A39696:148
Two treatises the first of fear, from Isa. 8, v. 12, 13, and part…
Two treatises the first of fear, from Isa. 8, v. 12, 13, and part of the 14 : the second, The righteous man's refuge in the evil day, from Isaiah 26, verse 20 / by John Flavell.
London: printed by H.H. for Robert Boulter, 1682
A PRACTICAL TREATISE OF Fear, &c. › Chapter 4 › Section 1 › Subsection 5: 5. Cause.
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.
5. Our immoderate love of life, and the comforts and conveniences thereof may be assigned as a proper and real ground and cause of our sinful fears, when the dangers of the times threaten the one or other: did we love our lives less, we should fear and tremble less than we do. It is said of those renowned Saints, Rev. 12. 11. They overcame by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their Testimony, and they loved not their lives unto the Death.
5. Our immoderate love of life, and the comforts and conveniencies thereof may be assigned as a proper and real ground and cause of our sinful fears, when the dangers of the times threaten the one or other: did we love our lives less, we should fear and tremble less than we do. It is said of those renowned Saints, Rev. 12. 11. They overcame by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their Testimony, and they loved not their lives unto the Death.
They overcame, not only the fury of their enemies without them, but their sinful fears within them; and this victory was achieved by their mortification, to the inordinate and immoderate love of life, certainly ⟨p. 44⟩their own fears had overcome them, if they had not first overcome the love of life: It was not therefore without very great reason that our Lord enjoined it upon all his disciples and followers, to hate their own lives, Luke 14. 26. not absolutely, but in comparison and competition with him, (i. e.) to love it in so remiss a degree, as to slight and undervalue it as a poor low thing in such a comparison, he foresaw what sharp trials and sufferings were coming upon them, and he knew if the fond and immoderate love of life were not overcome and mortified in them, it would make them warp and bend under such temptations.