Psalms 51 commentary

David, being convinced of his sin, poured out his soul to God in prayer for mercy and grace. Whither should backsliding children return, but to the Lord their God, who alone can heal them? he drew up, by Divine teaching, an account of the workings of his heart toward God. Those that truly repent of their sins, will not be ashamed to own their repentance. Also, he instructs others what to do, and what to say. David had not only done much, but suffered much in the cause of God; yet he flees to God's infinite mercy, and depends upon that alone for pardon and peace. He begs the pardon of sin. The blood of Christ, sprinkled upon the conscience, blots out the transgression, and, having reconciled us to God, reconciles us to ourselves. The believer longs to have the whole debt of his sins blotted out, and every stain cleansed; he would be thoroughly washed from all his sins; but the hypocrite always has some secret reserve, and would have some favorite lust spared. David had such a deep sense of his sin, that he was continually thinking of it, with sorrow and shame. His sin was committed against God, whose truth we deny by wilful sin; with him we deal deceitfully. And the truly penitent will ever trace back the streams of actual sin to the fountain of original depravity. He confesses his original corruption. This is that foolishness which is bound in the heart of a child, that proneness to evil, and that backwardness to good, which is the burden of the regenerate, and the ruin of the unregenerate. He is encouraged, in his repentance, to hope that God would graciously accept him. Thou desirest truth in the inward part; to this God looks, in a returning sinner. Where there is truth, God will give wisdom. Those who sincerely endeavour to do their duty shall be taught their duty; but they will expect good only from Divine grace overcoming their corrupt nature.

Purge me with hyssop, with the blood of Christ applied to my soul by a lively faith, as the water of purification was sprinkled with a bunch of hyssop. The blood of Christ is called the blood of sprinkling, Heb 12:24. If this blood of Christ, which cleanses from all sin, cleanse us from our sin, then we shall be clean indeed, Heb 10:2. He asks not to be comforted, till he is first cleansed; if sin, the bitter root of sorrow, be taken away, he can pray in faith, Let me have a well-grounded peace, of thy creating, so that the bones broken by convictions may rejoice, may be comforted. Hide thy face from my sins; blot out all mine iniquities out of thy book; blot them out, as a cloud is blotted out and dispelled by the beams of the sun. And the believer desires renewal to holiness as much as the joy of salvation. David now saw, more than ever, what an unclean heart he had, and sadly laments it; but he sees it is not in his own power to amend it, and therefore begs God would create in him a clean heart. When the sinner feels this change is necessary, and reads the promise of God to that purpose, he begins to ask it. He knew he had by his sin grieved the Holy Spirit, and provoked him to withdraw. This he dreads more than anything. He prays that Divine comforts may be restored to him. When we give ourselves cause to doubt our interest in salvation, how can we expect the joy of it? This had made him weak; he prays, I am ready to fall, either into sin or into despair, therefore uphold me with thy Spirit. Thy Spirit is a free Spirit, a free Agent himself, working freely. And the more cheerful we are in our duty, the more constant we shall be to it. What is this but the liberty wherewith Christ makes his people free, which is contrasted with the yoke of bondage? Ga 5:1. It is the Spirit of adoption spoken to the heart. Those to whom God is the God of salvation, he will deliver from guilt; for the salvation he is the God of, is salvation from sin. We may therefore plead with him, Lord, thou art the God of my salvation, therefore deliver me from the dominion of sin. And when the lips are opened, what should they speak but the praises of God for his forgiving mercy?

Those who are thoroughly convinced of their misery and danger by sin, would spare no cost to obtain the remission of it. But as they cannot make satisfaction for sin, so God cannot take any satisfaction in them, otherwise than as expressing love and duty to him. The good work wrought in every true penitent, is a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart, and sorrow for sin. It is a heart that is tender, and pliable to God's word. Oh that there were such a heart in every one of us! God is graciously pleased to accept this; it is instead of all burnt-offering and sacrifice. The broken heart is acceptable to God only through Jesus Christ; there is no true repentance without faith in him. Men despise that which is broken, but God will not. He will not overlook it, he will not refuse or reject it; though it makes God no satisfaction for the wrong done to him by sin. Those who have been in spiritual troubles, know how to pity and pray for others afflicted in like manner. David was afraid lest his sin should bring judgements upon the city and kingdom. No personal fears or troubles of conscience can make the soul, which has received grace, careless about the interests of the church of God. And let this be the continued joy of all the redeemed, that they have redemption through the blood of Christ, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of his grace.

PSALM 51

We learn the cause which led to the composition of this psalm from the title appended to it, and which will immediately come under our consideration. For a long period after his melancholy fall, David would seem to have sunk into a spiritual lethargy; but when roused from it by the expostulation of Nathan, he was filled with self-loathing and humiliation in the sight of God, and was anxious both to testify his repentance to all around him, and leave some lasting proof of it to posterity. In the commencement of the psalm, having his eyes directed to the heinousness of his guilt, he encourages himself to hope for pardon by considering the infinite mercy of God. This he extols in high terms, and with a variety of expressions, as one who felt that he deserved multiplied condemnation. In the after part of the psalm, he prays for restoration to the favor of God, being conscious that he deserved to have been cast off for ever, and deprived of all the gifts of the Holy Spirit. He promises, should forgiveness be bestowed upon him, to retain a deep and grateful sense of it. Towards the conclusion, he declares it to be for the good of the Church that God should grant his request; and, indeed, when the peculiar manner in which God had deposited his covenant of grace with David is considered, it could not but be felt that the common hope of the salvation of all must have been shaken on the supposition of his final rejection.

To the chief musician. A Psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet came to him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba.

When Nathan the prophet came to him Express mention is made of the prophet having come before the psalm was written, proving, as it does, the deep lethargy into which David must have fallen. It was a wonderful circumstance that so great a man, and one so eminently gifted with the Spirit, should have continued in this dangerous state for upwards of a year. Nothing but satanic influence can account for that stupor of conscience which could lead him to despise or slight the divine judgment, which he had incurred. It serves additionally to mark the supineness into which he had fallen, that he seems to have had no compunction for his sin till the prophet came to him. We have here a striking illustration, at the same time, of the mercy of God in sending the prophet to reclaim him when he had wandered. In this view, there is an antithesis in the repetition of the word came. It was when David came in to Bathsheba that Nathan came to him. By that sinful step he had placed himself at a distance from God; and the Divine goodness was signally displayed in contemplating his restoration. We do not imagine that David, during this interval, was so wholly deprived of the sense of religion as no longer to acknowledge the supremacy of the Divine Being. In all probability he continued to pray daily, engaged in the acts of Divine worship, and aimed at conforming his life to the law of God. There is no reason to think that grace was wholly extinct in his heart; but only that he was possessed by a spirit of infatuation upon one particular point, and labored under a fatal insensibility as to his present exposure to Divine wrath. Grace, whatever sparks it might emit in other directions, was smothered, so to speak, in this. Well may we tremble to contemplate the fact, that so holy a prophet, and so excellent a king, should have sunk into such a condition! That the sense of religion was not altogether extinguished in his mind, is proved by the manner in which he was affected immediately upon receiving the prophet’s reproof. Had such been the case, he could not have cried out as he did, “I have sinned against the Lord,” (2 Samuel 12:13;) nor would he have so readily submitted himself, in the spirit of meekness, to admonition and correction. In this respect, he has set an example to all such as may have sinned against God, teaching them the duty of humbly complying with the calls to repentance, which may be addressed to them by his servants, instead of remaining under sin till they be surprised by the final vengeance of Heaven.

Psalm 51:1-2

1. Have mercy upon me, O God: according to thy lovingkindness; according to the multitude of thy compassions, blot out my transgressions. 2. Multiply to wash me from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.

1. Have mercy upon me. David begins, as I have already remarked, by praying for pardon; and his sin having been of an aggravated description, he prays with unwonted earnestness. He does not satisfy himself with one petition. Having mentioned the loving-kindness of the Lord, he adds the multitude of his compassions, to intimate that mercy of an ordinary kind would not suffice for so great a sinner. Had he prayed God to be favorable, simply according to his clemency or goodness, even that would have amounted to a confession that his case was a bad one; but when he speaks of his sin as remissible, only through the countless multitude of the compassions of God, he represents it as peculiarly atrocious. There is an implied antithesis between the greatness of the mercies sought for, and the greatness of the transgression which required them. Still more emphatical is the expression which follows, multiply to wash me Some take הרבה, There are here two verbs, הרבה, herebeh, and כבסני, kabbeseni, the first signifying to multiply, and the second to wash Many expositors think that the verb הרבה, herebeh, is used in the sense of an adverb, and they read, Multum lava me “When two verbs of the same tense are joined together, whether a copula goes between them or not, the first is often expressed in Latin by an adverb.” — Glass. Lib. 1, Tract. 3, De Verbo Can. 29, tom. 1, p. 272. See Genesis 25:1; Psalm 6:10; 45:5; 78:41; and 102:3 herebeh, for a noun, but this is too great a departure from the idiom of the language. The sense, on that supposition, would indeed remain the same, That God would wash him abundantly, and with multiplied washing; but I prefer that form of expression which agrees best with the Hebrew idiom. This, at least, is certain from the expression which he employs, that he felt the stain of his sin to be deep, and to require multiplied washings. Not as if God could experience any difficulty in cleansing the worst sinner, but the more aggravated a man’s sin is, the more earnest naturally are his desires to be delivered from the terrors of conscience.

The figure itself, as all are aware, is one of frequent occurrence in Scripture. Sin resembles filth or uncleanness, as it pollutes us, and makes us loathsome in the sight of God, and the remission of it is therefore aptly compared to washing This is a truth which should both commend the grace of God to us, and fill us with detestation of sin. Insensible, indeed, must that heart be which is not affected by it!

Psalm 51:3-6

3. For I know my transgressions, and my sin is continually before me. 4. Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done evil in thy sight; that thou mayest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest. 5. Behold, I was born in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. 6. Behold, thou hast desired truth in the inward parts, and hast shown me wisdom in secret.

PSALM 51

Psa 51:1-19. On the occasion, compare 2Sa 11:12. The Psalm illustrates true repentance, in which are comprised conviction, confession, sorrow, prayer for mercy, and purposes of amendment, and it is accompanied by a lively faith.

1-4. A plea for mercy is a confession of guilt.

blot out--as from a register.

transgressions--literally, "rebellions" (Psa 19:13; 32:1).

5-6. His guilt was aggravated by his essential, native sinfulness, which is as contrary to God's requisitions of inward purity as are outward sins to those for right conduct.

7-12. A series of prayers for forgiveness and purifying.

Purge ... hyssop--The use of this plant in the ritual (Ex 12:22; Nu 19:6, 18) suggests the idea of atonement as prominent here; "purge" refers to vicarious satisfaction (Nu 19:17-20).

13. Then--Such will be the effect of this gracious work.

ways--of providence and human duty (Psa 18:21, 30; 32:8; Lu 22:32).

14. Deliver--or, "Free me" (Psa 39:8) from the guilt of murder (2Sa 12:9, 10; Psa 5:6).

righteousness--as in Psa 7:17; 31:1.

15. open ... lips--by removing my sense of guilt.

16. Praise is better than sacrifice (Psa 50:14), and implying faith, penitence, and love, glorifies God. In true penitents the joys of pardon mingle with sorrow for sin.

18. Do good, &c.--Visit not my sin on Thy Church.

build ... walls--is to show favor; compare Psa 89:40, for opposite form and idea.

19. God reconciled, material sacrifices will be acceptable (Psa 4:5; compare Is 1:11-17).

Have mercy upon me, O God - Without mercy I am totally, finally ruined and undone.

According to thy loving-kindness - Mark the gradation in the sense of these three words, Have Mercy on me, חנני chonneni; thy Loving-Kindness, חסדך chasdecha; - thy Tender Mercies, רחמיך rachameycha, here used to express the Divine compassion. The propriety of the order in which they are placed deserves particular observation.

The first, rendered have mercy or pity, denotes that kind of affection which is expressed by moaning over an object we love and pity; that natural affection and tenderness which even the brute creation show to their young by the several noises they respectively make over them.

The second, rendered loving-kindness, denotes a strong proneness, a ready, large, and liberal disposition, to goodness and compassion, powerfully prompting to all instances of kindness and bounty; flowing as freely as waters from a perpetual fountain. This denotes a higher degree of goodness than the former.

The third, rendered tender mercies, denotes what the Greeks called splagcnizesqai, that most tender pity which we signify by the moving of the heart and bowels, which argues the highest degree of compassion of which nature is susceptible. See Chandler.

Blot out my transgressions - מחה mecheh, wipe out. There is a reference here to an indictment: the psalmist knows what it contains; he pleads guilty, but begs that the writing may be defaced; that a proper fluid may be applied to the parchment, to discharge the ink, that no record of it may ever appear against him: and this only the mercy, loving-kindness, and tender compassions of the Lord can do.

Wash me throughly - הרבה כבסני harbeh cabbeseni, "Wash me again and again, - cause my washings to be multiplied." My stain is deep; ordinary purgation will not be sufficient.

For I acknowledge my transgressions - I know, I feel, I confess that I have sinned.

My sin is ever before me - A true, deep, and unsophisticated mark of a genuine penitent. Wherever he turns his face, he sees his sin, and through it the eye of an angry God.

Against thee, thee only, have I sinned - This verse is supposed to show the impropriety of affixing the above title to this Psalm. It could not have been composed on account of the matter with Bath-sheba and the murder of Uriah; for, surely, these sins could not be said to have been committed against God Only, if we take the words of this verse in their common acceptation. That was a public sin, grievous, and against society at large, as well as against the peace, honor, comfort, and life of an innocent, brave, and patriotic man. This is readily granted: but see below.

That thou mightest be justified when thou speakest - Perhaps, to save the propriety of the title, we might understand the verse thus: David, being king, was not liable to be called to account by any of his subjects; nor was there any authority in the land by which he could be judged and punished. In this respect, God Alone was greater than the king; and to him Alone, as king, he was responsible. Nam quando rex deliquit, Soli Deo reus est; guia hominem non habet qui ejus facta dijudicet, says Cassiodorus. "For when a king transgresses, he is accountable to God Only; for there is no person who has authority to take cognizance of his conduct." On this very maxim, which is a maxim in all countries, David might say, Against thee only have I sinned. "I cannot be called to the bar of my subjects; but I arraign myself before thy bar. They can neither judge nor condemn me; but thou canst: and such are my crimes that thou wilt be justified in the eyes of all men, and cleared of all severity, shouldst thou inflict upon me the heaviest punishment." This view,of the subject will reconcile the Psalm to the title. As to the eighteenth and nineteenth verses, we shall consider them in their own place; and probably find that the objection taken from them has not much weight.

Behold, I was shapen in iniquity - A genuine penitent will hide nothing of his state; he sees and bewails, not only the acts of sin which he has committed, but the disposition that led to those acts. He deplores, not only the transgression, but the carnal mind which is enmity against God. The light that shines into his soul shows him the very source whence transgression proceeds; he sees his fallen nature, as well as his sinful life; he asks pardon for his transgressions, and he asks washing and cleansing for his inward defilement. Notwithstanding all that Grotius and others have said to the contrary, I believe David to speak here of what is commonly called original sin; the propensity to evil which every man brings into the world with him, and which is the fruitful source whence all transgression proceeds. The word חוללתי cholalti, which we translate shaped, means more properly, I was brought forth from the womb; and יחמתני yechemathni rather signifies made me warm, alluding to the whole process of the formation of the fetus in utero, the formative heat which is necessary to develope the parts of all embryo animals; to incubate the ova in the female, after having been impregnated by the male; and to bring the whole into such a state of maturity and perfection as to render it capable of subsisting and growing up by aliment received from without. "As my parts were developed in the womb, the sinful principle diffused itself through the whole, so that body and mind grew up in a state of corruption and moral imperfection."

Behold, thou desirest truth - I am the very reverse of what I should be. Those desirest truth in the heart, but in me there is nothing but sin and falsity.

Thou shalt make one to know wisdom - Thou wilt teach me to restrain every inordinate propensity, and to act according to the dictates of sound wisdom, the rest of my life.

Purge me with hyssop - תחטאני techatteeni, "thou shalt make a sin-offering for me;" probably alluding to the cleansing of the leper: Lev 14:1, etc. The priest took two clean birds, cedar-wood, scarlet, and hyssop; one of the birds was killed; and the living bird, with the scarlet, cedar, and hyssop, dipped in the blood of the bird that had been killed, and then sprinkled over the person who had been infected. But it is worthy of remark that this ceremony was not performed till the plague of the leprosy had been healed in the leper; (Lev 14:3); and the ceremony above mentioned was for the purpose of declaring to the people that the man was healed, that he might be restored to his place in society, having been healed of a disease that the finger of God alone could remove. This David seems to have full in view; hence he requests the Lord to make the sin-offering for him, and to show to the people that he had accepted him, and cleansed him from his sin.

Make me to hear joy - Let me have a full testimony of my reconciliation to thee; that the soul, which is so deeply distressed by a sense of thy displeasure, may be healed by a sense of thy pardoning mercy.

Hide thy face from my sins - The sentiment here is nearly the same as that in Psa 51:3 : His sin was ever before his own face; and he knew that the eye of God was constantly upon him, and that his purity and justice must be highly incensed on the account. He therefore, with a just horror of his transgressions, begs God to turn away his face from them, and to blot them out, so that they may never more be seen. See the note on Psa 51:1 (note).

Create in me a clean heart - Mending will not avail; my heart is altogether corrupted; it must be new made, made as it was in the beginning. This is exactly the sentiment of St. Paul: Neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation; and the salvation given under the Gospel dispensation is called a being created anew in Christ Jesus.

A right spirit within me - רוח נכון ruach nachon, a constant, steady, determined spirit; called Psa 51:12, רוח נדיבה ruach nedibah, a noble spirit. a free, generous, princely spirit; cheerfully giving up itself to thee; no longer bound and degraded by the sinfulness of sin.

Cast me not away from thy presence - Banish me not from thy house and ordinances.

Take not thy Holy Spirit from me - I know I have sufficiently grieved it to justify its departure for ever, in consequence of which I should be consigned to the blackness of darkness, - either to utter despair, or to a hard heart and seared conscience; and so work iniquity with greediness, till I fell into the pit of perdition. While the Spirit stays, painfully convincing of sin, righteousness, and judgment, there is hope of salvation; when it departs, then the hope of redemption is gone. But while there his any godly sorrow, any feeling of regret for having sinned against God, any desire to seek mercy, then the case is not hopeless; for these things prove that the light of the Spirit is not withdrawn.

Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation - This is an awful prayer. And why? Because it shows he once Had the joy of God's salvation; and had Lost it by sin!

Uphold me with thy free spirit - Prop me up; support me with a princely spirit, one that will not stoop to a mean or base act. See on Psa 51:10 (note).

Then will I teach transgressors - I will show myself to be grateful; I will testify of thy loving-kindness; I will call on transgressors to consider the error of their ways; and shall set before them so forcibly thy justice and mercy, that sinners shall be converted unto thee. With a little change I can adopt the language of Dr. Delaney on this place: "Who can confide in his own strength, when he sees David fall? Who can despair of Divine mercy when he sees him forgiven? Sad triumph of sin over all that is great or excellent in man! Glorious triumph of grace over all that is shameful and dreadful in sin!"

Deliver me from blood-guiltiness - This is one of the expressions that gives most color to the propriety of the title affixed to this Psalm. Here he may have in view the death of Uriah, and consider that his blood cries for vengeance against him; and nothing but the mere mercy of God can wipe this blood from his conscience. The prayer here is earnest and energetic: O God! thou God of my salvation! deliver me! The Chaldee reads, "Deliver me (מדין קטול middin ketol) from the judgment of slaughter."

