In the Jacob swore, who could be no other than the God of his father Isaac. Chaldee paraphrase the word & fear is sometimes put for the true God, as well as used of idols; and with some eos, the Greek word for God, is by them! derived from deos feard; and by the Lacedemonians fear was worshipped as a deity, and had a temple for it; as Pavor and Pallor, fearfulness and paleness, were by Tullus Hostilius among the Romans; but none but the true God is the object of fear. Ir. He is to be feared because of his name and nature; Holy and reverend is his name, particularly his name Jehovah, expressive of his essence and nature; that thou mayest fear this fearful and glorious name, The Lord thy God, Psal. cxii. 9. Deut. xxviii. 58. a name peculiar to him; there is no name of God but is to be revered; and that by which he is commonly spoken of ought al- ́ ways to be used in a reverend manner, and not upon slight and trivial occasions, and with great irreverence, as it too often is, and when at every turn men are apt to say, O Lord! O God! good God! &c. especially men professing the fear of God should be careful of such language, for it is no other than taking the name of God in vain.. : 11. God not only essentially but personally considered is to be feared, God, Father, Son, and Spirit; it is said of the Jews in the latter day, that they shall seek the Lord their God, and shall fear the Lord and his goodness in the latter days, Hos. iii. 5. So in Mal. iv. 2. Unto you that fear my name, shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings; even the Son of God, who is the brightness of his Father's glory, and the express image of his person, and so is distinguished from him whose name is feared. Jehovah the Son is also the object of divine fear and reverence, Let him be your fear, and let him be your dread; that is, the object of your fear and reverence; and what follows shews which of the divine persons is meant; and he shall be for a sanctuary to worship in, and a place of refuge for his people in times of distress; but for a stone of stumbling, and for a rock of offence, Isai. viii. 13, 14. which phrases are applied to Christ, and can only be said of him, Rom. ix. 32, 33. 1 Pct. ii. 7, 8. Jehovah the Father, the lord of the vineyard, after sending many of his servants who had been ill used, says, I will send my beloved Son, meaning Christ, the only begoten Son of the Father, it may be, they will reverence him when they see him, Luke xx. 13. they ought to have done it: reverence should be given to him, the heir of the vineyard, his church, the son in his own house, whose house" believers are, and therefore should reverence him. Jehovah the Spirit also is and should be the object of fear; the Israelites in the wilderness rebelled against him, and vexed him, and they smarted for it, for he turned to be their enemy, and fought against them, Isai. Ixiii: 10. lying to the holy Ghost, which d Dictum volunt Soy alii Targum Jerus. in Deut. xxxii. 15 & Targ. Jon in v. 18. nomine des i. e. metus. Scapula, Instiut. 1. 1. c. 20. was a most irreverent treatment of him, was punished with death in Anania and Sapphira; and saints should be careful that they grieve not the holy Spiri by their unbecoming carriage to him, from whom they receive many blessings and favours. III. God, in his perfections, and because of them, is the object of fear; as his majesty and greatness in general; God is clothed with majesty, and majesty and honour are before him, and with him is terrible majesty, such as is sufficien to command an awe of him; particularly his omnipotence, for he is excellent in power; as also his omniscience, for nothing can be hid from his sight; the most enormous actions committed in the dark are seen by him, with whom the darkness and the light are alike; and his omnipresence, from whence there is no fleeing, for he fills heaven and earth with it; to which may be added, the justice and holiness of God, which make his majesty the more terrible and to be revered, since he is not only excellent in power, but also in judgment, and in plenty of justice, and a fearful thing it is to fall into the hands of a just and sinavenging God, the living God, the everlasting King, at whose wrath the nations tremble, and are not able to bear his indignation. IV. The works of God make him appear to be a proper object of fear and reverence; his works of creation, the Psalmist on mention of them says, Psal. xxxiii. 5-8. Let all the earth fear the Lord, let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him; who has made such a display of his greatness and goodness in them, as shew him worthy of fear and reverence. The prophet instances in what may seem small, yet a most wonderful thing, and enough of itself to command an awe of the divine being; Fear ye not me, saith the Lord? will ye not tremble at my presence? which hath placed the sand for the bound of the sea, by a perpetual decree that it cannot pass it; and at the same time the stupidity of the people is observed, who, notwithstanding the goodness of God in his works of providence towards them, yet were wanting in the fear and reverence of him: Neither say they in their heart, Let us now fear the Lord our God that giveth rain &c. Jer. v. 22, 24. which, though common providential blessings, yet are what should engage men to fear the Lord and his goodness; and especially God's works of grace should have such