Miscellanies 2.8.37

But since there is one first principle, as will be shown later, these men will be seen to be inventing chirpings and warblings. Since it seemed good to God that people should be trained beforehand by the Lord through the law and the prophets, “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” was said, given by the Lord through Moses to the disobedient and hard of heart; for those whom reason does not win, fear tames. The instructing Word, foreseeing this from above, fitted an instrument to each of the two ways, purifying each appropriately for godliness. Astonishment, then, is fear arising from an unusual impression, or at an unexpected impression, … such as news; while fear is excessive wonder at something that has happened or exists. They do not see, then, that by making him subject to passion through astonishment, they have made the greatest God, praised by them too, to have been in ignorance before the astonishment. And if ignorance preceded the astonishment, and the astonishment and fear, the beginning of wisdom, has become the fear of God, then ignorance runs the risk of being the originating cause of the wisdom of God and of the whole creation of the world, and indeed of the restoration of the elect itself.