Verse-by-Verse Bible Commentary
Psalms 32:4

Bridgeway Bible Commentary

Psalms 32:0 The joy of the forgiven sinner

When people are honest with God and confess their sin to him, they experience the unspeakable joy of knowing that their sin is forgiven (1-2). If, however, instead of acknowledging their sin they try to push it out of the mind, they only create greater distress and tension for themselves. This can lead to a falling away in physical health (3-4). But when confession is made, forgiveness follows, the burden of the mind is removed, and people enjoy afresh the assurance of God’s safe-keeping (5-7).
God now speaks, encouraging believers to listen to his teaching and walk in his ways willingly. If they stubbornly refuse, God may act against them with corrective discipline to force them back to the right path (8-9). Unconfessed sin brings punishment; confession of sin brings joy (10-11).

Coffman's Commentaries on the Bible

SECRET vs. ACKNOWLEDGED SINS

“When I kept silence, my bones wasted away Through my groanings all the day long. For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me: My moisture was changed as with the drought of summer I acknowledged my sin unto thee, (Selah) And mine iniquity did I not hide: I said, I will confess my transgressions unto Jehovah; And thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin.”

“When I kept silence” (Psalms 32:3). This speaks of a period when David did not acknowledge his sin, nor confess it. “The time here spoken of is that immediately after David’s sin of adultery and murder and which continued till Nathan uttered the words, ’Thou art the man.’“ The Pulpit Commentary, Vol. 8, p. 236.

What is described here is the punishment inwardly inflicted upon God’s people by their guilty consciences. Spurgeon described this punishment. “What a killing thing is sin! It is a pestilent disease! a fire in the bosom! While we smother our sin, it rages within and like a gathering wound swells horribly and torments terribly.” Charles Haddon Spurgeon, p. 257.

Dummelow thought these words might refer, “Either to an actual sickness brought on by sin, or to a spiritual suffering represented by physical terminology.” J. R. Dummelow’s Commentary, p. 342. We prefer the latter option of understanding the passage.

“I acknowledged my sin unto thee” (Psalms 32:5). This means that David acknowledge his sin “to God.” There’s not a hint here that he openly acknowledged it before men.

“And mine iniquity did I not hide” (Psalms 32:5). This is the passage with which this writer has difficulty in the assignment of it to David. Did he not make every possible human effort to “hide” his sin? He brought Uriah home in the hope that Uriah’s homecoming would hide it; but it didn’t; then he had Uriah murdered to cover it up, but that didn’t work either. The whole nation knew of the shameful conduct of their king; and it appears to us that a much more appropriate statement in David’s mouth would have been, “Lord, I tried every thing I could think of to hide my sin, but I couldn’t hide it,” Of course, it is also true that he did not hide it.

Perhaps in this abbreviated account, the reference is to the time when David did freely acknowledge his transgressions and sought and received God’s forgiveness, which is so dramatically stated in this verse.

“I said, I will confess my transgressions unto Jehovah; and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin” (Psalms 32:5). In this entire verse, the confession mentioned is that of confession “to God,” not acknowledging transgressions before men. The Romish doctrine of “Auricular Confession,” is contrary to everything the Bible teaches regarding the confession of sins.

This verse has been made the basis of some very broad statements, which in our view seem to go beyond what is taught.

“The clear teaching of these verses, therefore, is that by simple confession sin in all its aspects - the outward act (sin), the rebellious disobedience (transgression), and the inward corruption (iniquity) is completely forgiven, and covered, so as to remain no longer an issue between God and man.” The New Bible Commentary, Revised, p. 470.

Just confess (not to men, but to God). That’s all, just ’simple confession’ followed by total forgiveness! Without repentance? Without any acknowledgment of sins before men? Without any effort toward restitution, or any kind of justice toward those who were wronged! In this writer’s opinion, someone is reading a lot more into this passage than may legitimately be extracted from it.

True, David’s life indeed exhibited valid evidence of sincere repentance, and acknowledgment of his sins before all men, as well as “unto God”; and he even took Bathsheba into his harem; but the statement from McCaw is not based on the conduct of David, but upon what is said in this text.

It is precisely this verse that entered into Barnes’ comment that:

“Whether this Psalm refers to David’s experience in the matter of Bathsheba and Uriah or to some other occasion of his life when he was troubled at the remembrance of sin, it is impossible now to determine.” Barnes’ Notes on the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, a 1987 reprint of the 1878 edition), Vol. 1, p. 270.

“I will confess my transgressions” (Psalms 32:5). The importance of acknowledging sins, however, cannot be overstated; as DeHoff wrote, “In a practical sense, the unpardonable sin is the unconfessed sin.” George DeHoff’s Commentary, p. 124.

Barnes' Notes on the Whole Bible

For day and night - I found no relief even at night. The burden was constant, and was insupportable.

Thy hand was heavy upon me - Thy hand seemed to press me down. It weighed upon me. See Job 13:21; Psalms 39:10. It was the remembrance of guilt that troubled him, but that seemed to him to be the hand of God. It was God who brought that guilt to his recollection; and God “kept” the recollection of it before his mind, and on his heart and conscience, so that he could not throw it off.

