A30211:34
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
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.
And what means the tremblings, the tears, those breakings and shakings of heart that attend the people of God, when in an eminent manner they receive the pronunciation of the forgiveness of sins at his mouth, but that the dread of the Majesty of God is in their sight mixed therewith. God must appear like himself, speak to the ⟨p. 11⟩soul like himself, nor can the sinner when under these glorious discoveries of its Lord and Saviour, keep out the beams of his Majesty from the eyes of its understanding. I will cleanse them, saith he, from all their iniquities, whereby they have sinned against me, I will pardon all their iniquities whereby they have sinned against me, and whereby they have transgressed against me. And what then? And they shall fear and tremble for all the goodness, and for all the prosperity that I procure unto it, Jer. 33.8, 9.
Alas! there is a company of poor, light, frothy professors in the world, that carry it under that which they call the presence of God, more like to Antics, than sober sensible Christians; yea more like to a fool of a Play, than those that have the presence of God. They would not carry it so in the presence of a King, nor yet of the Lord of their Land, were they but receivers of mercy at his hand: They carry it even in their most eminent seasons, as if the sense and sight of God, and his blessed grace to their souls in Christ, had a tendency in it to make men wanton: But indeed it is the most humbling and heart-breaking sight in the world; it is fearful.
Alas! there is a company of poor, light, frothy professors in the world, that carry it under that which they call the presence of God, more like to Anticks, than sober sensible Christians; yea more like to a fool of a Play, than those that have the presence of God. They would not carry it so in the presence of a King, nor yet of the Lord of their Land, were they but receivers of mercy at his hand: They carry it even in their most eminent seasons, as if the sense and sight of God, and his blessed grace to their souls in Christ, had a tendancy in it to make men wanton: But indeed it is the most humbling and heart-breaking sight in the world; it is fearful.