Fifthly, This ungodly fear of God, is that which will put men upon adding to the revealed Will of God, their own inventions, and their own performances of them as a means to pacify the anger of God. For the truth is, where this ungodly fear reigneth, there is no end of Law and Duty. When those that you read of in the book of Kings, (2 King. 17.) Were destroyed by the Lions (because they had set up Idolatry in the Land of Israel) they sent for a Priest from Babylon that might teach them the manner of the God of the Land; but behold when they knew it, being taught it by the Priest, yet their fear would not suffer them to be content with that worship only. They feared the Lord, saith the text, and served ⟨p. 47⟩their own Gods. And again. So these Nations feared the Lord, and served their graven Images. It was this fear also that put the Pharisees upon inventing so many traditions, as the washing of cups, and beds, and tables, and basins, with a bundance of such other like gear, (Mark 7.) none knows the many dangers that an ungodly fear of God will drive a man into. How has it wracked and tortured the Papists for hundreds of years together, for what else is the cause but this ungodly fear, at least in the most simple and harmless of them, of their penances, as creeping to the Cross, going barefoot on pilgrimage, whipping themselves, wearing of sackcloth, saying so many paternosters, so many avemaries, making so many confessions to the Priest, giving so much money for pardons, and abundance of other the like, but this ungodly fear of God? For could they be brought to believe this Doctrine, that Christ was delivered for our offences, and raised again for our justification, and to apply it by faith with Godly boldness to their own souls, this fear would vanish, and so consequently all those things with which they so needlessly and unprofitably afflicted themselves, offend God, and grieve his people.
Fifthly, This ungodly fear of God, is that which will put men upon adding to the revealed Will of God, their own inventions, and their own performances of them as a means to pacifie the anger of God. For the truth is, where this ungodly fear reigneth, there is no end of Law and Duty. When those that you read of in the book of Kings, (2 King. 17.) Were destroyed by the Lions (because they had set up Idolatry in the Land of Israel) they sent for a Priest from Babilon that might teach them the manner of the God of the Land; but behold when they knew it, being taught it by the Priest, yet their fear would not suffer them to be content with that worship only. They feared the Lord, saith the text, and served ⟨p. 47⟩their own Gods. And again. So these Nations feared the Lord, and served their graven Images. It was this fear also that put the Pharisees upon inventing so many traditions, as the washing of cups, and beds, and tables, and basons, with a bundance of such other like gear, (Mark 7.) none knows the many dangers that an ungodly fear of God will driv a man into. How has it wrakt and tortered the Papists for hundreds of years together, for what else is the cause but this ungodly fear, at least in the most simple and harmless of them, of their penances, as creeping to the Cross, going barefoot on pilgrimage, whiping themselves, wearing of sackcloth, saying so many paternosters, so many avemaries, making so many confessions to the Priest, giving so much money for pardons, and abundance of other the like, but this ungodly fear of God? For could they be brought to believe this Doctrine, that Christ was delivered for our offences, and raised again for our justification, and to apply it by faith with Godly boldness to their own souls, this fear would vanish, and so consequently all those things with which they so needlessly and unprofitably afflicted themselves, offend God, and grieve his people.
