A30211:301
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 the grace of fear, more immediately intended in the text.
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.
First, More generally.
1. It is called a grace, that is a sweet and blessed work of the Spirit of grace, as he is given to the elect by. Hence the Apostle says, let us have grace whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and Godly fear, (Heb. 12.) for as that fear that brings bondage, is wrought in the soul, by the spirit, as a spirit of bondage: so this fear, which is a fear that we have while we are in the liberty of sons, is wrought by him as he manifesteth to us our liberty; where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty, that is, where he is as a Spirit of adoption, setting the soul free from that bondage under which it was held by the same spirit while he wrought as a spirit of bondage. Hence as he is called a spirit working bondage to fear, so he, as the Spirit of the Son, and of adoption, is ⟨p. 88⟩called, The Spirit of the fear of the Lord, Isa. 11.2. Because it is that Spirit of grace that is the author, animater and maintainer of our filial fear or of that fear that is son-like, and that subjecteth the elect, unto God, his Word, and Ways; unto him, his Word and Ways as a Father.
1. It is called a grace, that is a sweet and blessed work of the Spirit of grace, as he is given to the elect by. Hence the Apostle saies, let us have grace whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and Godly fear, (Heb. 12.) for as that fear that brings bondage, is wrought in the soul, by the spirit, as a spirit of bondage: so this fear, which is a fear that we have while we are in the liberty of sons, is wrought by him as he manifesteth to us our liberty; where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty, that is, where he is as a Spirit of adoption, setting the soul free from that bondage under which it was held by the same spirit while he wrought as a spirit of bondage. Hence as he is called a spirit working bondage to fear, so he, as the Spirit of the Son, and of adoption, is