And, as one creature is apt inordinately and sinfully thus to trust and lean upon another, so there is as gi'eat a profaneness in the creatures inordinately to fear and dread each other, as if the crea- ture feared were rather a god than a man, rather a spirit than flesh ; and thus our fear magnifies and exalts the creature, and puts it, as it were, into the room and place of God. This was the sin which God rebuked in his own people, Isa. h. 12, 13. " I, even I, am he '' that comforteth thee : Who art thou, that thou shouldst be afraid " of a man that shall die, and of the son of man who shall be made " as grass ? and forgettest the Lord thy maker," &c. See how fear exalts man, and depresseth God ; it thinks upon the noxious power of men so much, that it forgots the saving power of God, as if that stood for nothing : thus a mortal worm, that shall perish as the grass, eclipses the glory of the great God, that stretched forth the heavens, and laid the foundations of the earth.
And this was the evil against which Christ cautioned his own disciples, in Matth. x. 28. " Fear not them which kill the body, *' but are not able to kill the soul ; but rather fear him which is *' able to destroy both soul and body in hell ;" q. d. Have a care
A PEACTICAL TREATISE OF FEAR. 251
you never fear any man, be he armed with never so much power and rage : as if the jK)wer of making or marring you for ever were in his hands, as if you lay at the feet of his will and pleasure to he saved or ruined for ever : fear not him that can only touch your bodies, as if he could damn your souls ; invest not any creature with the sovereign and incommunicable power of God.
4. The sinfulness of fear consists in the distracting influence it hath upon the hearts of men, whereby it discomposeth and unfits them for the discharge of their duties.
Fear sometimes puts men into such a hurry, and their thoughts into such disorder, that for the present they have scarce any succour or relief from their graces, or from their reason ; for under an extraordinary fear both grace and reason, like the wheels of a watch, wound above its due height, stand still, and have no motion at all. It is rare to find a man of that largeness and constancy of heart and mind, in a day of fear, that was found in Jehoshaphat, 2 Chron. XX. 2, S. " Then there came some that told Jehoshaphat, saying, " There cometh a great multitude against thee from beyond the " sea, on this side Syria, and behold they be in Hazazon-Taraar, " which is Engedi ; and Jehoshaphat feared, and set himself to " seek the Lord."" He set himself, i. e. he composed and fixed his heart for prayer in the time of so great a fright and terrible alarm : but it is rare to find such constancy and evenness of mind as this ; in like cases it is with most in great frights, as the prophet describes the condition of the Jews, Isa. xxii. 2, 3. vv^hen the city of Jerusalem was besieged, and the enemy came under the walls of it ; that which a little before Was the joyous city, or as some read, the revelling city, is now in such a panic fear, that it is full of stirs and tumults, some run up to the tops of the houses, either to hide or bewail themselves, or take a view of the dreadful enemy without ; others prevent the sword of the enemy, and die by fear before-hand, their own apprehensions of misery killed them before the sword of any other enemy once touched them ; but you read of none that ran into their closets to seek the Lord ; the city was full of stirs, but not of prayers, alas, fear made^hem cry to the mountains, ra- ther than to Gk>d, ver. 5. The best men find it hard to keep their thoughts from wandering, and their minds from distraction, in the greatest calm of peace, but a thousand times harder in the hun*ies and tumults of fear.
5. The sinfulness of fear consists in the power it hath to dispose and incline men to the use of sinful means to put by their danger, and to cast them into the hands and power of temptation. " The " fear of man bringeth a snare," Prov. xxix. 25. or puts and lays a snare before him : Satan spreads the net, and fear, like the stalk- ing-horse, drives men right into it It was fear which drew Abra-
^52 A PfiACTICAL TREATISE OF FEAR.
ham, that great behever, into the snare of dissimulation, to the great disparagement of rehgion ; for it was somewhat an odd sight to see Abimelech, an Heathen, so schoohng an Abraham for it, as he did, Gen. xx. 9- And for the same evil you find God chiding his people, in Isa. Ivii. 11. "And of whom hast thou been afraid, or *' feared, that thou hast hed, and hast not remembered me ?" There is a double lie occasioned by fear, one in words, and another in deeds ; hypocrisy is a lie done, a practical lie, and our church his- tory abounds with sad examples of dissimulation through fear : it is Satan's great engine to make his temptations victorious and success- ful with men.
Sect, III. There is an holy and laudable fear, a fear which is our treasure, not our torment ; the chief ornament of the soul, its beauty and perfection, not its infelicity or sin, viz. the awful filial fear of God ; natural fear is a pure and simple passion of the soul ; sinful fear is the disordered and corrupt passion of the soul ; but this is the natural passion sanctified, and thereby changed and bap- tized into the name and nature of a spiritual grace. This fear is also mentioned in my text, and prescribed as an antidote against sinful fears ; it devours carnal fears, as Moses' serpent did those of the enchanters. It is one of the sorest judgments to be in the fear of man day and night, Deut. xxviii. Qo, QQ, 67. and one of the sweetest mercies to be in the fear of God all the day long, Prov. xxiii. 17. The fear of man shortens our days, Isa. xxii. 34. but the fear of the Lord prolongeth our days, Prov. x. 27. The fear of the Lord is a fountain of hfe, Prov. xiv. 27. But the fear of man a fountain of mischiefs and miseries : By the fear of the Lord men depart from evil, Prov. xvi. 6. but, by the Jear of man men run themselves into evil, Prov. xxix. 25.
This fear is o. gi-aciaiis habit or pi^inciple planted by God in the soul, whereby the soul is kept under an holy azce of the eye of God, and from thence is inclined to perform and do what pleaseth him^ mnd to shun and avoid whatsoever he forbids a?id hates.
1. It is planted in the soul as a permanent and fixed habit ; it is not of the natural growth and production of man's heart, but gf supernatural infusion and implantation, Jer. xxxii. 40. " I will put " my fear into their inward parts." To fear man is natural, but to fear God is wholly supernatural.
2. This gracious fear puts the soul under the awe of God's eye, Psal. cxix. 161. '' My heart standeth in awe of thy word." It is the reproach of the servants of men to be eye-servants, but it is the praise and honour of God's servants to be so.