326 DIRECTIONS FOR GETTING AND KEEPING of God's majesty. 2. And a filial fear of offending him. 3. And an awful fear of his judgments, when we see them executed on others, and hear them threatened. 4. And a filial fear of tempo- ral chastisements are lawful, and our duty ; but also, 5. A fear of damnation exciting to most careful importunity to escape it ; when- ever we have so far obscured our evidences, as to see no strong probability of our sincerity in the faith, and so of our salvation. The sum of my speech,, therefore, is this : Do not think that all your fears of God's wrath areyour sins ; much of them is your great duty. Do you not feel that God made these fears, at your first conversion, the first and a principal means of your recovery ? To drive you to a serious consideration of your state andways, and to look after Christ with more longing and estimation? And to use the means with more resolution and diligence ? Have not these fears been chief preservers of your diligence and integrity ever since ? I know love shoulddo more then it doth with us all. But if we had not daily use for both, (love and fear,) God would not, 1. Have planted them both in our natures. 2. And have renewed them both by regenerating grace. 3. And have put into his word the objects to move both, (viz. threatenings as well as prom- ises.) That fear of God which is the beginning. of wisdom, in- cludeth the fear of his threatened wrath. I could say abundance more to prove this, that I know as to you it is needless for convic- tionof if; but remember the use of it. Do not put the name of unbelief uponall your fears of God's displeasure.- Much less should you presently conclude that you have no faith, and that you cannot believe, because of these fears. You may have much faith in the midst ofthese fears ; and God may make them preservers of your faith, by quickening you up to those means that must maintain it, and by keeping you from those evils that wouldbe as a worm at the root of it, and eat out its precious strength andlife. Security is ne friend to faith, but a more deadly enemy than fear itself. Object. 'Then Cain and Judas sinned not by despairing, or at least not damnably.' Answ. 1. They despaired not only of themselves, and of the event of their salvation, but also of God ; of his power or good- ness, and promise, and the sufficiency of any satisfactionof Christ. Their infidelity was the root of their despair. 2. Far it is from me to say or think that you should despair of the event, or that it is no sin ; yea, or that you should cherish causeless and excessive jealousies and fears. Take heed of all fears that drive you from God, or that distract or weaken your spirit, or disable you from duty, or drown your love to God, and delight in him, and destroy your apprehensions of God's loveliness and compassion, and raise black, and hard, and unworthy thoughts of God in your mind.
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