My tongue shall sing aloud - My tongue shall praise thy righteousness. I shall testify to all that thou hast the highest displeasure against sin, and wilt excuse it in no person; and that so merciful art thou, that if a sinner turn to thee with a deeply penitent and broken heart, thou wilt forgive his iniquities. None, from my case, can ever presume; none, from my case, need ever despair.

O Lord, open thou my lips - My heart is believing unto righteousness; give me thy peace, that my tongue may make confession unto salvation. He could not praise God for pardon till he felt that God had pardoned him; then his lips would be opened, and his tongue would show forth the praise of his Redeemer.

For thou desirest not sacrifice - This is the same sentiment which he delivers in Psa 40:6 (note), etc., where see the notes. There may be here, however, a farther meaning: Crimes, like mine, are not to be expiated by any sacrifices that the law requires; nor hast thou appointed in the law any sacrifices to atone for deliberate murder and adultery: if thou hadst, I would cheerfully have given them to thee. The matter is before thee as Judge.

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit - As my crimes are such as admit of no legal atonement, so thou hast reserved them to be punished by exemplary acts of justice, or to be pardoned by a sovereign act of mercy: but in order to find this mercy, thou requirest that the heart and soul should deeply feel the transgression, and turn to thee with the fullest compunction and remorse. This thou hast enabled me to do. I have the broken spirit, רוח נשברה ruach nishbarah; and the broken and contrite heart, לב נשבר ונדכה leb nishbar venidkeh. These words are very expressive. שבר shabar signifies exactly the same as our word shiver, to break into pieces, to reduce into splinters; and דכה dakah, signifies to beat out thin, - to beat out masses of metal, etc., into laminae or thin plates. The spirit broken all to pieces, and the heart broken all to pieces, stamped and beaten out, are the sacrifices which, in such cases, thou requirest; and these "thou wilt not despise." We may now suppose that God had shone upon his soul, healed his broken spirit, and renewed and removed his broken and distracted heart; and that he had now received the answer to the preceding prayers. And here the Psalm properly ends; as, in the two following verses, there is nothing similar to what we find in the rest of this very nervous and most important composition.

Do good in thy good pleasure unto Zion - This and the following verse most evidently refer to the time of the captivity, when the walls of Jerusalem were broken down, and the temple service entirely discontinued; and, consequently, are long posterior to the times of David. Hence it has been concluded that the Psalm was not composed by David, nor in his time and that the title must be that of some other Psalm inadvertently affixed to this. The fourth verse has also been considered as decisive against this title: but the note on that verse has considerably weakened, if not destroyed, that objection. I have been long of opinion that, whether the title be properly or improperly affixed to this Psalm, these two verses make no part of it: the subject is totally dissimilar; and there is no rule of analogy by which it can be interpreted as belonging to the Psalm, to the subject, or to the person. I think they originally made a Psalm of themselves, a kind of ejaculatory prayer for the redemption of the captives from Babylon, the rebuilding of Jerusalem, and the restoration of the temple worship. And, taken in this light, they are very proper and very expressive.

The Psa 117:1-2 contains only two verses; and is an ejaculation of praise from the captives who had just then returned from Babylon. And it is a fact that this Psalm is written as a part of the cxvith in no less than thirty-two of Kennicott's and De Rossi's MSS.; and in some early editions. Again, because of its smallness, it has been absorbed by the cxviiith, of which it makes the commencement, in twenty-eight of Kennicott's and De Rossi's MSS. In a similar way I suppose the two last verses of this Psalm to have been absorbed by the preceding, which originally made a complete Psalm of themselves; and this absorption was the more easy, because, like the cxviith it has no title. I cannot allege a similar evidence relative to these two verses, as ever having made a distinct Psalm; but of the fact I can have no doubt, for the reasons assigned above. And I still think that Psalm is too dignified, too energetic, and too elegant, to have been the composition of any but David. It was not Asaph; it was not any of the sons of Korah; it was not Heman or Jeduthun: the hand and mind of a greater master are here.

Thee only - Which is not to be, understood absolutely, because he had sinned against Bathsheba and Uriah, and many others; but comparatively. So the sense is, though I have sinned against my own conscience, and against others; yet nothing is more grievous to me, than that I have sinned against thee. Thy sight - With gross contempt of thee, whom I knew to be a spectator of my most secret actions. Justified - This will be the fruit of my sin, that whatsoever severities thou shalt use towards me, it will be no blemish to thy righteousness, but thy justice will be glorified by all men. Speakest - Heb. in thy words, in all thy threatenings denounced against me. Judgest - When thou dost execute thy sentence upon me.

Behold - Nor is this the only sin which I have reason to bewail before thee; for this filthy stream leads me to a corrupt fountain: and upon a review of my heart, I find, that this heinous crime, was the proper fruit of my vile nature, which, ever was, and still is ready to commit ten thousand sins, as occasion offers.

Truth - Uprightness of heart; and this may be added; as an aggravation of the sinfulness of original corruption, because it is contrary to the holy nature and will of God, which requires rectitude of heart: and, as an aggravation of his actual sin, that it was committed against that knowledge, which God had wrote in his heart.

Hyssop - As lepers, are by thy appointment purified by the use of hyssop and other things, so do thou cleanse me a leprous and polluted creature, by thy grace, and by that blood of Christ, which is signified by those ceremonial usages.

Joy - By thy spirit, seal the pardon of my sins on my conscience, which will fill me with joy. Rejoice - That my heart which hath been sorely wounded may be comforted.

Create - Work in me an holy frame of heart, whereby my inward filth may be purged away. Right - Heb. firm or constant, that my resolution may be fixed and unmoveable. Spirit - Temper or disposition of soul.

The joy - The comfortable sense of thy saving grace, promised and vouchsafed to me, both for my present and everlasting salvation. Free - Or, ingenuous, or liberal, or princely. Which he seems to oppose to his own base and illiberal and disingenuous and servile spirit, which he had discovered in his wicked practices: a spirit, which may free me from the bondage of sin, and enable me chearfully to run the way of God's precepts.

Thy righteousness - Thy clemency and goodness.

My lips - Which are shut with shame and grief.

Not sacrifice - This is not to be understood absolutely, with respect to David's crimes, which were not to be expiated by any sacrifice.

A broken spirit - This is of more value than many sacrifices.

Good pleasure - Thy free and rich mercy. Build - Perfect the walls and buildings of that city, and especially let the temple be built, notwithstanding my sins.

1. HAve mercy upon me , O God, according to thy loving kindness : according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies , blot out f my transgressions.

Pity and Help and Answer me, in the Desires I am now spreading before thee.

I pretend to no merit, but humbly implore thy free Grace and Mercy.

Thy mercies are infinite, and therefore sufficient for my Relief, and such indeed do I need. Either, 1. Out of my Conscience and Soul, where it hath le[illegible: 1+ letters]t a stain and filthy Character. Out of thy Book of Remembrance, and Accounts, in which all mens sins are written, and out of which all men shall be judged hereafter. Revel. 20. 12. Which is spoken of God after the manner of men. See of this Phrase Isa. 43. 25. and 44. 22.

2. Wash me throughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.

Heb. Multiply to wash me. By which Phrase he implies the greatness of his guilt; and the insufficiency of all legal Washings, and the absolute necessity of some other and better thing to wash him, even of Gods Grace and the Blood of Christ; which as Abraham saw by Faith, Ioh. 8. 5[illegible: 1+ letters]. so did David, as is sufficiently evident (allowing for the darkness of the Dispensation and Expressions of the Old Testament) from divers passages of the Psalms; of which I have spoken in their Proper places; and his earnest and passionate desire of Pardon; which he desires above all other things. Wherein he sheweth himself to be a true Penitent, because his chief Care and desire was to obtain God's Favour, and the forgiveness of his sins, and not the Prevention of those external [illegible: 1+ letters]ore Judgments, which God by Nathan threatned to bring upon him and his House, 2 Sam. 12. 10, 11. about which here is not one Word in this Psalm; whereas the Cares and Desires of Hypocrites, chiefly are bent towards Worldly things, as we see in Cain, Gen. 4. 13, 16, 17. and Sa[illegible: 1+ letters]l, 1 Sam. 15. 30. and others [illegible: 1 word]. 7. 14.

3. For I acknowledge my transgressions : and my sin is ever before me .

With Grief and Shame, and abhorrency of my self and of my sins; which hitherto I have dissembled and covered. And being thus truly Penitent, I hope and beg that I may find Mercy with thee.

For it was not a single, but a Complicated, Wickedness, Adultery, Murder, Injustice, Perfidiousness; and frequent Repetition of, and long and stupid Continuance in a[illegible: 1+ letters]ominable Repetition of, and that with publick Scandal.

That which I had cast chind my Back is now Constantly in my view, and fixed in my Thoughts and Memory.

4. Against thee, thee onely have I sinned, and done this evil in thy fight : that thou mightest be justified , when thou speakest ; and be clear when thou judgest .

Which is not to be understood simply and absolutely, because he had unquestionably sinned against [illegible: 1 word] and Uriah, and m[illegible: 1+ letters]ny others who were either injured by it, or scandalized at it, but Comparatively. So the Sence is this, though I have sinned against my own Body and Conscience, and against others; yet nothing is more grievous and Terrible to me, than to consider that I have sinned against thee; Partly, upon a general Account, because this is the chief Malignity, and sinfulness of sin, that it offends and injures the Glorious and Blessed God; and Partly, upon particular Reasons; Because I set thee at Defiance, and having used all wicked Arts to conceal my sin from Men, and being free from Fear of punishment from them, I went on boldly in sin, casting off all Reverence to thy Holy and Omniscient Majesty, and all dread of thy Judgments, and because I sinned against thee, to whom I had such numerous and peculiar and eminent Obligations, as thy Prophet Nathan truly [illegible: 1+ letters]suggested to me, 2 Sam. 12. 7, 8.

With g[illegible: 1+ letters]oss Contempt of God, whom I well knew to be a Spectator of my most secret Actions.

The Particle, that, is not taken Causally, or Intentionally, as if this was David's Design, but Eventually, as it is Exod. 11. 9. Psal. 30. 12. H[illegible: 1+ letters]s. 8. 4. This will be the Fruit or Consequent of my sin, that whatsoever severities thou shalt use towards me and mine, it will be no blemish to thy Benignity, or Righteousness, or Fidelity, but the blame of all will rest upon my Head, as I desire it may, and thy justice will be Glorified by all Men.

Heb. In thy Words, (i. e.) In all thy Threatnings denounced against me by Nathan; and in any further Sentence which thou shalt see fit to pass upon me.

When thou dost plea[illegible: 1+ letters] or contend with me, or execute thy Sentence or Judgment upon me. Or, when thou art [illegible: 1+ letters]udged, as it is rendred, Rom. 3. 4. for the Word may be taken Passively, as well as Actively. When any man shall presume to Cen[illegible: 1+ letters]ure thee, as not keeping thy Covenant and Mercy promised to David.

Marginal references: Rom 3. 4.

5. Behold, I was shapen in iniquity : and in sin did my mother conceive me .

This Verse is both by Iewish and Christian, by Antient and Latter, Interpreters, generally and most truly understood of Original sin: Which he here mentions, as an Aggravation of his Crime: and the Sence of the place is this, Nor is this the onely sin which I have Reason to acknowledge and bewail before thee; for this filthy stream leads me to a corrupt Fountain: and upon a serious Review of my Heart, and Life I find, that I am guilty of innumerable other sins, and that this Ha[illegible: 1+ letters] nous Crime, though drawn forth by external Temptations, yet was indeed the proper Fruit of my own filthy and vile Nature, which, without the restraints of thy Providence or Grace, ever was, and still is like to be, inclinable and ready to commit these and ten Thousand other sins, as Occasion offers it self. For which Contrariety of my very Nature to thine, thou mayst justly loath and Condemn me; and for which I humbly beg thy Pardon and Grace.

Heb. Warm, o[illegible: 1+ letters] Cheri[illegible: 1+ letters]h me, in the Womb before I was shapen, or formed there.

Marginal references: Heb. Warm me.

6. Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts: and in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom .

Or, delightest in: Or, requirest: Heb. willest.

Either, 1. Sincerity in Confessing my sins; which therefore I have now acknowledged, though hitherto I have Practised much Falshood and Dissimulation in indeavouring to conceal them from Men. Or rather, 2. Integrity or uprightness of Heart; which seems to be here opposed to that Iniquity mentioned in the last Verle, in which he was, and all Men are, framed and Born. And this may seem to be added; Partly, as a Proof or Aggravation, of the sinfulness of Original Corruption, because it is contrary to the holy Nature and Will of God, which requireth not onely unblameableness in mens Actions, but also Universal innocency, and Rectitude of their Minds and Hearts: and Partly as an Aggravation of his actual sin, wherein he had used such gross Deceit and Treachery.

(i. e.) In the Heart, called the hidden Man of the Heart, 1 Pet. 3. 4. and the [illegible: 1 word] Part, Rom. 2. 16. which in the former Branch he called the Reins, or inward Parts.

So declares his Hope, that God would Pardon and cure his [illegible: 1+ letters]olly, which he had discovered, and make him Wiser for the Future. But this seems not to suit well with the Context, which runs wholly in another strain. The word therefore is, and may be rendred otherwise; Thou hast made me to know. So this is another Aggravation of his sin, that it was Committed against that Wisdom and Knowledge, which God had not onely revealed to him outwardly in his Word, but also inwardly by his Spirit writing it in his Heart according to his Promise. Ier. 31. 33. Or thus, do thou make me to know the future Verb, being here taken Imperatively, and as a Prayer; as the following Futures are here Translated, v. 7, 8. Having now said for the Aggravation of his sin, that God did desire or require Truth in t[illegible: 1+ letters]e inward Parts: He takes that Occasion to break forth into Prayer, which also he continues in the following Verses. Onely as he prays there for justification or Pardon of sin, so here he prays for Renovation or Sanctification. So his meaning is this, Therefore (as the Particle, and, is oft used, as hath been shewed) in the hidden Part, do thou make me to know Wisdom. Or thus, tho[illegible: 1+ letters] wouldest have me know: for Futures are oft taken Potentially, as Psal. 118. 6. and Mat. 12. 25. Compared with Mark 3. 24. and elsewhere. And Verbs which signifie, making or causing are sometimes understood onely of the Will or Command; as Ieroboam is said to make Israel to sin, 1 Kings 14. 16. because he Commanded them to do so, Hos. 5. 11. This I propose with Submission, but if this Sence be admitted, the last Clause of the Verse answers very well to the former, as it doth in the foregoing and following Verses, and every where in these Books: For this, thou wouldest have me know, Answers to that, thou willest or desirest; and in the hidden part Answers to that, in the inward Parts; and Wisdom, is the same thing for Substance with Truth, onely called by another Name.

(i. e.) True Piety and Integrity, which is called Wisdom, Iob 28. 28. Psal. 111. 10. and in many other Texts, as sin on the contrary is commonly called, as it really is, Polly. And to know Wisdom, is here meant of knowing it Practically and Experimentally, so as to approve and Love, and Practise it, as Words o[illegible: 1+ letters] knowledge are most frequently taken in Scripture, and in other Authors.

Marginal references: Heb. the Reins.

7. Purge me with hyssop , and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.

Or, as with Hyssop: the note of similitude being frequently understood. As Lepers and other unclean Persons, are by the appointment purified by thy use of Hyssop and other things, Levit. 14. 6. Numb. 19. 6. so do thou cleanse me, a most Leprous and polluted Creature, by thy Grace, and by the Vertue of that Blood of Christ, which is signified by those Ceremonial usages.

Marginal references: Lev. 14. 6. Numb. 19. 18.; Isa. 1. 18.

8. Make me to hear joy and gladness : that the bones which thou hast broken, may rejoyce .

Send me glad Tidings of thy Reconciliation to me, and by thy Spirit seal the Pardon of my sins to my Conscience, which will fill me with joy.

That mine Heart which hath been sorely Wounded, and Terrified by thy dreadful Message sent by Nathan, and by the dismal Sentence of thy Law denounced against such Sinners, as I am now by this Occasion brought home to my Conscience, may be revived and Comforted by the Manifestation of thy Favour to my Soul.

9. Hide thy face from my sins , and blot out all mine iniquities.

Do not look upon them with an Eye of indignation and Revenge, but forget and forgive them.

See v. 1.

10. Create in me a clean heart , O God; and renew a right spirit within me .

Seeing I have not onely defiled my self by these actual sins, but also have a most filthy Heart corrupted, even from my Birth, v. 5. which nothing but God's Almighty and Creating Power can purifie, do thou Effectually work in me an Holy frame of Heart, whereby both my inward filth may be Purged away; and I may be prevented, from falling into such actual and scandalous sins.

That good Temper which before this Apostacy I had in some measure, be pleased graciously to restore it to me with Advantage.

Heb. Firm or Constant, or Stedfast, that I may not be so easily shaken and cast down by Temptation, as I have been, but that my Resolution may be more fixed and unmoveable.

Temper or Disposition of Soul or Spirit, as the Word Spirit is very frequently used in Scripture.

Heb. In my inward Parts. He wisely strikes at the Root and Cause of all sin[illegible: 1+ letters]ul Actions.

Marginal references: Or, a constant Spirit.

11. Cast me not away from thy presence : and take not thy holy spirit from me.

(i. e.) From thy Favour and Care, and gracious Communion with thee.

Thy sanctifying Spirit, by which alone I can have Acquaintance and fellowship with thee.

12. Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation : and uphold me with thy free spirit.

The Comfortable Sence of thy saving Grace and Help, promised and vouchsafed to me, both for my present and everlasting Salvation.

A weak and frail Creature, never able to stand against Corruption, and Temptation without thy powerful and gracious Succours.

Or, ingenuous, or Liberal, or Princely. Which he seems to oppose to his own base and Illiberal and Dis-ingenuous and servile Spirit, which he had discovered in his wicked and unworthy Practises; and Desires a better Spirit, even the Spirit of God, which may free him from the Bondage of sin, and inable and in[illegible: 1+ letters]line him freely and Cheerfully, and constantly to run the way of Gods precepts. See Exod. 35. 21. Psal. 110. 3. Rom. 8. 15, 16. 2 Cor. 3. 17.

Marginal references: Or, l[illegible: 1+ letters]t [illegible: 1 word] free, Or, [illegible: 1+ letters] ly Spirit uphold me.

13. Then will I teach transgressors thy ways , and sinners shall be converted unto thee .

Either, 1. Thy Will and their Duty, and the way to their eternal Happiness: Or rather, 2. The manner of thy dealing with Sinners; whom thou dost so severely Chastise for their sins, and yet so graciously receive to Mercy upon their Repentances. Both which I will shew them in my own Example, which I will declare unto them, although I shall therewith publish my own shame; which I shall most willingly bear, that I may in some measure repair the Injury which I have done to thee and others, by my publick and scandalous Crimes.

And I perswade my self that my Indeavours shall not want Success; and that either thy Justice and severity, or thy Goodness and Clemency, will bring them to Repentance.

14. Deliver me from blood-guiltiness , O God, thou God of my salvation: and my tongue shall sing aloud of thy righteousness .

Heb. from Bloods, because he had been the Cause of the Death, not onely of uriah but of others of the Lords people with him, 2 Sam. 11. 17.

Either, 1. Thy Faithfulness in making good thy Promises: Or rather, 2. Thy Clemency and Goodness, as that Word is frequently used.

Marginal references: Heb. Bloods.

