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The Divine Spirit penetrates, pervades, and actuates the whole mass of beings, and is intimately conscious to every motion and operation throughout the whole extent of created nature. In the text God is described as intimately present with moral agents and with human minds.

I. THE OMNIPRESENCE OF GOD'S BEING.

1. By way of similitude, consider the operations of a human soul in and upon a human body. How our spirits actuate our bodies is one of those mysteries which we cannot penetrate. But we are conscious of the power, though we know not how we came by it. The fact is undisputed, that the mind is present at once to each and every part of our little world, animates with its constant influences every particle of our vital clay, keeps watchful guard upon all the avenues and portals of our senses, at the same time presiding in the more secret chambers of sublimer thought and finer speculation. So related, it is incapable of division or diminution, of composition or separation. Imagine the Spirit of God thus acting through every part and portion of the universe, yet with a fulness of power and perfection, neither limited by it, nor passive in any degree or manner from it — imagine Him superintending the whole with the united efficacy of His wisdom, goodness, and power, and you will then have as clear a notion of His presence with the whole system of created nature as you have of that intercourse which your own souls maintain with your bodies. But you must be careful to exclude from this comparison whatever shall imply any passiveness in God, or any limitation of His infinite mind.

2. The Scriptures have represented God as present in some places more, or rather, than in others, and most eminently above all, in the peculiar habitation of His holiness and glory. Explain this by reference to the former comparison. While the human soul actuates each part and particle of our human body, the head is the manifest laboratory of its finest and noblest operations, where it exerts the purest and brightest and strongest acts of contrivance and invention of thought and understanding. Now, what the soul of man is formed to do by the skill and wisdom of its heavenly Architect, He may choose for Himself to do, upon the reasons of state and providence, which He hath partly revealed to us, and partly concealed within the veil of His hidden counsels. No reason can be given why the same uniform, simple, undivided Essence must equally everywhere exert itself, or why it may not manifest its acts and operations more, and rather, in one place than another.

3. As place hath in strictness a near relation to bodies, and to the order of their several positions and situations, the idea of local presence is apt to mix itself with that relation when we apply it to spirits. It is better to speak of the Divine presence as a vital energy, a knowing influence, a powerful activity. His presence with all things acquaints Him with all things, and makes all things easy to Him.

II. CONSIDER THE DIVINE SPIRIT AS PRESENT WITH MORAL AGENTS AND HUMAN MINDS.

1. A disquisition of the fact. Of this fact there will be little question, if the premisses are agreed to. Surely moral truths, and the eternal differences between good and evil, will plead as strongly for a close regard to them as any degrees of symmetry or beauty, of harmony or proportion in the natural world, shall engage the attention of a curious observer. Much more amiable and entertaining must be the spectacle of moral than of any natural beauty.

2. The uses we should make of this fact. The sinner may reasonably stand aghast with terror and confusion at the deformity of his own actions. He is breaking in upon the counsels of eternity, and thwarting the purposes of Divine wisdom and holiness in the sight of his awful Governor, and the observation of his all-seeing Judge.

3. Let the good man consider the comforts he may derive from a sense of God's constant presence with him. His Maker observes him in all his pressures; in all the difficulties and conflicts of virtue.

4. Let us all be persuaded to live and to behave in every circumstance of life like a people sensible who is the Spectator, and who is to be the Judge of all their actions. Cicero advised that we should habituate our imaginations to the view of some person eminent for the gravity and sanctity of his manners; should suppose ourselves in his presence, and carry ourselves in all points as we would before him. How much more should a sense of the all-seeing eye control us; the presence of Him who is a lover of righteousness in others, and a sure avenger of all ungodliness and wrong.

(N. Marshall, D.D.)

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KJV: The eyes of the LORD are in every place, beholding the evil and the good.

WEB: Yahweh's eyes are everywhere, keeping watch on the evil and the good.