A Practical Commentary on the Epistle of Jude

Again observe, That fear is a way to reclaim obstinate sinners, 'tis sweet to use arguments of love, but sometimes we must lay before men the terrors of the Lord, 2 Cor. 5. 11: Paul an elect vessel made use of threatenings, 1 Cor, 9. 27. Surely men have a mind to sleep in sin, when they would always have us come in the still voice. Dives was more charitable than they would have us to be, he would fain dismiss a flamy Messenger to his Brethren, Luc. 16. 27, 28. Sluggish Creatures need the go•d; in innocency God saw it meet to propound a threatening, and fenced the forbidden fruit with a curse, Gen. 2. 17. if a boisterous lust bear down all milder motives, 'tis good to scare the soul with threatenings of the Law; fear is good, but the servility or slavishness of it is sinful; fear it self, or a tender sense of Gods wrath and displeasure against sin, is so far from being a sin, that it is a grace rightly conversant with its object: Gods wrath and vindicative justice, is the proper object of fear, and so it must be looked upon by the converted and ⟨p. 544⟩unconverted. 1. For the unconverted, 'tis the great fault and security that they do not consider what a dreadful thing it is to lye under the wrath and displeasure of God, Psal. 90. 11. there is but a step between them and Hell, and they mind it not; tell them of their danger, and they scorn it. 2. The converted are to fear Gods wrath, Mat. 10. 28. 'tis a duty Christ enjoineth to his own Disciples; the words do not only contain a description of the person who ought to be feared, but of the ground and reason why he ought to be feared; Fear him who is able to cast body and soul into hell fire, is as much as because he is able to cast body and soul into hell fire, as appeareth by the Antithesis, Fear not them that kill the body, that is, because they are able to kill the body, see also, Heb. 12 28, 29. Though we are to fear Hell as an evil likely to fall upon us (when we are assured from Gods favour) yet we must fear it, as an evil which God hath power to inflict, and will certainly upon those that disobey him; we are to fear it, so as to eschew it with a fear of flight and aversation, not with a perplexing and doubting fear.