15. O LORD, open thou my lips , and my mouth shall shew forth thy praise.

Which are shut with shame and Grief and Horror. Restore unto me the Opportunity and Ability, and Liberty which formerly I had of speaking to thee, with Freedom and Boldness, and Familiarity, as this Phrase signifies, Ezek. 3. 27. and 24. 27. Eph. 6. 19, 20.

16. For thou desirest not sacrifice , else would I give it : thou delightest not in burntoffering.

Which is not to be understood absolutely, and Universally, as appears from v. 19. but Comparatively, of which see on Psal. 40. 6. and with particular respect to David's Crimes, of Murder and Adultery, which were not to be expiated by any Sacrifice, but by the Law of God, were to be punished with Death. Thou requirest more and better Sacrifices, which here follow.

Else I should have spared no cost in that kind.

Marginal references: [illegible: 1 word]. 50. 8. [illegible: 1 word]. 1. 11. [illegible: 1+ letters]er. [illegible: 1+ letters]. 22. Hos. 6. 6.; [illegible: 1 word], that I [illegible: 1 word] give it.

17. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart O God, thou wilt not despise .

This is instead of, or of more Value than many Sacrifices.

Which God in such Cases as mine requires, and will accept in which Sence we Read of the Works of God, Ioh. 6. 28.

(i. e.) An Heart deeply afflicted and grieved for sin, humbled under the Sence of God's displeasure, and earnestly seeking and willing to accept of Reconciliation with God, upon any Terms. See Isa. 57. 15. and 61. 1. and 66. 2. Mat. 11. 28. This is opposed to that hard or slony Heart, of which we Read so oft, which signifies an Heart insensible of the Burden of sin, stubborn and Rebellious against God, impenitent and incorrigible.

(i. e.) Thou dost highly approve, as such negative Phrases oft signifie, as hath been formerly proved.

Marginal references: [illegible: 1 word]. 57. 15. [illegible: 1+ letters] 66. 2.

18. Do good in thy good pleasure c unto Sion : build thou the walls of Jerusalem .

Synecdochically put for Ierusalem, as the next Clause explains it, and both put for the whole People of Israel and Church of God: whom I have highly scandalized and injured already, and exposed to the Danger of utter Destruction, which thou mightest inflict upon them, for the sins of their King, as thou usest to do in like Cases.

Perfect the Walls and Buildings of that City, and especially let the Temple be built and established in this City, notwithstanding its Pollution by my sins, which I pray thee to Purge away.

Or, For, or according to (for the Hebrew prefix Beth is frequently used, both those ways) thy good Grace, or Favour, or Pleasure, (i. e.) Thy free and rich Mercy, and thy gracious Purpose and Promise, made to and concerning Zion: Of which see Psal. 132. 14. and do not repent of it, nor retract it, as I have given thee cause to do.

19. Then shalt thou be pleased with the sacrifices of righteousness ; with burnt-offering, and whole burnt-offering: then shall they offer bullocks upon thine altar.

When thou hast granted my humble Requests expressed in the former Verses, when thou hast renewed and Pardoned, and Comforted me, and restored thy Favour unto thy People; and this City.

Which now for our sins thou mayst justly reject and abhor.

Which I and thy People being justified and reconciled to thee, shall offer with sincere and Penitent Hearts. These are opposed to the Sacrifices of the Wicked, which God abhors, Prov. 15. 8. Isa. 1. 11. &c.

(i. e.) They who by thy appointment are to do that Work, the Priests in the Name and on the behalf of thy People.

The best and costliest Sacrifices, and that in great Numbers in Testimony of their gratitude to God, for thy great Favour in pardoning mine and their sins, and preventing that Total Ruin, which we had reason to expect and Fear upon that Account.

Marginal references: Mal. 3. 3.; 1 Sam. 7. 9.

Psa 51:1-2

Prayer for the remission of sin. Concerning the interchangeable names for sin, vid., on Psa 32:1. Although the primary occasion of the Psalm is the sin of adultery, still David says פּשׁעי, not merely because many other sins were developed out of it, as his guilt of blood in the case of Uriah, the scandal put into the mouths of the enemies of Jahve, and his self-delusion, which lasted almost a whole year; but also because each solitary sin, the more it is perceived in its fundamental character and, as it were, microscopically discerned, all the more does it appear as a manifold and entangled skein of sins, and stands forth in a still more intimate and terrible relation, as of cause and effect, to the whole corrupt and degenerated condition in which the sinner finds himself. In מחה sins are conceived of as a cumulative debt (according to Isa 44:22, cf. Isa 43:25, like a thick, dark cloud) written down (Jer 17:1) against the time of the payment by punishment. In כּבּסני (from כּבּס, πλύνειν, to wash by rubbing and kneading up, distinguished from רחץ, λούειν, to wash by rinsing) iniquity is conceived of as deeply ingrained dirt. In טהרני, the usual word for a declarative and de facto making clean, sin is conceived of as a leprosy, Lev 13:6, Lev 13:34. the Kerî runs הרב כּבּסני (imperat. Hiph., like הרף, Psa 37:8), “make great or much, wash me,” i.e., (according to Ges. §142, 3, b) wash me altogether, penitus et totum, which is the same as is expressed by the Chethîb הרבּה (prop. multum faciendo = multum, prorsus, Ges. §131, 2). In כּרב (Isa 63:7) and הרב is expressed the depth of the consciousness of sin; profunda enim malitia, as Martin Geier observes, insolitam raramque gratiam postulat.

Psa 51:3-4

Substantiation of the prayer by the consideration, that his sense of sin is more than superficial, and that he is ready to make a penitential confession. True penitence is not a dead knowledge of sin committed, but a living sensitive consciousness of it (Isa 59:12), to which it is ever present as a matter and ground of unrest and pain. This penitential sorrow, which pervades the whole man, is, it is true, no merit that wins mercy or favour, but it is the condition, without which it is impossible for any manifestation of favour to take place. Such true consciousness of sin contemplates sin, of whatever kind it may be, directly as sin against God, and in its ultimate ground as sin against Him alone (חטא with ל of the person sinned against, Isa 42:24; Mic 7:9); for every relation in which man stands to his fellow-men, and to created things in general, is but the manifest form of his fundamental relationship to God; and sin is “that which is evil in the eyes of God” (Isa 65:12; Isa 66:4), it is contradiction to the will of God, the sole and highest Lawgiver and Judge. Thus it is, as David confesses, with regard to his sin, in order that... This למען must not be weakened by understanding it to refer to the result instead of to the aim or purpose. If, however, it is intended to express intention, it follows close upon the moral relationship of man to God expressed in לך לבדּך and הרע בּעיניך, - a relationship, the aim of which is, that God, when He now condemns the sinner, may appear as the just and holy One, who, as the sinner is obliged himself to acknowledge, cannot do otherwise than pronounce a condemnatory decision concerning him. When sin becomes manifest to a man as such, he must himself say Amen to the divine sentence, just as David does to that passed upon him by Nathan. And it is just the nature of penitence so to confess one’s self to be in the wrong in order that God may be in the right and gain His cause. If, however, the sinner’s self-accusation justifies the divine righteousness or justice, just as, on the other hand, all self-justification on the part of the sinner (which, however, sooner or later will be undeceived) accuses God of unrighteousness or injustice (Job 40:8): then all human sin must in the end tend towards the glorifying of God. In this sense Psa 51:6 is applied by Paul (Rom 3:4), inasmuch as he regards what is here written in the Psalter - ὅπως ἂν δικαιωθῇς ἐν τοῖς λόγοις σου, καὶ νικῃσεες ἐν τῷ κρίνεσθαί σε (lxx) - as the goal towards which the whole history of Israel tends. Instead of בּדברך (infin. like שׁלחך, Gen 38:17, in this instance for the sake of similarity of soundCf. the following forms, chosen on account of their accord: - נשׂוּי, Psa 32:1; הנדּף, Psa 68:3; צאינה, Sol 3:11; שׁתות, Isa 22:13; ממחים, ib. Psa 25:6; הלּוט, ib. Psa 25:7. instead of the otherwise usual form דּבּר), in Thy speaking, the lxx renders ἐν τοῖς λόγοις σου = בּדבריך; instead of בּשׁפטך, ἐν τῷ κρίνεσθαί σε = בּהשּׁפטך (infin. Niph.), provided κρίνεσθαι is intended as passive and not (as in Jer 2:9 lxx, cf. Mat 5:40) as middle. The thought remains essentially unchanged by the side of these deviations; and even the taking of the verb זכה, to be clean, pure, in the Syriac signification νικᾶν, does not alter it. That God may be justified in His decisive speaking and judging; that He, the Judge, may gain His cause in opposition to all human judgment, towards this tends David’s confession of sin, towards this tends all human history, and more especially the history of Israel.

Psa 51:5-6

David here confesses his hereditary sin as the root of his actual sin. The declaration moves backwards from his birth to conception, it consequently penetrates even to the most remote point of life’s beginning. חוללתּי stands instead of נולדתּי, perhaps (although elsewhere, i.e., in Psa 90:2, the idea of painfulness is kept entirely in the background) with reference to the decree, “with pain shalt thou bring forth children,” Gen 3:16 (Kurtz); instead of הרתה אתי, with still more definite reference to that which precedes conception, the expression is יחמתני (for יחמתני, following the same interchange of vowel as in Gen 30:39; Jdg 5:28). The choice of the verb decides the question whether by עון and חטא is meant the guilt and sin of the child or of the parents. יחם (to burn with desire) has reference to that, in coition, which partakes of the animal, and may well awaken modest sensibilities in man, without עיון and חטא on that account characterizing birth and conception itself as sin; the meaning is merely, that his parents were sinful human begins, and that this sinful state (habitus) has operated upon his birth and even his conception, and from this point has passed over to him. What is thereby expressed is not so much any self-exculpation, as on the contrary a self-accusation which glances back to the ultimate ground of natural corruption. He is sinful מלּדה וּמהריון (Psa 58:4; Gen 8:21), is טמא מטּמא, an unclean one springing from an unclean (Job 14:4), flesh born of flesh. That man from his first beginning onwards, and that this beginning itself, is stained with sin; that the proneness to sin with its guilt and its corruption is propagated from parents to their children; and that consequently in the single actual sin the sin-pervaded nature of man, inasmuch as he allows himself to be determined by it and himself resolves in accordance with it, become outwardly manifest-therefore the fact of hereditary sin is here more distinctly expressed than in any other passage in the Old Testament, since the Old Testament conception, according to its special character, which always fastens upon the phenomenal, outward side rather than penetrates to the secret roots of a matter, is directed almost entirely to the outward manifestation only of sin, and leaves its natural foundation, its issue in relation to primeval history, and its demonic background undisclosed. The הן in Psa 51:7 is followed by a correlative second הן in Psa 51:8 (cf. Isa 55:4., Isa 54:15.). Geier correctly says: Orat ut sibi in peccatis concepto veraque cordis probitate carenti penitiorem ac mysticam largiri velit sapientiam, cujus medio liberetur a peccati tum reatu tum dominio. אמת is the nature and life of man as conformed to the nature and will of God (cf. ἀλήθεια, Eph 4:21). חכמה, wisdom which is most intimately acquainted with (eindringlich weiss) such nature and life and the way to attain it. God delights in and desires truth בטּחות. The Beth of this word is not a radical letter here as it is in Job 12:6, but the preposition. The reins utpote adipe obducti, here and in Job 38:36, according to the Targum, Jerome, and Parchon, are called טחות (Psychol. S. 269; tr. p. 317). Truth in the reins (cf. Psa 40:9, God’s law in visceribus meis) is an upright nature in man’s deepest inward parts; and in fact, since the reins are accounted as the seat of the tenderest feelings, in man’s inmost experience and perception, in his most secret life both of conscience and of mind (Psa 16:7). In the parallel member סתם denotes the hidden inward part of man. Out of the confession, that according to the will of God truth ought to dwell and rule in man even in his reins, comes the wish, that God would impart to him (i.e., teach him and make his own), - who, as being born and conceived in sin, is commended to God’s mercy, - that wisdom in the hidden part of his mind which is the way to such truth.

Psa 51:7-9

The possession of all possessions, however, most needed by him, the foundation of all other possessions, is the assurance of the forgiveness of his sins. The second futures in Psa 51:9 are consequents of the first, which are used as optatives. Psa 51:9 recalls to mind the sprinkling of the leper, and of one unclean by reason of his contact with a dead body, by means of the bunch of hyssop (Lev. 14, Num. 19), the βοτάνη καθαρτική (Bähr, Symbol. ii. 503); and Psa 51:9 recalls the washings which, according to priestly directions, the unclean person in all cases of uncleanness had to undergo. Purification and washing which the Law enjoins, are regarded in connection with the idea implied in them, and with a setting aside of their symbolic and carnal outward side, inasmuch as the performance of both acts, which in other cases takes place through priestly mediation, is here supplicated directly from God Himself. Manifestly בּאזוב (not כבאזוב) is intended to be understood in a spiritual sense. It is a spiritual medium of purification without the medium itself being stated. The New Testament believer confesses, with Petrarch in the second of his seven penitential Psalms: omnes sordes meas una gutta, vel tenuis, sacri sanguinis absterget. But there is here no mention made of atonement by blood; for the antitype of the atoning blood was still hidden from David. The operation of justifying grace on a man stained by the blood-red guilt of sin could not, however, be more forcibly denoted than by the expression that it makes him whiter than snow (cf. the dependent passage Isa 1:18). And history scarcely records a grander instance of the change of blood-red sin into dazzling whiteness than this, that out of the subsequent marriage of David and Bathsheba sprang Solomon, the most richly blessed of all kings. At the present time David’s very bones are still shaken, and as it were crushed, with the sense of sin. דּכּית is an attributive clause like יפעל in Psa 7:16. Into what rejoicing will this smitten condition be changed, when he only realizes within his soul the comforting and joyous assuring utterance of the God who is once more gracious to him! For this he yearns, viz., that God would hide His face from the sin which He is now visiting upon him, so that it may as it were be no longer present to Him; that He would blot out all his iniquities, so that they may no longer testify against him. Here the first part of the Psalm closes; the close recurs to the language of the opening (Psa 51:3).

Psa 51:10-11

In the second part, the prayer for justification is followed by the prayer for renewing. A clean heart that is not beclouded by sin and a consciousness of sin (for לב includes the conscience, Psychology, S. 134; tr. p. 160); a stedfast spirit (נכון, cf. Psa 78:37; Psa 112:7) is a spirit certain respecting his state of favour and well-grounded in it. David’s prayer has reference to the very same thing that is promised by the prophets as a future work of salvation wrought by God the Redeemer on His people (Jer 24:7; Eze 11:19; Eze 36:26); it has reference to those spiritual facts of experience which, it is true, could be experienced even under the Old Testament relatively and anticipatively, but to the actual realization of which the New Testament history, fulfilling ancient prophecy has first of all produced effectual and comprehensive grounds and motives, viz., μετάνοια (לב = νοῦς), καινὴ κτίσις, παλιγγενεσία καὶ ἀνακαὶνωσις πνεῦματος (Tit 3:5). David, without distinguishing between them, thinks of himself as king, as Israelite, and as man. Consequently we are not at liberty to say that רוּח הקּדשׁ (as in Isa 63:16), πνεῦμα ἁγιωσύνης = ἅγιον, is here the Spirit of grace in distinction from the Spirit of office. If Jahve should reject David as He rejected Saul, this would be the extreme manifestation of anger (2Ki 24:20) towards him as king and as a man at the same time. The Holy Spirit is none other than that which came upon him by means of the anointing, 1Sa 16:13. This Spirit, by sin, he has grieved and forfeited. Hence he prays God to show favour rather than execute His right, and not to take this His Holy Spirit from him.

Psa 51:12-13

In connection with רוּח נדיבה, the old expositors thought of נדיב, a noble, a prince, and נדיבה, nobility, high rank, Job 30:15, lxx πνεύματι ἡγεμονικῷ (spiritu principali) στήριξόν με, - the word has, however, without any doubt, its ethical sense in this passage, Isa 32:8, cf. נדבה, Ps. 54:8; and the relation of the two words רוח נדיבה is not to be taken as adjectival, but genitival, since the poet has just used רוח in the same personal sense in Psa 51:12. Nor are they to be taken as a nominative of the subject, but - what corresponds more closely to the connection of the prayer - according to Gen 27:37, as a second accusative of the object: with a spirit of willingness, of willing, noble impulse towards that which is good, support me; i.e., imparting this spirit to me, uphold me constantly in that which is good. What is meant is not the Holy Spirit, but the human spirit made free from the dominion of sin by the Holy Spirit, to which good has become an inward, as it were instinctive, necessity. Thus assured of his justification and fortified in new obedience, David will teach transgressors the ways of God, and sinners shall be converted to Him, viz., by means of the testimony concerning God’s order of mercy which he is able to bear as the result of his own rich experience.

Psa 51:14-17

The third part now begins with a doubly urgent prayer. The invocation of God by the name Elohim is here made more urgent by the addition of אלהי תשׁוּעתי; inasmuch as the prayers for justification and for renewing blend together in the “deliver me.” David does not seek to lessen his guilt; he calls it in דּמים by its right name, - a word which signifies blood violently shed, and then also a deed of blood and blood-guiltiness (Psa 9:13; Psa 106:38, and frequently). We have also met with הצּיל construed with מן of the sin in Psa 39:9. He had given Uriah over to death in order to possess himself of Bathsheba. And the accusation of his conscience spoke not merely of adultery, but also of murder. Nevertheless the consciousness of sin no longer smites him to the earth, Mercy has lifted him up; he prays only that she would complete her work in him, then shall his tongue exultingly praise (רנּן with an accusative of the object, as in Psa 59:17) God’s righteousness, which, in accordance with the promise, takes the sinner under its protection. But in order to perform what he vowed he would do under such circumstances, he likewise needs grace, and prays, therefore, for a joyous opening of his mouth. In sacrifices God delighteth not (Psa 40:7, cf. Isa 1:11), otherwise he would bring some (ואתּנה, darem, sc. si velles, vid., on Psa 40:6); whole-burnt-offerings God doth not desire: the sacrifices that are well-pleasing to Him and most beloved by Him, in comparison with which the flesh and the dead work of the עולות and the זבחים (שׁלמים) is altogether worthless, are thankfulness (Psa 50:23) out of the fulness of a penitent and lowly heart. There is here, directly at least, no reference to the spiritual antitype of the sin-offering, which is never called זבה. The inward part of a man is said to be broken and crushed when his sinful nature is broken, his ungodly self slain, his impenetrable hardness softened, his haughty vainglorying brought low, - in fine, when he is in himself become as nothing, and when God is everything to him. Of such a spirit and heart, panting after grace or favour, consist the sacrifices that are truly worthy God’s acceptance and well-pleasing to Him (cf. Isa 57:15, where such a spirit and such a heart are called God’s earthly temple).The Talmud finds a significance in the plural זבחי. Joshua ben Levi (B. Sanhedrin 43 b) says: At the time when the temple was standing, whoever brought a burnt-offering received the reward of it, and whoever brought a meat-offering, the reward of it; but the lowly was accounted by the Scriptures as one who offered every kind of sacrifice at once (כאילו הקריב כל הקרבנות כולן). In Irenaeaus, iv. 17, 2, and Clemens Alexandrinus, Paedag. iii. 12, is found to θυσία τῷ Θεῷ καρδία συντετριμμένη the addition: ὀσμὴ εὐωδίας τῷ Θεῷ καρδία δοξάζουσα τὸν πεπλακότα αὐτήν.

