discontent, and heart-risings against God under the hand of God; and
that is, when the dread of God in his coming upon men, to deal with
them for their sins, is apprehended by them, and yet by this
dispensation they have no change of heart to submit to God thereunder.
The sinners under this dispensation cannot shake God out of their mind,
nor yet graciously tremble before him; but through the unsanctified
frame that they now are in, they are afraid with ungodly fear, and so
in their minds let fly against him. This fear oftentimes took hold of
the children of Israel when they were in the wilderness in their
journey to the promised land; still they feared that God in this place
would destroy them, but not with that fear that made them willing to
submit, for their sins, to the judgment which they fear, but with that
fear that made them let fly against God. This fear showed itself in
them, even at the beginning of their voyage, and was rebuked by Moses
at the Red Sea, but it was not there, nor yet at any other place, so
subdued, but that it would rise again in them at times to the dishonour
of God, and the anew making of them guilty of sin before him (Exo
14:11-13; Num 14:1-9). This fear is that which God said he would send
before them, in the day of Joshua, even a fear that should possess the
inhabitants of the land, to wit, a fear that should arise for that
faintness of heart that they should be swallowed up of, at their
apprehending of Joshua in his approaches towards them to destroy them.
“I will send my fear before thee, and will destroy all the people to
whom thou shalt come, and I will make all thine enemies turn their
backs unto thee” (Exo 23:27). “This day,” says God, “will I begin to
put the dread of thee, and the fear of thee upon the nations that are
under the whole heaven who shall hear report of thee, and shall
tremble, and be in anguish because of thee” (Deut 2:25, 11:25).
Now this fear is also, as you here see, called anguish, and in another
place, an hornet; for it, and the soul that it falls upon, do greet
each other, as boys and bees do. The hornet puts men in fear, not so as
to bring the heart into a sweet compliance with his terror, but so as
to stir up the spirit into acts of opposition and resistance, yet
withal they flee before it. “I will send hornets before thee, which
shall drive out the Hivite,” &c. (Exo 23:28). Now this fear, whether it
be wrought by misapprehending of the judgments of God, as in the
Israelites, or otherwise as in the Canaanites, yet ungodliness is the
effect thereof, and therefore I call it an ungodly fear of God, for it
stirreth up murmurings, discontents, and heart-risings against God,
while he with his dispensations is dealing with them.
Second. There is a fear of God that driveth a man away from God—I speak
not now of the atheist, nor of the pleasurable sinner, nor yet of
these, and that fear that I spoke of just now—I speak now of such who
through a sense of sin and of God’s justice fly from him of a slavish
ungodly fear. This ungodly fear was that which possessed Adam’s heart
in the day that he did eat of the tree concerning which the Lord has
said unto him, “In the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely
die.” For then was he possessed with such a fear of God as made him
seek to hide himself from his presence. “I heard,” said he, “thy voice
in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself”
(Gen 3:10). Mind it, he had a fear of God, but it was not godly. It was
not that that made him afterwards submit himself unto him; for that
would have kept him from not departing from him, or else have brought
him to him again, with bowed, broken, and contrite spirit. But this
fear, as the rest of his sin, managed his departing from his God, and
pursued him to provoke him still so to do; by it he kept himself from
God, by it his whole man was carried away from him. I call it ungodly
fear, because it begat in him ungodly apprehensions of his Maker;
because it confined Adam’s conscience to the sense of justice only, and
consequently to despair.
The same fear also possessed the children of Israel when they heard the
law delivered to them on Mount Sinai; as is evident, for it made them
that they could neither abide his presence nor hear his word. It drove
them back from the mountain. It made them, saith the apostle to the
Hebrews, that “they could not endure that which was commanded” (Heb
12:20). Wherefore this fear Moses rebukes, and forbids their giving way
thereto. “Fear not,” said he; but had that fear been godly, he would
have encouraged it, and not forbid and rebuke it as he did. “Fear not,”
said he, “for God is come to prove you”; they thought otherwise. “God,”
saith he, “is come to prove you, and that his fear may be before your
faces.” Therefore that fear that already had taken possession of them,
was not the fear of God, but a fear that was of Satan, of their own
misjudging hearts, and so a fear that was ungodly (Exo 20:18-20). Mark
you, here is a fear and a fear, a fear forbidden, and a fear commended;
a fear forbidden, because it engendered their hearts to bondage, and to
ungodly thoughts of God and of his word; it made them that they could
not desire to hear God speak to them any more (vv 19-21).
