A30211:186
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.
Quest. But may it not come again as a spirit of bondage, to put me into my first fears for my good?
Ans. The Text saith the contrary; For we have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear. Nor is God put to it for want of wisdom, to say, and unsay, do, and undo, or else he cannot do good. When we are sons, and have received the adoption of children, he doth not use to send the spirit after that to tell us we are slaves and heirs of damnation, also that we are without Christ, without the promise, without grace, and without God in the World, and yet this he must do if it comes to us after we have received him as a spirit of adoption, and put us, as a spirit of bondage in fear as before.