A30211:498
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.
1. That man that is proud, and of an high and lofty mind, fears not God. This is plain from the Exhortation. Be not high minded but fear, Rom. 11.20. Here you see that an high mind and the fear of God, are set in direct opposition, the one to the other: and there is in them, closely concluded by the Apostle, that where indeed the one is, there cannot be the other; where there is an high mind, there is not the fear of God: and where there is the fear of God, the mind is not high but lowly. Can a man at the same time be approved ⟨p. 162⟩man, and fear God too? why then is it said God beholdeth every one that is proud and abases him, and again he beholds the proud afar off?
He therefore that is proud of his person, of his Riches, of his Office, of his Parts, and the like, feareth not God. It is also manifest further, for God resisteth the proud, which he would not do, if he feared him, but in that he sets him at such a distance from him, in that he testifies that he will abase him and resist him, it is evident that he is not the man that hath this grace of fear; for that man, as I have showed you, is the man of Gods delight, the object of his pleasure, Psal. 138.6. Jam. 4.6. 1 Pet. 5.5. Mal. 4.1.
He therefore that is proud of his person, of his Riches, of his Office, of his Parts, and the like, feareth not God. It is also manifest further, for God resisteth the proud, which he would not do, if he feared him, but in that he sets him at such a distance from him, in that he testifies that he will abase him and resist him, it is evident that he is not the man that hath this grace of fear; for that man, as I have shewed you, is the man of Gods delight, the object of his pleasure,