A30211:13
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
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.
1. Of this word [FEAR] as it respecteth God himself, who is the object of our fear.
By this word [Fear] as I said, we are to understand God himself, who is the object of our fear: For the Divine Majesty goeth often under this very name himself. This name Jacob called him by, when he and Laban chod together on Mount Gilead, after that Jacob had made his escape to his Fathers house; Except, said he, the God of Abraham, and the FEAR of Isaac had been with me, surely now thou hadst sent me away empty. So again, a little after, when Jacob and Laban agree to make a Covenant of Peace each with other; though Laban after ⟨p. 4⟩the jumbling way of the Heathen by his oath, puts the true God and the false together, yet Jacob sware by the fear of his Father Isaac, Gen. 31.42, 53.
By the FEAR, that is, by the GOD of his Father Isaac. And indeed, God may well be called the FEAR of his people, not only because they have by his grace made him the object of their FEAR, but because of the dread and terrible Majesty that is in him. He is a mighty God, and terrible, and with God is terrible Majesty. See Dan. 7.21. chap. 10.17. Neh. 1.5