[We may treat revelation as we will ; but we all feel in our bosoms a persuasion that God inspects our ways, and hates our proceedings, and will avenge the breaches of his holy laws. We may try to divest ourselves of these feelings, and may prevail to dissipate them for a moment ; but they will return ; and at certain times and seasons will occasion much uneasiness to the mind, and produce there a wish that we could by any means avoid the judgment that awaits us. We feel that God is, and must be, an enemy to us : and therefore we cannot contemplate him with any other feeling than that of fear and dread.
It may be said indeed by some, that this is by no means their experience : that, on the contrary, they feel a complacent regard for God, and a grateful sense of his mercies.
But to this I would answer, It is not to God as revealed in the Scripture, but as they paint him to themselves in their own vain imaginations, that they feel this regard. They conceive of him as bearing no anger against them for their sins, and as lowering his demands of obedience to the standard which they have fixed for themselves, and as looking with compla- cency on their formal self-righteous endeavours : it is in this view of him alone that they are pleased with him : they despoil him of his own proper attributes, and clothe him with attri- butes of their own creation ; and then they worship the work of their own hands. But, let him be presented to them in his own proper character — as a holy Being, that cannot look upon iniquity without the utmost abhorrence; as a just Being, that cannot but punish with everlasting destruction every impeni- tent sinner ; and as a God of truth, that will accept no human being but as clothed in the righteousness of his dear Son — and they will lose all their fancied regard for him, and shew to- wards him all the aversion which we have before described. They will find in themselves that Scripture realized, " My soul lothed them ; and their soul abhorred meV]
Regarding the fact as proved, I now come to,
III. Make some reflections upon it —
In the view of this fact, we may observe,
1. How deep should be our humiliation before God !
[Men are not humbled, because they will not look at themselves in the glass of God's word. They think only of some particular sins which they may have committed ; and put out of view altogether the disposition of their souls towards God. But, if we would have a just sense of our condition, we must probe our hearts to the bottom ; and see, not merely
k Zech. xi. 8.