That our relations with God are strained,' and that men are enemies of God,' is often repelled as exaggeration, if not as directly false. And, no doubt, the Scripture representation has often been so handled as to become caricature rather than portraiture. Scripture does not deny the lingering presence in men of goodness, partial and defective, nor does it assert that conscious antagonism to God is active in godless men. But it does assert that God is not in all their thoughts,' and that their wills are' not subject to the law of God.' And in such a case as man's relations to God, indifference and forgetfulness cannot but rest upon divergence of will and contrast of character. Why do men not like to retain God in their knowledge,' but because they feel that the thought of Him would spoil the feast, like the skeleton in the banqueting chamber? Beneath the apparent indifference lie opposition of will, meeting God's Thou shalt' with man's I will not'; opposition of moral nature, impurity shrinking from perfect purity; opposition of affection, the warmth of human love being diverted to other objects than God.
