that they should seek the Lord, if perhaps they might reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.
Parallel Translations
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that they should seek the Lord, if perhaps they might reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.
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that they shuld seke God yf they myght fele and fynde him though he be not farre from every one of vs.
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That they shoulde seeke the Lord, if so be they might haue groped after him, and founde him though doubtlesse he be not farre from euery one of vs.
Cross-references (9)
Passages linked to Acts 17:27 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Jeremiah 23:23-24 “Am I a God at hand,” says Yahweh, “and not a God afar off? Can anyone hide himself in secret places so that I can’t see him?” says Yahweh. “Don’t I fill heaven and earth?” says Yahweh.
- Deuteronomy 4:7 For what great nation is there that has a god so near to them as Yahweh our God is whenever we call on him?
- Acts 14:17 Yet he didn’t leave himself without witness, in that he did good and gave you rains from the sky and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness.”
- Romans 1:20 For the invisible things of him since the creation of the world are clearly seen, being perceived through the things that are made, even his everlasting power and divinity, that they may be without excuse.
- Psalms 19:1-6 The heavens declare the glory of God. The expanse shows his handiwork. Day after day they pour out speech, and night after night they display knowledge. There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard. Their voice has gone out through all the earth, their words to the end of the world. In them he has set a tent for the sun, which is as a bridegroom coming out of his room, like a strong man rejoicing to run his course. His going out is from the end of the heavens, his circuit to its ends. There is nothing hidden from its heat.
- Acts 15:17 that the rest of men may seek after the Lord; all the Gentiles who are called by my name, says the Lord, who does all these things.’
- Romans 2:4 Or do you despise the riches of his goodness, forbearance, and patience, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance?
- Psalms 139:1-13 Yahweh, you have searched me, and you know me. You know my sitting down and my rising up. You perceive my thoughts from afar. You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways. For there is not a word on my tongue, but, behold, Yahweh, you know it altogether. You hem me in behind and before. You laid your hand on me. This knowledge is beyond me. It’s lofty. I can’t attain it. Where could I go from your Spirit? Or where could I flee from your presence? If I ascend up into heaven, you are there. If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, you are there! If I take the wings of the dawn, and settle in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand will lead me, and your right hand will hold me. If I say, “Surely the darkness will overwhelm me. The light around me will be night,” even the darkness doesn’t hide from you, but the night shines as the day. The darkness is like light to you. For you formed my inmost being. You knit me together in my mother’s womb.
- 1 Kings 8:27 But will God in very deed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens can’t contain you; how much less this house that I have built!
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
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John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain 27. That they might seek God. This sentence hath…
27. That they might seek God. This sentence hath two members; to wit, that it is man’s duty to seek God; secondly, that God himself cometh forth to meet us, and doth show himself by such manifest tokens, that we can have no excuse for our ignorance. Therefore, let us remember that those men do wickedly abuse this life, and that they be unworthy to dwell upon earth, which do not apply their studies to seek him; as if every kind of brute beasts should fall from that inclination which they have naturally, which should for good causes be called monstrous. And, surely, nothing is more absurd, than that men should be ignorant of their Author, who are endued with understanding principally for this use. And we must especially note the goodness of God, in that he doth so familiarly insinuate himself, that even the blind may grope after him. For which cause the blindness of men is more shameful and intolerable, who, in so manifest and evident a manifestation, are touched with no feeling of God’s presence. Whithersoever they cast their eyes upward or downward, they must needs light upon lively and also infinite images of God’s power, wisdom, and goodness. For God hath not darkly shadowed his glory in the creation of the world, but he hath everywhere engraven such manifest marks, that even blind men may know them by groping. Whence we gather that men are not only blind but blockish, when, being helped by such excellent testimonies, they profit nothing.
Yet here ariseth a question, whether men can naturally come unto the true and merciful knowledge of God. For Paul doth give us to understand, that their own sluggishness is the cause that they cannot perceive that God is present; because, though they shut their eyes, yet may they grope after him. I answer, that their ignorance and blockishness is mixed with such frowardness, that being void of right judgment, they pass over without understanding all such signs of God’s glory as appear manifestly both in heaven and earth. Yea, seeing that the true knowledge of God is a singular gift of his, and faith (by which alone he is rightly known) cometh only from the illumination of the Spirit, it followeth that our minds cannot pierce so far, having nature only for our guide. Neither doth Paul intreat in this place of the ability of men, but he doth only show that they be without excuse, when as they be so blind in such clear light, as he saith in the first chapter to the Romans, (Romans 1:20.) Therefore, though men’s senses fail them in seeking out God, yet have they no cloak for their fault, because, though he offer himself to be handled and groped, they continue, notwithstanding, in a quandary; concerning which thing we have spoken more in the fourteenth chapter, (Acts 14:17.)
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Though he be not far from every one of us. To the end he may the more touch the frowardness of men, he saith that God is not to be sought through many crooks, neither need we make any long journey to find him; because every man shall find him in himself, if so be that he will take any heed. By which experience we are convicted that our dullness is not without fault, which we had from the fault of Adam. For though no corner of the world be void of the testimony of God’s glory, yet we need not go without ourselves to lay hold upon him. For he doth affect and move every one of us inwardly with his power in such sort, that our blockishness is like to a monster, in that in feeling him we feel him not. In this respect certain of the philosophers called man the little world, [a microcosm;] because he is above all other creatures a token of God’s glory, replenished with infinite miracles.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain For as blind men we could not seek out…
For as blind men we could not seek out God, but only by groping wise, before the true light came and lightened the world.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain 27 That they should seek the Lord, if haply…
27 That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us:
Ver. 27. They might feel after him] Grope after him, as blind men, ψηλαφησειαν. The apostle dealing here with philosophers, disputes philosophically, showing them, most learnedly and divinely, the true use of natural philosophy, which they were utterly ignorant of. Crucifer oft contemplated the footsteps of God in the creature, saying with Paul, that God was so near unto us that he might be almost felt with hands.
