Psalm 10:4 The wicked, through the pride of his countenance, will not seek after God: God is not in all his thoughts. Christianity made but few converts amongst the disciples of Zeno. Why should it have been so? With their simple and self-denying habits, why were they not attracted by the purer morals of the Gospel? and with their superiority to the surrounding superstitions, why did they not hail that unknown God whom Cleanthus had sung, and whom Paul now preached? The answer we fear is to be found in that little word PRIDE — that little word which is still so great a hindrance to many wise men after the flesh. Amongst the Greeks and Romans the Stoics occupied the same place as the Pharisees amongst the Jews. The very foundation of their theory was to make the virtuous man self-sufficing, and usually they got so far as to make him self-sufficient. In cutting off all other vices the Stoic, like the cynic before him, fostered to enormous magnitude pride or self-complacency, and, as Archer Butler says in his Ancient Philosophy, sought not so much to please the Deity as to be His equal. (J. Hamilton, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: The wicked, through the pride of his countenance, will not seek after God: God is not in all his thoughts.WEB: The wicked, in the pride of his face, has no room in his thoughts for God. |
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