Many also at this day are possessed with this ungodly fear; and you may
know them by this,—they cannot abide conviction for sin, and if at any
time the word of the law, by the preaching of the word, comes near
them, they will not abide that preacher, nor such kind of sermons any
more. They are, as they deem, best at ease, when furthest off of God,
and of the power of his word. The word preached brings God nearer to
them than they desire he should come, because whenever God comes near,
their sins by him are manifest, and so is the judgment too that to them
is due. Now these not having faith in the mercy of God through Christ,
nor that grace that tendeth to bring them to him, they cannot but think
of God amiss, and their so thinking of him makes them say unto him,
“Depart from us, for we desire not the knowledge of thy ways” (Job
21:14). Wherefore their wrong thoughts of God beget in them this
ungodly fear; and again, this ungodly fear doth maintain in them the
continuance of these wrong and unworthy thoughts of God, and therefore,
through that devilish service wherewith they strengthen one another,
the sinner, without a miracle of grace prevents him, is drowned in
destruction and perdition.
It was this ungodly fear of God that carried Cain from the presence of
God into the land of Nod, and that put him there upon any carnal
worldly business, if perhaps he might by so doing stifle convictions of
the majesty and justice of God against his sin, and so live the rest of
his vain life in the more sinful security and fleshly ease. This
ungodly fear is that also which Samuel perceived at the people’s
apprehension of their sin, to begin to get hold of their hearts;
wherefore he, as Moses before him, quickly forbids their entertaining
of it. “Fear not,” said he, “ye have done all this wickedness, yet turn
not aside from following the Lord.” For to turn them aside from
following of him, was the natural tendency of this fear. “But fear
not,” said he, that is, with that fear that tendeth to turn you aside.
Now, I say, the matter that this fear worketh upon, as in Adam, and the
Israelites mentioned before, was their sin. You have sinned, says he,
that is true, yet turn not aside, yet fear not with that fear that
would make you so do (1 Sam 12:20). Note by the way, sinner, that when
the greatness of thy sins, being apprehended by thee, shall work in
thee that fear of God, as shall incline thy heart to fly from him, thou
art possessed with a fear of God that is ungodly, yea, so ungodly, that
not any of thy sins for heinousness may be compared therewith, as might
be made manifest in many particulars, but Samuel having rebuked this
fear, presently sets before the people another, to wit, the true fear
of God; “fear the Lord,” says he, “serve him—with all your heart” (v
24). And he giveth them this encouragement so to do, “for the Lord will
not forsake his people.” This ungodly fear is that which you read of in
Isaiah 2, and in many other places, and God’s people should shun it, as
they would shun the devil, because its natural tendency is to forward
the destruction of the soul in which it has taken possession.[8]
Third. There is a fear of God, which, although it hath not in it that
power as to make men flee from God’s presence, yet it is ungodly,
because, even while they are in the outward way of God’s ordinances,
their hearts are by it quite discouraged from attempting to exercise
themselves in the power of religion. Of this sort are they which dare
not cast off the hearing, reading, and discourse of the word as others;
no, nor the assembly of God’s children for the exercise of other
religious duties, for their conscience is convinced this is the way and
worship of God. But yet their heart, as I said, by this ungodly fear,
is kept from a powerful gracious falling in with God. This fear takes
away their heart from all holy and godly prayer in private, and from
all holy and godly zeal for his name in public, and there be many
professors whose hearts are possessed with this ungodly fear of God;
and they are intended by the slothful one. He was a servant, a servant
among the servants of God, and had gifts and abilities given him,
therewith to serve Christ, as well as his fellows, yea, and was
commanded too, as well as the rest, to occupy till his master came. But
what does he? Why, he takes his talent, the gift that he was to lay out