an effect upon the hearts of his people, as they have when they come with a divine power; particularly the pardoning grace and mercy of God; There is forgiveness with thee that thou mayest be feared, Psal. cxxx. 4. v. The judgments of God which he threatens, and sometimes inflicts, and the promises of grace he makes and always fulfils, render him an object of fear and reverence. The judgments of God on sinners are awful to the saints themselves, and strike their minds with fear of God; says David, My flesh trembleth for fear of thee, and I am afraid of thy judgments, Psal. cxix. 120. not as coming upon himself, but as terrible to behold on others; and these are dreadful and formidable to sinners, when they see them near approaching, who go into the holes and clefts of rocks, and into the caves for fear of the Lord, and the glory of his majesty, when he ariseth to shake terribly the earth, Isai. ii. 19, 21. and nothing has a greater influence on a filial and godly fear in the saints, and to stir them up to the exercise of it, than the free, absolute, and unconditional promises of grace in the covenant; thus after the apostle had observed such promises, strongly urges to perfecting holiness in the fear of God, 2 Cor. vi 16, 18. and vii. 1, II. The nature and kind of fear. There is a fear which is not good nor commendable, and it is of different sorts; there is an idolatrous and superstitious fear, which is called dugova, a fear of demons, which the city of Atheus was greatly addicted to, observed to them by the apostle when there, to their disgrace; I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious, or given to the fear and worship of false deities; such is all will-worship, worship not foun led ja the word of God, which brings on a spirit of bondage unto fear; and all such false and vain imaginations which inject dread and terrors into the minds of men and cause them to fear where no fear is, or where there is no reason for it; such as the pains of purgatory after death, invented by the Papists to extort money from inen; and the beating of the body in the grave, a fidgment of the Jews. There is an external fear of God, an outward shew and profession of it, which is taught by the precept of men, as in the men of Simaria, who pretended to fear the Lord, as the priest instructed them, and yet served their own gods; and such an external fear of the true God Job's friends supposed was all that he had, and that even he had cast off that, There is an hypocritical fear, when men draw nigh to God with their mouths and honour him with their lips and their hearts are removed far from him; and when they fear and serve him for some sinister end and selfish view, which Satan insinuated was Job's case, Doth Fob fear God for nought? and perhaps the same is suggested by Eliphaz, Is not this thy fear? Job i. 9, and iv. 6. And there is a servile fear, such as that of some servants, who serve their masters, not from love but from fear of pu nishment; and such a spirit of bondage to fear, the Jews were much subject to under the legal dispensation; but now saints being delivered out of the hands of sin, Satan, and the law, they serve the Lord without fear, without slavish fear and with a filial one, And this sort of fear arises, 1. From a sense of sin, and the guilt of it on the conscience, without a view of pardon; thus no sooner were Adam and Eve sensible of their sin and their nakedness by it, but they fled through fear from the presence of God, and hid themselves among the trees of the garden, as yet having no discovery of pardoning grace made to them; for, said Adam to God calling for him, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, &e. Thus a wicked man, conscious of his guilt, flees when no man pursues, and is like Pashur, a Magormissabib, fear round about, a terror to himself and others. 2. From the law entering the conscience of a sinner, having broken it and working wrath in it; for the law, when it comes with powerful convictions of sin, and with menaces of punishment for it, it worketh present wrath, or a sense of it in the conscience, and leaves a fearful looking It for of judgment to come, and of fiery indignation which shall consume the adversaries of God; when persons in such a condition and circumstances would be glad of rocks and mountains to fall on them and hide them from the wrath of God, which appears to them intolerable, 3. From the curse of the law, and the weight of it on the conscience. The voice of the law is terrible, it is, a voice of words which they that heard intreated they might hear no more. accuses of sin, pronounces guilty for it, is a ministration of condemnation and a killing letter; its language is, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law, to do them, Gal, iii. 10. which to hear is dreadful when the conscience of a sinner is awakened; but how much more terrible is it, when a sinner feels as it were in his own apprehension all the curses of the law upon him, as he does when the anger of the Lord, and his jealousy smoke against him, and all the curses written in the law lie upon him, Deut. xxix. 20. with what slavish fear must he be then filled? 