tree," or in our most secret retirements, and visit us in due season with the most endearing expressions of his love. ".]
Such are the truths asserted in our text. We now proceed to suggest,
II. Some obvious deductions from them —
From these truths it is evident,
1. That God's views of sin are widely different from those of men —
[Men, if free from gross sin, imagine, that they have little cause for self-reproach. They see no evil in the general course of this world : the pleasures, the gaieties, the amusements of it, are all accounted innocent ; and if a man perform res- pectably the different offices of social life, they think he has nothing to apprehend in the eternal world. But "God's thoughts are widely different from theirs. " We will suppose, for argu- ment sake, that there is nothing flagrantly sinful in convivi- ality, and a round of pleasurable amusements ; yet inasmuch as such a state argues a departure of the soul from God, and strengthens its habit of rebellion against him, it is highly sin- ful ; and should be so esteemed by all who would not deceive their own souls. For, if the very best actions of such persons are hateful to God, if the very sacrifices with which they attempt to honour him are an abomination in his sight, what must those actions be which have no respect to him, but wliich tend to banish him from their thoughts, and from the world ? I tell you. Brethren, that " to walk according to the course of this world, is to walk according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobe- dience "." You cannot be of the world and of Jesus Christ at the same time p : " you cannot serve God and Mammon too i." You may as well imagine light can have communion with darkness, and Christ with Belial, as that a person truly "up- right " and believing, can find pleasure in the society of " the wicked " and unbelieving ^. " The friendship of the world is " essentially, as well as constructively, a state of enmity against God^" Whatever therefore may be pleaded in extenuation of those habits in which the more respectable part of the world are living, they are all, whether social or personal, civil or religious, one continued act of sin, as long as the soul con- tinues alienated from God, and not altogether devoted to his fear : and the man who thinks himself safe because he is in a path frequented by the great mass of his feUow-creatures,
n John i. 47—51. <> Eph. ii. 2. P John xvii. 14, 16.
1 Matt. vi. 24. r 2 Cor. vi, 14—16.
^ Jam. iv. 4.