A30211:240
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.
2. They in the Prophet Jeremiah had played the harlot with many lovers, and done evil things as they could; and as another Scripture hath it, gone a whoring from under their God, yet God calls to them by the Prophet saying, Wilt thou not from this time cry unto me my Father thou art the God of my youth? Jer. 3.1—7.
3. Remember also that eminent text made mention of in 1 Sam. 12. Fear not, ye have done all this wickedness; and labour to maintain faith in thy soul, of thy being a child, (it being true that thou hast received the spirit of adoption before) and so that thou oughtest not to fall under thy first fears, (because the ground is taken away) of thy eternal damnation.
Now, let not any, from what hath been said, take courage to live loose lives, under a supposition, that once in Christ, and ever in Christ, and the covenant cannot be broken, nor the relation of Father and Child dissolved, for they that do so, 'tis evident have not known what 'tis to receive the spirit of adoption; It is the Spirit of the Devil in his own hue that suggesteth this unto them, and that prevaileth with them to do so; shall we do evil that good may come? shall we sin that grace may abound? or shall we be base in life because God by grace, hath secured us from wrath to come? God forbid, these conclusions betoken one void of the fear of God indeed, and of the spirit of adoption too. For what Son is he, that because the Father cannot break the relation, (nor suffer sin to do it,) that is betwixt the Father and him, that will therefore say, I will live altogether after my own ⟨p. 74⟩