Resisting the Voice of Conscience
Practical Atheism
“Men are negligent in using means to attain the knowledge of God’s will. All natural men are fools, who do not know how to use the price God puts into their hands (Prov. 17:16). They do not rightly esteem the opportunities and means of grace; they account the law to be folly when it is the product of infinite and holy wisdom.
When any part of the mind and will of God breaks in upon men, they endeavor to shake it off—as a man would shake off an officer who comes to arrest him. “They did not like to retain God in their knowledge” (Rom. 1:28). “The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God” (1 Cor. 2:14), that is, into his affection. He pushes them back as men do troublesome and importunate beggars.
When men cannot shake off the notices of the will and mind of God, they have no pleasure in the consideration of them. This could not possibly be if there was a genuine purpose to acknowledge the mind and law of God as our rule. Servants who love to obey their master will delight to read and carry out their orders. The devils understand the law of God in their minds, but they loathe the impressions of it upon their wills. A natural man is said not to know God or the things of God. He may know them in his mind, but he does not know them in his heart. A sensual soul can have no delight in a spiritual law. To be sensual and not to have the Spirit are inseparable (Jude 1:19).
Natural men may indeed meditate upon the law and truth of God, but without delight in it. If they take any pleasure in it, it is only as it is knowledge, not as it is a rule. Natural men desire to know God and some part of His will and law, not out of a sense of their practical excellency, but out of a natural thirst after knowledge. They purpose to furnish their understandings, not to quicken their affections. They are like idle boys who light a fire, not to warm themselves by the heat, but to entertain themselves with the sparks. But a gracious soul not only considers his meditation to be sweet, but he takes delight in the object of that meditation (Ps. 104:34).”
God’s law cast against a hard heart is like a ball thrown against a stone wall—because of the resistance, it bounces further from it. We have a natural antipathy against the divine rule; and therefore when it comes close to our consciences, we tend to scorn it and reason against it; and corruption breaks out more strongly. “But sin taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence, for without the law sin was dead” (Rom 7:8). Sin was in a languishing posture, as if it were dead, like a lazy guard in a city, till when it hears an alarm from the enemy it takes arms and revives its courage. All the sin in the heart gathers together its force to stand.”