A30211:226
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.
Answ. No, by no means, for we have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear. That is, God hath not given it us, for God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power, of love and of a sound mind, 2 Tim. 1.7.
If therefore our first fears come upon us again, after that we have received at Gods hands the spirit of love, of power, and of a sound mind, it is to be refused though we have grievously sinned against our God. This is manifest from, 1 Sam. 12. Fear not, ye have done all this wickedness. That is, not with that fear which would have made them fly from God as concluding that they were not now his people.
And the reason is, because sin cannot dissolve the covenant into which the Sons of God by his grace is taken.
If his children forsake my Law, and walk not in my judgments; if they break my statutes, and keep not my commandments, then will I visit their transgressions with a rod, and their iniquities with stripes; nevertheless my loving-kindness I will not utterly take away from him, nor suffer my faithfulness to fail,