Is it not matter of experience that we are not sufficiently influenced by the hopes and fears of religion, that we do not adequately reverence GOD, or seek Him, and rest on Him, because we suppose that He is afar off, and that all that we have to expect from Him, will only begin to be realised in the next world? GOD, as a present GOD, is too much unknown to us. We do not feel that He is now about us; that His eye is watching us, and His arm upraised over each of us at every moment of our lives; that He is a guest actually in us, to be honoured and waited on now. We do not know of His present closeness, of His immediate rewards and punishments, His pleasure or displeasure, His instant succour, or instant withdrawal from us, according to what He sees in us. We do all, and bear all in distant expectation, and therefore we do negligently, and bear feebly and impatiently. Could we realise the perpetual working, the instant retribution, the very touching of GOD now, it would be easy to regard and serve Him, it would be all but impossible to neglect Him. No man could prefer dross to gold, misery to bliss, death to life, if they were both offered him at the same moment. No one could hesitate whom to obey, whom to trust, whom to fear, whom to love, if GOD were seen on the one side, and fellow man on the other. It is because GOD, and the things of GOD, are supposed to be far off, that we first prefer the other, and then practically regard it as that which alone has real existence.