A30211:313
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.
2. This fear is called, The beginning of Wisdom, (Job. 28.28. Psal. 111.10) because then and not tell then, a man begins to be truly spiritually wise▪ what wisdom is there where the fear of God is not? Therefore the fools are described thus, For that they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the Lord, Prov. 1.29. The word of God is the fountain of knowledge, into which a man will not with godly reverence look, until he is endued with the fear of the Lord: Therefore it is rightly called the beginning of Wisdom. But fools despise wisdom, and instruction, Prov. 1.7. It is therefore this fear of the Lord that makes a man wise for his soul, for life, and for another world. 'Tis this that teacheth him how he should do to escape those spiritual and eternal ruins that the fool is overtaken with, and swallowed up of forever. A man void of this fear of God, wherever he is wise, or in what ever he excels, yet about the matters of his soul, there is none more foolish than himself; for through the want of the fear of the Lord, he leaves the best things at sixes, and sevens, and only pursueth with all his heart those that will ⟨p. 93⟩leave him in the snare when he dies.
2. This fear is called, The beginning of Wisdom, (Job. 28.28. Psal. 111.10) because then and not tell then, a man begins to be truly spiritually wise▪ what wisdom is there where the fear of God is not? Therefore the fools are described thus, For that they hated knowledg, and did not chuse the fear of the Lord, Prov. 1.29. The word of God is the fountain of knowledg, into which a man will not with godly reverence look, until he is endued with the fear of the Lord: Therefore it is rightly called the beginning of Wisdom. But fools despise wisdom, and instruction,