Isaiah 8:12-14 Say you not, A confederacy, to all them to whom this people shall say, A confederacy; neither fear you their fear, nor be afraid.… There is a threefold fear in man, namely — I. NATURAL, of which all are partakers that partake of the common nature. It is the trouble or perturbation of mind, from the apprehension of approaching evil or impending danger. 1. To this natural fear it pleased our Lord Jesus Christ to subject Himself in the days of His flesh (Mark 14:33). 2. This fear creates great trouble and perturbation in the mind; in proportion to the danger is the fear, and in proportion to the fear, the trouble and distraction of the mind; if the fear be exceedingly great, reason is displaced. 3. Evil is the object of fear, and the greater the evil is the stronger the fear must needs be; therefore the terrors of an awakened and terrified conscience must be allowed to be the greatest of terrors, because in that case a man hath to do with a great and terrible God, and is scared with apprehensions of His infinite and eternal wrath, than which no evil is or can be greater. 4. Yet evil, as evil, is rather the object of hatred than of fear. It must be an imminent or near approaching evil that provokes fear. 5. All constitutions and tempers admit not the same degrees of fear. II. SINFUL. Not only our infelicity but our fault. The sinfulness of it lies in five things. 1. In the spring and cause of it, which is unbelief (chap. 30:15-17). 2. In the excess and immoderacy of it; for it may be truly said of our fears, as the philosopher speaks of waters, it is hard to keep them within bounds. 3. In the inordinacy of it. To exalt the power of any creature by our fears, and give it such an ascendancy over us as if it had an arbitrary and absolute dominion over us, or over our comforts, to do with them what it pleased — this is to put the creature out of its own class and rank into the place of God. To trust in any creature as if it had the power of a God to keep us, or to fear any creature, as if it had the power of a God to hurt us, is exceedingly sinful (Matthew 10:28). 4. In the distracting influence it hath upon the hearts of men, whereby it discomposes and unfits them for the discharge of their duties. Under an extraordinary fear both grace and reason, like the wheels of a watch, wound above its due height, stand still, and have no motion at all. 5. In the power it hath to dispose and incline men to the use of sinful means to put by their danger, and to cast them into the hands and power of temptation (Proverbs 29:25; Isaiah 57:11). There is a double lie occasioned by fear, one in words and another in deeds; hypocrisy is a lie done, a practical He, and our Church history abounds with sad examples dissimulation through fear. III. RELIGIOUS. This is our treasure, not our torment; the chief ornament of the soul; its beauty and perfection. It is the natural passion sanctified, and thereby changed and baptized into the name and nature of a spiritual grace. This fear is prescribed as an antidote against sinful fears; it devours carnal fears, as Moses' serpent did those of the enchanters. 1. It is planted in the soul as a permanent and fixed habit; it is not of the natural growth and production of man's heart, but of supernatural infusion and implantation (Jeremiah 32:40). 2. It puts the soul under the awe of God's eye. It is the reproach of the servants of men to be eye servants, but it is the praise and honour of God's servants to be so. 3. This respect to the eye of God inclines them to perform and do whatsoever pleaseth Him and is commanded by Him; hence, fearing God and working righteousness, are linked together (Acts 10:35; Genesis 22:12). 4. This fear engageth, and in some degree enableth, the soul in which it is, to avoid whatsoever is displeasing to God (Job 2:3). ( J. Flavel.) Parallel Verses KJV: Say ye not, A confederacy, to all them to whom this people shall say, A confederacy; neither fear ye their fear, nor be afraid. |
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