><>...PILGRIM'S PROGRESS Continued...><>
HOPE...><> I do believe, as you say, that fear tends much to men's good,
and to make them right, at their beginning to go on pilgrimage.
CHR...><> Without all doubt it doth, if it be right; for so says the Word,
"The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom."
[Prov. 1:7, 9:10, Job 28:28, Ps. 111:10]
HOPE...><> How will you describe right fear?
CHR....><> True or right fear is discovered by three things:--
1. By its rise; it is caused by saving convictions for sin.
2. It driveth the soul to lay fast hold of Christ for salvation.
3. It begetteth and continueth in the soul a great reverence of God,
his Word, and ways, keeping it tender, and making it afraid
to turn from them, to the right hand or to the left,
to anything that may dishonour God, break its peace, grieve the Spirit,
or cause the enemy to speak reproachfully.
HOPE...><> Well said; I believe you have said the truth.
Are we now almost got past the Enchanted Ground?
CHR...><> Why, art thou weary of this discourse?
HOPE...><> No, verily, but that I would know where we are.
CHR...><> We have not now above two miles further to go thereon.
But let us return to our matter. Now the ignorant
know not that such convictions as tend to put them in fear
are for their good, and therefore they seek to stifle them.
HOPE...><> How do they seek to stifle them?
CHR...><> 1. They think that those fears are wrought by the devil,
(though indeed they are wrought of God); and, thinking so,
they resist them as things that directly tend to their overthrow.
2. They also think that these fears tend to the spoiling
of their faith, when, alas, for them, poor men that they are,
they have none at all! and therefore they harden their hearts
against them.
3. They presume they ought not to fear; and, therefore,
in despite of them, wax presumptuously confident.
4. They see that those fears tend to take away from them
their pitiful old self-holiness, and therefore they resist them
with all their might.
HOPE...><> I know something of this myself; for, before I knew myself,
it was so with me.
CHR...><> Well, we will leave, at this time, our neighbour Ignorance
by himself, and fall upon another profitable question.
HOPE...><> With all my heart, but you shall still begin.
John Bunyan...Pilgrim's Progress
To be continued |
