A30211:195
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.
1. By the groundlessness of such fears.
1. By the groundlesness of such fears.
The ground is removed, for a grounded ⟨p. 60⟩fear of damnation, is this, I am yet in my sins, in a state of nature, under the law, without faith, and so under the wrath of God; this, I say, is the ground of the fear of damnation, the true ground to fear it; but now the man that we are talking of, is one that hath the ground of this fear taken away by the testimony and seal of the spirit of adoption: he is called, justified, and has, for the truth of this his condition, received the evidence of the spirit of adoption, and hath been thereby enabled to call God Father, Father; now he that hath received this, has the ground of the fear of damnation taken from him, therefore his fear, I say, being without ground, is false, and so no work of the Spirit of God.
2. By the unseasonableness of them. This spirit always comes too late. It comes after the spirit of adoption is come. Satan is always for being too soon, or too late. If he would have men believe they are children, he would have them believe it, while they are slaves, slaves to him and their lusts. If he would have them believe they are slaves, it is when they are sons, and have received the spirit of adoption, and the testimony, by that, of their sonship before. And this evil is rooted even in his nature; He is a liar, and the Father of it, (John 8.) and his ⟨p. 64⟩•ies are not known to Saints, more than in this, that he labours always to contradict the work and order of the spirit of truth.