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Though he be not far] Not so far as the bark is from the tree, the skin from the flesh, or the flesh from the bones. Deus intimior nobis intimo nostro. He is nearer to us than we are to ourselves, though we see him not. (Bugentag.) Like as if one hear a preacher by night, though he see him not, yet he knows he is there present; so in this case.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain That they should seek the Lord: the apostle tells…
That they should seek the Lord: the apostle tells these philosophers, to whom he spake, the true use of their philosophy, to improve their knowledge of natural things, to beget in them by it an admiration of the God of nature; for as from him, so for him are all things, Rom 11:36.
If haply they might feel after him, and find him; and although God himself is incorporeal, yet the things which he made are palpable; and did they seek as they ought, they might find out a great deal of God by the creatures, in which his wisdom, power, and goodness are manifested, Rom 1:20.
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Though he be not far from every one of us; God filleth all things, especially he is near in the effects of his wisdom, goodness, and faithfulness, by which he orders and disposes of all things, to the falling out of a hair from our heads.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain That they should seek the Lord,.... Or "God", as…
That they should seek the Lord,.... Or "God", as the Alexandrian copy and others, and the Vulgate Latin, Syriac, and Ethiopic versions read; their Creator, and kind Benefactor, and who has appointed their time of life, and their habitations for them; and this should engage them to seek to know him, who has done all this for them, and to fear and serve him, and to glorify his name:
if haply they might feel after him, and find him; which shows, that though it is possible for men, by a contemplation of the perfections of God, visible in the works of creation and providence, so to find God, as to know that there is one, and that there is but one God, who has made all things; and so as to be convinced of the vanity and falsehood of all other gods, and to see the folly, wickedness, and weakness of idolatrous worship; yet, at the same time, it very strongly intimates, how dim and obscure the light of nature is; since those, who have nothing else to direct them, are like persons in the dark, who "feel" and grope about after God, whom they cannot see; and after all their search and groping, there is only an "haply", a peradventure, a may be, that they find him:
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though he be not far from everyone of us; not only by his omnipresence, and immensity, whereby he is everywhere; but by his power in supporting all in their being; and by his goodness in continually communicating the blessings of providence to them.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain If haply - The way is open; God is…
If haply - The way is open; God is ready to be found. But he will lay no force upon man; they might feel after him - This is in the midst between seeking and finding. Feeling being the lowest and grossest of all our senses, is fitly applied to the low knowledge of God; though he be not far from every one of us - We need not go far to seek or find him. He is very near us; in us. It is only perverse reason which thinks he is afar off.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 27. That they should seek the Lord] This…
Verse 27. That they should seek the Lord] This is a conclusion drawn from the preceding statement. God, who is infinitely great and self-sufficient, has manifested himself as the maker of the world, the creator, preserver, and governor of men. He has assigned them their portion, and dispensed to them their habitations, and the various blessings of his providence, to the end that they should seek him in all his works.
Feel after him] ψηλαφησειαν αυτον, That they might grope after him, as a person does his way who is blind or blindfolded. The Gentiles, who had not a revelation, must grope after God, as the principle of spiritual life, that they might find him to be a Spirit, and the source of all intellectual happiness; and the apostle seems to state that none need despair of finding this fountain of goodness, because he is not far from every one of us.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain Act 17:27-28. That they should seek, &c. — As…
Act 17:27-28. That they should seek, &c. — As if he had said, This most wise and free government of the nations of men, God carries on through all ages for this purpose, that they may be led to seek the Lord — That is, to seek the knowledge, fear, and love of him; to seek his favour, his Spirit, and communion with him: if haply — The way is open; God is ready to be found; but he will lay no force upon any man; they might feel after him — Feeling is the lowest and grossest of all our senses, and is therefore applied to that low kind of the knowledge of God which some of the heathen possessed, and which is first attained before higher discoveries of him are made. Though he be not — Και τοι γε, and truly indeed he is not, far from any one of us — Therefore, though he be not the object of men’s senses, we need not go far to seek or find him. He is very near us; yea, in us. It is only blind, perverse reason which thinks he is far off. For in him — Not in ourselves; we live, move, and have our being — This denotes his necessary, intimate, and most efficacious presence. The structure of our bodies, and the union of our souls to these exquisite pieces of material mechanism, together with the noble faculties of our minds, wherein we resemble God, and the admirable end for which this wonderful composition of soul and body is formed, afford to every man, not only an idea, but a proof of the Deity supporting and animating him: so that no words can better express, than these of the apostle do, the continual and necessary dependance of all created beings, in their existence and all their operations, on the first, the universal, and almighty Cause, which the truest philosophy, as well as divinity teaches. As certain also of your own poets have said — Aratus, whose words these are, and who also added another sentence, equally just and striking, namely, We are his offspring, especially in respect of intelligence, and other mental powers, similar to his, with which we are endowed. This poet, Aratus, was an Athenian, who lived almost three hundred years before this time. The words are also to be found, with the alteration of one letter only, in the hymn of Cleanthes to the Supreme Being, one of the purest and finest pieces of natural religion in the whole world of pagan antiquity.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain That they should seek the Lord - Greek: to…
That they should seek the Lord - Greek: to seek the Lord. The design of thus placing them on the earth - of gang them their habitation among his works - was, that they should contemplate his wisdom in his works, and thus come to a knowledge of his existence and character. All nations, though living in different regions and climates, have thus the opportunity of becoming acquainted with God, Rom 1:19-20. The fact that the nations did not thus learn the character of the true God shows their great stupidity and wickedness. The design of Paul in this was doubtless to reprove the idolatry of the Athenians. The argument is this: “God has given to each nation its proper opportunity to learn his character. Idolatry, therefore, is folly and wickedness, since it is possible to find out the existence of the one God from his works.”