for his master’s profit, and puts it in a napkin, digs a hole in the
earth, and hides his lord’s money, and lies in a lazy manner at
to-elbow all his days, not out of, but in his lord’s vineyard;[9] for
he came among the servants also at last. By which it is manifest that
he had not cast off his profession, but was slothful and negligent
while he was in it. But what was it that made him thus slothful? What
was it that took away his heart, while he was in the way, and that
discouraged him from falling in with the power and holy practice of
religion according to the talent he received? Why, it was this, he gave
way to an ungodly fear of God, and that took away his heart from the
power of religious duties. “Lord,” said he, “behold, here is thy pound,
which I have kept, laid up in a napkin, for I feared thee.” Why, man,
doth the fear of God make a man idle and slothful? No, no; that is, if
it be right and godly. This fear was therefore evil fear; it was that
ungodly fear of God which I have here been speaking of. For I feared
thee, or as Matthew hath it, “for I was afraid.” Afraid of what? Of
Christ, “that he was an hard man, reaping where he sowed not, and
gathering where he had not strawed.” This his fear, being ungodly, made
him apprehend of Christ contrary to the goodness of his nature, and so
took away his heart from all endeavours to be doing of that which was
pleasing in his sight (Luke 19:20; Matt 25:24, 25). And thus do all
those that retain the name and show of religion, but are neglecters as
to the power and godly practice of it. These will live like dogs and
swine in the house; they pray not, they watch not their hearts, they
pull not their hands out of their bosoms to work, they do not strive
against their lusts, nor will they ever resist unto blood, striving
against sin; they cannot take up their cross, or improve what they have
to God’s glory. Let all men therefore take heed of this ungodly fear,
and shun it as they shun the devil, for it will make them afraid where
no fear is. It will tell them that there is a lion in the street, the
unlikeliest place in the world for such a beast to be in; it will put a
vizard upon the face of God, most dreadful and fearful to behold, and
then quite discourage the soul as to his service; so it served the
slothful servant, and so it will serve thee, poor sinner, if thou
entertainest it, and givest way thereto. But,
Fourth. This ungodly fear of God shows itself also in this. It will not
suffer the soul that is governed thereby to trust only to Christ for
justification of life, but will bend the powers of the soul to trust
partly to the works of the law. Many of the Jews were, in the time of
Christ and his apostles, possessed with this ungodly fear of God, for
they were not as the former, to wit, as the slothful servant, to
receive a talent and hide it in the earth in a napkin, but they were an
industrious people, they followed after the law of righteousness, they
had a zeal of God and of the religion of their fathers; but how then
did they come to miscarry? Why, their fear of God was ungodly; it would
not suffer them wholly to trust to the righteousness of faith, which is
the imputed righteousness of Christ. They followed after the law of
righteousness, but attained not to the law of righteousness. Wherefore?
because they sought it not by faith, but as it were by the works of the
law. But what was it that made them join their works of the law with
Christ, but their unbelief, whose foundation was ignorance and fear?
They were afraid to venture all in one bottom, they thought two strings
to one bow would be best, and thus betwixt two stools they came to the
ground. And hence, to fear and to doubt, are put together as being the
cause one of another; yea, they are put ofttimes the one for the other;
thus ungodly fear for unbelief: “Be not afraid, only believe,” and
therefore he that is overruled and carried away with this fear, is
coupled with the unbeliever that is thrust out from the holy city among
the dogs. But the fearful and unbelievers, and murderers are without
(Rev 21:8). “The fearful and unbelieving,” you see, are put together;
for indeed fear, that is, this ungodly fear, is the ground of unbelief,
or, if you will, unbelief is the ground of fear, this fear: but I stand
not upon nice distinctions. This ungodly fear hath a great hand in
keeping of the soul from trusting only to Christ’s righteousness for
justification of life.
