VeU. 7.] SERMONS UPON HEBREWS XI. 199'
shut up himself in a veil of displeasure. Observe that place : Hosea iii. 5, ' They shall seek the Lord their God, and David their king, and they shall fear the Lord and his goodness/ Tliat filial fear which ariseth from the the goodness of God makes us to seek God and run after him. It is a blessed fear that drives us to seek the face of God, and bring us into his presence.
(3.) Servile fear only respecteth the loss and punishment, but true fear is mixed : it respecteth the punishment, but not only ; it respecteth both offence and punishment ; only with this difference, they do not fear judgment so much as sin ; and in the punishment and judgment itself, to a gracious heart the loss is more horrible than the pain ; they ;u-e afraid lest there should be a divorce between them and God, lest they should grieve their good God, and cause him to depart from them. But now wicked men non peccare metuunt sed ardere — they are afraid to burn, but not afraid to sin. When it is merely for the punishment, then it is skvish fear. See how the apostle speaks of the habitual bondage that is in the heart of every wicked man : Heb. ii. 15, ' Through fear of death they are all their lifetime subject to bondage.' Now this kind of fear can never be gracious, partly because there is more of torment in it than there is of reverence ; and so it wants the chief and formal reason of fear, which is not the creature's danger, but God's excellency ; a carnal man fears hell more than God, which is an act of guilty and corrupt nature, not of religion. And partly, because it can never produce any genuine piety ; for if a wicked man should leave off sin out of this fear, it is not out of hatred to sin, but out of the fear of the punishment, as the bird is kept from the bait by the scarecrow. And so the sin is not hated, but forborne ; they love the sin and fear hell ; there is nothing restrained but the act ; servile fear restraineth the action, but the other mortifieth the affection. Godly men do not only forbear sin, but abhor sin, and hate it. A wicked man dares not sin, and a good man would not sin. Or suppose that out of this fear he should practise some duties (as a Avicked man may out of the compunction of slavish fear), yet this is but forced from him ; and forced fruit is never so kindly as that which is naturally ripened. All the duties of a wicked man are rather a sin-offering, than a tliank- offering ; not done out of any respect to God, or from reasons of religion, but to appease conscience. And therefore, upon the whole matter, we see that gracious fear must have another object besides the punishment; we may fear the punishment, but not only. A godly man doth not only fear hell, 'but fears an oath,' Eccles. ix. 2 ; that is, to be false to an oath. ' He fears the commandment,' Prov. xiii. 13. His greatest fear is lest he should cast off duty, and commit known sins.
(4.) Servile fear is involuntary. The wicked do not fear out of a voluntary act and exercise of faith, but a judicial impression. The fear that is in the godly ariseth naturally out of faith and tenderness of spirit ; but in a wicked man, it is out of guilt of conscience ; there is bondage impressed and forced upon his heart, which, though it be not always felt, yet it is soon awakened — ' All their lifetime they are subject to bondage,' Heb. ii. 15 ; and if God do but touch the conscience, then they are troubled. Belteshazzar seemed to have a brave spirit, and not to be daunted with the forces with which he was besieged ;
200 SERMONS urox HEBREWS XI. [Ser. XXXVII.
but God takes off tlie edge of his bravery with a few letters upon the wall — ' Then his countenance was changed, and his thoughts troubled him ; so that the joints of his loins were loosed, and his knees smote one against another,' Dan. v. 6. God arms wicked men's thoughts against them, and it is more tliau if he should bring the greatest terrors from witliout. At that time he was besieged with the Persian forces ; but that one hand upon the wall works upon him more than all the forces with which he was beleaguered. So Felix of a sudden trembled, Acts xxiv. 25. A man would have thought the story should rather have said that Paul trembled ; l)ut mark, the prisoner makes the judge to tremble, but sore against his will, because he had the advantage of his conscience. Paul was discoursing there of temperance, righteous- ness, and judgment to come ; now Felix was notoriously guilty of bribery and incontinency ; Drusilla, though she was used as his wife, was but his minion ; he took her from Azizus, king of the Emisenians ; and when Paul rubs him up with judgment to come, trembling comes upon him, and he could not withstand it. And such trembling there is in wicked men in the midst of their revelling and braveiy ; guilty conscience recoils and boggles, and then they are afraid. This fear is involuntary, as will appear, partly because it is not constant, and comes but by fits and starts, and is a troul)le to them : Prov. xxviii. 14, ' Happy is he that feareth always.' A child of God is under fear, not by fits and pauses, but he bears a constant respect to God, and seeth him that is invisible. A godly man looks upon it as a great blessing when he can work up his thoughts to a sight of God, that he may not sin in his presence. But now in wicked men it is not a fear begotten by the exercise of faith ; but now and then enforced upon the soul by the evidence of a guilty conscience when it is awakened — a mere effect of the spirit of bondage. And it is plain this is involuntary, partly because wicked men are apt to take all advantages to enlarge themselves. Their desire is not to please God, but to dissolve the bonds of conscience, and to allay their fear; therefore they fly to the next carnal course. How often ma}' we find that the Spirit is quenched, without a metaphor, by the excess of wine and the rays of conviction, when God darts them into the bosom, extinguished by mirth and com- pany. As in Belteshazzar, there was a fit came upon him which sets him a-trembling, what doth he do? he sends to the star-gazers and astrologers, Dan. v. 7. Daniel was famous in the kingdom, and his skill well known in such cases ; but anything serves, so we may come out of the stocks of conscience. Felix, when his conscience boggles, seeks to jjut it off when he cannot put it away, and foolishly dreams of a more convenient time.