If haply - εἰ ἄρα γε ei ara ge. If perhaps - implying that it was possible to find God, though it might be attended with some difficulty. God has placed us here that we may make the trial, and has made it possible thus to find him.
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They might feel after him - The word used here ψηλαφήσειαν psēlaphēseian means properly “to touch, to handle” Luk 24:39; Heb 12:18, and then to ascertain the qualities of an object by the sense of touch. And as the sense of touch is regarded as a certain way of ascertaining the existence and qualities of an object, the word means “to search diligently, so that we may know distinctly and certainly.” The word has this sense here. It means “to search diligently and accurately for God, to learn his existence and perfections.” The Syriac renders it, “That they may seek for God, and find him from his creatures.”
And find him - Find the proofs of his existence. Become acquainted with his perfections and laws.
Though he be not far ... - This seems to be stated by the apostle to show that it was possible to find him; and that even those who were without a revelation need not despair of becoming acquainted with his existence and perfections. He is near to us:
(1) Because the proofs of his existence and power are round about us everywhere, Psa 19:1-6.
(2) Because he fills all things in heaven and earth by his essential presence, Psa 139:7-10; Jer 23:23-24; Amo 9:2-4; 1Ki 8:27. We should learn then:
(1) To be afraid of sin. God is present with us, and sees all.
(2) He can protect the righteous. He is always with them.
(3) He can detect and punish the wicked. He sees all their plans and thoughts, and records all their doings.
(4) We should seek him continually. It is the design for which he has made us; and he has given us abundant opportunities to learn his existence and perfections.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain Feel after him. Si forte attrectent eum, Greek: ei…
Feel after him. Si forte attrectent eum, Greek: ei arage pselapheseian. It signifies palpare quasi in tenebris. (Witham)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain That they should seek the Lord--That is the high…
That they should seek the Lord--That is the high end of all these arrangements of Divine Power, Wisdom, and Love.
if haply they might feel after him--as men groping their way in the dark.
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and find him--a lively picture of the murky atmosphere of Natural Religion.
though he be not far from every one of us--The difficulty of finding God outside the pale of revealed religion lies not in His distance from us, but in our distance from Him through the blinding effect of sin.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 27. That—Man is created a social being that he…
27. That—Man is created a social being that he maybe a religious being. He is enabled to form into peoples and nations that he may organically adore the God of all.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 27. that they should seek the Lord] The best…
27. that they should seek the Lord] The best authorities read “seek God.” This was the lesson which God meant His creation and providence to teach, that through His works men should see Him.
if haply they might feel after him, and find him] The world was to be man’s book in which he should read God’s power and love; thus stimulated, a desire to know more might grow, and by efforts, which the graphic word of the Apostle compares to the exertion of one groping in the dark, more knowledge would come, and at last the full discovery would be made. God would be found. He is the rewarder of them that diligently seek Him.
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though he be not far from every one of us] And so can reveal Himself according to the measure of zeal shewn by those who seek Him.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (27) Should seek the Lord, if haply they might…
(27) Should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him.—The word for “feel after” expresses strictly the act of groping in the dark. From the Apostle’s point of view, anticipating in part the great Theodikæa—the vindication of the ways of God—in the Epistle to the Romans, the whole order of the world’s history was planned, as part of the education of mankind, waking longings which it could not satisfy, leading men at once to a consciousness of the holiness of God and of their own sinfulness. The religions of the world were to him as the movements of one who climbs
“Upon the great world’s altar stairs,
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That slope through darkness up to God;”
who can only say—
“I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope,
And gather dust, and chaff, and call
To what I feel is Lord of all,
And faintly trust the larger hope.”
Their ritual in all its manifold variety was but as the inarticulate wailing of childhood—
“An infant crying for the light,
And with no language but a cry.”
—Tennyson, In Memoriam, liv.
The “if haply” expresses the exact force of the Greek particles, which imply a doubt whether the end had been attained in its completeness. The altar to the Unknown and Unknowable was a witness that they had not been found. “The world by wisdom knew not God” (1Co_1:21). It had not got, in the language of another poet of our own, beyond
“Those obstinate questionings
Of sense and outward things,
Fallings from us, vanishings;”
which are as the
“Blank misgivings of a creature
Moving about in worlds not realised.”
—Wordsworth, Ode on Immortality.
Though he be not far from every one of us.—Better, and yet He is not far. The speaker appeals, as he does in Rom_2:15, to the witness borne by man’s consciousness and conscience. There, in the depths of each man’s being, not in temples made with hands, men might find God and hold communion with him. It was natural, in speaking to the peasants of Lystra, to point to the witness of “the rain from heaven and fruitful seasons.” (See Note on Act_14:17.) It was as natural, in speaking to men of high culture and introspective analysis, to appeal to that which was within them rather than to that which was without. But it will be noted that he does not confine that witness to the seekers after wisdom. God is not far from every one of us.” St. Paul accepts the truth which St. John afterwards proclaimed, that Christ is the “true Light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world.” (See Notes on Joh_1:9.) The writer of the Book of Deuteronomy (Deu_30:11-14) had asserted a like truth when he taught Israel that “the word was not in heaven, or beyond the sea,” but “in thy mouth and in thine heart, that thou mayest do it.” At this point the Stoics, we may believe, would recognise the affinities which St. Paul’s thoughts presented to their own teaching. The Epicureans would be more and more repelled by this attack on the central position of their system.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain God for the Lord, A.V. and T.R. (Meyer does…
God for the Lord, A.V. and T.R. (Meyer does not accept this reading); is for be, A.V.; each for every, A.V If haply they might feel after him. Yhlafaw is "to touch, feel, or handle," as Luk_24:39; Heb_12:18; 1Jn_1:1. But it is especially used of the action of the blind groping or feeling their way by their hands in default of sight. So Homer describes Polyphemus as cersiwn, feeling his way to the mouth of the cave with his hands after he was blinded by Ulysses ("Odyssey," 9:416). And in the LXX of Deu_28:29 we read, Esh yhlafwn meshmbriav wjv ei tiv yhlafhsai tuflotei, "Thou shall grope at noonday as the blind gropeth in darkness." The teaching, therefore, of the passage is that, though God was very near to every man, and had not left himself without abundant witness in his manifold gifts, yet, through the blindness of the heathen, they had to feel their way uncertainly toward God. In this fact lies the need of a revelation, as it follows ver. 30, etc. And hence part at least of the significance of such passages as, "Ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the; (Eph_5:8) "Who hath called you out of darkness into his marvelous light"; (1Pe_2:9) "God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness hath shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ", (2Co_4:6) and many more like passages.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain That they should seek the Lord.
