A30211:377
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.
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.
And so it is with godly fear, that will make a make a man speak of, and think upon the name of God reverentially, Psal 89 7. Yea and exercise himself in the holy thoughts of him in such sort that his soul shall be sanctified, and seasoned with such Meditations.
Indeed holy thoughts of God, such, as you see this fear doth exercise the heart withal, prepare the heart to, and for God. This fear therefore it is that David prayed for, for the people, when he said, O Lord God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel our Fathers, keep this for ever in the imagination ⟨p. 114⟩of the thoughts of the heart of thy people and prepare their heart unto thee, 1 Chron. 29.18.