[2.] This denouncing of threatenings unto believers is suited unto their good and advantage in the state and condition wherein they are in this world; for believers are subject to sloth and security, to wax dead, dull, cold, and formal in their course. These and many other evils are they liable and obnoxious unto whilst they are in the flesh. To awake them, warn them, and excite them unto a renewal of their obedience, doth God set before them the threatenings men- tioned. See Rev. ii, iii.
[8.] The proper effect of these threatenings in the souls of be- lievers, whereby the end aimed at in them is attained and pro- duced, is fear,—‘ Let us therefore fear.”
Now, what that fear is, and therein what is the especial duty that
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210 AN EXPOSITION OF THE [CHAP. IV.
we are exhorted unto, may briefly be manifested from what hath been already laid down:—
1. It is not an anxious, doubting, solicitous fear about the punish- ment threatened, grounded on a supposition that the person fearing shall be overtaken with it; that is,it is not an abiding, perplexing fear of hell-fire that is intended. We are commanded, indeed, to fear him who can cast both body and soul into hell, Luke xii. 4, 5; but the object assigned unto our fear is God himself, his severity, his holiness, his power, and not the punishment of hell itself. It is granted that this fear, with a bondage frame of spirit thereon, doth and will often befall believers. Some deserve, by their negligence, slothfulness, unfruitful walking, and sinful ways, that it should be no better with them. And others also walking in their sincerity, - yet by reason of the weakness of their faith, and on many other accounts, are ofttimes detained in such a bondage state and con- dition, as to fear with dread and terror all the day long. This, therefore, is ofttimes a consequent of some of God’s dispensations towards us, or of our own sins; but it is not anywhere prescribed unto us as our duty, nor is the ingenerating of it in us the design of any of the threatenings of God; for,—
(1.) This is contrary unto the end of all other ordinances of God; which are appointed to enlighten, strengthen, and comfort the souls of believers,—to bring them to constant, solid, abiding peace and con- solation. It cannot be, therefore, that at the same time God should require that as a duty at their hands which stands in a full contra- riety and opposition to the end assigned by himself unto all his or- dinances whereby he communicates of himself and his mind unto us. See Rom. viii. 15; 2 Tim. i. 7.
(2.) This fear is no effect or fruit of that Spirit of life and holi- ness which is the author of all our duties, and all acceptable obedi- ence unto God. That this is the principle of all new-covenant obedience, of all the duties which, according unto the rule and tenor thereof, we do or ought to perform unto God, is evidently manifest in all the promises thereof. Now this fear of hell,—that is, as that punishment lies in the curse of the law,—neither is nor can be a fruit of that Spirit, given and dispensed in and by the gospel; for “where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty,” 2 Cor. iii. 17.
(3.) This kind of fear is not useful unto the confessed end of God’s threatenings, namely, to excite and encourage men unto diligence and watchfulness in obedience. For if this were its nature and ten- dency, the more it is heightened as to its degrees, the more effectual would it be unto its proper end. But we see, on the contrary, that in those in whom it hath been most prevalent it hath produced effects utterly of another nature. So it did in Cain and Judas, and so it doth constantly, where it is absolutely prevalent. It appears, then, that its own proper effect is to drive them in whom it is from God;
VER. 1, 2.] EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 211
and when it befalls any believers in any degree, it is the efficacy of the Spirit of grace in other fruits of it which prevents its dangerous effects. We may add unto-what hath been spoken, that this fear is directly opposite to the life of faith, being indeed that bondage for fear of death which the Lord Christ died to deliver believers from, Heb.ii. 15; this is that fear which perfect love casts out, 1 John iv. 18.
2. There is a watchful, careful fear, with respect unto the use of means; and this is that which is here intended, and which is our duty, on the consideration of the threatenings of God and in- stances of his severity against sinners. And this will appear by the consideration of what is required unto this fear, which are the things that follow:—
(1.) There is required hereunto a serious consideration of the due debt of sin and the necessary vindication of God’s glory. This is that which is directly in the first place presented unto us in the threatenings of the gospel, and ought in the first place to be the ob- ject of our faith and consideration. This we have evinced to be the nature of divine comminations, namely, to declare that it is the “judgment of God, that they which commit such sin are worthy of death ;” that “the wages of sin is death;” and that this depends on the holiness of God’s nature, as well as on the constitution and sanc- tion of his law, Rom. i. 32, vi. 23. Here may we see and know the desert of sin, and the concernment of the glory and honour of God in its punishment,—the end why God originally gave the law with fire, and thunderings, and terror. An instance hereof we have in Noah, when he was warned of God concerning the deluge that he was bringing on the world for sin,—* being moved with fear he prepared an ark,” Heb. xi. 7. A due apprehension of the approaching judg- ment due unto sin, and threatened by God, made him wary,— evAaEnde’c, he was moved from hence, by this careful fear, to use the means for his own deliverance and safety. This, therefore, is the first ingredient in this fear.