Act_17:27
That they should seek the Lord.
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God the chief object of search
I. In what sense is it true that God is not far from any one of us? He is nigh--
1. In the creation around us.
2. In the sense of creaturely dependence and trust.
3. In that He is the Being towards whom the soul tends.
II. Is what sense does man feel after God?
1. In every search for an object of love there is a groping after God.
2. The intense longing after human fellowship is feeling after God.
3. So there is in the instinct of acquisition.
4. In the awful necessity there is in man for worship.
III. Any certainty that man will find Him?
1. Sin has separated both man and God.
2. Man desired not to retain God in His knowledge.
3. But God wants to find man.
Witness--
(1) Incarnation.
(2) Provision for the new birth.
IV. There is necessity lain upon every soul to find God. No matter how wise and cultured, if a man does not find God, he has missed the object of existence. (B. M. Palmer, D. D.)
The search for God and its satisfaction
I. God made man to seek Him.
1. Man is by nature religious. No one ever discovered light or invented hearing; man saw because he had eyes and heard because he had ears. And religion is as natural as either, because as native and essential. Hence man gets into religion as into other natural things, spontaneously. But to get out of it he has to reason himself into a strange position. No man is an atheist by nature, only by art; and an art that has to offer to nature ceaseless resistance. The atheist does not escape from God, only finds an ideal substitute for Him.
2. Religion being thus native to man, its being is as old as his, and--
3. As universal. In his multitudinous faiths he has been blindly fulfilling the Divine decree to seek God. From this point of view the religions of the world have a most touching import; they show men belated, stumbling darkly on, impelled by his Divine homesickness. The religions of man are like voices which say Come over and help us.
4. The nature that demands religion responds to it. We know how bad the world has been with its religions, but what would it have been without them? In spite of their falsities they have helped man to live his little life to the measure of his capacity. It and it alone has been able to lift man up to the mountain peak of the Spirit. But if religion is the point where man touches the highest, then it is that which finds, vivifies and directs the best that is in him. It is only as the nature which has come from God returns to Him that it thinks the wisest, does the noblest and becomes the best.
II. Religion is not only natural and necessary to man, but also to peoples. When a people has the noblest conception of God its spirit is in its sublimest and most heroic mood. An English ambassador sat at the table of Frederick the Great, with infidel wits who were making sport of religion. Suddenly the talk changed to war. Said the long-silent ambassador, England would by the help of God stand by Prussia. Ah! said Frederick, I did not know you had an ally of that name. So please your Majesty, was the swift retort, He is the only ally to whom we do not send subsidies. There stood the truth confessed. Englands best ally is God. A sceptical age is never a great or golden age; nor an infidel people a noble or creative people. For deed, politics, letters, art, religion is a necessity. In seeking for peoples who know not God, our philosophers have to go to cannibals.
III. Since religion is so necessary, the higher and purer the religion, the greater will be its power for good. History unfolds a wonderful tale. In India a few thousand Englishmen hold empire over more than two hundred millions of men. Wealth and culture came to the Hindoos ages before they came to us, yet how with that long start do they and we now respectively stand? Why has the Hindoo declined in power as he grew in multitude, while the late-born Saxon has widened with the process of the suns? Because the faith of the one grew like an iron band round his spirit full of consecrated falsities, while to the other came a strong yet gentle faith which breathed into him a purer spirit and nobler aims. So while the Hindoo feels as if held in the dread bonds of fate, the Saxon knows himself a son of God, a brother of man, sent to make earth happier and holier.
IV. By what religion can man best find God and realise the end of his being. Religions may be divided into two classes.
1. Artificial or fictitious religions--those of the individual imagination or reason; ideal substitutes for religion. To this class belong--
(1) The Religion of Nature, that product of the eighteenth century, which, however, was neither a religion nor a thing of nature. It was simply a speculative system so named that it might better offend Christianity. It never was professed anywhere--save by its makers, who were not in a state of nature, but were cultured with the culture of the Christian centuries. This attempt to give us Christianity without Christ failed utterly.
(2) The attempt of Strauss to build on our modern physicism a faith in which the universe became the only God. But man can only love the good and trust the right, and as these are the attributes of a person, Strauss failed.
(3) The Comtist apotheosis of man. But worship implies reverence. The thinker in his study, heir of a splendid inheritance, may well feel how magnificent are the gifts of humanity; but what has humanity done for the convict or the miserable victim of lust? The religion that man needs is not one that can delight the enlightened only, but one that can save the lost.
2. Real religions--those of history and fact. These may be divided into--
(1) The national religions of the past. All round us lie the ruins of the ancient faiths of Egypt, Phoenicia, Greece, Rome. They are all dead, to revive no more: supplanted by the universal and unifying faith of Christ.
