A30211:486
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.
Now the fear that perfect love casts out, cannot be that son-like gracious fear of God, that I have in this last place been treating of: because that fear, that love, casts out, hath ⟨p. 158⟩torment: but so has not the Son-like fear. Therefore the fear that love casts out, is either that fear, that is like the fear of Devils and Reprobates, or that fear that is begot in the heart by the Spirit of God as a Spirit of bondage, or both: for indeed all these kinds of fear, have torment: and therefore may be cast out: and are so by the Spirit of Adoption, which is called the Spirit of Faith and love, when he comes with power into the soul: so that without this fear we should serve him.
Now the fear that perfect love casts out, cannot be that sonlike gracious fear of God, that I have in this last place been treating of: because that fear, that love, casts out, hath ⟨p. 158⟩torment: but so has not the Son-like fear. Therefore the fear that love casts out, is either that fear, that is like the fear of Devils and Reprobates, or that fear that is begot in the heart by the Spirit of God as a Spirit of bondage, or both: for indeed all these kinds of fear, have torment: and therefore may be cast out: and are so by the Spirit of Adoption, which is called the Spirit of Faith and love, when he comes with power into the soul: so that without this fear we should serve him.
But to argue from these texts that we ought not to fear God, or to mix fear with our worship of him; is as much as to say that by the Spirit of Adoption we are made very Rogues, for not to fear God, is by the Scripture applied to such, Luk. 23.40. But for what I have affirmed the Scripture doth plentifully confirm, saying, Happy is the man that feareth alway. And again, It shall be well with them that fear God, that fear before him.