A30211:375
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.
Thus this godly fear puts the soul upon its watch, lest from the heart within, or from the Devil without, or from the world, or some other temptation, something should surprise, and overtake the child of God to defile him, or to cause him to defile the ways of God, and so offend the Saints, open the mouths of men, and cause the enemy to speak reproachfully of religion.
Thus this godly fear puts the soul upon its watch, lest from the heart within, or from the Devil without, or from the world, or some other temptation, something should surprize, and overtake the child of God to defile him, or to cause him to defile the waies of God, and so offend the Saints, open the mouths of men, and cause the enemy to speak reproachfully of religion.
Thirdly, There flows from this FEAR, a holy provocation to a reverential converse with Saints in their religious and godly assemblies, for their further progress in the faith and way of holiness. Then they that feared the Lord spake often one to another. Spake, that is of God, and his holy and glorious name, kingdom, and works, for their mutual edification. a book of remembrance was written before him ⟨p. 113⟩for them that feared the Lord, and that thought upon his name, Mal. 3.16.
The fear of the Lord in the heart, provoketh to this in all its acts, not only of necessity, but of nature; It is the natural effect of this godly fear, to exercise the Church in the contemplation of God, together, and apart. All fear, good and bad, hath a natural propenseness in it to incline the heart to contemplate upon the object of fear, and though a man should labour to take off his thoughts from the object of his fear; whether that object was Men, Hell, Devils, &c. yet do what he could, the next time his fear had any act in it, it would return again to its object.