A30211:187
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.
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.
Quest. But by what spirit is it then that I am brought again into fears, even into the fears of damnation, and so into bondage by?
Ans. By the spirit of the Devil who always labours to frustrate the faith and hope, and comfort of the godly.
Ans. By the spirit of the Devil who alwaies labours to frustrate the faith and hope, and comfort of the godly.