From The Christian Remembrancer

THE FEAR OF MAN

Ambrose Serle*

He that unduly fears man, cannot truly fear God: and he that lives much in the fear of God, will not regard over-much what man can do unto him. The want of faith is the root of all carnal fear, which becomes less and less, as faith gathers strength and increases in the soul. It is a sad hindrance in the ways of God, as well as torment, to live under the views, opinions, prejudices, and passions of worldly men.

“The fear of man bringeth a snare;” and a snare for all sorts of evils. Mild, gentle, feeling, and delicate tempers, are most exposed to this danger; and they should pray much to Him who strengtheneth the weak, for fortitude without rudeness, for resolution without roughness, and for stability without stubbornness, that so they may properly act and hold out in the time of trial.

When it is a principle graciously established in the soul, that men can do nothing to us but which is for our good, and that they must do whatever is; it greatly abates that fickle feebleness of nature, which, out of too much love and care for itself, brings us into bondage of heart to wretched worms, “whose breath is in their nostrils,” and themselves, in this way, “not to be accounted of.”

* From The Christian Remembrancer