This fear creates great trouble and perturbation in the mind, 1 John iv. 18. Fear hath torment; in proportion to the danger, is the fear ; and in proportion to the fear, the trouble and distrac- tion of the mind : if the fear be exceeding great, reason is displaced^ and can conduct us no farther, as the Psalmist speaks of mariners in a storm, " they are at their wits end,'' Psal. cvii. 27. or as it is varied in the * margin, all wisdom is swallowed up. And this is the meaning of Deut. xxviii. 25. that they should go out against their enemies one way, and " flee before them seven ways,"" i. e. so great shall be the fright and distraction, that they shall attempt now one way, then another, striving every way, but liking none ; for fear so far betrays the succours of reason, that their -f- counsels are always in uncertainty, and at a loss, and the usual voice of a man in this condition is, / know not what to do, I know not which way to turn.
Evil is the object of fear, and the greater the evil is, the stronger the fear must needs be, and therefore the terrors of an awaken- ed and terrified conscience must be allov/ed to be the greatest of terrors, because in that case a man hath to do with a great and ter- rible God, and is scared with apprehensions of his infinite and eter- nal wrath, than which, no evil is or can be greater. You see at what height Christ's conflict wrought with it when it made him sweat as it were, great clots of blood. Of all temporal evils death is the greatest, and therefore Job calls it the King of terrors, Job xviii. 14. or the most terrible of terribles. Thuanus \ relates two strange instances of the fear of death : '* One of a certain captain " who was so terrified with the fear of death, that he poured out " a kind of bloody sweat from all parts of his body. Another is of " a young man condemned for a small matter by [j Sixtus Quin- '' tus, v*ho was so vehemently terrified with the fears of deatli, «' that he shed a kind of bloody tears." These are strange and terrible efl^ects of fear, but vastly short of what Christ felt and suf- fered, who grappled with a far greater evil than the terrors of death, even the wrath of an incensed God poured out, to the full, and that immediately upon him.
* Rector in incerto est, nee qvjdj'ugiatve petatw, inveiiit. — Ovid.
I Pavidi semper consilia in incerto.
\ Dun qiddam indigwj mortis metu, adeo concussus ,fuit, ut sanguineum sudorem tota coi-jjorejudit, Hist. lib. 11.
II Juvenis ob levcm c.ausam a Sirlo Y-damvatus, jtrce doloris vehemejitiajertur lacrymas curentasj'udisie. Lib, So.
A PltACTICAL TREATISE OF FEAR. 247
But yet evil, as evil, is rather the object of hatred than of fear, it must be an imminent or near approaching evil, wliich we see not how to escape or put by, that provokes fear, and rouses this lion. And therefore the saints in glory are perfectly freed from fear, because they are out of the reach of all danger : nor do we, that are here in the midst of evils, fear them till we see them approach- ing us, and we see not how to avoid them. To hear of fire, plague, or the sword in the Indies, doth not affright us, because the evil is so remote from us ; it is far enough off, we are in no danger of it ; but when it is in the town, much more when within our own dwell- ings, we tremble. Evil hurts us not by a simple apprehension of its nature, but of its union ; and all propinquity is a degree of union, as a * learned divine speaks. And it is worth observation, that all carnal security is maintained by putting evils at a great distance from us, as it is noted of those secure sensualists, Amos vi. 3. " They put far from them the evil day.'' The meaning is not that they did, or could put the evil one minute farther from them in reality, but only by imagination and fancy : they shut their own eyes, and would not see it, lest it should give an unpleasing interruption to their mirth ; and this is the reason why death puts the living into no more fear, because it is apprehended as remote, and at an undetermined distance, whereas if the precise time of death were known, especially if that time were near, it would greatly scar and terrify.
This is the nature of natural fear, the infelicity of nature, which we all groan under the effects of: it is in all the creatures in some degree ; but among them all, none suffer more by it than man, for hereby he becomes his own tormentor ; nor is any torment greater than this when it prevails in a high degree upon us. Indeed all constitutions and tempers admit not the same degrees of fear ; some are naturally courageous and stout, like the lion for magnanimity and fortitude; others exceeding timorous and faint-hearted, like the hare or hart, one Kttle dog will make a hundred of them flee before him. Luther was a man of great courage and presence of mind in dangers, f Melancthon very timorous and subject to des- pondency. Thus the difference betwixt them is expressed in one of Luther's letters to him : " I am well nigh a secure spectator of " things, and esteem not any thing these fierce and threatening " Papists say. I much dislike those anxious cares, winch, as thou " writest, do almost consume thee." There might be as great a stock of grace in one as in the other, but INIelancthon's grace had not the advantage of so stout and courageous a temper of body and mind as Luther's had. Thus briefly of natural fear.
f Epist. ad, Melanct, Ann. 1549.
248 A ritACTICAL TREATISE OF FEAK,
Sect. II. There is a fear which is formally and intrinsically sin- ful, not only our infelicity, but our fault ; not our simple affliction and burden, but our great evil and provocation ; and such is the fear here dissuaded, called their fear, i. e. the fear wherewith carnal and unbelieving men do fear when dangers threaten them ; and the sinfulness of it lies in five things.
1. In the spring and cause of it which is unbelief, and an unwor- thy distrust of God, when we dare not rely upon the security of a Divine promise, nor trust to God's protection in the way of our duty. This was the very case of that people, Isa. xxx. 15. " Thus '' saith the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, in returning and " rest shall ye be saved, in quietness and in confidence shall be '' your strength ; and ye would not. But ye said, no, for we will " flee upon horses ; therefore ye shall flee : and we will ride upon "the swift; therefore shall they that pursue you be swift. One " thousand shall flee at the rebuke of one,"" &c.