4. From a view of . death as the demerit of sin; The wages of sin is death, the just desert of it; sin is the sting of death, gives it its venom and fatal influence, and makes it that terrible thing it is; and some through fear of death are all their life time subject. to bondage, and are under a continual servile fear of it. - 5. From a dread of hell and everlasting damnation. This fear is of the same kind with that of devils, who believe there is one God and tremble; tremble at present wrath and future torment. So wicked men, who have a fearful apprehension of everlasting punishment, it appears to them greater than they can bear, as it did to Cain. But there is a fear of God different from this and opposite to it, and be may called a filial fear, such as that of a son to a father; the scriptures call it asta, and which is rendered godly fear, Heb. xii. 28. and the same word is used of the fear and reverence of Christ to his divine Father, who was heard in that he feared, or because of fear, Heh. v. 7. his filial fear of his Father which lay in honouring him, in obedience to him, and in submission to his will, even when with supplications he deprecated death; and now a fear like this in the saints arises, 1. From the spitit of adoption, who delivers the people of God from a servile fear, and gives them a filial one, by witnessing their sonship to them; Ye have not received, says the apostle, the spirit of bondage again to fear, but. ye have received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father, and so are freed from a spirit of bondage which induces a servile fear. They that fear the Lord are in the relation of children to him; wherefore their fear of him,, which he takes notice of and regards, must be a child-like one, arising from their being put among the children, and their sense of it; and which seems to be implied in Psal. ciii. 13. Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him, where they that fear the Lord in the latter clause answer to children in the former. 2. From the love of God shed abroad in the heart by the Spirit, which produces love to God again; there is no fear, no slavish fear, in love, but perfect love; a sense of the perfect, everlasting and unchangeable love of God casts out such kind of fear; for the true fear of God i no other than a reverential affection for God flowing from a sense of his love'; such do not dread his wrath, but desire his presence and cominunion with him, and say, hom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none on earth that I desire besides thee, Psalm 1xxiii. 25. 3. This filial fear is attended with faith and trust in God; it is a fiducial fear; hence they that tear the Lord and who trust in him, are characters put together, and which describe the same persons'; and they that fear the Lord are exhorted and encouraged to trust in him, Psal. xxxi. 19. and cxv. 11. Job was a man that feared God, and yet such was his farth and confidence in him, that he could say, Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him. It is a fear that is consistent with great joy in the Lord; Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling, Psalm ii. 11. and with the utmost courage and magnanimity of mind; it is a fearless fear; a man that fears the Lord has no reason to fear any thing, or what any man on devil can do unto him; he may say as David did, The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear, &c. Psalm xxvii. 1, 3. — 5. Such a tear is opposed to pride and self-confidence; it is an humble fear, a diffidence of a man's self, "placing his trust and hope alone in God;' Be not high-minded, but fear, Rom. xi. 20. this is that fear and trembling, or that modesty and humility with which the saints are exhorted to work about or employ themselves in things that accompany salvation; as knowing that both to will and to do, the disposition and ability to perform any duty aright, are owing to the efficacious operation of the Spirit of God, and that it is by the grace of God they are what they are, and do what they do; they that fear the Lord are such who rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh, delaring that when they have done all they can they are but unprofitable servants. III. Wherein the fear of God appears, and by what it is manifested. — 1. In an batred of sin. The fear of the Lord, is to hate evil, Prov viii. 13. as nothing is more oppetite to good than evil, nothing is more to be abhorred; it is to be hated with a Stygian hatred, as hell itself aworuyævres, abhor that which is evil, Rom. xii. 9. and a man that fears God, who has a reverential affection for him, will hate it as being contrary to him, Ye that love the Lord, hate evil, Psal. xcvi. c. every thing that is evil is hated by such a man; as evil thoughts, which are only evil and that continually; the heart is full of evil thoughts, and out of it they daily proceed, and these are the object of a good man's hatred, I hate vain thoughts, says David, Psal. cxix. 113; and now as no one but a man himseif is conscious of them and privy to them, to hate them shews that the fear of God is in his heart. Evil words are also hated by him; not only cursing, swearing, blasphemy, and all obscene and filthy language, but every vain and idle word, foolish and frothy expression, which comes out of his mouth when nòu on his guard, gives him uneasiness, as being displeasing to God, grieving to his Spiri, and what must be accounted for in the day of judgment; as ir many words there are divers vanities, the wise man opposes the fear of God unto them, Erel. v. 7. and if evil thoughts and evil-words are hated by such, then most cer |