Psa 51:18-19

From this spiritual sacrifice, well-pleasing to God, the Psalm now, in vv. 20f., comes back to the material sacrifices that are offered in a right state of mind; and this is to be explained by the consideration that David’s prayer for himself here passes over into an intercession on behalf of all Israel: Do good in Thy good pleasure unto Zion. את־ may be a sign of the accusative, for היטיב (הטיב) does take the accusative of the person (Job 24:21); but also a preposition, for as it is construed with ל and עם, so also with את in the same signification (Jer 18:10; Jer 32:41). זבח־צדק are here, as in Psa 4:6; Deu 33:19, those sacrifices which not merely as regards their outward character, but also in respect of the inward character of him who causes them to be offered on his behalf, are exactly such as God the Lawgiver will have them to be. By כּליל beside עולה might be understood the priestly vegetable whole-offering, Lev 6:15. (מנחת חבתּין, Epistle to the Hebrews, ii. 8), since every עולה as such is also כּליל; but Psalm-poetry does not make any such special reference to the sacrificial tôra. וכליל is, like כליל in 1Sa 7:9, an explicative addition, and the combination is like ימינך וזרועך, Psa 44:4, ארץ ותבל, Psa 90:2, and the like. A שׁלם כּליל (Hitzig, after the Phoenician sacrificial tables) is unknown to the Israelitish sacrificial worship. The prayer: Build Thou the walls of Jerusalem, is not inadmissible in the mouth of David; since בּנה signifies not merely to build up what has been thrown down, but also to go on and finish building what is in the act of being built (Psa 89:3); and, moreover, the wall built round about Jerusalem by Solomon (1Ki 3:1) can be regarded as a fulfilment of David’s prayer.

Nevertheless what even Theodoret has felt cannot be denied: τοῖς ἐν Βαβυλῶνι...ἁρμόττει τὰ ῥήματα. Through penitence the way of the exiles led back to Jerusalem. The supposition is very natural that vv. 20f. may be a liturgical addition made by the church of the Exile. And if the origin of Isa 40:1 in the time of the Exile were as indisputable as the reasons against such a position are forcible, then it would give support not merely to the derivation of vv. 20f. (cf. Isa 60:5, Isa 60:7, Isa 60:10), but of the whole Psalm, from the time of the Exile; for the general impress of the Psalm is, according to the accurate observation of Hitzig, thoroughly deutero-Isaianic. But the writer of Isa 40:1 shows signs in other respects also of the most families acquaintance with the earlier literature of the Shı̂r and the Mashal; and that he is none other than Isaiah reveals itself in connection with this Psalm by the echoes of this very Psalm, which are to be found not only in the second but also in the first part of the Isaianic collection of prophecy (cf. on Psa 51:9, Psa 51:18). We are therefore driven to the inference, that Ps 51 was a favourite Psalm of Isaiah’s, and that, since the Isaianic echoes of it extend equally from the first verse to the last, it existed in the same complete form even in his day as in ours; and that consequently the close, just like the whole Psalm, so beautifully and touchingly expressed, is not the mere addition of a later age. The Punishment That Awaits the Evil Tongue

With Psa 52:1-9, which, side by side with Ps 51, exhibits the contrast between the false and the right use of the tongue, begins a series of Elohimic Maskı̂l s (Ps 52-55) by David. It is one of the eight Psalms which, by the statements of the inscriptions, of which some are capable of being verified, and others at least cannot be replaced by anything that is more credible, are assigned to the time of his persecution by Saul (Ps 7, 59, Psa 56:1-13, 34, Psa 52:1-9, Psa 57:1-11, Psa 142:1-7, Psa 54:1-7). Augustine calls them Psalmos fugitivos. The inscription runs: To the Precentor, a meditation (vid., Psa 32:1), by David, when Doeg the Edomite came and told Saul and said to him: David is gone in to the house of Ahimelech. By בּבוא, as in Psa 51:2; Psa 54:2, the writer of the inscription does not define the exact moment of the composition of the Psalm, but only in a general way the period in which it falls. After David had sojourned a short time with Samuel, he betook himself to Nob to Ahimelech the priest; and he gave him without hesitation, as being the son-in-law of the king, the shew-bread that had been removed, and the sword of Goliath that had been hung up in the sanctuary behind the ephod. Doeg the Edomite was witness of this; and when Saul, under the tamarisk in Gibea, held an assembly of his serving men, Doeg, the overseer of the royal mules, betrayed what had taken place between David and Ahimelech to him. Eighty-five priests immediately fell as victims of this betrayal, and only Abiathar (Ebjathar) the son of Ahimelech escaped and reached David, 1Sa 22:6-10 (where, in Psa 52:9, פרדי is to be read instead of עבדי, cf. Psa 21:8).

Penitential Petitions.

1 Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness: according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions. 2 Wash me throughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. 3 For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me. 4 Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight: that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest. 5 Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me. 6 Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts: and in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom.

The title has reference to a very sad story, that of David's fall. But, though he fell, he was not utterly cast down, for God graciously upheld him and raised him up. 1. The sin which, in this psalm, he laments, was the folly and wickedness he committed with his neighbour's wife, a sin not to be spoken of, nor thought of, without detestation. His debauching of Bathsheba was the inlet to all the other sins that followed; it was as the letting forth of water. This sin of David's is recorded for warning to all, that he who thinks he stands may take heed lest he fall. 2. The repentance which, in this psalm, he expresses, he was brought to by the ministry of Nathan, who was sent of God to convince him of his sin, after he had continued above nine months (for aught that appears) without any particular expressions of remorse and sorrow for it. But though God may suffer his people to fall into sin, and to lie a great while in it, yet he will, by some means or other, recover them to repentance, bring them to himself and to their right mind again. Herein, generally, he uses the ministry of the word, which yet he is not tied to. But those that have been overtaken in any fault ought to reckon a faithful reproof the greatest kindness that can be done them and a wise reprover their best friend. Let the righteous smite me, and it shall be excellent oil. 3. David, being convinced of his sin, poured out his soul to God in prayer for mercy and grace. Whither should backsliding children return, but to the Lord their God, from whom they have backslidden, and who alone can heal their backslidings? 4. He drew up, by divine inspiration, the workings of his heart towards God, upon this occasion, into a psalm, that it might be often repeated, and long after reviewed; and this he committed to the chief musician, to be sung in the public service of the church. (1.) As a profession of his own repentance, which he would have to be generally taken notice of, his sin having been notorious, that the plaster might be as wide as the wound. Those that truly repent of their sins will not be ashamed to own their repentance; but, having lost the honour of innocents, they will rather covet the honour of penitents. (2.) As a pattern to others, both to bring them to repentance by his example and to instruct them in their repentance what to do and what to say. Being converted himself, he thus strengthens his brethren (Luke xxii. 32), and for this cause he obtained mercy, 1 Tim. i. 16.

In these words we have,

I. David's humble petition, v. 1, 2. His prayer is much the same with that which our Saviour puts into the mouth of his penitent publican in the parable: God be merciful to me a sinner! Luke xviii. 13. David was, upon many accounts, a man of great merit; he had not only done much, but suffered much, in the cause of God; and yet, when he is convinced of sin, he does not offer to balance his evil deeds with his good deeds, nor can he think that his services will atone for his offences; but he flies to God's infinite mercy, and depends upon that only for pardon and peace: Have mercy upon me, O God! He owns himself obnoxious to God's justice, and therefore casts himself upon his mercy; and it is certain that the best man in the world will be undone if God be not merciful to him. Observe,

1. What his plea is for this mercy: "have mercy upon me, O God! not according to the dignity of my birth, as descended from the prince of the tribe of Judah, not according to my public services as Israel's champion, or my public honours as Israel's king;" his plea is not, Lord, remember David and all his afflictions, how he vowed to build a place for the ark (Ps. cxxxii. 1, 2); a true penitent will make no mention of any such thing; but "Have mercy upon me for mercy's sake. I have nothing to plead with thee but," (1.) "The freeness of thy mercy, according to thy lovingkindness, thy clemency, the goodness of thy nature, which inclines thee to pity the miserable." (2.) "The fulness of thy mercy. There are in thee not only lovingkindness and tender mercies, but abundance of them, a multitude of tender mercies for the forgiveness of many sinners, of many sins, to multiply pardons as we multiply transgressions."

2. What is the particular mercy that he begs—the pardon of sin. Blot out my transgressions, as a debt is blotted or crossed out of the book, when either the debtor has paid it or the creditor has remitted it. "Wipe out my transgressions, that they may not appear to demand judgment against me, nor stare me in the face to my confusion and terror." The blood of Christ, sprinkled upon the conscience, to purify and pacify that, blots out the transgression, and, having reconciled us to God, reconciles up to ourselves, v. 2. "Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity; wash my soul from the guilt and stain of my sin by thy mercy and grace, for it is only from a ceremonial pollution that the water of separation will avail to cleanse me. Multiple to wash me; the stain is deep, for I have lain long soaking in the guilt, so that it will not easily be got out. O wash me much, wash me thoroughly. Cleanse me from my sin." Sin defiles us, renders us odious in the sight of the holy God, and uneasy to ourselves; it unfits us for communion with God in grace or glory. When God pardons sin he cleanses us from it, so that we become acceptable to him, easy to ourselves, and have liberty of access to him. Nathan had assured David, upon his first profession of repentance, that his sin was pardoned. The Lord has taken away thy sin; thou shalt not die, 2 Sam. xii. 13. Yet he prays, Wash me, cleanse, blot out my transgressions; for God will be sought unto even for that which he has promised; and those whose sins are pardoned must pray that the pardon may be more and more cleared up to them. God had forgiven him, but he could not forgive himself; and therefore he is thus importunate for pardon, as one that thought himself unworthy of it and knew how to value it.

II. David's penitential confessions, v. 3-5.

1. He was very free to own his guilt before God: I acknowledge my transgressions; this he had formerly found the only way of easing his conscience, Ps. xxxii. 4, 5. Nathan said, Thou art the man. I am, says David; I have sinned.

2. He had such a deep sense of it that the was continually thinking of it with sorrow and shame. His contrition for his sin was not a slight sudden passion, but an abiding grief: "My sin is ever before me, to humble me and mortify me, and make me continually blush and tremble. It is ever against me" (so some); "I see it before me as an enemy, accusing and threatening me." David was, upon all occasions, put in mind of his sin, and was willing to be so, for his further abasement. He never walked on the roof of his house without a penitent reflection on his unhappy walk there when thence he saw Bathsheba; he never lay down to sleep without a sorrowful thought of the bed of his uncleanness, never sat down to meat, never sent his servant on an errand, or took his pen in hand, but it put him in mind of his making Uriah drunk, the treacherous message he sent by him, and the fatal warrant he wrote and signed for his execution. Note, The acts of repentance, even for the same sin, must be often repeated. It will be of good use for us to have our sins ever before us, that by the remembrance of our past sins we may be kept humble, may be armed against temptation, quickened to duty, and made patient under the cross.

(1.) He confesses his actual transgressions (v. 4): Against thee, thee only, have I sinned. David was a very great man, and yet, having done amiss, submits to the discipline of a penitent, and thinks not his royal dignity will excuse him from it. Rich and poor must here meet together; there is one law of repentance for both; the greatest must be judged shortly, and therefore must judge themselves now. David was a very good man, and yet, having sinned, he willingly accommodates himself to the place and posture of a penitent. The best men, if they sin, should give the best example of repentance. [1.] His confession is particular; "I have done this evil, this that I am now reproved for, this that my own conscience now upbraids me with." Note, It is good to be particular in the confession of sin, that we may be the more express in praying for pardon, and so may have the more comfort in it. We ought to reflect upon the particular heads of our sins of infirmity and the particular circumstances of our gross sins. [2.] He aggravates the sin which he confesses and lays a load upon himself for it: Against thee, and in thy sight. Hence our Saviour seems to borrow the confession which he puts into the mouth of the returning prodigal: I have sinned against heaven, and before thee, Luke xv. 18. Two things David laments in his sin:—First, That it was committed against God. To him the affront is given, and he is the party wronged. It is his truth that by wilful sin we deny, his conduct that we despise, his command that we disobey, his promise that we distrust, his name that we dishonour, and it is with him that we deal deceitfully and disingenuously. From this topic Joseph fetched the great argument against sin (Gen. xxxix. 9), and David here the great aggravation of it: Against thee only. Some make this to intimate the prerogative of his crown, that, as a king, he was not accountable to any but God; but it is more agreeable to his present temper to suppose that it expresses the deep contrition of his soul for his sin, and that it was upon right grounds. He here sinned against Bathsheba and Uriah, against his own soul, and body, and family, against his kingdom, and against the church of God, and all this helped to humble him; but none of these were sinned against so as God was, and therefore this he lays the most sorrowful accent upon: Against thee only have I sinned. Secondly, That it was committed in God's sight. "This not only proves it upon me, but renders it exceedingly sinful." This should greatly humble us for all our sins, that they have been committed under the eye of God, which argues either a disbelief of his omniscience or a contempt of his justice. [3.] He justifies God in the sentence passed upon him—that the sword should never depart from his house, 2 Sam. xii. 10, 11. He is very forward to own his sin, and aggravate it, not only that he might obtain the pardon of it himself, but that by his confession he might give honour to God. First, That God might be justified in the threatenings he had spoken by Nathan. "Lord, I have nothing to say against the justice of them; I deserve what is threatened, and a thousand times worse." Thus Eli acquiesced in the like threatenings (1 Sam. iii. 18), It is the Lord. And Hezekiah (2 Kings xx. 19), Good is the word of the Lord, which thou hast spoken. Secondly, That God might be clear when he judged, that is, when he executed those threatenings. David published his confession of sin that when hereafter he should come into trouble none might say God had done him any wrong; for he owns the Lord is righteous: thus will all true penitents justify God by condemning themselves. Thou art just in all that is brought upon us.

(2.) He confesses his original corruption (v. 5): Behold, I was shapen in iniquity. He does not call upon God to behold it, but upon himself. "Come, my soul, look unto the rock out of which I was hewn, and thou wilt find I was shapen in iniquity. Had I duly considered this before, I find I should not have made so bold with the temptation, nor have ventured among the sparks with such tinder in my heart; and so the sin might have been prevented. Let me consider it now, not to excuse or extenuate the sin—Lord, I did so; but indeed I could not help it, my inclination led me to it" (for as that plea is false, with due care and watchfulness, and improvement of the grace of God, he might have helped it, so it is what a true penitent never offers to put in), "but let me consider it rather as an aggravation of the sin: Lord, I have not only been guilty of adultery and murder, but I have an adulterous murderous nature; therefore I abhor myself." David elsewhere speaks of the admirable structure of his body (Ps. cxxxix. 14, 15); it was curiously wrought; and yet here he says it was shapen in iniquity, sin was twisted in with it; not as it came out of God's hands, but as it comes through our parents' loins. He elsewhere speaks of the piety of his mother, that she was God's handmaid, and he pleads his relation to her (Ps. cxvi. 16, lxxxvi. 16), and yet here he says she conceived him in sin; for though she was, by grace, a child of God, she was, by nature, a daughter of Eve, and not excepted from the common character. Note, It is to be sadly lamented by every one of us that we brought into the world with us a corrupt nature, wretchedly degenerated from its primitive purity and rectitude; we have from our birth the snares of sin in our bodies, the seeds of sin in our souls, and a stain of sin upon both. This is what we call original sin, because it is as ancient as our original, and because it is the original of all our actual transgressions. This is that foolishness which is bound in the heart of a child, that proneness of evil and backwardness to good which is the burden of the regenerate and the ruin of the unregenerate; it is a bent to backslide from God.

III. David's acknowledgment of the grace of God (v. 6), both his good-will towards us ("thou desirest truth in the inward parts, thou wouldst have us all honest and sincere, and true to our profession") and his good work in us—"In the hidden part thou hast made," or shalt make, "me to know wisdom." Note, 1. Truth and wisdom will go very far towards making a man a good man. A clear head and a sound heart (prudence and sincerity) bespeak the man of God perfect. 2. What God requires of us he himself works in us, and he works it in the regular way, enlightening the mind, and so gaining the will. But how does this come in here? (1.) God is hereby justified and cleared: "Lord, thou was not the author of my sin; there is no blame to be laid upon thee; but I alone must bear it; for thou has many a time admonished me to be sincere, and hast made me to know that which, if I had duly considered it, would have prevented my falling into this sin; had I improved the grace thou hast given me, I should have kept my integrity." (2.) The sin is hereby aggravated: "Lord, thou desirest truth; but where was it when I dissembled with Uriah? Thou hast made me to know wisdom; but I have not lived up to what I have known." (3.) He is hereby encouraged, in his repentance, to hope that God would graciously accept him; for, [1.] God had made him sincere in his resolutions never to return to folly again: Thou desirest truth in the inward part; this is that which God has an eye to in a returning sinner, that in his spirit there be no guile, Ps. xxxii. 2. David was conscious to himself of the uprightness of his heart towards God in his repentance, and therefore doubted not but God would accept him. [2.] He hoped that God would enable him to make good his resolutions, that in the hidden part, in the new man, which is called the hidden man of the heart (1 Pet. iii. 4), he would make him to know wisdom, so as to discern and avoid the designs of the tempter another time. Some read it as a prayer: "Lord, in this instance, I have done foolishly; for the future make me to know wisdom." Where there is truth God will give wisdom; those that sincerely endeavour to do their duty shall be taught their duty.

Penitential Petitions.

7 Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. 8 Make me to hear joy and gladness; that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice. 9 Hide thy face from my sins, and blot out all mine iniquities. 10 Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me. 11 Cast me not away from thy presence; and take not thy holy spirit from me. 12 Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit. 13 Then will I teach transgressors thy ways; and sinners shall be converted unto thee.

I. See here what David prays for. Many excellent petitions he here puts up, to which if we do but add, "for Christ's sake," they are as evangelical as any other.

1. He prays that God would cleanse him from his sins and the defilement he had contracted by them (v. 7): "Purge me with hyssop; that is, pardon my sins, and let me know that they are pardoned, that I may be restored to those privileges which by sin I have forfeited and lost." The expression here alludes to a ceremonial distinction, that of cleansing the leper, or those that were unclean by the touch of a body by sprinkling water, or blood, or both upon them with a bunch of hyssop, by which they were, at length, discharged from the restraints they were laid under by their pollution. "Lord, let me be as well assured of my restoration to thy favour, and to the privilege of communion with thee, as they were thereby assured of their re-admission to their former privileges." But it is founded upon gospel-grace: Purge me with hyssop, that is, with the blood of Christ applied to my soul by a lively faith, as water of purification was sprinkled with a bunch of hyssop. It is the blood of Christ (which is therefore called the blood of sprinkling, Heb. xii. 24), that purges the conscience from dead works, from that guilt of sin and dread of God which shut us out of communion with him, as the touch of a dead body, under the law, shut a man out from the courts of God's house. If this blood of Christ, which cleanses from all sin, cleanse us from our sin, then we shall be clean indeed, Heb. x. 2. If we be washed in this fountain opened, we shall be whiter than snow, not only acquitted but accepted; so those are that are justified. Isa. i. 18, Though your sins have been as scarlet, they shall be white as snow.