My moisture - The word used here - לשׁד l^eshad - means properly “juice” or “sap,” as in a tree; and then, “vital-moisture,” or, as we should say, “life-blood.” Then it comes to denote vigour or strength.

Is turned into the drought of summer - Is, as it were, all dried up. I am - that is, I was at the time referred to - like plants in the heat of summer, in a time of drought, when all moisture of rain or dew is withheld, and when they dry up and wither. Nothing could more strikingly represent the distress of mind under long-continued conviction of sin, when all strength and vigour seem to waste away.

Calvin's Commentary on the Bible

4.For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me. In this verse he explains more fully whence such heavy grief arose; namely, because he felt the hand of God to be sore against him. The greatest of all afflictions is to be so heavily pressed with the hand of God, that the sinner feels he has to do with a Judge whose indignation and severity involve in them many deaths, besides eternal death. David, accordingly, complains that his moisture was dried up, not merely from simply meditating on his sore afflictions, but because he had discovered their cause and spring. The whole strength of men fails when God appears as a Judge and humbles and lays them prostrate by exhibiting the signs of his displeasure. Then is fulfilled the saying of Isaiah,

“The grass withereth, the flower fadeth, because the Spirit of the Lord bloweth upon it.” (Isaiah 40:7)

The Psalmist, moreover, tells us, that it was no common chastisement by which he had been taught truly to fear the divine wrath; for the hand of the Lord ceased not to be heavy upon him both day and night. From a child, indeed, he had been inspired with the fear of God, by the secret influence of the Holy Spirit, and had been taught in true religion and godliness by sound doctrine and instruction. And yet so insufficient was this instruction for his attainment of this wisdom, that he had to be taught again like a new beginner in the very midst of his course. Yea, although he had now been long accustomed to mourn over his sins, he was every day anew reduced to this exercise, which teaches us, how long it is ere men recover themselves when once they have fallen; and also how slow they are to obey until God, from time to time, redouble their stripes, and increase them from day to day. Should any one ask concerning David, whether he had become callous under the stripes which he well knew were inflicted on him by the hand of God, the context furnishes the answer; namely, that he was kept down and fettered by perplexing griefs, and distracted with lingering torments, until he was well subdued and made meek, which is the first sign of seeking a remedy. And this again teaches us, that it is not without cause that the chastisements by which God seems to deal cruelly with us are repeated, and his hand made heavy against us, until our fierce pride, which we know to be un-tameable, unless subdued with the heaviest stripes, is humbled.

Smith's Bible Commentary

Psalms 32:1-11

Now this next psalm is thought to have been written at the time of David's sin with Bathsheba. After the prophet of God, Nathan, had come to him and spoken to him of that sin. We will get another psalm that relates to this same situation in Psalms 51:1-19 . Another of the Penitent psalms.

David had many wives, and yet, one day while standing on the roof of his house and looking over the city of Jerusalem, he saw on the roof of a house nearby a beautiful lady bathing. And he was attracted to her, and he sent his servants over to her house to bid her to come to him. And David had an adulterous affair with her; her husband at the time was out fighting with the armies of David, under the leadership of Joab. David received in a few weeks a message from her, "I am pregnant." And David ordered that her husband be brought home from war and he sort of just said, "Well, how are things going? How is the battle going? How are the men? How is the morale?" and all. And then he expected the guy to go home and spend the night with his wife. What he was hoping is that the guy would go to bed with his wife and later on when she says, "I am pregnant," the guy would never know the difference. But it didn't quite work out that way because this fellow, rather than going home, spent the night on the porch of David's palace with David's servants. And in the morning it was told David, "He didn't go home last night. He spent the night here." And David called him in and said, you know, "Why didn't you go home? You had this wonderful opportunity to be with your wife." And the fellow said, "Well," he said, "all of my buddies are out there in the trenches and it wouldn't be right for me to enjoy a night with my wife when all of my buddies are still out there in the field fighting."

So David that day got him pretty drunk, thinking that if he gets drunk enough he will stagger home and still never know the difference. But he only staggered to David's porch and again spent the night there, and so David was faced with a dilemma and he took a tragic way out. A horrible way out. For David ordered Joab, his general, to put this fellow into the thick of the battle and then to withdrawal the other troops from him that he might be killed. And the ploy worked; Uriah was killed. And David then took Bathsheba as his wife. The child that was born became very sick. David prayed; the child died.

And then the prophet Nathan came to David, and the prophet said, "David, there was a man in your kingdom who is an extremely wealthy man. He had many servants, many flocks. Now next door to him there lived a very poor man who had just one lamb. And the lamb was like a child. It went to bed with him. It ate at his table, and it was just a pet, a family pet. Now this very wealthy man had friends come for dinner and he ordered his servants to go and by force take the one lamb from his poor neighbor and kill it in order that he might feed his guests." And David became very angry and he said to the prophet, "That man shall surely be put to death." And Nathan said, "David, thou art the man!"

