glow with rapture. ”

“ They hear the flames roar as they come along, they see death coming towards them, but they do not fear, they do not tremble, because the fire has swept over the place where they are, and there is no danger. There is nothing for the fire to burn. There is one mountain peak that the wrath of God has swept over—that is, Mount Calvary, and that fire spent its fury upon the bosom of the Son of God. Take your stand here by the cross, and you will be safe for time and eternity. ”

“ No wonder, therefore, that the fire should have been praised and worshipped as the best and kindest of gods, the only god who had come down from heaven to live on earth, the friend of man, the messenger of the gods, the mediator between gods and men, the immortal among mortals. ”