2. He prays that, his sins being pardoned, he might have the comfort of that pardon. He asks not to be comforted till first he is cleansed; but if sin, the bitter root of sorrow, be taken away, he can pray in faith, "Make me to hear joy and gladness (v. 8), that is, let me have a well-grounded peace, of thy creating, thy speaking, so that the bones which thou hast broken by convictions and threatenings may rejoice, may not only be set again, and eased from the pain, but may be sensibly comforted, and, as the prophet speaks, may flourish as a herb." Note, (1.) The pain of a heart truly broken for sin may well be compared to that of a broken bone; and it is the same Spirit who as a Spirit of bondage smites and wounds and as a Spirit of adoption heals and binds up. (2.) The comfort and joy that arise from a sealed pardon to a penitent sinner are as refreshing as perfect ease from the most exquisite pain. (3.) It is God's work, not only to speak this joy and gladness, but to make us hear it and take the comfort of it. He earnestly desires that God would lift up the light of his countenance upon him, and so put gladness into his heart, that he would not only be reconciled to him, but, which is a further act of grace, let him know that he was so.

3. He prays for a complete and effectual pardon. This is that which he is most earnest for as the foundation of his comfort (v. 9): "Hide thy face from my sins, that is, be not provoked by them to deal with me as I deserve; they are ever before me, let them be cast behind thy back. Blot out all my iniquities out of the book of thy account; blot them out, as a cloud is blotted out and dispelled by the beams of the sun," Isa. xliv. 22.

4. He prays for sanctifying grace; and this every true penitent is as earnest for as for pardon and peace, v. 10. He does not pray, "Lord, preserve me my reputation," as Saul, I have sinned, yet honour me before this people. No; his great concern is to get his corrupt nature changed: the sin he had been guilty of was, (1.) An evidence of its impurity, and therefore he prays, Create in me a clean heart, O God! He now saw, more than ever, what an unclean heart he had, and sadly laments it, but sees it is not in his own power to amend it, and therefore begs of God (whose prerogative it is to create) that he would create in him a clean heart. He only that made the heart can new-make it; and to his power nothing is impossible. He created the world by the word of his power as the God of nature, and it is by the word of his power as the God of grace that we are clean (John xv. 3), that we are sanctified, John xvii. 17. (2.) It was the cause of its disorder, and undid much of the good work that had been wrought in him; and therefore he prays, "Lord, renew a right spirit within me; repair the decays of spiritual strength which this sin has been the cause of, and set me to rights again." Renew a constant spirit within me, so some. He had, in this matter, discovered much inconstancy and inconsistency with himself, and therefore he prays, "Lord, fix me for the time to come, that I may never in like manner depart from thee."

5. He prays for the continuance of God's good-will towards him and the progress of his good work in him, v. 11. (1.) That he might never be shut out from God's favour: "Cast me not away from thy presence, as one whom thou abhorrest and canst not endure to look upon." He prays that he might not be thrown out of God's protection, but that wherever he went, he might have the divine presence with him, might be under the guidance of his wisdom and in the custody of his power, and that he might not be forbidden communion with God: "Let me not be banished thy courts, but always have liberty of access to thee by prayer." He does not deprecate the temporal judgments which God by Nathan had threatened to bring upon him. "God's will be done; but, Lord, rebuke me not in thy wrath. If the sword come into my house never to depart from it, yet let me have a God to go to in my distresses, and all shall be well." (2.) That he might never be deprived of God's grace: Take not thy Holy Spirit from me. He knew he had by his sin grieved the Spirit and provoked him to withdraw, and that because he also was flesh God might justly have said that his Spirit should no more strive with him nor work upon him, Gen. vi. 3. This he dreads more than any thing. We are undone if God take his Holy Spirit from us. Saul was a sad instance of this. How exceedingly sinful, how exceedingly miserable, was he, when the Spirit of the Lord had departed from him! David knew it, and therefore begs thus earnestly: "Lord, whatever thou take from me, my children, my crown, my life, yet take not thy Holy Spirit from me" (see 2 Sam. vii. 15), "but continue thy Holy Spirit with me, to perfect the work of my repentance, to prevent my relapse into sin, and to enable me to discharge my duty both as a prince and as a psalmist."

6. He prays for the restoration of divine comforts and the perpetual communications of divine grace, v. 12. David finds two ill effects of his sin:—(1.) It had made him sad, and therefore he prays, Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation. A child of God knows no true nor solid joy but the joy of God's salvation, joy in God his Saviour and in the hope of eternal life. By wilful sin we forfeit this joy and deprive ourselves of it; our evidences cannot but be clouded and our hopes shaken. When we give ourselves so much cause to doubt of our interest in the salvation, how can we expect the joy of it? But, when we truly repent, we may pray and hope that God will restore to us those joys. Those that sow in penitential tears shall reap in the joys of God's salvation when the times of refreshing shall come. (2.) It had made him weak, and therefore he prays, "Uphold me with the free Spirit: I am ready to fall, either into sin or into despair; Lord, sustain me; my own spirit" (though the spirit of a man will go far towards the sustaining of his infirmity) "is not sufficient; if I be left to myself, I shall certainly sink; therefore uphold me with thy Spirit, let him counterwork the evil spirit that would cast me down from my excellency. Thy Spirit is a free spirit, a free agent himself, working freely" (and that makes those free whom he works upon, for where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty)—"thy ingenuous princely Spirit." He was conscious to himself of having acted, in the matter of Uriah, very disingenuously and unlike a prince; his behaviour was base and paltry: "Lord," says he, "let thy Spirit inspire my soul with noble and generous principles, that I may always act as becomes me." A free spirit will be a firm and fixed spirit, and will uphold us. The more cheerful we are in our duty the more constant we shall be to it.

II. See what David here promises, v. 13. Observe,

1. What good work he promises to do: I will teach transgressors thy ways. David had been himself a transgressor, and therefore could speak experimentally to transgressors, and resolves, having himself found mercy with God in the way of repentance, to teach others God's ways, that is, (1.) Our way to God by repentance; he would teach others that had sinned to take the same course that he had taken, to humble themselves, to confess their sins, and seek God's face; and, (2.) God's way towards us in pardoning mercy; how ready he is to receive those that return to him. He taught the former by his own example, for the direction of sinners in repenting; he taught the latter by his own experience, for their encouragement. By this psalm he is, and will be to the world's end, teaching transgressors, telling them what God had done for his soul. Note, Penitents should be preachers. Solomon was so, and blessed Paul.

2. What good effect he promises himself from his doing this: "Sinners shall be converted unto thee, and shall neither persist in their wanderings from thee, nor despair of finding mercy in their returns to thee." The great thing to be aimed at in teaching transgressors is their conversion to God; that is a happy point gained, and happy are those that are instrumental to contribute towards it, Jam. v. 20.

Penitential Petitions.

14 Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, thou God of my salvation: and my tongue shall sing aloud of thy righteousness. 15 O Lord, open thou my lips; and my mouth shall show forth thy praise. 16 For thou desirest not sacrifice; else would I give it: thou delightest not in burnt offering. 17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise. 18 Do good in thy good pleasure unto Zion: build thou the walls of Jerusalem. 19 Then shalt thou be pleased with the sacrifices of righteousness, with burnt offering and whole burnt offering: then shall they offer bullocks upon thine altar.

I. David prays against the guilt of sin, and prays for the grace of God, enforcing both petitions from a plea taken from the glory of God, which he promises with thankfulness to show forth. 1. He prays against the guilt of sin, that he might be delivered from that, and promises that then he would praise God, v. 14. The particular sin he prays against is blood-guiltiness, the sin he had now been guilty of, having slain Uriah with the sword of the children of Ammon. Hitherto perhaps he had stopped the mouth of conscience with that frivolous excuse, that he did not kill him himself; but now he was convinced that he was the murderer, and, hearing the blood cry to God for vengeance, he cries to God for mercy: "Deliver me from blood-guiltiness; let me not lie under the guilt of this kind which I have contracted, but let it be pardoned to me, and let me never be left to myself to contract the like guilt again." Note, It concerns us all to pray earnestly against the guilt of blood. In this prayer he eyes God as the God of salvation. Note, Those to whom God is the God of salvation he will deliver from guilt; for the salvation he is the God of is salvation from sin. We may therefore plead this with him, "Lord, thou art the God of my salvation, therefore deliver me from the dominion of sin." He promises that, if God would deliver him, his tongue should sing aloud of his righteousness; God should have the glory both of pardoning mercy and of preventing grace. God's righteousness is often put for his grace, especially in the great business of justification and sanctification. This he would comfort himself in and therefore sing of; and this he would endeavour both to acquaint and to affect others with; he would sing aloud of it. This all those should do that have had the benefit of it, and owe their all to it. 2. He prays for the grace of God and promises to improve that grace to his glory (v. 15): "O Lord! open thou my lips, not only that I may teach and instruct sinners" (which the best preacher cannot do to any purpose unless God give him the opening of the mouth, and the tongue of the learned), "but that my mouth may show forth thy praise, not only that I may have abundant matter for praise, but a heart enlarged in praise." Guilt had closed his lips, had gone near to stop the mouth of prayer; he could not for shame, he could not for fear, come into the presence of that God whom he knew he had offended, much less speak to him; his heart condemned him, and therefore he had little confidence towards God. It cast a damp particularly upon his praises; when he had lost the joys of his salvation his harp was hung upon the willow-trees; therefore he prays, "Lord, open my life, put my heart in tune for praise again." To those that are tongue-tied by reason of guilt the assurance of the forgiveness of their sins says effectually, Ephphatha—Be opened; and, when the lips are opened, what should they speak but the praises of God, as Zacharias did? Luke i. 64.

II. David offers the sacrifice of a penitent contrite heart, as that which he knew God would be pleased with. 1. He knew well that the sacrificing of beasts was in itself of no account with God (v. 16): Thou desirest not sacrifice (else would I give it with all my heart to obtain pardon and peace); thou delightest not in burnt-offering. Here see how glad David would have been to give thousands of rams to make atonement for sin. Those that are thoroughly convinced of their misery and danger by reason of sin would spare no cost to obtain the remission of it, Mic. vi. 6, 7. But see how little God valued this. As trials of obedience, and types of Christ, he did indeed require sacrifices to be offered; but he had no delight in them for any intrinsic worth or value they had. Sacrifice and offering thou wouldst not. As they cannot make satisfaction for sin, so God cannot take any satisfaction in them, any otherwise than as the offering of them is expressive of love and duty to him. 2. He knew also how acceptable true repentance is to God (v. 17): The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit. See here, (1.) What the good work is that is wrought in every true penitent—a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart. It is a work wrought upon the heart; that is it that God looks at, and requires, in all religious exercises, particularly in the exercises of repentance. It is a sharp work wrought there, no less than the breaking of the heart; not in despair (as we say, when a man is undone, His heart is broken), but in necessary humiliation and sorrow for sin. It is a heart breaking with itself, and breaking from its sin; it is a heart pliable to the word of God, and patient under the rod of God, a heart subdued and brought into obedience; it is a heart that is tender, like Josiah's, and trembles at God's word. Oh that there were such a heart in us! (2.) How graciously God is pleased to accept of this. It is the sacrifices of God, not one, but many; it is instead of all burnt-offering and sacrifice. The breaking of Christ's body for sin is the only sacrifice of atonement, for no sacrifice but that could take away sin; but the breaking of our hearts for sin is a sacrifice of acknowledgment, a sacrifice of God, for to him it is offered up; he requires it, he prepares it (he provides this lamb for a burnt-offering), and he will accept of it. That which pleased God was not the feeding of a beast, and making much of it, but killing it; so it is not the pampering of our flesh, but the mortifying of it, that God will accept. The sacrifice was bound, was bled, was burnt; so the penitent heart is bound by convictions, bleeds in contrition, and then burns in holy zeal against sin and for God. The sacrifice was offered upon the altar that sanctified the gift; so the broken heart is acceptable to God only through Jesus Christ; there is no true repentance without faith in him; and this is the sacrifice which he will not despise. Men despise that which is broken, but God will not. He despised the sacrifice of torn and broken beasts, but he will not despise that of a torn and broken heart. He will not overlook it; he will not refuse or reject it; though it make God no satisfaction for the wrong done him by sin, yet he does not despise it. The proud Pharisee despised the broken-hearted publican, and he thought very meanly of himself; but God did not despise him. More is implied than is expressed; the great God overlooks heaven and earth, to look with favour upon a broken and contrite heart, Isa. lxvi. 1, 2; lvii. 15.

III. David intercedes for Zion and Jerusalem, with an eye to the honour of God. See what a concern he had,

1. For the good of the church of God (v. 18): Do good in thy good pleasure unto Zion, that is, (1.) "To all the particular worshippers in Zion, to all that love and fear thy name; keep them from falling into such wounding wasting sins as these of mine; defend and succour all that fear thy name." Those that have been in spiritual troubles themselves know how to pity and pray for those that are in like manner afflicted. Or, (2.) To the public interests of Israel. David was sensible of the wrong he had done to Judah and Jerusalem by his sin, how it had weakened the hands and saddened the hearts of good people, and opened the mouths of their adversaries; he was likewise afraid lest, he being a public person, his sin should bring judgments upon the city and kingdom, and therefore he prays to God to secure and advance those public interests which he had damaged and endangered. He prays that God would prevent those national judgments which his sin had deserved, that he would continue those blessings, and carry on that good work, which it had threatened to retard and put a stop to. He prays, not only that God would do good to Zion, as he did to other places, by his providence, but that he would do it in his good pleasure, with the peculiar favour he bore to that place which he had chosen to put his name there, that the walls of Jerusalem, which perhaps were now in the building, might be built up, and that good work finished. Note, [1.] When we have most business of our own, and of greatest importance at the throne of grace, yet then we must not forget to pray for the church of God; nay, our Master has taught us in our daily prayers to begin with that, Hallowed be thy name, Thy kingdom come. [2.] The consideration of the prejudice we have done to the public interests by our sins should engage us to do them all the service we can, particularly by our prayers.

2. For the honour of the churches of God, v. 19. If God would show himself reconciled to him and his people, as he had prayed, then they should go on with the public services of his house, (1.) Cheerfully to themselves. The sense of God's goodness to them would enlarge their hearts in all the instances and expressions of thankfulness and obedience. They will then come to his tabernacle with burnt-offerings, with whole burnt-offerings, which were intended purely for the glory of God, and they shall offer, not lambs and rams only, but bullocks, the costliest sacrifices, upon his altar. (2.) Acceptably to God: "Thou shalt be pleased with them, that is, we shall have reason to hope so when we perceive the sin taken away which threatened to hinder thy acceptance." Note, It is a great comfort to a good man to think of the communion that is between God and his people in their public assemblies, how he is honoured by their humble attendance on him and they are happy in his gracious acceptance of it.

PSAL. LI.

To the master of the musicke, a Psalme of David. When Nathan the Prophet came unto him after he had gone in unto Bathsheba.

BE gracious to me, O God, according to thy kinde mercie, according to the multitude of thy tender mercies wipe away my trespasses. Much wash me from my iniquitie, and clense me from my sinne.

For I know my trespasses, and my sinne is before mee continually. Against thee, against thee onely have I sinned, and have done that which is evill in thine eyes, that thou maiest be just when thou speakest, maiest be pure when thou judgest. Loe in iniquity was I painfully brought forth, and in sinne my mother conceived me. Loe the truth thou delightest in the inward parts, and in the secret thou hast made me know wisdome. Thou wilt purge me from sinne with Hyssop, and I shall be cleane, wilt wash me and I shall be whiter than snow. Thou wilt make me to heare joy and gladnesse, the bones that thou hast crushed, shall be gladsome. Hide thy face from my sinnes, and wipe away all my iniquities. A clean heart create thou to me, O God, & a firme spirit renew thou within me. Cast me not from thy face, and take not from me thy spirit of holinesse. Restore to me the joy of thy salvation, and firmly sustain me with a free spirit. I wil teach trespassers thy wayes, and sinners shall convert unto thee. Deliver me from blouds, O God, the God of my salvation, my tongue shall shout thy justice. Lord thou shalt open my lips, and my mouth shall shew forth thy praise.

For thou delightest not sacrifice, else would I give it; burnt offering thou wilt not contentedly accept. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a heart broken and contrite, O God, thou wilt not despise. Doe well in thy good pleasure unto Sion, build thou the wals of Ierusalem. Then shalt thou delightfully accept the sacrifices of justice, the burnt offering and the whole oblation: then shall they offer up bullocks upon thine Altar.

