Works of John Bunyan: A TREATISE OF THE FEAR OF GOD. 442

 

Fifth. This ungodly fear of God 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. The truth is, where this ungodly fear reigned, 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 cause 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, such as the washing of cups, beds, tables, and basins, with an 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 sackcloth, saying so many Paternosters, 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? Could they be brought to believe this doctrine, that Christ was delivered for our offenses and raised again for our justification, and to apply it by faith with godly boldness to their souls, this fear would vanish. 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 thou shouldest fear God, it includes not, nor accepted 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 care should be, to see and prove thy fear to be godly, which shall be the next thing 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 good and godly men, yet doth not forever 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 beget 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. Still, 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 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 persecutes 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. I say he lay under it until Ananias came to him to comfort him and preach unto him the forgiveness of sin (Acts 9). The fear, therefore, that now I call godly is that fear which is appropriately called the fear of eternal damnation for sin, and this fear, at first awakening, is excellent and godly because it arises 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 the remission of sins: "He that believeth not shall be damned."—"He that believeth not is condemned already, and the wrath of God abides on him" (Mark 16:16; John 3:18,36). 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.