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.