Annotations. HE had gone in] to wit, into the chamber, as Iudg. 15. 1. that is, had lien with, as the phrase importeth, Gen. 6. 4. and is expressed, 2 Sam. 11. 4. Bathsheba] the daughter of Eliam, 2 Sam. 11. 3. called also Bathshua daughter of Ammiel, 1 Chron. 3. 5. She was wife to Captaine Urijah the Hittite, and whiles her husband was at the leager of Rabbah, David lay with her; and she being with child, he first sought to cover his fault by sending for Vrijah home, that he might be esteemed the father; which not succeeding, he sent him backe with privie letters to Ioab the Generall for to procure his death. Which being done, David married his wife Bathshebah, so thinking to cloake his sinne. But God was displeased, and sent Nathan to reprove David; whereupon he repented and made this Psalme, for an example unto, and comfort of sinners. See the historie at large, 2 Sam. 11. and 12. Vers. 4. much wash mee] or, multiply wash mee, that is, thorowly wash me, againe and againe. He applieth the washings used in the Law, (Lev. 11. 25. 32. Exod. 19. 10. Num. 19. 19.) to the spirituall washing from sinne in the bloud of Christ, Rev. 7. 14. 1 Ioh. 1. 7. So after in verse 9. and Ier. 4. 14. The Hebrew Hereb (or Harbeh) multiply, is used for much, as 2 King. 10. 18. where it is opposed to little. And that which in one place is written harboh, multiply: in another is la-rob, and rabbah, much, as 1 King. 10. 10. with 2 Chron. 9. 9. 2 Sam. 8. 8. with 1 Chron. 18. 8. Vers. 5. I know] or acknowledge. So Isa. 59. 12. Ier. 3. 13. Vers. 6. Against thee] or, Vnto thee onely. This is either because he concealed his sinne from men, but could not from God, 2 Sam. 12. 12. or, that onely God could remit the punishment of his sin, Isa. 43. 25. So Psal. 41. 5. I have sinned] and so am deprived of the glory of God, as Rom. 3. 23. that which is evill, &c.] which displeaseth thee. This hath reference to 2 Sam. 11. 9. and 11. 27. that thou maiest be just] that is, thou hast suffered me to fall into sinne, that thou maiest be just, (or justified,) in whatsoever thou hast spoken for the salvation of thy servant, or punishment of my sinne, 2 Sam. 12. 10. For the injustice of man, commendeth the justice of God, Rom. 3. 4, 5. or it may have reference to the former words, I know (and acknowledge) my sinne, that thou maist be just. when thou speakest] or in thy speaking, that is, in thy words, as Rom. 3. 4. so after, in thy judging. maist be pure] or cleare, sincere, unreproveable, and consequently maist win the victorin in judgement: whereupon the Apostle (according to the Greeke version) saith, maist overcome, Rom. 3. 4. The Hebrew Zacah also in the Syriak tongue is used for overcomming. Vers. 7. in iniquitie] the perversenesse or vitiosity of nature, commonly called originall, & by the Apostle, inhabiting sinne, Rom. 7. 17. whereby all men are carnall, sold under sinne, Ioh. 3. 6. Rom. 7. 14. The Chaldee calleth it, the sinne of evill concupiscence. This David maketh the fountaine of all his actuall sinnes. painfully brought forth] borne with sorrow. The Hebrew signifieth, the painfull travell of child-birth, Isa. 26. 17, 18. and 51. 2. Psal. 29. 9. conceived] or was warme in heat, as Gen. 30. 38. 39, 41. Vers. 8. the inward parts] or the covered parts, the heart roots where wisdome is seated of God, Iob 38. 36. named in Hebrew of covering, plaistering, or pargetting. the secret] or, the closed place; which being referred to the person, meaneth the heart, which God reneweth, Ezek. 36. 26. and wherein he writeth his lawes, Heb. 8. 10. And thus the Chaldee expoundeth it, the close place of the heart, which the Apostle calleth the hid man of the heart, 1 Pet. 3. 4. or, if it be referred to the thing, it meaneth the secrets of wisedome; Iob 11. 6. the wisedome of God in a mysterie, the hid wisdome manifested by the Gospell, 1 Cor. 2. 7. And thus the Greeke applieth it, saying, the unmanifest and hid things of wisdome thou hast manifested to me. hast made] or wilt make me know; thus he riseth by faith out of his sin, being taught wisdome of God. Vers. 9. Thou wilt purge me from sinne] or prayer-wise, Purge thou me from sinne, or, make me sinlesse, expiate or purifie my sinne. Prayers are often made in this manner, as with assurance that they shall be performed. See the note on Psal. 17. 8. Eizop] or hyssop, of the Hebrew Ezob, and Greek hyssopos, an herbe or tree growing out of the wall, 1 King 4. 33. appointed in the law for to sprinkle and cleanse with, Exod. 12. 22. Num. 19. 6. 18. Lev. 14. 4. 6. 49. Heb. 9. 19. and the sprinkling with it, was the last part of the purification of the uncleane, here used to signifie the ful cleansing from sinne by the bloud of Christ, Heb. 9. 13, 14. whether it were that herb which we now call eizop, or no, is uncertaine. The Childee paraphraseth, Thou wilt sprinkle me like a Priest, which sprinkleth the uncleane with the purifying waters, with hyssop, with the asbes of a heifer, and I shall be cleane. wash me] another legall rite for purifying the uncleane, Lev. 14. 8. and 15. 5. 8. 13. 22. figuring our sanctification, Heb. 10. 22. Tit. 3. 5. Isa. 4. 4. Vers. 10. to heare joy] the joyfull tidings of the forgivenesse of my sins. bones that thou hast crushed] or brayed: nothing hereby the greatnesse of his griefe and affliction, Iob 2. 2. 5. and 30. 17. and 33. 19. 21. Psal. 38. 4. Vers. 11. Hide thy face] that is, regard not my finhes to visit them on me. See the contrary, Psal. 90. 5. and 109. 14, 15. Ier. 16. 17. Vers. 12. firme spirit] a spirit ready prepared, stedfast and certaine. The like is applied to the heart, Psal. 11 2. 7. and 57. 8. Vers. 13. from thy face] or from thy presence: This was an effect of Gods utmost anger against sinners, 2 Kings 24. 20. Ier. 7. 15. and 52. 3. Gen. 4. 16. thy spirit of holinesse] thy holy Ghost: which the Chaldee expoundeth, thy holy spirit of Prophesie. Vers. 14. the joy of thy salvation] the joy which proceedeth from thy salvation and deliverance of me from sinne. a free spirit] a voluntary, free willing spirit, or a princely ruling spirit, as the Greeke turneth it. See this word, Psal. 47. 10. by a free or princely spirit, he meaneth a spirit not in bondage to sinne, called elsewhere the spirit of adoption, Rom. 8. 15, 16. whereby a man is made willing to obey the Lord, as Exod. 35. 21. Vers. 16. from blouds] that is, from the guilt of my murder in shedding the bloud of Vriah; as the Chaldee saith, from the judgement of murder; or, from my native corruption. See the note on Isal. 5. 7. shall shout] or shrill, sing joyfully and proclaime thy justice; such as Paul speaketh of, Phil. 3. 9. Vers. 17. shalt open my lips] shalt give me occasion to speake freely and boldly: the Chaldee addeth, in thy law. This phrase is used Iob 11. 5. and 32. 20. Vers. 18. else I would give it] or, for else I would give it: as the Greeke turneth it, if thou wouldest sacrifice, I had given it. Vers. 19. The sacrifices of God] that is, which please God; or, as the Chaldee saith, holy to God. So, the workes of God, Ioh. 6. 28. heart broken] to wit, with sorrow for sinne. So Isa. 61. 1. Luke 4. 18. Compare with this, Rom. 12. 1. also Isa. 57. 15. and 66. 2. Vers. 20. Doe well] or Doe good, deale bounteously: it comprehendeth all things needfull for profit or pleasure. unto Sion] the Church and place of publike worship. See Psal. 2. 6. walls of Ierusalem] or, of Ierushalaim, as the Hebrew writeth it in the duall forme, as it were the double Ierusalem, to wit, the higher and the lower: from which the Apostle gathereth an allegorie, Gal. 4. 25, 26. This citie was first called Salem, that is, Peace, where Melchisedek was King, Gen. 14. 18. Heb. 7. 2. It was named also Iebus, Iudg. 19. 10. of one Iebusi son of Canaan, Gen. 10. 16. and was possessed by his seed the Iebusites, who held therein the fort of Sion, till David wanne it from them, 1 Chron. 11. 4, 5, 7. Here also was the mount Morijah, whereon Solomon built the Temple, 2 Chron. 3. 1. where Abraham offered his sonne Isaak, Gen. 22. 2. And because there Gods providence was seene, he named the place Iehovah-jireh, Gen. 22. 14. which Iireh, put to the former name Salem, maketh it Ierusalem, where Peace is seene: and as the citie was inlarged by taking in mount Iireh or Morijah, so is the name: yet sometime (though very rare) it is called by the first name Salem; as Psal. 76. 3. This citie God chose to be the place of his publike worship, and there to dwell, 2 Chron. 7. 12. Psal. 132. 13, 14. and honourable things are spoken of this citie, Psal. 87. 3. and of the wals thereof, which in the Ierusalem from above are of Iasper stone, with 12 foundations, garnished with all manner precious stones, and having the names of the Lambes 12 Apostles, Rev. 21. 10. 14, 18, 19. &c. the wals are called Salvation, and the gates Praise, and they are ever in Gods sight, Isa. 60. 18. and 49. 16. For the building up of these doth David here pray. Vers. 21. Then shalt thou accept] when the place is builded which thou hast chosen; for be for bade his people to offer in every place, Levit. 17. 5 8 9. Deut. 12. 11, 13. and promised to accept their sacrifices on his holy mountaine, Ezek. 20. 40. Therefore Israel was in great affliction and reproach, when the wals of Ierusalem were unbuilded, Neb. 1. 3. and the peoples negligence in building Gods house was sharply blamed, Hag. 1. 2, 4, 8, 9. and 2. 15. &c. of justice] that is, sacrifices offered in faith, and according to the will of God. See Psal. 4. 6. the whole oblation] the Calil: a kinde of oblation that was wholly and every whit given up in fire unto God: and differed from the Gnolah, or Burnt-offering, which was only of beasts or birds, Lev. 1. whereas the Calil was also of flower, called the Meat-offering, but burned all together, which the common Meat-offerings were not, Lev. 6. 20, 22, 23. It was also of beasts, 1 Sam. 7. 9.

PSAL. LI.

A Pſalm of David] who was not aſhamed to do open penance here in a white Sheet, as it were: ſo did Theodoſius the Emperour, at the reprehenſion of Ambroſe, after the flaughter at Theſſalonica; he ſpent eight months ſaith Theadoret, in weeping and lamentation: he fell down on his face in the place of the Penitents, and ſaid, My ſoul is glued to the earth, &c Henry the Fourth (then King of Navarre only, after wards of France alſo) having abuſed the Daughter of a Gentlemanin Rochel, by whom he had a Son, was perſwaded by Mounſieur du-Pleſſis, to make a publick acknowledgement of his fault in the Church,Life of Phil. de Morn. by Mr. Cler[illegible: 1 letter]. which alſo he did before all the Nobility of his Army. This counſel being thought by ſome to be too rigorous, Du-Pleſſis made this anſwer, That as a man could not be too couragious before men: ſo he could not be too humble in the preſence of God.

Wh[illegible: 1 letter]n Nathan the Prophet came unto him] Rouſing him out of a long Lethargy, into which Sin and Sathan had caſt him. See here the neceſſity of a faithful Miniſtery, to be to us as the Pilot was to Jonas, as the Cock to Peier, &c. as alſo of a friendly admonitour, ſuch as David had prayed for, Pſal. 141.5. and here he is anſwered. David had lain long in ſin without repentance to any purpoſe; ſome remorſe he had felt, Pſal. 32.3. but it amounted not to a godly ſorrow, till Nathan came; and in private, dealing plainly with him, more prevailed than all the Lectures of the Law, or other means had done, all that while.

After he had gone in to Bathſheba] This was the Devils Neſt-egge that cauſed many ſins to be laid, one to, and upon another. See the woſul chain of Davids luſt, 2 Sam. 11. & 12. and beware.

Verſ. 1. Have mercy upon me, O God] Twas wont to be, O my God, but David had now ſinned away his aſſurance, wiped off his comfortables: he dares not plead propriety in God, nor relation to him, as having forfeited both. At another time, when he had greatly offended God, by numbring the people. God counted him but plain David, Go, and ſay to David, 2 Sam. 24.12. whereas before, when hee purpoſed to build God a Temple, then it was, Go tell my ſervant David, 2 Sam. 7.5. Sin doth much impair and weaken our aſſurance of Gods favour; like as a drop of water falling on a burning Candle, dimmeth the light thereof. The courſe that David taketh for recovery of this laſt evil, is confeſſion of ſin, and hearty prayer for pardoning and purging grace. In the Courts of men, it is ſafeſt (ſaith Quintilian) to plead Non feci, Not guilty; not ſo here, but Ego feci, miſerere miſerrimi peccatoris, miſericors Deus. Guilty Lord, have mercy, &c.

Permiſer[illegible: 1 letter]ra m[illegible: 1 letter]i to[illegible: 2 letters]itur ira Dei.

According to the multitude of thy tender mercies] They are a multitude of them and David needeth them all, for the pardon of his many and mighty ſins; tha where [illegible: 1 word] had abounded grace might ſuper abound, it may have a ſuper-pleonaſ[illegible: 3 letters], [illegible: 1 letter] 1 Tim. 1.14.

Blo[illegible: 1 letter] out my tranſgreſſions] Out of thy Deb[illegible: 1 letter]-book: croſs out the black lines of my ſins with the red lines of Chriſts bloud; cancel the Bond, though written in black and bloudy Characters.

Verſ. 2. Waſh me thorowly from mine iniquity] Heb. Multiply, waſh me; ſo Iſa. 55.7. God is ſaid to multiply pardon, as much as we multiply ſin. David apprehended his ſin ſo exceeding ſinful, his ſtain ſo inveterate, ſo ingrained, that it would hardly be ever gotten out, fill the cloath were almoſt rub'd to p[illegible: 1 letter]eces; that God himſelf would have ſome what to do to do it. He had been in a deep ditch, Prov. 23.27. and was pitifully moyled; He therefore begs hard to bee thorowly rinſed, to be bathed in that bleſſed fountain of Chriſts bloud that is opened for ſins, and for uncleaneneſs, Zach. 13.1. to be cleanſed not only from outward defilements, but from his ſwiniſh nature: for though a Swine be waſhed never ſo clean, if ſhe retain her nature, ſhe will be ready to wallow in the next guzzle. The time of our being here is [non-Latin text not transcribed], as Nazianzen calleth it, i. e. our waſhing time, Waſh thy heart, O Jeruſalem, that thou maiſt be clean, Jer. 4.14. not by thinking to ſet off with God, and to make amends by thy good deeds for thy bad; this is but lutum luto purgare, to waſh off one filth with another, but by the practice of Mortification, and by Faith, in Chriſts meritorious Paſſion: for he hath waſhed us, from our ſins in his own bloud, Revel. 1.5. Other bloud defileth, but this purifieth from all pollutions of fleſh and ſpirit, 1 Joh. 1.7.

And cleanſe me from my ſin] In like manner, as the Leper under the Law was cleanſed. Leproſie, Frenſie, Hereſie, and Jealouſie, are by men counted uncurable: Sed omnipotenti medico nullus inſanabil[illegible: 1 letter]s occurr it morbus, ſaith I ſidore, to an Almighty Phyſician, no Diſeaſe is uncurable. There is indeed a Natural Novatianiſ[illegible: 2 letters] in the timorous Conſciences of convinced ſ[illegible: 2 letters]ners, to doubt and queſtion pardon for ſins of Apoſtacy, and failing after Repentance; but there need bee no ſuch doubting, ſith God who hath bidden us to forgive a repenting Brother ſeventy times ſeven times in one day, will him ſelf much more. All ſins and Blaſphemies ſhall bee forgiven to the ſons of men, &c. Mat. 12.31.

Verſ. 3. For I acknowledge my tranſgreſſions] And therefore look for pardon, according to thy promiſe. Home agroſcit, Deus ignoſcit.

And my ſin] My twiſted ſin, and ſadly accented; mine accumulative ſin, voluminous wickedneſs, that hath ſo many ſins bound up in it, as Cicero ſaith of Paricide.

Is ever before me] To my great grief and regret, my Conſcience twitteth mee with it, and the Devil layeth it in my diſh. This maketh him follow God ſo cloſe, reſolved to give him no reſt till he hath regiſtred, and enrolled the remiſſion of his ſins in the Book of Life, with the bloudy lines of Chriſts ſoul-ſaving ſufferings, and golden Characters of his own eternal love.

Verſ. 4. Againſt thee, thee only have I ſinned] This he ſpake in reſpect of the ſecreſie of his ſins, ſay ſome: whence alſo it followeth, And done this evil m thy ſight[illegible: 1 letter] David ſent for Bathſheba by his Servants, but they knew not wherefore he ſent for her, ſaith Kimchi; neither knew any one why Letters were ſent to Joub to kill Uriah: but becauſe hee refuſed to obey the King, bidding him go home to his honſe, &c. Others thus, Againſt thee only, that is, thee ma[illegible: 2 letters]ly; for every ſin is a violation of Gods Law, the treſpaſs may be againſt man, but the tranſgreſſion is ever againſt God. Others again thus, Againſt thee, &c. that is, Againſt thee ſo good a God have I thus hainou[illegible: 2 letters]y offended, giving thereby thine enemies occaſion to blaſpheme thee. This, I take it, is the true meaning.

And done this evil in thy fight] Which was to deſpiſe thee, 2 Sam. 12.10. not caring though thou lookedſt on.

That thou might eſt be juſtified when thou ſpeak[illegible: 1 letter]ſt, &c.] i.e. declared to be juſt, whatever thou haſt denounced againſt me, or ſhalt inflict upon me. The unrighteouſneſs of man commendeth the righteouſneſs of God, Rom. 3.4, 5. To thee, O Lord God, belongeth righteouſneſs, but unto us confuſion of face, ſaith Daniel chap. 9.

Verſ. 5. Behold I was ſhapen in iniquity] This he alledgeth, viz. his original pravity, not as an excuſe, but as an aggravation of his actual abominations, which he ſaith were committed out of the vile viciouſneſs of his nature. See Pſal. 58 3, 4. The Maſorites here obſerve, that the word rendred iniquity is full, written with a double Vau; to ſignifie the fulneſs of his ſin; whole evil being in every man by nature, and whole evil in man; which when the Saints confeſs, they are full in the mouth, as I may ſo ſay, they begin with the root of ſin (not at the fingers ends as Adenibezek did) ſtabbing the old man at the heart firſt, and laying the main weight upon original corruption, that in-dwelling ſin, as the Apoſtle calleth it, Rom. 7.14. that ſin of evil concupiſcence, as the Chaldee here: that peccatum peccans, as the Schools. Tully belike had heard ſomewhat of this, when he ſaid, Cum primum naſcimur, in omni continuo pravitate verſamur, Aſſoon as ever we are born, we are forth-with in all wickedneſs. Auguſtine ſaith, Damnatus homo antequam natus, Man is condemned as ſoon as conceived.

And in ſin did my mother conceive me] Heb. Warm me; This Aben-Ezra interpreteth to be our great Grand-mother Eve, Qua non parturiebat antequam peccabat. David meant it doubtleſs of his immediate mother, and ſpake of that poyſon where-with ſhe had warmed him in her wombe, before the ſoul was infuſed. Corruption is conveyed by the impurity of the ſeed, Job 14.4. Job. 3.6. & 31. Sin may be ſaid to be in the ſeed incoative & diſpoſitive, as fire is in the Flint. Let us therefore go with Eliſha to the Fountain, and caſt ſalt into thoſe rotten and ſtinking waters. And for our Children, let us labour to mend that by education which we have marred by propagation.

Verſ. 6. Behold, thou deſireſt truth in the inward parts] Quam tamen mihi defuiſſe res ipſa demonſtrat; but this truth hath not been found in me, when I acted my ſin in that ſort, and did mine utmoſt to hide it from the world. I have ſhewed little truth in the inward parts, but have groſly diſſembled in my dealings, with Vriab eſpecially, whom I ſo plied at firſt with counterfeit kindneſs, and then baſely betrayed him to the ſword of the enemy. Siniſterity is fully oppoſite to ſincerity, trcachery to truth.

And in the hidden parts thou ſhalt make me to know wiſdom] Thus, by faith, ſaith one, he riſeth out of his ſin, being taught wiſdom of God. Others read it, Thou haſt made me to know, &c. And yet have I ſinned againſt the light of mine own knowledge and Conſcience; although thou haſt taught me wiſdom privately, E[illegible: 1 letter] eheu quam familiaritèr, as one of thine own Domeſticks, or Diſciples. Some make it a prayer, Cauſe me to knew wiſdom, &c.

Verſ. 7. Purge me with Hyſop and I ſhall be clean] Sprinkle me with the bloud of Chriſt by the Hyſſop-bunch of faith, not only taking away thereby the ſting and ſtink of ſin, but conferring upon me the ſweet ſavour of Chriſts righteouſneſs imputed unto me. See Heb. 9.13, 14, 19. where he calleth it Hyſſop; of which ſee Dioſcorides, lib. 3. chap. 26.28. David multiplieth his ſute for pardon, not only in plain terms, but by many metaphors.

Waſh me, and I ſhall be whiter than ſnow] So we cannot be by any waſhings of our own, though with Snow-water, Iſa. 6.46. The Brides Garments are made white in the Lambs bloud, Rev. 1.14. the fouleſt ſinners waſhed in this Fountain become white as the ſnow in Salmon, Iſa. 1.18. 1 Cor. 6.11. Eph. 5.27. Peccata non redeunt.

Verſ. 8. Make me hear joy and gladneſs] God will ſpeak peace unto his people, he createth the fruit of the lips to be peace, Iſa. 57.19. &c. No ſuch joyful tidings to a condemned perſon as that of a Pardon. Be of good cheer, thy ſins are forgiven thee. Feri, feri Domine, nam à peccatis abſolutus ſum, ſaid Luther. Davids Adultery and Murther had weakned his Spiritual condition, and wiped off all his comfortables: but now he begs to be reſtored by ſome good Sermon, or ſweet promiſe ſet home to his poor ſoul.

That the bones which thou haſt broken may rejoyce] By leaping over Gods pale he had broke his bones; and fain he would be ſet right again, by a renewed righteouſneſs, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghoſt, by his former feelings of Gods favour.

Verſ. 4. Hide thy face from my ſins] We are not able to indure Gods preſence, much leſs his Juſtice for our ſins; nor can there be any ſound peace of Conſcience whiles he frowneth. His favour is better than life, but his diſpleaſure more bitter than death it ſelf. See 2 Sam. 14.32.

And blot out all mine iniquities] See how one ſin calleth to mind many thouſands; which though they lye a ſleep a long time, like a ſleeping debt, yet wee know not how ſoon they may be reckoned for. Make ſure of a generall pardon; and take heed of adding new ſins to the old.