(2) Turning from the dead past to the living present we have--
(a) Confucianism: but its prudential wisdom is without the enthusiasm of humanity. Look at it as realised in the people so quick-witted, yet so stationary, and then imagine what it would be were the world an immense Chinese Empire.
(b) Brahminism--the most awful tyranny of custom and caste, to which morality is unknown, and which can deify the basest as easily as the best. Brahminism universalised could only mean man depraved, and sent wearily to wander through time in search of eternal oblivion and peace.
(c) Buddhism, numerically the mightiest religion in the world: but in spite of its admirable ethics, a religion without God or hope, radically selfish, and as impotent as selfish.
(d) Islam, whose religion does not purify the home and therefore cannot regenerate the race.
(e) Judaism, which was great only as a prophetic religion, and whose life for the past eighteen centuries has been but a reminiscence.
3. From these imperfect faiths let us turn to that which has created the civilisation and noblest moral qualities of the Western world. Study it--
(1) As regards its ideal contents. Take its conception--
(a) Of God. Such a God as that of Christianity, an eternal Father and Sovereign, infinite personalised love and righteousness, has boundless promise of good and hope for man.
(b) Of man. The Christian doctrines of mans origin, nature, privilege and destiny are elevating and ennobling as no others are.
(2) As regards its actual achievements. Look around; you confront a civilisation that in its high, generous, and humane elements was created by Christianity; that has, to all its ignoble and pernicious elements, in Christianity a merciless foe. It has changed the sinner into a saint, freed the slave, built the hospital and created in every generation a noble army of teachers, reformers, philanthropists. Conclusion: The religion of Christ is the one religion that man needs; it has come from God that it may bring to God. Here lies the secret of its preeminence. Others have risen out of mans search for God; this out of Gods search for man. (Principal Fairbairn.)
Religious nature, and religious character
1. The expression feel after has reference to what they as Gods blind offspring were doing; and find Him, to what God, never afar off, wants to have them do. In one the deep longings of a nature made for God and religion is recognised; in the other a satisfied state of holy discovery and rest in God.
2. That religious nature and character should be distinguished is important in view of a great religious danger. It used to be the common doctrine that sinful man had no affinity for God, had only an anti-religious nature, and that nothing could be done for or by us till a new nature was given. Now piety is regarded as a sort of natural taste, and multitudes congratulate themselves on being better Christians than there used to be, on the ground of mere natural sentiment, because better reformers, etc. Where we shall be stranded in this shallowing process is too evident. Christianity will be coming to be more and more nearly a lost fact, and a vapid and soulless naturalism will take its place.
I. What is it to have a religious nature? Nothing more nor less than to be a man, a being made for God and religion.
1. We are so made as to want God, just as a child wants father and mother. Our nature may not consciously pine after God as an orphan for its lost parents; yet God is the necessary complement of all its feelings, hopes, satisfactions and endeavours. And it hungers none the less truly that it stays aloof from Him and tries to forget Him, even as the starving madman is none the less hungry that he refuses to eat.
2. This something in the soul, which makes God its principal and first want includes nearly its natural everything. It feels the beauty of God, and has the feeling of admiration towards Him. Reason gets no satisfaction till it culminates in Him. Even fear wants to come and hide in His bosom; and guilt, withering under His frown, would only frown upon Him if He were not exactly just.
3. Nor are these things less true under the perverting effects of depravity. Human nature as created is upright; as born or propagated a corrupted or damaged nature, but however much so it has the original Divine impress upon it. The religious nature stands a temple still for God, only scarred and blackened by the brimstone fires of evil.
4. Denying therefore that human nature is less really religious because depraved, it is not to be denied that there are times and moods in which it will be exasperated by the Divine perfections--i.e., when tormented by guilt and resolved on a course which God is known to oppose. But these are only moods. The religious nature has more constant than perverse moods, and is reaching after God in a certain way of natural desire all the while.
II. What it is to have a religious character.
1. Mere natural desire, want, sentiment Godward do not make it. What does it signify that the nature is feeling after God when the life is utterly against Him? If a man has a natural sense of honour does it make him an honourable man when he betrays every trust? Even a thief may have a good sentiment of justice, and be only the more consciously guilty because of it.
2. To answer the question two things must be understood beforehand.
(1) That religious character is more than and different from natural character. It is that which lies in choice, and for which we are thus responsible.
(2) That souls are made for God. They are to know Him and be conscious of Him.
3. Assuming these points it follows that man is never in religious character till he has found God, and that he will never find Him till his whole voluntary nature abandoning its own ends goes after Him and chimes in with His principles and ends. God can have no room to spread Himself in the soul when it is hugging itself.
III. How easily, and in how many ways, the workings of the merely religious nature may be confounded with religious character.
1. The admiration of Gods beauty what is it, some will say, but love? Even the souls deep throbs of want--what are they but its hungerings after righteousness? And so it comes to pass that religion is the same thing as mere natural sentiment; and the feeling after God substitutes the finding God. But it will not organise a church, or raise a mission, or instigate a prayer. It is exactly the religion of Herod, who heard John gladly and then murdered him. Pilate had the same religious nature, felt the greatness of Jesus, and ended in giving Him up. Felix had the same religion, and Agrippa, and Balaam: the world is full of it--sensibility to God and truth, coupled with a practical non-reception of all.
2. It results accordingly that there are always two kinds of religion; those which are the product of the religious sentiment more or less blind, and those which look to regeneration of character. The religion of the Athenians was of the former kind, as are all idolatries. What an appalling proof of the religious nature of feeling dimly after God, imagining that He is in the sun, the moon, snakes, beetles, etc. Look on these and see how man feels after God: does he therefore find Him? And what but hills of character are these idolatries?
3. Under the guise of Christianity too we may distinguish at least two kinds of religion corrupted by infusions of the same error. One is the religion of forms, where the soul is taken by them as a matter of taste; loves to play reverence under them; the other is a religion of sentiment fed by reason: feeling after God in the beautiful in nature, delighted with Christs lessons of natural virtue; and praising Him as the finest of all great men.
