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CHAP. XXVI. II. Fear.
IT is that passion which makes the heart to shrink and withdraw it self from an imminent evil which it conceiveth it self now unable to escape or suffer.
First, It must be exercised alone upon fit objects. The things we may and must fear are real evils.
1. Natural, as poverty, shame, danger, death, when God or our lawful Go∣vernour threaten them against us, for we must fear Gods threats and trem∣ble at his Word, or when God or the Magistrate executes them, there∣fore when we hear of the punishment of sinners, also it must make us fear. Iacob feared Esau, and David saith, He feared reproach, that is, due and just reproach.
2. Spiritual, at all times, viz. sinne, Gods anger and eternal damnation, we must fear to sinne, to incurre Gods anger, and bring our selves to death, as Io∣seph feared, How shall I do this great evil? and Paul saith, Having this terrour, we perswade men; and Iob feared the judgement of God, and durst not wrong his servant. So long must we fear eternal punishment of sin till we be freed from it by Christ, and then we must fear it no more.
Secondly, The measure of our fear in two things.
1. All our fears of what things soever ought to be moderate, so farre as to awa∣ken wit, courage and care to avoid peril, and no farther. For all the affections of man were planted in him to further his welfare, and they must be fitted to that end in the measure of their working. As we see in Iacobs fear of Esau, and in Christs fear in the Garden; yea our fear of Gods anger and eternal death should be so moderate as only to move us to use the right means of escape, even of submitting our selves to God. Only in one case excessive fear is no sinne, but alone a fruit of weaknesse, viz. when God shews himself extraordinarily in terrible signs, or when an Angel shews himself.
2. We must fear spiritual evils more then natural, sinne more then mans displea∣sure or any losse, and damnation above all other evils whatsoever, as the Saints of God and Martyrs in former times have done. David saith, I will not fear what man can do unto me; And I will not fear though I walk in the valley of death.
We must not fear
- 1. The causlesse anger or reproach of men, nor imaginary evils, The wicked stie when none pursueth. The noise of a leaf shall chase them, Levit. The shadows of the mountains seem men to them, Iudg. 4.
- 2. More real evils when they oppose us in a way of our duty, Fear not them that kill the body; fear not any of these things that thou shalt suffer.
- 3. The evils against which God hath secured us by his gracious promise, as the Lord bids Ioshua not to fear, and the people are commanded not to fear when they shall see a great army. David said, God is my light and shield, I will not fear what man can do unto me. A Christian reconciled to God should not fear any outward danger, for he hath God ingaged to him to save and deliver him in all extremity. The fearfull must to hell, those which fear when and what they should not.
The way to rectifie this passion is to get faith in God, true fear of God and a good conscience toward God; pray to him to sanctifie it.
The affection of fear must be distinguished from the grace and vertue of fear. Though where ever this vertue is there the affection by power of the vertue will be ordered also aright, yet they must be distinguished, for the affection of fear is in all men naturally, yea in the very Devils, but the grace of the fear of God is a part of sanctification, and cannot be found but in the elect childe of God.