Verſ. 10. Create in mee a clean heart, O God] His heart was woefully ſoiled with the filth of ſin, and the work of grace interrupted; he therefore prayeth God to interpoſe and begin it again, to ſet him up once more, to re-inkindle thoſe ſparks of the ſpirit that lay almoſt quite ſmothered; to put forth his almighty power for that purpoſe, to farm that-Augean ſtable of his heart; to ſanctify him throughout in ſpirit, ſoul, and body; and to keep him blameleſſe unto the comming of his ſon, 1 Theſ. 5.23.

Andrenew a right spirit within mee] Or, a firm ſpirit, firm for God, able to reſiſt the Devill, ſtedfaſt in the faith, and to abide conſtant in the way that is called holy.

Verſ. 11. Caſt mee not away from thy preſence] Deprive mee not of communion with thee, and comfort from thee; for that's a peece of Hell torments, 2 Theſ. 1.9. Cains puniſhment, which poſſibly David might here mind, as being guilty of murther. And Sauls loſſe of the Kingly Spirit, 1 Sam. 15.15. might make him pray on

And take not thine holy Spirit from mee] David knew that he had done enough to make the holy Spirit loath his lodging; he might alſo think that the Spirit had urterly withdrawn himſelf, and others might think as much, beholding his Croſſes, Jer. 30.17. But the gifts and callings of God are without repentance; and where the Spirit once inhabiteth, there he abideth for ever, Joh. 14.16. an interruption there may bee of his work, but not an interciſion; and a Saint falling into a groſſe ſin may loſe his jus aptitudinale ad calum, but not his jus heredit arium; his fitneſſe, but not his right to Heaven, that holy place.

Verſ. 12. Reſtore unto mee the joy of thy ſalvation] He had grieved that holy thing, that Spirit of God whereby he was ſealed to the day of redemption, Epheſ. 4.30. and is therefore at a loſſe for comfort; he had vilipended that patent of his pardon which God had paſſed under his hand and ſeal: God therefore calleth for it home again into the pardon-office, as it were; that he may know the worth by the want. A man may ſin away, not only the ſenſe and comfort of his pardon, but the evidence and knowledge of it, as that place of Peter ſeemeth to imply, 2 Pet. 1.9. Mountebanks, who wound their fleſh to try concluſions upon their own bodies how ſoveraign the ſalve is,D. Sibbes Souls confl. do oft feel the ſmart of their preſumption, by long and deſperate wounds: So God will let his Davids ſee what it is to make wounds in their conſciences, to try the preciouſneſſe of his balſam; ſuch may go mourning to their graves. And though with much ado they get aſſurance of pardon, yet their conſciences will be ſtill trembling, till God at length ſpeak further peace; even as the waters of the Sea after a ſtorm are not preſently ſtill, but move and tremble a good while after the ſtorm is over.

And upholdeſt moe with thy free Spirit] Heb. firmly ſuſtain mee with thy noble or Princely Spirit, that may make mee ſteddy and ready to come off roundly in thy ſervice. Sin againſt conſcience diſableth for duty, taketh away freedom to it, and ſtability in it. David therefore prayes God to fix his quick-ſilver, to ballance his lightneſſe, to ſettle and fill that vain and empty heart of his, with ſomething that may ſtay and ſtabliſh it, that may alſo free and enlarge it (for where the Spirit of God is, there is liberty, 2 Cor. 3.17.) that he might yeeld prompt and preſent obedience to God in all things; and with all might be apt and able to teach tranſgreſſors, as he promiſeth to do in the next words.

Verſ. 13. Then will I teach tranſgreſſors thy wayes] Inſtruunts nos Patres tum docentes, tum labentes, ſaith Auguſtine, Two wayes the Saints teach us. Firſt, By their Doctrin. Secondly, By their Falles and Failings. David had taught men this laſt way to his coſt, that it is triſte mortalitatis privilegium licere aliquando peccare; Now he promiſeth by his example and inſtruction to teach tranſgreſſours, thoſe that are in the very bonds and hands of the Devill, Gods wayes of mercy to the penitent; and that they muſt either turn to God, or burn for even in Hell.

And ſinners ſhall be converted unto thee] They ſhall give not the half, but the whole turn; and it ſhall appear by them. The turning of a ſinner from evill to good, is like the turning of a Bell from one ſide to another; you cannot turn it, but it will make a ſound, and report its own motion.

Verſ. 14. Deliver mee from blood-guiltineſſe O God] Heb. From bloods; in every drop whereof is a tongue crying for vengeance. Beſides, if Davids adultery was a ſin of infirmity (he was preocoupated, as Gal. 6.1.) yet his murthering of Uriah, and many others that fell together with him, was a ſin of preſumption; a deliberate prepenſed evill, done in cold blood, and therefore lay very heavy upon his conſcience. Howbeit he gat pardon of this great ſin alſo; ſo that it never troubled him on his death-bed, as ſome other did, though not ſo great, where of he had not ſo throughly repented, 1 King. 2.

Thou God of my ſalvation] By making choice of this ſo fit an Attribute, he flirreth up himſelf to take better hold.

And my tongue ſhall ſing aloud of thy Righteouſneſs] That is, of thy faithfullneſſe in performing thy promiſe of pardon to the penitent. As Aarons golden bells ſounded, ſo ſhould our tongues ſound Gods praiſes, and ſing them aloud, ſhrill them out.

Verſ. 15. O Lord open thou my lips] Which now I find ſtopt and ſealed up, as it were, with the ſin that doth ſo eaſily beſet mee; ſo that whereas I promiſed before to ſing aloud of thy Righteouſneſſe; this I ſhall never be able to do without thy ſpeciall furtherance, niſi verba ſuppedites & tanquam pracas, unleſſe thou pleaſe to ſupply mee both with affections and expreſſions, as well as with matter of praiſe.

And my mouth ſhall ſhew forth thy praiſe] David had not been dumb till now, all the while he lay in his ſin, but all he did was but lip-labour, and therefore loſt-labour. Daniel confeſſeth the like of himſelf and his people, chap. 9.13. All this evill is come upon us; yet made we not our prayer before the Lord [illegible: 1 letter]ur God; that we might turn from our iniquities, and underſtand thy truth. Prayed they had, but becauſe they turned not frons their iniquities, they got nothing by their prayers or praiſes. God is a Fountain, and if he meet with a fit pipe (as is an ordinance rightly performed) there he uſually conveyeth his grace; but if he meet with a foul pipe and obſtructed, there he doth not conferre a bleſſing. The Phariſees were not a button the better for all their long prayers, becauſe rotten ar heart.

Verſ. 16. For thou deſi[illegible: 2 letters]ſt not ſacrifice] This is the reaſon why David reſtipulateth Praiſe, if God will pardon his great ſin, verſ. 14. viz. becauſe he well underſtood that God preferred praiſe before all ſacrifices whatſoever; provided that i[illegible: 1 letter] came from a broken ſpirit, Verſ. 17. rightly humbled for ſin, and thankfully accepting of pardon. See Pſal. 50.14, 15, 23.

Thou delighteſt not in burnt-offering] viz. Comparatively; and indeed not at all without a contrite heart.

Una Deieſt, purum, gratiſſinsa victima, pectus.Nazianz.

Much leſſe then doth God reſpect the ſacrifice of the Maſſe, that hath no footing or warrant in the word. A certain Sorboniſt finding it written at the end of St. Pauls Epiſtles Miſſa est, &c. bragg'd he had found the Maſſe in his Bible.Bee-hive cap. 3[illegible: 1 letter] fol. 93, 94. Buxtorf. And another reading Joh. 1.44. Invenimus Meſſiam, made the ſame concluſion. Some of them, as Bellarmine for one, would fain ground it upon Mal. 1.11. Others fetch the name Miſſa from the Hebrew Maſs for tribute; which comes from Maſas to melt (becauſe it many times melteth away mens eſtates) Rect è quidem, ſaith Rivet; per Miſſam ſcilicet pietas omnis liquefacta eſt & diſſoluta.

Verſ. 17. The ſacrifices of God area broken ſpirit] i.e. Such an heart as lyeth low, and heareth all that God ſaith; ſuch a ſacrifice or ſervice as is laid on the low altar of a contrite heart, which ſanctifieth the Sacrifice; Mr. Abbas. ſuch a perſon as with a ſelf-condemning, ſelf-crucifying, and ſin-mortifying heart, humbly, and yet beleevingly maketh out for mercy and pardon in the blood of Chriſt, this, this is the man that God expects, accepts, and makes great account of.

A broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despiſe] This is great comfort to thoſe that droop under ſenſe of ſin, and fear of wrath, being at next door to deſpair. Bring but a broken heart and God will receive you graciouſly, pouring the oyl of his grace into your broken Veſſels. This comforted Bernard on his death bed, he dyed with this ſentence in his mouth.Je. Manl. loc. com. 73. Auſtin cauſed it to be written on the wall over againſt his bed where he lay ſick and dyed. Many poor ſoules even in times of Popery had Heaven opened unto them by meditating on this Pſalm; and eſpecially on this 17. verſ.

Verſ. 18. Do good in thy good pleaſure unto Sion] Having made his own peace with God, he now prayeth for the Church; and the rather, becauſe by his foul ſins he had hazzarded, or rather expoſed both Sion and Jeruſalem, Church and State, to divine diſpleaſure. Delirantreges, plectuntur Achivi.

Build thou the walls of Jeruſalem] i. e. Protect, defend and maintain the civill State, grant all things neceſſary for its ſafety and well-being; ſupply of all wants, confirmation and increaſe of all bleſſings. Thus pray we, Jer. 29.7. Pſal. 122.6, 7, 8. for except the Lord keep the City, &c. See Iſa. 5.1, 2, 3. & 27.3. Hee is a wall of fire, Rev. 20.9. of water, Iſa. 33.20, 21. ſay therefore as Iſa. 26.1. and beware of ſecurity, ſenſuality, ſenſeleſneſſe, &c.

Verſ. 19. Then ſhalt thou bee pleaſed with the ſacrifices, &c.] i. e. Such as are offered in faith, and according to the will of God, Pſal. 4.6.

Then ſhall they offer Bullocks upon thine Altar] They ſhall be free-hearted, and frequent in thy work and ſervice; va torpori noſtro, Woe to our dulneſſe and backwardneſs in theſe happy dayes of peace and free profeſſion, which we had need improve as they did, Act. 9.31. Otherwiſe, we may deſire to ſee one of the dayes of the Son of man, and not ſee it, Luk. 19.22, Go to Shiloh, &c.

Have mercy upon me, O God. He appeals at once to the mercy of God, even before he mentions his sin. The sight of mercy is good for eyes that are sore with penitential weeping. Pardon of sin must ever be an act of pure mercy, and therefore to that attribute the awakened sinner flies. "According to thy lovingkindness." Act, O Lord, like thyself; give mercy like thy mercy. Show mercy such as is congruous with thy grace.

"Great God, thy nature hath no bound:

So let thy pardoning love be found."

What a choice word is that of our English version, a rare compound of precious things: love and kindness sweetly blended in one —"lovingkindness." According unto the multitude of thy tender mercies. Let thy most loving compassions come to me, and make thou thy pardons such as these would suggest. Reveal all thy gentlest attributes in my case, not only in their essence but in their abundance. Numberless have been thine acts of goodness, and vast is thy grace; let me be the object of thine infinite mercy, and repeat it all in me. Make my one case an epitome of all thy tender mercies. By every deed of grace to others I feel encouraged, and I pray thee let me add another and a yet greater one, in my own person, to the long list of thy compassions. Blot out my transgressions. My revolts, my excesses, are all recorded against me; but, Lord, erase the lines. Draw thy pen through the register. Obliterate the record, though now it seems engraven in the rock for ever; many strokes of thy mercy may be needed, to cut out the deep inscription, but then thou has a multitude of mercies, and therefore, I beseech thee, erase my sins.

Wash me throughly. It is not enough to blot out the sin; his person is defiled, and he fain would be purified. He would have God himself cleanse him, for none but he could do it effectually. The washing must be thorough, it must be repeated, therefore he cries, "Multiply to wash me." The dye is in itself immovable, and I, the sinner, have lain long in it, till the crimson is ingrained; but, Lord, wash, and wash, and wash again, till the last stain is gone, and not a trace of my defilement is left. The hypocrite is content if his garments be washed, but the true suppliant cries, "wash me." The careless soul is content with a nominal cleansing, but the truly awakened conscience desires a real and practical washing, and that of a most complete and efficient kind. Wash me throughly from mine iniquity. It is viewed as one great pollution, polluting the entire nature, and as all his own; as if nothing were so much his own as his sin. The one sin against Bathsheba, served to show the psalmist the whole mountain of his iniquity, of which that foul deed was but one falling stone. He desires to be rid of the whole mass of his filthiness, which though once so little observed, had then become a hideous and haunting terror to his mind. And cleanse me from my sin. This is a more general expression; as if the psalmist said, "Lord, if washing will not do, try some other process; if water avails not, let fire, let anything be tried, so that I may but be purified. Rid me of my sin by some means, by any means, by every means, only do purify me completely, and leave no guilt upon my soul." It is not the punishment he cries out against, but the sin. Many a murderer is more alarmed at the gallows than at the murder which brought him to it. The thief loves the plunder, though he fears the prison. Not so David: he is sick of sin as sin; his loudest outcries are against the evil of his transgression, and not against the painful consequences of it. When we deal seriously with our sin, God will deal gently with us. When we hate what the Lord hates, he will soon make an end of it, to our joy and peace.

For I acknowledge my transgressions. Here he sees the plurality and immense number of his sins, and makes open declaration of them. He seems to say, I make a full confession of them. Not that this is my plea in seeking forgiveness, but it is a clear evidence that I need mercy, and am utterly unable to look to any other quarter for help. My pleading guilty has barred me from any appeal against the sentence of justice: O Lord, I must cast myself on thy mercy, refuse me not, I pray thee. Thou hast made me willing to confess. O follow up this work of grace with a full and free remission! And my sin is ever before me. My sin as a whole is never out of my mind; it continually oppresses my spirit. I lay it before thee because it is ever before me: Lord, put it away both from thee and me. To an awakened conscience, pain on account of sin is not transient and occasional, but intense and permanent, and this is no sign of divine wrath, but rather a sure preface of abounding favour.

Against thee, thee only have I sinned. The virus of sin lies in its opposition to God: the psalmist's sense of sin towards others rather tended to increase the force of this feeling of sin against God. All his wrong doing centred, culminated, and came to a climax, at the foot of the divine throne. To injure our fellow men is sin, mainly because in so doing we violate the law of God. The penitent's heart was so filled with a sense of the wrong done to the Lord himself, that all other confession was swallowed up in a broken hearted acknowledgment of offence against him. And done this evil in thy sight. To commit treason in the very court of the king and before his eye is impudence indeed: David felt that his sin was committed in all its filthiness while Jehovah himself looked on. None but a child of God cares for the eye of God, but where there is grace in the soul it reflects a fearful guilt upon every evil act, when we remember that the God whom we offend was present when the trespass was committed. That thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest. He could not present any argument against divine justice, if it proceeded at once to condemn him and punish him for his crime. His own confession, and the judge's own witness of the whole transaction, places the transgression beyond all question or debate; the iniquity was indisputably committed, and was unquestionably a foul wrong, and therefore the course of justice was clear and beyond all controversy.

Behold, I was shapen in iniquity. He is thunderstruck at the discovery of his inbred sin, and proceeds to set it forth. This was not intended to justify himself, but it rather meant to complete the confession. It is as if he said, not only have I sinned this once, but I am in my very nature a sinner. The fountain of my life is polluted as well as its streams. My birth tendencies are out of the square of equity; I naturally lean to forbidden things. Mine is a constitutional disease, rendering my very person obnoxious to thy wrath. And in sin did my mother conceive me. He goes back to the earliest moment of his being, not to traduce his mother, but to acknowledge the deep tap roots of his sin. It is a wicked wresting of Scripture to deny that original sin and natural depravity are here taught. Surely men who cavil at this doctrine have need to be taught of the Holy Spirit what be the first principles of the faith. David's mother was the Lord's handmaid, he was born in chaste wedlock, of a good father, and he was himself, "the man after God's own heart; "and yet his nature was as fallen as that of any other son of Adam, and there only needed the occasion for the manifesting of that sad fact. In our shaping we were put out of shape, and when we were conceived our nature conceived sin. Alas, for poor humanity! Those who will may cry it up, but he is most blessed who in his own soul has learned to lament his lost estate.

Behold. Here is the great matter for consideration. God desires not merely outward virtue, but inward purity, and the penitent's sense of sin is greatly deepened as with astonishment he discovers this truth, and how far he is from satisfying the divine demand. The second "Behold" is fitly set over against the first; how great the gulf which yawns between them! Thou desirest truth in the inward parts. Reality, sincerity, true holiness, heart fidelity, these are the demands of God. He cares not for the pretence of purity, he looks to the mind, heart, and soul. Always has the Holy One of Israel estimated men by their inner nature, and not by their outward professions; to him the inward is as visible as the outward, and he rightly judges that the essential character of an action lies in the motive of him who works it. And in the hidden parts thou shalt make me to know wisdom. The penitent feels that God is teaching him truth concerning his nature, which he had not before perceived. The love of the heart, the mystery of its fall, and the way of its purification —this hidden wisdom we must all attain; and it is a great blessing to be able to believe that the Lord will "make us to know it." No one can teach our innermost nature but the Lord, but he can instruct us to profit. The Holy Spirit can write the law on our heart, and that is the sum of practical wisdom. He can put the fear of the Lord within, and that is the beginning of wisdom. He can reveal Christ in us, and he is essential wisdom. Such poor, foolish, disarranged souls as ours, shall yet be ordered aright, and truth and wisdom shall reign within us.

Purge me with hyssop. Sprinkle the atoning blood upon me with the appointed means. Give me the reality which legal ceremonies symbolise. Nothing but blood can take away my blood stains, nothing but the strongest purification can avail to cleanse me. Let the sin offering purge my sin. Let him who was appointed to atone, execute his sacred office on me; for none can need it more than I. The passage may be read as the voice of faith as well as a prayer, and so it runs —"Thou wilt purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean." Foul as I am, there is such power in the divine propitiation, that my sin shall vanish quite away. Like the leper upon whom the priest has performed the cleansing rites, I shall again be admitted into the assembly of thy people and allowed to share in the privileges of the true Israel; while in thy sight also, through Jesus my Lord, I shall be accepted. Wash me. Let it not merely be in type that I am clean, but by a real spiritual purification, which shall remove the pollution of my nature. Let the sanctifying as well as the pardoning process be perfected in me. Save me from the evils which my sin has created and nourished in me. And I shall be whiter than snow. None but thyself can whiten me, but thou canst in grace outdo nature itself in its purest state. Snow soon gathers smoke and dust, it melts and disappears; thou canst give me an enduring purity. Though snow is white below as well as on the outer surface, thou canst work the like inward purity in me, and make me so clean that only an hyperbole can set forth my immaculate condition. Lord, do this; my faith believes thou wilt, and well she knows thou canst. Scarcely does Holy Scripture contain a verse more full of faith than this. Considering the nature of the sin, and the deep sense the psalmist had of it, it is a glorious faith to be able to see in the blood sufficient, nay, all sufficient merit entirely to purge it away. Considering also the deep natural inbred corruption which David saw and experienced within, it is a miracle of faith that he could rejoice in the hope of perfect purity in his inward parts. Yet, be it added, the faith is no more than the word warrants, than the blood of atonement encourages, than the promise of God deserves. O that some reader may take heart, even now while smarting under sin, to do the Lord the honour to rely thus confidently on the finished sacrifice of Calvary and the infinite mercy there revealed.