4. Now the true gospel is that which brings regenerative power, and creates the soul anew in Gods image. Any religion that has not this is, so far, a mock religion. The test question, therefore, is--have I found God in my religion? The life of God in the soul of man--that is religious character, and beside that there is none. (H. Bushnell, D. D.)
If haply they might feel after Him and find Him.--
Feeling after God
Hassell, in his From Pole to Pole, quotes the following:--A company of baptized Greenlanders, says Mr. Crantz, one day expressed their astonishment that they had spent their lives in a state of such complete ignorance and thoughtlessness. One of the party immediately rose up and spoke as follows: It is true we were ignorant heathens, and knew nothing of God and a Redeemer; for who could have informed us of their existence before you arrived? Yet I have often thought a rajak, with the darts belonging to it, does not exist of itself, but must be made with the trouble and skill of mens hands; and he who does not understand the use of it easily spoils it. Now the least bird is composed with greater art than the best rajak, and no man can make a bird. Man is still more exquisitely made than all other animals. Who then has made him? He comes from his parents, and they came again from their parents. But whence came the first man? He must have grown out of the earth. But why do men not grow out of the earth nowadays? And from whence do the earth, sea, sun, and stars proceed? There must necessarily be someone who has created everything, who has always existed, and can have no end. He must be inconceivably more powerful and skilful than the wisest of men. He must also be very good, because everything that He has made is so useful and necessary for us. Did I but know Him, what love and respect should I feel for Him! But who has seen or conversed with Him? None of us men. Yet there be men, too, who know something about Him. With such I would willingly converse. As soon, therefore, as I heard from you of this Great Being, I believed you immediately and willingly, having for a length of time longed after such information.
The parable of the climbing plants
1. The first peculiarity of the climbing plant to which Mr. Darwin calls our attention is the slow revolution, in a larger or smaller circle, of the upper extremities in search of a support, and when in their revolutions they are brought into contact with some firm object, they immediately press against it and so twine round it. The plant cannot stand alone, and it begins to reach out after support just as soon as it begins to grow. Do we not witness in these movements an analogy of the outreachings of the soul after God? The soul knows that it cannot thrive alone, that it needs some Power stronger than itself to cling to; and it feels after it if haply it may find it. Blindly, in the dark, the minds of men grope after this Object of their faith. It is not the heathen alone who have this experience. You know, my friend, no matter how irreligious your life may have been, that your heart is often yearning for a good you have not got; that the sense of helplessness and dependence sometimes takes strong hold of you and forces from your heart the cry: Oh that I knew where I might find Him and lay hold upon His strength!
2. On another plant, says Mr. Darwin, three pairs of tendrils were produced at the same time by three shoots, and all happened to he differently directed. I placed the pot in a box open only on one side and obliquely facing the light; in two days all six tendrils pointed with unerring truth to the darkest corner of the box, though to do this each had to bend in a different manner. The tendril is seeking an object to cling to, the light coming freely from one side shows that no object is there, so the tendrils turn in the other direction; support is nearest on the side where the shadow is. But how does this prefigure our spiritual relation to God? God is light; true, but clouds and darkness are the habitation of His throne. When it is said that in Him is no darkness at all, the darkness is moral; there is in Him no deceit, insincerity, hatred. His character is light, but there are many things about His nature that are dark to us. And it is precisely His transcendent greatness that our trust lays hold upon. We want a Power to cling to whose greatness we cannot compass with our thought. A God whom we could comprehend we could not fully trust. And so it is that our faith turns away from the garish light of human wisdom toward the unfathomed depths of Deity. There is another resemblance here. The darkness is a symbol of Gods infinity, of the veiling of His nature from our sight. But it is only by the help of shadows that we see. Look directly at the sun and you can see nothing. It is when your back is turned to the sun that you see most clearly. Our faith, like the tendrils, turns not only toward the darkness that hides Gods infinity, but also toward the shadow because in that something of His nature is visible. The shadow not only conceals, it also discloses. You cannot conceive of absolute deity. Your mind is dazzled when you look God in the face, just as your eyes are dazzled when you look on the sun. And men have always found it necessary to learn what God is by looking toward the shadows and the types which He has given us. The Incarnation is God in the shadow. Our faith finds something here that we can take hold of and cling to.
3. Knowing, says Mr. Darwin, that the tendrils avoided the light, I gave them a glass tube blackened within, and a well blackened zinc plate; but they soon recoiled from these objects with what I can only call disgust, and straightened themselves. Here we have not a likeness, but a contrast. Full often the tendrils of our desire fasten upon that which defiles us; and the faith that ought to bind us fast to Gods righteousness and power is entwined about some grovelling superstition or some ensnaring sin.
4. When a tendril, says our teacher again, has not succeeded in clasping a support, either through its own revolving movement or that of the shoot, or by turning toward any object that intercepts the light, it bends vertically downwards and then toward its own stem, which it seizes, together with the supporting stick, if there be one. So when our spiritual instincts that reach out naturally after God and goodness do not lay hold on their normal support, they, too, are very apt to turn downward and inward, and to lay hold upon that self which it was their true function to bind to a firm support. And when this is done the affections are apt to be turned backward upon self; the man comes to believe only in himself and to worship himself, and the character that is developed is a most unlovely product of egotism and selfishness.
5. If the tendril seizes nothing, says this naturalist, it soon withers away and drops off. It is possible thus, by simple neglect, to destroy that part of our nature by which we take hold upon God. The extinction of the faith faculty is a possible calamity, and it is the direst. How can the climbing plant cling when the tendrils have withered and dropped off? It must thenceforth grovel in the dirt and be trodden under foot of men. And how can the soul lift itself up, when all the faculties by which it takes hold on God have fallen into decay?
