[3.] There is in fear a reverence and a dread of God — his holiness, ■ his majesty, his power, his justice, and the like. Now we may dread God either as creatures or as sinners • either as our maker, or as our judge, or as both ; as our maker, so we dread God for himself; as our judge, so we dread him for our own sakes, because of sin. These two are distinct ; the one may be where the other is not. As in heaven, the saints and glorious angels fear God — fear being an essential respect of the creature to God; in heaven, it is a grace that never cease th. Now they dread God as full of majesty and goodness, and as the great creator of the world ; and in paradise there was this fear of reverence. Adam did not fear God as a judge till he had sinned : Gen. iii. 10, * I was afraid, therefore 1 hid myself : ' this fear entered into the world with sin. Adam in iunocency only reverenced him for his majesty, goodness, and holiness, as the saints and angels do in heavei^; and there may be fear where only God is feared as a judge. The wicked stand in fear of nothing but hell and wrath ; they fear not God for God, but for themselves; not because of the dignity of his majesty, but because of their own danger.
Quest -If you ask me, then, what fear is lawful ?
I answer. It must be a mixed fear, partly because of his majesty and holiness ; and partly, because of his justice while we are in the present state, not wholly exempt from the strokes of God's justice ; and this is the fear that is in the children of God, and is usually called by the name of filial fear ; whereas the other in wicked men is called by the name of servile and slavish fear. The distinction is grounded on scripture, and so called with allusion to the fear of ^children and servants ; children fear their loving parents, and servants fear their hard and cruel masters. The grounds of this distinction are famously known — the spirit of bondage and the spirit of adoption : Eom. viii. 15, ' Ye have not received the s})irit of bondage again to fear, but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby Ave cry, Abba, Father: ' the spirit of bondage is the root and ground of servile fear, and the spirit of adoption is the ground of filial fear. Now, though there may be some servile fear in the children of God, yet it is more and more wrought out the more we increase in the apprehension of God's love : 1 John iv. 18, ' Perfect love casteth out fear.' I take it there for the appre- hension of God's love, not for our love to God.
Now 1 shall state the differences between these two kinds of fears, servile and filial.
(1.) Filial fear is always coupled with love — for there is a harmony between the graces — but servile fear with hatred. Filial fear ariseth from a humble sense of God's goodness, and thereby God is made
198 SERMONS UPON HEBIIEWS XI. [SeR. XXXVII.
more amiable and lovely to the soul : Ps. cxxx. 4, ' Tliere is forgiveness with thee that thou raayest be feared ; ' they are afraid to displease so good a God as they have found him to be in Christ : Hosea iii. 5, 'And they shall fear the Lord and his goodness.' Mark, it is not the Lord, and his wrath and his justice, but his goodness. Filial fear is rather l)ecause of his benefits past, than of his judgments to come; but now servile fear ariseth merely from a sense of this wrath, and so causeth hatred of God. Oderunt dum metuunt, — they hate God while they fear him. Wicked men, it is true, stand in dread of God ; but they have hard thoughts of God, and they could wish tliere was no God, or that he were not such a God ; aid Demn extinctum cupiimt aut exarmatum — either they wish the destruction of his being or of his glory ; either that there were no God, or that he were a weak or powerless God ; not such a God, not so holy, just, and powerful. It is a pleasing thought to a carnal heart if there were no God to punish him. Such fear there is in the devils themselves: James ii. 19, ' They believe and tremble ; ' they abhor their own thoughts of God, and their bondage is increased with their knowledge. So do wicked men hate those characters of God engraven upon their consciences, they stand in dread of God, but it is a fear that is accompanied with hatred rather than love.
(2.) Filial fear is accompanied with a shyness of sin, but not with a" shyness of God's presence. Adam, as soon as he had sinned, he bewrayed this slavish fear ; the more he feared, the more he ran away from God : Gen. iii. 10, ' I was afraid, because I was naked, and hid myself.' His guilt makes him run into the bushes. When men feel God's wrath tliey cannot endure the presence of his glory. Before man fell, there was nothing sweeter to him than familiarity with God ; but as soon as he sinned, — ' I was afraid, and hid myself.' Now when fear makes us to fly from God, it must needs be culpable ; for the aim of all graces is to preserve a communion and a respect between God and the soul ; and therefore the proper use of fear is rather to fly from sin than to fly from God. In short, there is a fear that keepeth us from coming to God, and that is carnal ; and there is a fear that keepeth us from going away from God, which preserves the soul in a way of lioly acquaint- ance and communion with God, and that is a holy fear : Jer. xxxii. 40, ' I will put my fear into their hearts, that they shall not depart from me.' Fear is the preserving grace, therefore it is mere bond- age and horror that sets the soul at a distance from God ; yet this is in all wicked men ; they think they can never banish God far enough out of their thoughts; they would, if they could, withdraw themselves from his government and get out of his sight ; they would fain run away from God ; tliey hate his presence in their consciences, because they carry their hell and their accuser always about them ; and it were happy for them they think if they should never more see God. But now a gracious fear makes the heart to cleave the closer to God. A child of God is troubled, because sin is apt to breed a strangeness ; and because they cannot more delight in his company, they are never near enough to God. A godly man is afraid of losing God, and a carnal man is afraid of finding him. The voice of slavish fear is—' Hide us from tlie face of him that sits upon the throne, and from the Avrath of the Lamb,' Eev. vi. 16 ; but true fear is afraid lest God should hide himself — afraid lest God should