A39696:72
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
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.
And as one creature is apt inordinately and sinfully thus to trust and lean upon another; so there is as great a proneness in the creatures inordinately to fear and dread each other, as if the creature feared were rather a God, than a man, rather a Spirit than flesh; and thus our fear magnifies and exalts the creature, and puts it as it were into the room and place of God. This was the sin which God rebuked in his own people, Isai 51. 12, 13. I even I am he that comforteth thee, ⟨p. 16⟩who art thou, that thou shouldest be afraid of man that shall die, and of the son of man which shall be made as grass, and forgettest the Lord thy maker, &c. See how fear exalts man, and depresseth God, it thinks upon the noxious power of men so much, that it forgets the saving power of God, as if that stood for nothing; thus a mortal worm that shall perish as the grass, eclipses the glory of the great God, that stretched forth the heavens, and laid the foundations of the earth.
And as one creature is apt inordinately and sinfully thus to trust and lean upon another; so there is as great a proness in the creatures inordinately to fear and dread each other, as if the creature feared were rather a God, than a man, rather a Spirit than flesh; and thus our fear magnifies and exalts the creature, and puts it as it were into the room and place of God. This was the sin which God rebuked in his own people, Isai 51. 12, 13. I even I am he that comforteth thee, ⟨p. 16⟩who art thou, that thou shouldest be afraid of man that shall die, and of the son of man which shall be made as grass, and forgettest the Lord thy maker, &c. See how fear exalts man, and depresseth God, it thinks upon the noxious power of men so much, that it forgets the saving power of God, as if that stood for nothing; thus a mortal worm that shall perish as the grass, eclipses the glory of the great God, that stretched forth the heavens, and laid the foundations of the earth.
And this was the evil against which Christ cautioned his own Disciples in