st all heathens have had
some notion of what God is like, and have had a notion also, which
none but God could have given them, that men ought to be like God.
God taught, or if I may so speak, tried to teach, the heathen, from
the very first. If God had not taught them, they would not have
been to blame for knowing nothing of God. For as Job says, 'Can man
by searching find out God?' Surely not; God must teach us about
Himself. Never forget that man cannot find God; God must show
Himself to man of His own free grace and will. God must reveal and
unveil Himself to us, or we shall never even fancy that there is a
God. And God did so to the heathen. Even before the Flood, God's
Spirit strove with man; and after the Flood we read how the Lord,
Jesus Christ the Son of God, revealed Himself in many different ways
to heathens. To Pharaoh, king of Egypt, in Abraham's times; and
again to Abimelech, king of Gerar; and again to Pharaoh and his
servants, in Joseph's time; and to Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon,
and to Cyrus, king of Persia; and no doubt to thousands more.
Indeed, no man, heathen or Christian, ever thought a single true
thought, or felt a single right feeling, about God or man, or man's
duty to God and his neighbour, unless God revealed it to him
(whether or not He also revealed _Himself_ to the man and showed him
_who_ it was who was putting the right thought into his mind): for
every right thought and feeling about God, and goodness, and duty,
are the very voice of God Himself, the word of God whereof St. John
speaks, and Moses and the prophets speak, speaking to the heart of
sinful man, to enlighten and to teach him. And therefore, St. Paul
says, the sinful heathen were without excuse, because, he says,
'that which may be known of God is manifest, that is plain, among
them, for God hath showed it to them. For the invisible things of
Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being
understood by the things which are made, even His eternal power and
Godhead; so that they are without excuse.' 'But these heathens,' he
says, 'did not like to retain God in their knowledge; and when they
knew God, did not glorify Him as God, and changed the glory of the
Incorruptible God into the likeness of corruptible man, and beasts
and creeping things.' And so they were alienated from the life of
God; that is, they became strangers to God's life; they forgot what
God's life and character was like: or if they