appetite is to " make our belly our god'\" And hence St. John, having set forth " the Lord Jesus as the true God and eternal life," guards us against any alienation of our hearts from him, in these memorable words : " Little children, keep yourselves from idols \" And here let me again observe, it is the dis- position, and not any outward act, that has this construction put upon it.]
4. As downright atheism — [It is represented as a denial of all God's attributes and perfections. It denies his omnipresence and omniscience ; since men, in committing it, say, " How doth God know ? Can he judge through the dark cloud? Thick clouds are a covering to him, that he seeth not ; and he walketh in the circuit of the heaven^," and is at no leisure to attend to what is done on earth. It denies his justice and his holiness: it says, " I shall have peace, though I walk after the imaginations of my hearth" " God will never require at my hands what I do™." " He will not do good; neither will he do evil"." So far from having any thing to fear from God, " Every one that doeth evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and he delightetli in them"." Sin denies yet further the right of God to cotitrol tcs: " We are Lords ; we will come no more to thee? :" " Our lips are our own; who is Lord over us'^?" " What is the Almighty, that we should serve him ? and what profit is there, that we should pray unto him''?" It even denies the very existence of God : " The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God\" Hence St. Paul calls us " Atheists in the world*." Men will not say all this with their lips; but it is the language of their lives, and therefore of their hearts J\
Having seen how God interprets sin, and what construction he puts upon it, we are prepared to see,
II. What interpretation we also should put upon it — No inference was ever more legitimately drawn from the plainest premises, than that which forced itself upon David's mind, from a view of the ungodly world. And the same conclusion must we also arrive at, from all that we see around us : " The trans- gression of the wicked saith within our hearts that there is no fear of God before their eyes." 1. There is no sense of God's presence —
h PhU. ill. 19. ' 1 John v. 20, 21.
^ Job xxii. 13, 14. See also Ps. Ixxiii. 11. and xciv. 7.
' Deut. xxix. 19. ™ Ps. x. 13. " Zeph. i. 12.
° Mai. ii. 17. p Jer. ii. 31. i Ps. xii. 4,
1 Job xxi. 14, 15. s Ps. xiv. 1. ' Eph. ii. 12. alhoi.