In our dreadful Marian days, Sir John Cheek, who had been tutor to King Edward VI. was cast into the tower, and kept close prisoner, and there put to this miserable choice, eithe?' to forego his life, or that zvhich was mm'e precious, his Uh er It/ of conscience ; nei- ther could his liberty be procured by his great friends at any lower rate than to recant his religion : This he was very unwilling to ac- cept of, till his hard imprisonment, joined with threats of much worse in case of his refusal, at last wrought so upon him, whilst he consulted mth flesh and blood, as drew from him an ahrenunciation of that truth which he had so long professed, and still believed : Upon this he was restored to his liberty, but never to his comfort ; for the sense of his own apostasy, and the daily sight of the cruel butcheries exercised upon others for their constant adherence to the truth, made such deep impressions upon his broken spirit, as brought him to a speedy end of his life, yet not without some com- fortable hopes at last.
Our own histories abound with multitudes of such doleful ex- amples.
Some have been in such horror of conscience that they have cho- sen strangling rather than life ; they have felt that anguish of con- science that hath put them upon desperate resolutions and attempts against their own lives to rid themselves of it. This was the case of poor P^ter Moon, who being driven by his own fears to deny the
A PKx\CTrCAL TREATISE OF FEAR. S8T
truth, presently fell into such horror of conscience, that seeing a sword hanging in his parlour, would have sheathed it in his own bowels. So Francis Spira, before-mentioned, when he was near his end, saw a knife on the table, and running to it, would have michiefed himself, had not his friends prevented him ; thereupon he said, O ! that I zvere above God, for I know that he will have no mercy on me. He lay about eight weeks (saith the historian) in a continual burning, neither desiring or receiving any thing bid by force, and that without digestion, till he became as an anatomy ; vehemently raging for drink, yet fearing to live long ; dreadfid of hell, yet coveting death ; in a continual torment, yet his own tor- mentor ; and thus consuming himself with grief and horror, im- patience and despair, like a living man in hell, he represented an ext7'aordinary example of God'' s justice and power ^ and so ended his miserable life.
Surely it were good to fright ourselves by such dreadful exam- ples out of our sinful fears ; is any misery we can fear from the hands of man like this .? O, reader ! believe it, " it is a fearful " thing to fall into the hands of an angry God."' Hadst thou ever felt the rage and efficacy of a wounded and distressed conscience, as these poor wretches felt it, no fears or threats of men should drive thee into such an hell upon earth as this is.
2. And yet, though this be a doleful case, it is not the worst case your own sinful fears will cast you into, except the Lord over- come and extinguish them in you by the fear of his name, they will not only bring you into a kind of hell upon earth, but into hell itself for evermore ; for so the righteous God hath said in his word of truth. Rev. xxi. 8. " but the fearful and unbelieving, &c. " shall have their part in the lake which burnetii with fire and " brimstone, which is the second death." Behold here the mar- tial law of heaven executed upon cov/ards and renegadoes, v/hose fears make them revolt from Christ in the time of danger. Think upon this, you timorous and faint-hearted professors : you cannot bear the thoughts of lying in a nasty dungeon, how will you lie then in the lake of fire and brimstone ? You are afraid of the face and frowns of a man that shall die, but how will you live among devils ? Is the wrath of man like the fury of God poured out ? Is not the little finger of God heavier than the loins of all the ty- rants in the world ? Remember what Christ hath said. Mat. x. 33. " But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny " before my Fathei'' which is in heaven." Reader, the tinie is coming when he that spake these words shall break out of heaven with a shout, accompanied with myriads of angels, and X.'^w thou- sands of his saints, the heavens and the earth shall be in dreadful conflagrations round about him ; the last trump shall sound, the graves shall open, the earth and sea shall give up the dead that are
S88 A PRACTICAL TREATISE OF FEAR.
in them. Thine eyes shall see him ascend the awful throne of judg- ment, his faithful ones that feared not to own and appear for him in the face of all enemies and dangers, sitting on the bench, as assessors with him ; and then to be disclaimed and renounced for ever by Jesus Christ, in the face of that great assembly, and pro- claimed a dehnquent, a traitor to him, that deniedst his name and truths, because of the frowns of a fellow-creature, long since withered as the grass. Oh how wilt thou be able to endure this ! Now put both these together, in thy serious consideration, think on the terrors of conscience here, and the desperate horror of it in hell ; this is a par-boiling, that as a roasting in the flames of God's insufferable wrath : these as some scalding drops sprinkled before- hand upon thy conscience, that tender and sensible part of man ; that as the lake burning for ever with fire and brimstone. Oh ! who would suffer himself to be driven into all this misery, by the fears of these sufferings which can but touch the flesh ; and for their duration, they are but for a moment !
Think, and thiiik again upon those words of Christ, Mark viii. 35. " He that will save his life shall lose it." It may be a pro- longing of a miserable life, a life worse than death, even in thine own account ; a life without the comfort or joy of life ; a life ending in the second death ; and all this for fear of a trifle, compared with what thou shalt afterwards feel in thine own conscience, and less than a trifle, nothing, compared with what thou must suffer from God for ever.
Rule 3. He that will overcome his fears of sufferings, must fore- see and provide before-hand for them.