6. In a word, the fear of man is the general bane both of city and country. Our superiors would appoint good ministers and magistrates; but they fear displeasing this or the other man, or set of men. They who should speak when a wicked minister is ordained, or officer recommended, hold their ♦tongues through fear. In the courts of judicature, this fear prevents justice, condemns the innocent, clears the guilty, bereaves widows and orphans of their right, and leaves the injured and oppressed without remedy. And what does it profit a man who is himself a slave to this fear, that he is sensible of the general corruption? It only exposes him to the more pain. Being unwilling to break either with the world or God, he is looked upon as an unfaithful steward by both; and he endures far more trouble and anxiety, than the breaking through with a ready presence of faith would have cost him. He finds no joyful, filial assurance in prayer. The word of God has no relish with him. He never attains to the true communion of saints; and when he should comfort and strengthen others, by exhorting them in the power of God, he rather drives them to fear, and quenches the Holy Spirit in them. Thus he goes on without any spiritual experience, contenting himself with the bare letter and shadows of Christianity, and a few sounding words; but being in the mean time void of soul and life, of spirit and power, and so falling at last into a state of carnal security, he carries others also along with him, often to the utter denying the truth, and precipitating himself into final destruction.
♦ “hands” replaced with “tongues” per Errata