6. Let us hear Mr. Darwin again: Tendrils, soon after catching a support, grow much stronger and thicker and durable, and this shows how much their internal tissues must be changed. Occasionally it is the part which is wound round a support which chiefly becomes thicker and stronger. Is not this, also, true in the higher realm? The instincts of the soul that feel after God are wonderfully strengthened when they find Him, and take hold of His power. Faith grows by exercise.
7. The tendril strikes some object, Mr. Darwin proceeds, and firmly grasps it. In the course of some hours it contracts into a spire, dragging up the stem and forming an excellent spring. All movements now cease. By growth, the tissues soon become wonderfully strong and durable. The very character and quality of the tendrils themselves are changed as they thus fasten upon their support, and perform the function to which nature has assigned them. And so it is with these spiritual faculties of ours by which we lay hold upon God. Our trust, instead of being a tender and fragile thing, grows firm and strong and holds us fast to the throne of God with a grasp that the shocks of change cannot break nor the storms of adversity loosen.
8. Once more, The tendrils and internodes of Ampelopsis have little or no power of revolving; the tendrils are but little sensitive to contact; their hooked extremities cannot seize their objects; they will not even clasp a stick unless in extreme need of support; but they turn from the light to the dark, and, spreading out their branches in contact with any nearly flat surface, develop discs. These adhere by the secretion of some cement to a wall or even to a polished surface. The rapid development of these adherent discs is one of the most remarkable peculiarities possessed by any tendril. I cannot help seeing in this an analogy of that phenomenon of the spiritual life which we so often witness, by which those natures which have but little power of comprehending religious truth--of reaching round it and getting hold of it by their understanding--do yet lay hold upon it in a way of their own, and hold fast to it very firmly too. There are Christians whose faith does not seem to need the leading strings of logic or theology, but mounts right up by its own sure-footed intuition. And it is a blessed thing that those to whom the paths of philosophy are thorny, and the steeps of speculation hard to climb, may thus, by a simple and direct confidence in the Christ Himself, who is to all who receive Him the Way and the Truth and the Life, ascend to the serene and tranquil heights of virtue. (Washington Gladden, D. D.)
Though He be not far from every one of us.--
Not far from any one of us
This is the leading thought which the gospel presses home upon us in various ways.
1. In His Son Jesus Christ God has drawn near to the world.
2. The Holy Spirits abode in the heart of the Christian brings God near.
3. But Paul speaks of Gods presence in nature.
I. Distinguish between the revelation or God through nature and in the Scriptures.
1. The revelation in nature is the elder and more direct, that in Scripture the later and more mediate.
2. God speaks to us by nature in an inarticulate; by Scripture in an articulate voice. Nature is very beautiful, but she is so unresponsive.
3. Nature speaks more to our feelings and imagination. Scripture more to our understanding.
II. Note some of the tokens in nature of God.
1. Its effect upon the senses as an evidence of Divine goodness.
2. Its effect upon the emotions giving exquisite pleasure and evoking gratitude towards the unseen worker.
3. Its effect upon the imagination producing the consciousness of the presence of a mind sympathetic with our own.
4. Its effect upon the reason revealing besides God immortality, and creating a sense of sin.
III. But nature can only suggest to us those truths which we need for our peace and salvation, for their full exhibition we must turn to the bible. (E. Johnson, M. A.)
The nearness of God
God is not far from every one of us.
I. In the nature and aspirations of the soul. We are also His offspring. We ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold or silver or stone graven by art and mans device. The art of the sculptor may grave an exact resemblance of the human body, but cannot make a similitude of the soul. And it is in the soul that our child likeness to God is found. He who is the Father of our spirits must be Himself a spirit. And that our spirits are endowed with reason, affection and will, suggests the conception of a supreme intelligence, affection. The same is true of our moral endowments. Our sense of right and wrong (Rom_2:15) points upward to a Being of absolute truth and holiness. And so also the desires of our souls are indications of a Being in whose love we may find absolute repose, and from whose resources all our spiritual wants may be supplied. The offspring bear the likeness of the universal Father. It is His witness, His imprint and the mark of our Divine paternity; in which He is not far from every one of us.
II. In his essential presence. He is omnipresent in His authority and influence, as a king in all his dominions. But His presence is not only influential, it is actual. In Him we live and move and have our being. He is God above all and through all and in you all. He fills heaven and earth. This universal and actual presence of God is, according to Scripture, the source of His perfect knowledge. There is no doubt a sublime mystery in this conception. But I can just as readily conceive of an infinite spirit filling immensity as of a finite spirit filling my own body. Nor is there any kinship between this Divine omnipresence and Pantheism. There is a worldwide difference between saying that God is everywhere, and saying that everything is part of God. The one degrades, the other exalts Him. The one is the foundation of all idolatry; the other lies at the base of all true worship and of all true religion. Let a man realise that he can never be alone, because the Father is with him, and the sublime thought will restrain him from sin, and just in proportion as he apprehends Gods wisdom, power and love, it will fill his heart with confidence and his lips with prayer, and undergird his whole being with Divine strength.
III. In the daily workings of his providence. He has never left Himself without a witness to His universal presence. His sun shining alike upon the evil and the good; all the revolutions and order of the material universe, and all the mysterious influences which hold human society together, bear a perpetual testimony to the presence and goodness of God. It is true that men do not always hear this testimony, and that when they hear it they often misinterpret and pervert it. It is easy for us to attribute all these things to the operation of second causes, and even to worship the things that are seen, and it is no less easy to attribute them all to the blind operation of natural law, and to exclude all thought of an intelligent lawgiver. But after all there is in the soul of man an intuitive perception of God and longing after Him. For He has made of one blood, etc., i.e., He so constitutes their common nature that they should seek the Lord, etc. And it is to this common religious nature which feels after God that the Scriptures constantly appeal.
