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…

Now this fear, whether it be wrought by a misapprehending of the judgments of God (as in the Israelites,) or otherwise as in the Canaanites, yet ungodliness is the effect thereof, and therefore I call it an ungodly fear of God, for it stirreth up murmurings, discontents, and heart-risings against God, while he with his dispensations is dealing with them.

Secondly, there is a fear of God that driveth a man away from God, (I speak not now of the Atheist, nor of the pleasurable sinner, nor yet of these; and that fear that I speak of just now) I speak now of such who through a sense of sin and of Gods justice fly from him of a slavish ungodly fear. This ungodly fear was that which possessed Adams heart in the day that he did eat of the tree concerning which the Lord had said unto him, In the day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die. For then was he possessed with such a fear of God as made him seek to hide himself from his presence. I heard, said he, thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked, and I hid my self, Gen. 3.10. mind it, he had a fear of God, but it was not godly: it was not that that made him ⟨p. 38⟩afterwards submit himself unto him; for that would have kept him from not departing from him, or else have brought him to him again, with bowed, broken and contrite spirit. But this fear, as the rest of his sin, managed his departing from his God, and pursued him to provoke him still so to do, by IT he kept himself from God, by IT his whole man was carried away from him. I call IT ungodly fear, because it begat in him ungodly apprehensions of his Maker. Because it confined Adams conscience to the sense of justice only, and consequently to despair.

Secondly, there is a fear of God that driveth a man away from God, (I speak not now of the Athest, nor of the pleasurable sinner, nor yet of these; and that fear that I speak of just now) I speak now of such who through a sense of sin and of Gods justice fly from him of a slavish ungodly fear. This ungodly fear was that which possessed Adams heart in the day that he did eat of the tree concerning which the Lord had said unto him, In the day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die. For then was he possessed with such a fear of God as made him seek to hide himself from his presence. I heard, said he, thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked, and I hid my self,