Make me to hear joy and gladness. He prays about his sorrow late in the Psalm; he began at once with his sin; he asks to hear pardon, and then to hear joy. He seeks comfort at the right time and from the right source. His ear has become heavy with sinning, and so he prays, "Make me to hear." No voice could revive his dead joys but that which quickeneth the dead. Pardon from God would give him double joy —"joy and gladness." No stinted bliss awaits the forgiven one; he shall not only have a double blooming joy, but he shall hear it; it shall sing with exultation. Some joy is felt but not heard, for it contends with fears; but the joy of pardon has a voice louder than the voice of sin. God's voice speaking peace is the sweetest music an ear can hear. That the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice. He was like a poor wretch whose bones are crushed, crushed by no ordinary means, but by omnipotence itself. He groaned under no mere flesh wounds; his firmest and yet most tender powers were "broken in pieces all asunder; "his manhood had become a dislocated, mangled, quivering sensibility. Yet if he who crushed would cure, every wound would become a new mouth for song, every bone quivering before with agony would become equally sensible of intense delight. The figure is bold, and so is the supplicant. He is requesting a great thing; he seeks joy for a sinful heart, music for crushed bones. Preposterous prayer anywhere but at the throne of God! Preposterous there most of all but for the cross where Jehovah Jesus bore our sins in his own body on the tree. A penitent need not ask to be an hired servant, or settle down in despairing content with perpetual mourning; he may ask for gladness and he shall have it; for if when prodigals return the father is glad, and the neighbours and friends rejoice and are merry with music and dancing, what need can there be that the restored one himself should be wretched?

Hide thy face from my sins. Do not look at them; be at pains not to see them. They thrust themselves in the way; but, Lord, refuse to behold them, lest if thou consider them, thine anger burn, and I die. Blot out all mine iniquities. He repeats the prayer of the first verse with the enlargement of it by the word "all." All repetitions are not "vain repetitions." Souls in agony have no space to find variety of language: pain has to content itself with monotones. David's face was ashamed with looking on his sin, and no diverting thoughts could remove it from his memory; but he prays the Lord to do with his sin what he himself cannot. If God hide not his face from our sin, he must hide it forever from us; and if he blot not out our sins, he must blot our names out of his book of life.

Create. What! has sin so destroyed us, that the Creator must be called in again? What ruin then doth evil work among mankind! Create in me. I, in my outward fabric, still exist; but I am empty, desert, void. Come, then, and let thy power be seen in a new creation within my old fallen self. Thou didst make a man in the world at first; Lord, make a new man in me! A clean heart. In the seventh verse he asked to be clean; now he seeks a heart suitable to that cleanliness; but he does not say, "Make my old heart clean; " he is too experienced in the hopelessness of the old nature. He would have the old man buried as a dead thing, and a new creation brought in to fill its place. None but God can create either a new heart or a new earth. Salvation is a marvellous display of supreme power; the work in us as much as that for us is wholly of Omnipotence. The affections must be rectified first, or all our nature will go amiss. The heart is the rudder of the soul, and till the Lord take it in hand we steer in a false and foul way. O Lord, thou who didst once make me, be pleased to new make me, and in my most secret parts renew me. Renew a right spirit within me. It was there once, Lord, put it there again. The law on my heart has become like an inscription hard to read: new write it, gracious Maker. Remove the evil as I have entreated thee; but, O replace it with good, lest into my swept, empty, and garnished heart, from which the devil has gone out for a while, seven other spirits more wicked than the first should enter and dwell. The two sentences make a complete prayer. Create what is not there at all; renew that which is there, but in a sadly feeble state.

Cast me not away from thy presence. Throw me not away as worthless; banish me not, like Cain, from thy face and favour. Permit me to sit among those who share thy love, though I only be suffered to keep the door. I deserve to be forever denied admission to thy courts; but, O good Lord, permit me still the privilege which is dear as life itself to me. Take not thy Holy Spirit from me. Withdraw not his comforts, counsels, assistances, quickenings, else I am indeed as a dead man. Do not leave me as thou didst Saul, when neither by Urim, nor by prophet, nor by dream, thou wouldst answer him. Thy Spirit is my wisdom, leave me not to my folly; he is my strength, O desert me not to my own weakness. Drive me not away from thee, neither do thou go away from me. Keep up the union between us, which is my only hope of salvation. It will be a great wonder if so pure a spirit deigns to stay in so base a heart as mine; but then, Lord, it is all wonder together, therefore do this, for thy mercy's sake, I earnestly entreat thee.

Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation. Salvation he had known, and had known it as the Lord's own; he had also felt the joy which arises from being saved in the Lord, but he had lost it for a while, and therefore he longed for its restoration. None but God can give back this joy; he can do it; we may ask it; he will do it for his own glory and our benefit. This joy comes not first, but follows pardon and purity: in such order it is safe, in any other it is vain presumption or idiotic delirium. And uphold me with thy free Spirit. Conscious of weakness, mindful of having so lately fallen, he seeks to be kept on his feet by power superior to his own. That royal Spirit, whose holiness is true dignity, is able to make us walk as kings and priests, in all the uprightness of holiness; and he will do so if we seek his gracious upholding. Such influences will not enslave but emancipate us; for holiness is liberty, and the Holy Spirit is a free Spirit. In the roughest and most treacherous ways we are safe with such a Keeper; in the best paths we stumble if left to ourselves. The praying for joy and upholding go well together; it is all over with joy if the foot is not kept; and, on the other hand, joy is a very upholding thing, and greatly aids holiness; meanwhile, the free, noble, royal Spirit is at the bottom of both.

Then will I teach transgressors thy ways. It was his fixed resolve to be a teacher of others; and assuredly none instruct others so well as those who have been experimentally taught of God themselves. Reclaimed poachers make the best gamekeepers. Huntingdon's degree of S.S., or Sinner Saved, is more needful for a soul winning evangelist than either M.A. or D.D. The pardoned sinner's matter will be good, for he has been taught in the school of experience, and his manner will be telling, for he will speak sympathetically, as one who has felt what he declares. The audience the psalmist would choose is memorable —he would instruct transgressors like himself; others might despise them, but, "a fellow feeling makes us wondrous kind." If unworthy to edify saints, he would creep in along with the sinners, and humbly tell them of divine love. The mercy of God to one is an illustration of his usual procedure, so that our own case helps us to understand his "ways, "or his general modes of action: perhaps, too, David under that term refers to the preceptive part of the word of God, which, having broken, and having suffered thereby, he felt that he could vindicate and urge upon the reverence of other offenders. And sinners shall be converted unto thee. My fall shall be the restoration of others. Thou wilt bless my pathetic testimony to the recovery of many who, like myself, have turned aside unto crooked ways. Doubtless this Psalm and the whole story of David, have produced for many ages the most salutary results in the conversion of transgressors, and so evil has been overruled for good.

Deliver me from bloodguiltiness. He had been the means of the death of Uriah, the Hittite, a faithful and attached follower, and he now confesses that fact. Besides, his sin of adultery was a capital offence, and he puts himself down as one worthy to die the death. Honest penitents do not fetch a compass and confess their sins in an elegant periphrasis, but they come to the point, call a spade a spade, and make a clean breast of all. What other course is rational in dealing with the Omniscient? O God, thou God of my salvation. He had not ventured to come so near before. It had been, O God, up till now, but here he cries, Thou God of my salvation. Faith grows by the exercise of prayer. He confesses sin more plainly in this verse than before, and yet he deals with God more confidently: growing upward and downward at the same time are perfectly consistent. None but the King can remit the death penalty, it is therefore a joy to faith that God is King, and that he is the author and finisher of our salvation. And my tongue shall sing aloud of thy righteousness. One would rather have expected him to say, I will sing of thy mercy; but David can see the divine way of justification, that righteousness of God which Paul afterwards spoke of by which the ungodly are justified, and he vows to sing, yea, and to sing lustily of that righteous way of mercy. After all, it is the righteousness of divine mercy which is its greatest wonder. Note how David would preach in the last verse, and now here he would sing. We can never do too much for the Lord to whom we owe more than all. If we could be preacher, precentor, doorkeeper, pew opener, foot washer, and all in one, all would be too little to show forth all our gratitude. A great sinner pardoned makes a great singer. Sin has a loud voice, and so should our thankfulness have. We shall not sing our own praises if we be saved, but our theme will be the Lord our righteousness, in whose merits we stand righteously accepted.

O Lord, open thou my lips. He is so afraid of himself that he commits his whole being to the divine care, and fears to speak till the Lord unstops his shame silenced mouth. How marvellously the Lord can open our lips, and what divine things can we poor simpletons pour forth under his inspiration! This prayer of a penitent is a golden petition for a preacher, Lord, I offer it for myself and my brethren. But it may stand in good stead any one whose shame for sin makes him stammer in his prayers, and when it is fully answered, the tongue of the dumb begins to sing. And my mouth shall shew forth thy praise. If God opens the mouth he is sure to have the fruit of it. According to the porter at the gate is the nature of that which comes out of a man's lips; when vanity, anger, falsehood, or lust unbar the door, the foulest villainies troop out; but if the Holy Spirit opens the wicket, then grace, mercy, peace, and all the graces come forth in tuneful dances, like the daughters of Israel when they met David returning with the Philistine's head.

For thou desirest not sacrifice. This was the subject of the last Psalm. The psalmist was so illuminated as to see far beyond the symbolic ritual; his eye of faith gazed with delight upon the actual atonement. Else would I give it. He would have been glad enough to present tens of thousands of victims if these would have met the case. Indeed, anything which the Lord prescribed he would cheerfully have rendered. We are ready to give up all we have if we may but be cleared of our sins; and when sin is pardoned our joyful gratitude is prepared for any sacrifice. Thou delightest not in burnt offering. He knew that no form of burnt sacrifice was a satisfactory propitiation. His deep soul need made him look from the type to the antitype, from the external rite to the inward grace.

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit. All sacrifices are presented to thee in one, by the man whose broken heart presents the Saviour's merit to thee. When the heart mourns for sin, thou art better pleased than when the bullock bleeds beneath the axe. "A broken heart" is an expression implying deep sorrow, embittering the very life; it carries in it the idea of all but killing anguish in that region which is so vital as to be the very source of life. So excellent is a spirit humbled and mourning for sin, that it is not only a sacrifice, but it has a plurality of excellences, and is preeminently God's sacrifices. A broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise. A heart crushed is a fragrant heart. Men contemn those who are contemptible in their own eyes, but the Lord seeth not as man seeth. He despises what men esteem, and values that which they despise. Never yet has God spurned a lowly, weeping penitent, and never will he while God is love, and while Jesus is called the man who receiveth sinners. Bullocks and rams he desires not, but contrite hearts he seeks after; yea, but one of them is better to him than all the varied offerings of the old Jewish sanctuary.

Do good in thy good pleasure unto Zion. Let blessings according to thy wont be poured upon thy holy hill and chosen city. Zion was David's favourite spot, whereon he had hoped to erect a temple. The ruling passion is so strong on him, that when he has discharged his conscience he must have a word for Zion. He felt he had hindered the project of honouring the Lord there as he desired, but he prayed God still to let the place of his ark be glorious, and to establish his worship and his worshipping people. Build thou the walls of Jerusalem. This had been one of David's schemes, to wall in the holy city, and he desires to see it completed; but we believe he had a more spiritual meaning, and prayed for the prosperity of the Lord's cause and people. He had done mischief by his sin, and had, as it were, pulled down her walls; he, therefore, implores the Lord to undo the evil, and establish his church. God can make his cause to prosper, and in answer to prayer he will do so. Without his building we labour in vain; therefore are we the more instant and constant in prayer. There is surely no grace in us if we do not feel for the church of God, and take a lasting interest in its welfare.

In those days of joyful prosperity thy saints shall present in great abundance the richest and holiest thank offerings to thee, and thou shalt be pleased to accept them. A saved soul expects to see its prayers answered in a revived church, and then is assured that God will be greatly glorified. Though we bring no more sacrifices for sin, yet as priests unto God our solemn praises and votive gifts are thank offerings acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. We bring not the Lord our least things —our doves and pigeons; but we present him with our best possessions —our bullocks. We are glad that in this present time we are able to fulfil in person the declaration of this verse: we also, forecasting the future, wait for days of the divine presence, when the church of God, with unspeakable joy, shall offer gifts upon the altar of God, which will far eclipse anything beheld in these less enthusiastic days. Hasten it, O Lord.

The Psalm is upon its surface so full of suggestions for sermons that I have not attempted to offer any of my own, but have merely inserted a selection from Mr. G. Rogers and others.

1. The Prayer.

(a) For mercy, not justice. Mercy is the sinner's attribute —as much a part of the divine nature as justice. The possibility of sin is implied in its existence. The actual commission of sin is implied in its display.

(b) For pardon, not pity merely, but forgiveness.

2. The plea.

(a) For the pardon of great sins on account of great mercies, and lovingkindness.

(b) Many sins on account of multitude of mercies.

3. Hell deserving sins on account of tender mercies. We who have sinned are human, he who pardons is divine.

"Great God, thy nature hath no bound,

So let thy pardoning love be found."

1. Confession. "I acknowledge, "etc.

2. Humiliation, not a mere confession with the lips, but ever before me —in its guilt —defilement —consequences in this life and hereafter.

Verses 3-4, 11-12, 17.

1. Scripture estimate of sin.

(a) Personal accountability —My sin.

(b) Estimated as hateful to God —Against thee, etc.

(c) Sin estimated as separation from God.

2. Spiritual restoration. First step —Sacrifice of a broken spirit. Last step —Spirit of liberty. Thy free spirit. F. W. Robertson.

See T. Goodwin's Treatise, entitled, "An Unregenerate Man's Guiltiness before God, in respect of Sin and Punishment." Book 9 cap. 1-2. (Nichol's edition, Vol. X., p. 324 et seq.)

Here is,

1. Faith in the act of an atonement for sin. "I shall be clean."

2. Faith in the method of its application. "Purge me, "etc. Sprinkled as the blood of sacrifices.

3. Faith in its efficacy. "I shall be whiter, "etc.

1. The change to be effected.

(a) A clean heart.

(b) A right spirit.

2. The power by which it is accomplished.

(a) A creative power, such as created the world at first.

(b) A renewing power, such as continually renews the face of the earth.

(c) The acquirement of these blessings. The prayer, "Create, "etc.

Verses 12-13. A threefold desire.

1. To be happy —"Restore," etc.

2. To be consistent —"Uphold," etc.

3. To be useful —"Then will I teach," etc. —W. Jackson.

1. It is not our duty to seek the conversion of others until we are converted ourselves.

2. The greater enjoyment we have in the ways of God, the more faithfully and earnestly we shall make them known to others.

3. The more faithfully and earnestly we make them known to others the more they will be influenced by them.

1. Confession. His lips are sealed on account —

(a) Of his fall —and well they might be.

(b) Of natural timidity.

(c) Of want of zeal.

2. Petition, "Open thou, "etc. Not my understanding merely and heart, but "lips."

3. Resolution. Then he would speak freely in God's praise.

1. When God does not open our lips we had better keep them closed.

2. When he does open them we ought not to close them.

3. When he opens them it is not to speak in our own praise, and seldom in praise of others, but always in his own praise.

4. We should use this prayer whenever we are about to speak in his name. "O Lord, open, "etc.

Verses 16-17.

1. Men would gladly do something towards their own salvation if they could. "Thou desirest not, "etc., else would I give it.

2. All that they can do is not of the least avail. All the ceremonial observances of Jewish or Gentile churches could not procure pardon for the least transgression of the moral law.

3. The only offering of man which God will not despise is a broken and a contrite heart.

4. All other requirement for his salvation God himself will provide.

1. For whom is the prayer offered —for the church or Zion?

(a) Next to our own welfare we should seek the welfare of Zion.

(b) All should seek it by prayer.

2. For what is the prayer offered?

(a) The kind of good, not worldly or ecclesiastical, but spiritual.

(b) The measure of good. "In thy good pleasure." Thine own love to it, and what thou hast already done for it.

(c) The continuance of good. "Build, "etc. Its doctrines, graces, zeal.

1. When we are accepted of God our offerings are accepted." Then," etc.

2. We should then make the richest offerings in our power, our time, talents, influence, etc.

(a) Holy obedience.

(b) Self sacrifices, not half offerings, but whole "burnt offerings; "not lambs merely, but "bullocks."

(c) Zeal for divine ordinances. "Upon thine altar."

3. God will take pleasure in such services. "Then shalt thou be pleased."

1. Because from his own redeemed.

2. Because given in the name of the Redeemer. With such sacrifices God is well pleased.

WORKS UPON THE FIFTY-FIRST PSALM

Exposition of the Fifty-first Psalm, by MARTIN LUTHER, in "Select works of Martin Luther, translated by REV. HENRY COLE." Vol. I., pp. 51-197.

"An Exposition upon the 51 Psalm, "in "Certain Godly and learned Expositions upon divers parts of Scripture. As they were preached and afterwards more briefly penned by that worthy man of God, Maister GEORGE ESTEY...Late preacher of the word of God in St. Edmund's Burie." 1603. (4to.)

"David's Penitential Psalm opened: in thirtie severall Lectures thereon. By SAM. HIERON. 1617." (4to.)

"Good News from Canaan; or, An Exposition on the 51 Psalm, "in "The Workes of Mr. William Cowper, late Bishop of Galloway." 1629. (Folio.)

"David's Repentance; or, A plaine and familiar Exposition of the LI. Psalm: first preached, and now published for the benefit of God's church. Wherein euery faithful Christian may set before his eyes the Patterne of vnfeigned Repentance, whereby we may take heed of the falling into sin again. The eighth edition, newly revised and profitably amplified by the author, SAMVEL SMITH, preacher of the word of God at Prittlewell in Essex...1630." (12mo.)

"A Godly and Fruitful Exposition of the Fifty-one Psalm, the fifth of the Penitential, "in ARCHIBALD SYMSON'S "Sacred Septenarie." 1638.

"Meditations and Disquisitions upon the 51 Psalm of David, "in "Meditations and Disquisitions upon the seven Psalms of David, commonly called the Penitential Psalmes." By SIR RICHARD BAKER, Knight. 1639.

"CLII. Lectures upon Psalm LI. Preached at Ashby Delazovch, in Leicester Shire. By the late faithful, and worthy Minister of Jesus Christ, Mr. ARTHUR HILDERSAM. 1642." (Folio.)

"An Exposition of the one-and-fiftieth Psalm, "in pp. 51-239, of "Sermons with some religious and divine Meditations. By the Right Reverend Father in God, ARTHVRE LAKE, late Lord Bishop of Bath and Wells." 1639. (Folio.)

"David's Broken Heart; or, an Exposition upon the whole Fifty-one Psalm. By that Reverend divine Doctor SAMUEL PAGE, late Pastour of Deptford Stroud, in Kent...1646." (4to.)

Exposition of Psalm LI., in "Chandler's Life of David." Vol. 2 pg 254-273.

"The Portraiture of the Christian Penitent: attempted in a course of Sermons upon Psalm LI ...By the Rev. CHA. DE COETLOGON, A.M. 1775."

"Lectures on the Fifty-first Psalm, delivered in the Parish Church of St. James', Bristol. By the Rev. THOMAS T. BIDDULPH, A.M. 1835."

"The Penitent's Prayer: a Practical Exposition of the Fifty-first Psalm. By the Rev. THOMAS ALEXANDER, M.A., Chelsea."