IV. As Our Judge. The incompleteness and the disorders of the present life all point forward to retribution beyond the grave. Conscience warns us of it. Hope aspires to it. Fear shrinks back from it. And who shall determine that destiny for us but the God in whose hands our breath is and whose are all our ways? And how near judgment is! There is but a hand breath between us and death and the tremendous realities which it will reveal to us. The Judge standeth at the door. Our character will be determined, and our condition will be fixed by God in whom we live and move and have our being.
V. Is the preaching of the gospel and in all the means of grace and salvation. Here it is that revealed religion comes in to supplement and give efficacy to the teaching of natural religion. (H. J. Van Dyke D. D.)
Gods nearness to man
In relation to this truth our race may be divided into five classes--
1. Those who enjoy His presence, like the Psalmist, who said, When I am awake I am still with Thee.
2. Those who are stolidly insensible of His presence, like those described by Paul in Eph_2:12 as being without God and without hope in the world.
3. Those who are in horrific dread of His presence, like those of Job_21:14. Depart!--this is the unceasing cry of hell.
4. Those who are in earnest search of His presence (Job_23:3). This class comprehends all earnest inquirers.
5. Those who theoretically deny His presence (Job_22:12-13). But these different opinions and feelings do not alter, even to the shadow of a shade, the fact that God is near. The earth sweeps her majestic course around the sun, though all the priests of Rome deny the fact of her motion. God is--
I. Locally near (Jer_23:24). An absolute existent has no relation to time or place. No metaphysics can explain, no finite thought comprehend, how He can be equally present in all places at the same time; but the denial of it involves philosophical contradictions, undeifies God, and contravenes the plainest and the sublimest teachings of inspiration. Then--
1. All men should live under a constant impression of His presence.
2. All attempts at secrecy in sin are to the last degree futile and absurd.
3. Death can effect no local separation of the soul from God.
II. Relationally near. He is the nearest relation we have. He is our Sovereign, overruling all things pertaining to us and our history; our Father, our Creator, who has made every particle of our being; our Proprietor, our Life. We cannot move a muscle, breathe a breath, think a thought, feel an emotion, without Him. In Him we live and move, and have our being. Two truths are inferable from His relational nearness.
1. That the necessity of the Atonement cannot be satisfactorily argued, to thinking minds, on the remote relationship of God as the Governor of man.
2. That the preservation of mans perfect freedom of moral action is very wonderful. Whilst He moves us, we are morally free in moving. The how of this is the problem with which all thoughtful ages have wrestled hard, and to this hour it remains unsolved. I feel that I am free, and no argument can destroy this feeling.
III. Sympathetically near. How close is the heart of a mother to her babel But we are nearer to the heart of God than the babe to the heart of that mother. Can a woman forget her sucking child, etc. There are three things that show the nearness of His heart to us.
1. His distinguishing goodness in the creation of our existence. He has given us greater capacities for happiness than He has to any other creatures of which we have any knowledge. Sensuous, intellectual, social, and religious enjoyments are ours.
2. His wonderful forbearance in the preservation of our existence. We are rebels against His government as fallen creatures, yet how He forbears (Hos_2:8).
3. His infinite mercy in the redemption of our existence. Here is the climax of love. God so loved the world, etc.
Conclusion: It is true that the heart-searching God is thus near us?
1. Then our indifference is more anomalous than the conduct of him who lies down to sleep upon the bosom of a burning volcano.
2. Then how preposterous and wicked is hypocrisy.
3. Then ceremonialists, why be so particular about the rituals, the places, and the times of worship? God is a Spirit. (D. Thomas, D. D.)
Realising Gods nearness
We are said to be, known to be, nearer to the sun in winter than in summer. But the increased swiftness of the earths motion in its orbit, together with the inclination of the axis in the same, prevents the increase of heat that otherwise would be inevitable. The surface of the earth on this account is so much less time exposed to the suns rays, and so obliquely that the heat is diminished by the nearness. Just so, the world may be nearer to God in position, by providential advantages, opportunities, and in speculative Divine knowledge, nearer, and yet farther from Gods love, less affected by His mercy, less warmed and quickened by His light. So it may be with an individual heart. One man may really be farther from God in position than another, and yet have a summer season in his soul; while the other, though nearer in point of every advantage and opportunity, may remain in the dead of winter. The climate of the soul does not depend so much upon the nearness and abundance of the rays, if it is flying swiftly through them, and obliquely turned from them, but upon the steadiness and constancy with which they are received by a heart turned directly towards them. Looking steadily to Christ is the condition of light and life. (W. Cheever.)
Gods nearness to man: effects of the consciousness of
Two men are walking upon the same plain, and each turns his face towards the sky. The light of the sun is shining upon both, but one sees no sun, while the other sees not only light, but the face of the sun, and his eye is overpowered with its glory. What makes the difference between the two? Not that one is in darkness, and the other in light; not that one is near the sun, and the other far away; not that one has an eye differently constituted from the other; but simply that there is a thin cloud between heaven and the one, and no cloud between it and the other. The latter can not only trace evidence that there is a sun, and that he is up, but has the presence of that sun before his face, and his glory filling his eye. So two men stand in relation to the universal and all-present God. One believes, infers, intellectually knows, that He is; ay, that He is present; yet he discerns Him not: it is a matter of inference, not of consciousness; and though believing that God is, and that He is present, he sins. Another spiritually discerns, feels His presence; and he will stand in awe, and sin not. (W. Arthur, M. A.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. W. McGarvey 1914 · Public Domain See notes on verse 22
See notes on verse 22
J. W. McGarvey (with Philip Y. Pendleton), Commentaries on the New Testament (The Fourfold Gospel, 1914; Acts; and the epistles) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.