Fifth. This ungodly fear of God is that which will put men upon adding
to the revealed will of God their own inventions, and their own
performances of them, as a means to pacify the anger of God. For the
truth is, where this ungodly fear reigneth, there is no end of law and
duty. When those that you read of in the book of Kings were destroyed
by the lions, because they had set up idolatry in the land of Israel,
they sent for a priest from Babylon that might teach them the manner of
the God of the land; but behold when they knew it, being taught it by
the priest, yet their fear would not suffer them to be content with
that worship only. “They feared the Lord,” saith the text, “and served
their own gods.” And again, “So these nations feared the Lord, and
served their graven images” (2 Kings 17). It was this fear also that
put the Pharisees upon inventing so many traditions, as the washing of
cups, and beds, and tables, and basins, with abundance of such other
like gear,[10] none knows the many dangers that an ungodly fear of God
will drive a man into (Mark 7). How has it racked and tortured the
Papists for hundreds of years together! for what else is the cause but
this ungodly fear, at least in the most simple and harmless of them, of
their penances, as creeping to the cross, going barefoot on pilgrimage,
whipping themselves, wearing of sackcloth, saying so many
Pater-nosters, so many Ave-marias, making so many confessions to the
priest, giving so much money for pardons, and abundance of other the
like, but this ungodly fear of God? For could they be brought to
believe this doctrine, that Christ was delivered for our offences, and
raised again for our justification, and to apply it by faith with godly
boldness to their own souls, this fear would vanish, and so
consequently all those things with which they so needlessly and
unprofitably afflicted themselves, offend God, and grieve his people.
Therefore, gentle reader, although my text doth bid that indeed thou
shouldest fear God, yet it includeth not, nor accepteth of any fear;
no, not of any [or every] fear of God. For there is, as you see, a fear
of God that is ungodly, and that is to be shunned as their sin.
Wherefore thy wisdom and thy care should be, to see and prove thy fear
to be godly, which shall be the next thing that I shall take in hand.
THIRD. The third thing that I am to speak to is, that there is a fear
of God in the heart of some men that is good and godly, but yet doth
not for ever abide so. Or you may take it thus—There is a fear of God
that is godly but for a time. In my speaking to, and opening of this to
you, I shall observe this method. First. I shall show you what this
fear is. Second. I shall show you by whom or what this fear is wrought
in the heart. Third. I shall show you what this fear doth in the soul.
And, Fourth, I shall show you when this fear is to have an end.
First. For the first, this fear is an effect of sound awakenings by the
word of wrath which begetteth in the soul a sense of its right to
eternal damnation; for this fear is not in every sinner; he that is
blinded by the devil, and that is not able to see that his state is
damnable, he hath not this fear in his heart, but he that is under the
powerful workings of the word of wrath, as God’s elect are at first
conversion, he hath this godly fear in his heart; that is, he fears
that that damnation will come upon him, which by the justice of God is
due unto him, because he hath broken his holy law. This is the fear
that made the three thousand cry out, “Men and brethren, what shall we
do?” and that made the jailer cry out, and that with great trembling of
soul, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” (Acts 2, 16). The method of
God is to kill and make alive, to smite and then heal; when the
commandment came to Paul, sin revived, and he died, and that law which
was ordained to life, he found to be unto death; that is, it passed a
sentence of death upon him for his sins, and slew his conscience with
that sentence. Therefore from that time that he heard that word, “Why
persecutest thou me?” which is all one as if he had said, Why dost thou
commit murder? he lay under the sentence of condemnation by the law,
and under this fear of that sentence in his conscience. He lay, I say,
under it, until that Ananias came to him to comfort him, and to preach
unto him the forgiveness of sin (Acts 9). The fear therefore that now I
call godly, it is that fear which is properly called the fear of
eternal damnation for sin, and this fear, at first awakening, is good
and godly, because it ariseth in the soul from a true sense of its very
state. Its state by nature is damnable, because it is sinful, and
because he is not one that as yet believeth in Christ for remission of
sins: “He that believeth not shall be damned.”—“He that believeth not
is condemned already, and the wrath of God abideth on him” (Mark 16:16;
John 3:18,36). The which when the sinner at first begins to see, he
justly fears it; I say, he fears it justly, and therefore godly,
because by this fear he subscribes to the sentence that is gone out
against him for sin.
