A30211:104
A treatise of the fear of God showing what it is, and how distinguished…A treatise of the fear of God shewing what it is, and how distinguished…
A treatise of the fear of God showing what it is, and how distinguished from that what is not so : also whence it comes, who has it, what are the effects, and what the privileges of those that have it in their hearts / by John Bunyan.A treatise of the fear of God shewing what it is, and how distinguished from that what is not so : also whence it comes, who has it, what are the effects, and what the priviledges of those that have it in their hearts / by John Bunyan.
London: printed for N. Ponder, 1679
Of several sorts of fear of God in the heart of the Children of men.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
And first to the first, to wit, that there is a fear of God, that flows even from the light of nature.
A people may be said to do things in a fear of God, when they act one towards another in things reasonable, and honest 'twixt man and man, not doing that to others they would not have done to themselves. This is that fear of God which Abraham thought the Philistines had destroyed in themselves, when he said of his wise to Abimelech, she is my Sister. For when Abimelech asked Abraham why he said of his wife, she is my Sister; He replied, saying, I thought verily that the fear of God is not in this place; and they will slay me for my wives sake, Gen. 20.11. I thought verily that in this place men had stifled and choked that light of nature that is in them, at least so far forth as not to suffer it to put them in fear, when their lusts were powerful in them to accomplish their ends on the object that was present before them. But this I will pass by, and come to the second thing.
A people may be said to do things in a fear of God, when they act one towards another in things reasonable, and honest 'twxt man and man, not doing that to others they would not have done to themselves. This is that fear of God which Abraham thought the Philistians had destroyed in themselves, when he said of his wise to Abimelech, she is my Sister. For when Abimelech asked Abraham why he said of his wife, she is my Sister; He replied, saying, I thought verily that the fear of God is not in this place; and they will slay me for my wives sake, Gen. 20.11. I thought verily that in this place men had stifled and choaked that light of nature that is in them, at least so far forth as not to suffer it to put them in fear, when their lusts were powerfull in them to accomplish their ends on the object that was present before them. But this I will pass by, and come to the second thing.