To be near unto God - pagina 357

tendency of the heart, not to seek, but to be delivered from, God, the favor of Gold to usward turns into holy antipathy. Thus the pathway of life is walked with God in enmity and in bitterness, and the Holy Spirit is grieved. This does not happen with a child of the world. He does not walk with God. He walks alone. Hje perceives nothing, feels nothing, sees nothing of the nearness of God. Hence he can not fall into sin in this way. His sin bears another character. But if we belong to the company of the redeemed, if we walk with people in whose midst the Lord walks, all sinful living must be stopped, or else, if it is yet continued, the terrible sin of contrariness, of antipathy to God will spring up in the heart. The inner life of the soul will be corrupted, and presently all of the after-life on earth. And the ill-omened deception is, that this contrariness, this antipathy only shows itself, at the point of some special sin. This gives rise to these monstrous conditions, that in all other ways a man may seek after God, may be zealous in Divine service, may maintain devout habits of prayer, but as often as this particular sin comes in question, may lose at once all self-control, and perceiviEg that God continues to walk with him, m\y feel no longer comforted by this blessed neardesire, the

ness,

but merely hindered thereby in his

sin.

And

persisted in, the most terrible contrariness follows, even the dreadful contrariness of God. The case is not the same with sin that is committed from lack of strength. For then when if

the sin

is

still

tempted, the heart will seek refuge with God. We are well aware at such times that Satan plans to 849

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