A30211:137
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.
The method of God is to kill and make alive, to smite, and then heal, when the Commandment came to Paul, sin revived, and he died, and that Law which was ordained to life, he found to be unto death. That is, it passed a sentence of death upon him for his sins, and slew his conscience with that sentence. Therefore from that time that he heard that word, why dost thou persecute me? which is all one, as if he had said, why dost thou commit murder? he lay under the sentence of condemnation by the law, and under this fear of that sentence in his conscience. He lay, I say, under it until that Ananias came to him to comfort him, and to preach unto him the forgiveness of sins, Acts 9.
The method of God is to kill and make alive, to smite, and then heal, when the Commandment came to Paul, sin revived, and he died, and that Law which was ordained to life, he found to be unto death. That is, it passed a sentence of death upon him for his sins, and slew his conscience with that sentence. Therefore from that time that he heard that word, why dost thou persecute me? which is all one, as if he had said, why dost thou commit murder? he lay under the sentence of condemnation by the law, and under this fear of that sentence in his conscience. He lay, I say, under it untill that Ananias came to him to comfort him, and to preach unto him the forgivness of sins, Acts 9.
The fear therefore that now I call godly, it is that fear which is properly called the fear of eternal damnation for sin, and this fear at first awakening, is good, and godly, because it ariseth in the soul from a true sense of its very state. Its state by nature is damnable, because it is sinful, and because he is not one that as yet, believeth in Christ for remission of sins. He that believeth not shall be damned. He that believeth not, is condemned already, and the wrath of God abideth on him, Mark 16, 16.