Godly Fear

I found this extract from Adams over on Puritanism Today here. It is taken from Day by day with the English Puritans (p 266) edited by Randall Pederson. See here.

“We must not only love our good God; we must fear our great Lord. It is objected to this, that “perfect love casteth out fear” (1 John 4:18). It is answered that fear brings in perfect love, as the needle draws the thread. And it is not possible that true love should be without good fear; that is, a filial reverence. For slavish fear, be it as far from your hearts, as it shall be from my discourse. Now this fear is a most due and proper affection, and (I may say) the fittest of all to be towards God. Indeed God requires our love. But we must think that then God stoops low, and bows down to be loved by us. For there is such an infinite inequality between God and us, that without his sweet descending to us, there could be no fitness of this affection. But if we look up to that infinite glory of our great Lord, and we look down on the vileness of ourselves, sinful dust, and we will say that by reason of the disproportion between us, there is nothing so suitable to give so high a God, as fear.”