Second. By whom or by what is this fear wrought in the heart? To this I
shall answer in brief. It is wrought in the heart by the Spirit of God,
working there at first as a spirit of bondage, on purpose to put us in
fear. This Paul insinuateth, saying, “Ye have not received the spirit
of bondage again to fear” (Rom 8:15). He doth not say, Ye have not
received the spirit of bondage; for that they had received, and that to
put them in fear, which was at their first conversion, as by the
instances made mention of before is manifest; all that he says is, that
they had not received it again, that is, after the Spirit, as a spirit
of adoption, is come; for then, as a spirit of bondage, it cometh no
more. It is then the Spirit of God, even the Holy Ghost, that
convinceth us of sin, and so of our damnable state because of sin (John
16:8,9). For it cannot be that the Spirit of God should convince us of
sin, but it must also show us our state to be damnable because of it,
especially if it so convinceth us, before we believe, and that is the
intent of our Lord in that place, “of sin,” and so of their damnable
state by sin, because they believe not on me. Therefore the Spirit of
God, when he worketh in the heart as a spirit of bondage, he doth it by
working in us by the law, “for by the law is the knowledge of sin” (Rom
3:20). And he, in this his working, is properly called a spirit of
bondage.
1. Because by the law he shows us that indeed we are in bondage to the
law, the devil, and death and damnation; for this is our proper state
by nature, though we see it not until the Spirit of God shall come to
reveal this our state of bondage unto our own senses by revealing to us
our sins by the law.
2. He is called, in this his working, “the spirit of bondage,” because
he here also holds us; to wit, in this sight and sense of our
bondage-state, so long as is meet we should be so held, which to some
of the saints is a longer, and to some a shorter time. Paul was held in
it three days and three nights, but the jailer and the three thousand,
so far as can be gathered, not above an hour; but some in these later
times are so held for days and months, if not years.[11] But, I say,
let the time be longer or shorter, it is the Spirit of God that holdeth
him under this yoke; and it is good that a man should be in HIS time
held under it, as is that saying of the lamentation, “It is good for a
man that he bear the yoke in his youth” (Lam 3:27). That is, at his
first awakening; so long as seems good to this Holy Spirit to work in
this manner by the law. Now, as I said, the sinner at first is by the
Spirit of God held in this bondage, that is, hath such a discovery of
his sin and of his damnation for sin made to him, and also is held so
fast under the sense thereof, that it is not in the power of any man,
nor yet of the very angels in heaven, to release him or set him free,
until the Holy Spirit changeth his ministration, and comes in the sweet
and peaceable tidings of salvation by Christ in the gospel to his poor,
dejected, and afflicted conscience.
Third. I now come to show you what this fear doth in the soul. Now,
although this godly fear is not to last always with us, as I shall
further show you anon, yet it greatly differs from that which is wholly
ungodly of itself, both because of the author, and also of the effects
of it. Of the author I have told you before; I now shall tell you what
it doth.
1. This fear makes a man judge himself for sin, and to fall down before
God with a broken mind under this judgment; the which is pleasing to
God, because the sinner by so doing justifies God in his saying, and
clears him in his judgment (Psa 51:1-4).
2. As this fear makes a man judge himself, and cast himself down at
God’s foot, so it makes him condole and bewail his misery before him,
which is also well-pleasing in his sight: “I have surely heard Ephraim
bemoaning himself,” saying, “Thou hast chastised me, and I was
chastised, as a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke,” &c. (Jer 31:18,19).
3. This fear makes a man lie at God’s foot, and puts his mouth in the
dust, if so be there may be hope. This also is well-pleasing to God,
because now is the sinner as nothing, and in his own eyes less than
nothing, as to any good or desert: “He sitteth alone and keepeth
silence,” because he hath now this yoke upon him; “he putteth his mouth
in the dust, if so be there may be hope” (Lam 3:28,29).
4. This fear puts a man upon crying to God for mercy, and that in most
humble manner; now he sensibly cries, now he dejectedly cries, now he
feels and cries, now he smarts and criest out, “God be merciful to me a
sinner” (Luke 18:13).
5. This fear makes a man that he cannot accept of that for support and
succour which others that are destitute thereof will take up, and be
contented with. This man must be washed by God himself, and cleansed
from his sin by God himself (Psa 51).
6. Therefore this fear goes not away until the Spirit of God doth
change his ministration as to this particular, in leaving off to work
now by the law, as afore, and coming to the soul with the sweet word of
promise of life and salvation by Jesus Christ. Thus far this fear is
godly, that is, until Christ by the Spirit in the gospel is revealed
and made over unto us, and no longer.