A65309:71
Religion our true interest, or, Practical notes upon the third chapter of Malachi the…Religion our true interest, or, Practical notes upon the third chapter of Malachy the…
Religion our true interest, or, Practical notes upon the third chapter of Malachi the sixteen, seventeen and eighteen verses : seasonable for the times / by Thomas Watson ...Religion our true interest, or, Practical notes upon the third chapter of Malachy the sixteen, seventeen and eighteen verses : seasonable for the times / by Thomas Watson ...
London: printed by J. Astwood for Tho. Parkhurst, 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.
They that feared the Lord: The fear of God is the Sum of all Religion, Eccles. 12.13. Fear is the leading Grace, the first seed God sows in the Heart. When a Christian can say little of Faith, and perhaps nothing of Assurance, yet he dares not deny but he fears God. *God is so Great that he is afraid of displeasing him, and so Good that he is afraid of losing him.
They that feared the Lord: The fear of God is the Summe of all Religion, Eccles. 12.13. Fear is the leading Grace, the first seed God sows in the Heart. When a Christian can say little of Faith, and perhaps nothing of Assurance, yet he dares not deny but he fears God. *God is so Great that he is afraid of displeasing him, and so Good that he is afraid of losing him.
It is an indispensable Duty incumbent on Christians to be Fearers of God.1 ⟨p. 16⟩Eccles. 5.7. Fear thou God. Deut. 28.58. That thou mayest fear this Glorious and fearful name the Lord thy God. This goes to the very constituting of a Saint. One can no more act as a Christian without Fear, than he can act as a man without reason. This Holy Fear is the fixed temper and Complexion of the Soul; This Fear is not Servile but Filial; there is difference between Fearing God, and being afraid of God; the Godly fear God as a Child doth his Father, the wicked are afraid of God as the Prisoner is of the Judge. This divine Fear will appear admirable, if you consider how it is mixed and interwoven with several of the Graces.