A30211:182
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.
3. The Spirit of God, after it is come to me as a spirit of adoption, can come to me no more as a spirit of bondage, to put me in fear, that is, with my first fears, because, by that faith that he, even he himself, hath wrought in me, to believe and call God Father, Father, I am united to Christ, and stand no more upon mine own legs, in mine own sins, or performances; but in his glorious righteousness before him, and before his Father; but he will not cast away a member of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones; nor will he that the Spirit of God should come as a spirit of bondage to put him into a grounded fear of damnation, that standeth complete before God in the righteousness of Christ; for that is an apparent contradiction.
3. The Spirit of God, after it is come to me as a spirit of adoption, can come to me no more as a spirit of bondage, to put me in fear, that is, with my first fears, because, by that faith that he, even he himself, hath wrought in me, to believe and call God Father, Father, I am united to Christ, and stand no more upon mine own legs, in mine own sins, or performances; but in his glorious righteousness before him, and before his Father; but he will not cast away a member of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones; nor will he that the Spirit of God should come as a spirit of bondage to put him into a grounded fear of damnation, that standeth compleat before God in the righteousness of Christ; for that is an apparent contradiction.
And the third must therefore needs follow, that is, he overthroweth the testimony of his servants; for they have said, That now we receive the spirit of bondage AGAIN to fear no more; that is, after that we by the Holy Ghost are enabled to call God Father, Father.
2. This is evident also, because the covenant in which now the soul is interested, abideth, and is everlasting, not upon the supposition of my obedience, but upon the unchangeable purpose of God, and the efficacy of the obedience of Christ, whose blood also hath confirmed it. It is ordered in all things, and sure, said David; and this, said he, is all my salvation, (