It stirs up to faith, love, and fear
to do all things in fear: to 'work out our salvation with fear,' Philip.
2:12, eat and drink with fear; and in Jude 12, the wicked are branded with this, 'that they eat without fear.' So as whatever we do, we must do it in fear, shewing the reverence of God continually, and jealousy over ourselves, lest we should stop the light of God's countenance from us.
Quest. But it will be said, How is it then said 'that we should serve him without fear,' 1 Cor. 16:10, being redeemed from our enemies?
Ans. I answer, There is a twofold fear: one a slavish fear, whereof that place is meant. We should serve him without fear of damnation, of punishment, and of judgment. But the fear that we speak of here is a fear of reverence and love, that stirs us up to worship him.
It stirs up to faith, love, and fear Quest. But how doth it stir to duty? may some say.
Ans. I answer, first, it stirs up faith in our hearts. Hope of forgiveness will cause us to cast ourselves into their arms whom we have offended. Where no hope of mercy is, there follows nothing but fear, causing us to fly away; even as we see proclamation of pardon to rebels causes them to come in, but the contrary makes them run away. Again, sense of forgiveness works more love. David's murder,
Paul's persecution, Peter's denial, caused abundance of love. Where many sins are forgiven, there will be much love, Luke 7:47; and where much love is, there will be obedience to all God's commandments, for 'love is the fulfilling of the law,' Rom. 13:10.
Contrarily, desperation is the ground of all sin. This is the ground of all hate. The devils they hate God. Because they know there is no remedy left for them, therefore they cannot endure the remembrance
of him. Contrariwise, as it is Ps. 65:2, 'Unto thee shall all flesh come.'
Why? 'For thou hearest prayer.' Again, fear and forgiveness are joined in the new covenant. 'I will put my fear in thy heart, and thou shalt not depart from me,' Jer. 32:40; and Christ, to all his, is both king, priest, and prophet. He comes to all by water as well as blood.
He is become righteousness, wisdom, and holiness, 1 Cor. 1:30.
Again, a Christian he will, by reason, enforce this on himself, as Paul did, 2 Cor. 5:15. Christ died for us; therefore must we live to him, and not to ourselves.
Three uses of it Use 1. This therefore should cause us to take heed of all thoughts of despair. Let it be enough that we have broken the law; let us not pull a greater sin on us by denying the gospel, the mercies and truths of God. Let us by any means take heed, for Satan will join with guilty consciences, speaking with cursed Cain, 'My sin is greater than can be pardoned,' Gen. 4:13. No article of our creed is so much opposed by him, as that of the forgiveness of sin by Christ's merits, which is the very life and soul of a church. All the former articles of the creed are perfected in this, and all the following articles are effects hereof.
Use 2. Secondly, This doctrine furnishes an answer to the papists, who lay scandals* on the doctrine of free justification by the merits of Christ, without our own works; saying that we nourish thereby carelessness in a Christian life, whenas the Scripture, and the Spirit of God in the hearts of those that are truly regenerate, do reason quite contrary. 'There is mercy with thee, that thou mayest be feared;' not that we may live as we list, for whom God forgives, he first truly humbles; whom he washes, he gives hearts to keep themselves clean; so as with the burnt child, they dread the fire ever
after. No; it is themselves that overthrow good works, while they ground them on false grounds. For either they do them to satisfy
God's wrath, which is slavish, or to merit by them, which is a token of a hireling; and most of their works are such, as if God should ask them, 'Who required them at their hands?' Isa. 1:12, they could never be able to answer. They, while they talk of good works, in the mean time overthrow faith and love, which should be the ground of a good work. What can they do more than a Cain or a Judas, or the wickedest man alive.
Secondly, We may hence gather a ground of discerning our estate, whereby we shall know whether God's mercy and forgiveness belong to us or not; for it is impossible, where there is no inward worship of God in the heart, where there is no fear and jealousy of sin, where there is no conscience of swearing, blaspheming, and such abominations, that ever such yet had any true taste of God's mercy and forgiveness. Let them not take comfort by the example of the thief on the cross, that cried for mercy and had it; for there is a time of grace, and there are some sinners, as those that flatter themselves in a course of sin, thinking to repent when they will, against which the wrath of God will smoke, Deut. 29:20. Therefore let not such soothe up themselves. Those that have their sins forgiven do fear
God. Such fear not God, and therefore their sins are not forgiven.
Many shall say in that day, 'Lord, Lord,' to whom Christ will profess, 'he never knew them,' Mat. 7:23; and therefore let us never assure ourselves of forgiveness, farther than we find in us a hatred of sin.
For a man to live in a course of known sin, it stops the current of God's mercy; who will wound the 'hairy scalp of such as despise the patience and long-suffering of God,' Rom. 2:4. While we have time, therefore, and are young, before lusts settle themselves in us, serve the Lord with fear; deny him not the service due to him. If we do, it is just with God to take us away suddenly, or to deliver us over to an
impenetrable hard heart; and when we die, that God should take away from us our senses, or to give over our consciences to such a horror and trembling fear, as shall not suffer us to come so near as to have any hope of mercy, but die in despair. Let us pray, therefore, against a careless heart, and say to him, Lord, thou camest to redeem and set me free from the works of the devil! Lord, deliver me from the power of sin and of my own corruption. For we may assure ourselves, he that never discerned this hatred of sin in him, never asked pardon from his heart; and he that never asks it shall never have it.
Use. Let us in the next place learn thereby to go the right way, to work assurance of forgiveness: first, learn to see our misery; then, get persuasion that there is a remedy; then, get knowledge thereof; and then beg it. It is a preposterous course that many men take. They will change their ill courses, but without confession or acknowledgment of sin; and therefore they turn indeed, but it is from one sin to another: from being dissolute they will become covetous, and so change to the worse; for they change not from right grounds; not from love to God and hatred of sin, but ever from the love of one reigning sin to another. For all such, and all other, that either find* their sin, or think not of it, this Scripture is of excellent use; and we may speak of it as St Paul, 2 Tim. 3:16, speaks of all the Scripture, 'It is profitable for doctrine,' teaching us what we are by nature since the fall; wherein we may have remedy of our misery; how and in what manner to attain the remedy. It is profitable for 'reproof' of the doctrine of justification by works; and it is profitable for 'correction' of our lives, teaching us to avoid despair, and yet withal to avoid security. It is profitable for 'comfort' to all those that are dejected by sin, by considering the mercy of God in Christ, which is more and greater than sin in us, if we have faith to lay hold on it; so that we