SECOND. I come now to the second thing, to wit, to show you what this fear of God flows from.
First, this fear, this grace of fear, this son-like fear of God, flows from God's distinguishing love to his elect. "I will be their God," saith he, "and I will put my fear in their hearts." None else obtain it but those enclosed and bound up in that bundle. Therefore, in the same place, they are said to be those who are wrapped up in the eternal or everlasting covenant of God and so designed to be the people who should be blessed with this fear. "I will make an everlasting covenant with them," saith God, "that I will not turn away from them to do them good, but I will put my fear in their hearts, that they shall not depart from me" (Jer 32:38-40). This covenant declares unto men that God hath, in his heart, distinguishing love for some of the children of men; for he saith, he will be their God, that he will not leave them, nor yet suffer them to depart, to wit, finally, from him. Into these men's hearts, he doth put his fear, this blessed grace, and this rare and effectual sign of his love and of their eternal salvation.
Second. This fear flows from a new heart. This fear is not in men by nature; the fear of devils they may have, as also an ungodly fear of God; but this fear is not in any but where there dwelleth a new heart, another fruit and effect of this everlasting covenant, and of this distinguishing love of God. "A new heart also will I give them"; a new heart, what a one is that? Why, the same prophet saith in another place, "A heart to fear me," a circumcised one, a sanctified one (Jer 32:39; Eze 11:19, 36:26). So then, until a man receives a heart from God, a heart from heaven, a new heart, he has not this fear of God in him. New wine must not be put into old bottles, lest the one, to wit, mar the wine, or the wine the bottles. Still, new wine must have new bottles, and then both shall be preserved (Matt 9:17). This fear of God must not be, cannot be found in old hearts; old hearts are not bottles out of which this fear of God proceeds, but it is from an honest and good heart, from a new one, from such a one that is also an effect of the everlasting covenant, and love of God to men.
" I will give them one heart" to fear me; there must be heart in all actions; without heart, no action is good, nor can there be faith, love, or fear from every kind of heart. These must flow from such a one, whose nature is to produce and produce such fruit. Do men gather grapes of thorns or figs of thistles? So from a corrupt heart, there cannot proceed such fruit as the fear of God, as to believe in and love God (Luke 6:43-45). The heart naturally is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked; how should the fear of God flow from such a one? It cannot be. He, therefore, that hath not received a new heart at the hands of God, cannot fear the Lord.
Third. This fear of God flows from an impression, a sound impression, that the Word of God maketh on our souls; without an impress of the Word, there is no fear of God. Hence, it is said that God gave Israel good laws, statutes, and judgments that they might learn and, in understanding them, learn to fear the Lord their God. Therefore, saith God, in another place, "Gather the people together, men, and women, and children, and thy stranger that is within thy gates, that they may hear, and that they may learn and fear the Lord your God" (Deut 6:1,2, 31:12). For as a man drinketh sound doctrine into his soul, so he feareth God. If he drinks it in much, he feareth him greatly; if he drinketh it in but little, he feareth him but little; if he drinketh it not in at all, he feareth him not at all. This, therefore, teaches us how to judge who feareth the Lord; they are those who learn and who stand in awe of the Word. Those that have by the holy Word of God the very form of itself engraved upon the face of their souls fear God (Rom 6:17).[15]
But, on the contrary, those that do not love sound doctrine, that gives not the place to the wholesome truths of the God of heaven, revealed in his Testament, to take place in their souls, but rather despise it, and the true possessors of it, they fear not God. For, as I said before, this fear of God it flows from a sound impression that the Word of God maketh upon the soul; therefore,
Fourth. This godly fear floweth from faith; for where the Word maketh a sound impression on the soul, by that impression is faith begotten, whence also this fear doth flow. Therefore right hearing of the Word is called "the hearing of faith" (Gal 3:2). Hence it is said again, "By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house, by the which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith" (Heb 11:7). The Word, the warning that he had from God of things not seen as yet, wrought, through faith therein, that fear of God in his heart that made him prepare against unseen dangers and that he might be an inheritor of unseen happiness. Where, therefore, there is no faith in the Word of God, there can be none of this fear; where the Word does not make a sound impression on the soul, there can be none of this faith. So that as vices hang together and have the links of a chain, dependence one upon another, even so, the graces of the Spirit also are the fruits of one another, and have such dependence on each other, that the one cannot be without the other. No faith, no fear of God; devil's faith, devil's fear; saint's faith, saint's fear.
