A30211:315
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.
There is a generation that will pursue evil, that will take it in, nourish it, lay it up in their hearts, hide it, and plead for it, and rejoice to do it: These cannot have in them the fear of the Lord, for that is to hate it, and to make men depart from it; where the fear of God, and sin is, it will be with the soul, as it was with Israel, when Amri and Tibni, strove to reign among them both at once, one of them must be put to death, they cannot live together: sin must down, for the fear of the Lord begetteth in the soul a hatred against it, an abhorrence of it, therefore sin must die, that is, as to the affections and lusts of it; for as Solomon says in another case, where no wood is, the fire ⟨p. 94⟩goeth out. So we may say, where there is a hatred of sin, and where men depart from it, there it loseth much of its power, waxeth feeble, and decayeth. Therefore Solomon saith again, Fear the Lord, and depart from evil, Prov. 3.7. as who should say, fear the Lord, and it will follow, that you shall depart from evil: departing from evil, is a natural consequence, a proper effect of the fear of the Lord where it is.
There is a generation that will pursue evil, that will take it in, nourish it, lay it up in their hearts, hide it, and plead for it, and rejoyce to do it: These cannot have in them the fear of the Lord, for that is to hate it, and to make men depart from it; where the fear of God, and sin is, it will be with the soul, as it was with Israel, when Amri and Tibni, strove to reign among them both at once, one of them must be put to death, they cannot live together: sin must down, for the fear of the Lord begetteth in the soul a hatred against it, an abhorrence of it, therefore sin must die, that is, as to the affections and lusts of it; for as Solomon saies in another case, where no wood is, the fire ⟨p. 94⟩goeth out. So we may say, where there is a hatred of sin, and where men depart from it, there it loseth much of its power, waxeth feeble, and decayeth. Therefore Solomon saith again, Fear the Lord, and depart from evil, Prov. 3.7. as who should say, fear the Lord, and it will follow, that you shall depart from evil: departing from evil, is a natural consequence, a proper effect of the fear of the Lord where it is.