A30211:268
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.
I conclude then, that THAT fear that is is wrought by the spirit of bondage is good, and godly, because the ground for it, is sound; and I also conclude, that he comes to the soul as a spirit of bondage, but once, and that once, is before he comes as a spirit ⟨p. 82⟩of adoption: and if therefore the same fear doth again take hold of thy heart, that is, if after thou hast received the spirit of adoption, thou fearest again the damnation of thy soul, that thou art out of Christ, and under the Law, that fear is bad, and of the Devil, and ought by no means to be admitted by thee.
Quest. But since it is as you say, how doth the Devil after the spirit of adoption is come, work the child of God into those fears of being out of Christ, not forgiven, and so an he•r of damnation again?
Answ. 1. By giving the lie (and by prevailing with us to give it too) to the work of grace wrought in our hearts, and to the testimony of the holy spirit of adoption. Or,
2. By abusing of our ignorance of the everlasting love of God to his in Christ, and the duration of the covenant of grace. Or,