ignominy in having excited in the Divine mind feelings of displeasure
against us. One might suppose a man would die of shame, and could not
bear to live conscious of having merited the condemnation and
punishment of such a Being; one might suppose that the breath of
God's disapproval would blast every blessing to us, and that so long
as we know ourselves displeasing to Him His sweetest gifts must be
bitter to us; but the coldness of a friend gives us more thought, and
the contempt of men as contemptible as ourselves affects us with a
more genuine confusion.

God's demand, then, is reasonable. He would have us feel before Him
as much shame as we feel before men, the same kind of shame--shame
with the same blush and burning in it, not shame of any sublimated,
fictitious kind. He desires us individually to take thought, and to
say to ourselves: "Suppose a man had proved against me even a small
part of what is proved against me by God: Suppose some wise, just,
and honourable man had said of me and believed such things as God has
said: suppose he had said, and said truly, that I had robbed him,
betrayed trust, and was unworthy of his friendship, would the shame
be no more poignant than that which I feel when God denounces me?"
How trifling are the causes which make us blush before our fellows: a
little awkwardness, the slightest accident which makes us appear
blundering, some scarcely perceptible incongruity of dress, an
infinitesimal error in manner or in accent--anything is enough to
make us uneasy in the company of those we esteem. It is God's
reasonable demand that for those gross iniquities and bold
transgressions of which we are conscious we should manifest some
heartfelt shame--a shame that does not wholly lack the poignancy and
agitation of the confusion we feel in presence of human judgment.