Now David's response to that was that of repentance. David's actions were terrible. The scripture in no wise seeks to excuse the actions of David, but they also do point out the repentance of David. This is thought to be a psalm that relates to that period of David's life when he was going through this guilt of sin. When he was trying to carry it. He was trying to hide it. He was trying to bury it, and going through the guilt of this illicit affair. And this particular psalm relates to this period.

And David begins the psalm by saying,

Blessed [which is, Oh how happy] is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered ( Psalms 32:1 ).

Oh, what a happy moment it is when I have that assurance that my transgression has been forgiven, that my sin has been covered.

Now there is a difference between a transgression and a sin. A sin is not always a willful act. The word sin comes from a root word which means, "to miss the mark." God says, "Here is the mark. I want you to hit it." All right. And I take aim, and I miss. Now I may not deliberately miss. I may be trying to hit it. I might just be a poor shot. That is still a sin. I have missed the mark. Whether it is deliberate or just a lack of weakness or failure, it is still missing the mark that God has set. That is why the Bible says, "All have sinned." The Bible calls you a sinner. You may get uptight about that, but God said that you have all missed the mark.

Now when I tell you the mark is perfection, that is what God wants you to be, then, is there anyone here who is willing to stand up and say, "I have hit the mark. I am perfect. Look at me. I am Mister Perfect"? No, I think we will all confess, "I have missed the mark." Not always willingly. I have sought to be a better person than I really am. I am not as good as I would like to be. I have missed the mark.

A transgression is a little different, because a transgression is a willful, a deliberate missing of the mark. It is a deliberate action of disobedience on my part. God says, "Here is the line. Now, Chuck, I don't want you to go over that line." And I get busy with my activities, I am not paying any attention, and all of a sudden I am over here on the other side of the line. And God says, "Hey, hey wait a minute. There is the line I told you not to go over." "Oh Lord, I'm sorry. I forgot all about it. I, hmm, didn't mean to." I still went over it. It was a sin; it was a missing of the mark. It wasn't really a deliberate, willful kind of a transgression. Whereas if God says, "Here is the line, Chuck. Now don't you cross over it." And I step over it and say, "Okay, God, what are You going to do about it?" That is a deliberate, willful transgression. Many times sins compound into transgressions. I start off innocently enough. But then rather than repenting and turning, I seek to try to cover it and hide it and all, and it compounds until it becomes a transgression. But either way, oh how happy I am when it is all forgiven. When it is all over. When it is all covered.

O how happy is the man unto whom the LORD imputeth not iniquity, in whose spirit there is no deceit ( Psalms 32:2 ).

Now David had done his best to deceive. I mean, he was trying to set up Uriah. You know, "Go home and spend the night with your wife." And he was trying this whole deceitful little scheme. But he is talking now about an interesting experience here, "Oh how happy is the man to whom God does not impute iniquity."

Now I think that many people, because of Santa Claus, have gotten a wrong concept of God, and many people think of God as a glorified Santa Claus. That, just anything I want, all I have to do is come to God and just tell Him what I want Him to lay under my tree this Christmas, and God will give me anything that I insist on. Anything that I believe for. Anything that I will confess God will give to me, because after all, He's just a Santa Claus waiting to hear my request. And in carrying this concept of God as Santa Claus, we know that Santa Claus is making out a list and checking it twice, and going to find out who is naughty and nice. And if you have been naughty you are going to get a bundle of sticks. You know, he doesn't bring toys to bad little boys. Making this list, keeping the records.

Now, he is speaking about a man, "Oh how happy is the man to whom God does not impute, or account, iniquity." Who in the world would that be? A man that God isn't even making a black list on his deeds. Not imputing iniquity. Paul tells us in Romans that that happy man is the man who is in Christ Jesus. "For there is therefore now no condemnation to those that are in Christ Jesus" ( Romans 8:1 ). Oh how happy is my life in Christ, this glorious life I have in Him. For if we walk in the light as He is in the light we have fellowship one with the other, and the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, is continually cleansing me from all sin. God is not even keeping a record of my failure, of my sin. Oh what a happy man I am. Not only has He forgiven my transgressions, not only has He blotted out my sins, but He's not even keeping a record of my current failings. Oh how happy is the man to whom God does not impute iniquity, that man who is in Christ Jesus.

Now David goes on to express when he was trying to cover the whole thing and hide the whole thing and the reaction that it had upon him.

When I kept silence ( Psalms 32:3 )

That is, when I was trying to hide it, when I would not confess, when I would not bring it out and confess.

When I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long ( Psalms 32:3 ).

Did you know, you may try to hide your sins, you may try to cover your guilt, but it will find a way out. With guilt there is always the developing subconscious desire for punishment, which, if I cannot find a relief for this guilt, I will begin some abnormal behavioral pattern by which I am seeking to be punished. And I will start just doing weird things because I am feeling guilty and I want someone to punish me. I want someone to say, "Hey, man, you are weird. You're crazy. Something is wrong with you. You ought to go jump off of the pier." "Oh, thank you, brother. I needed that." Now I feel relieved from my guilt; someone has punished me.

When I was a kid I had no problem. My father took care of my guilt complexes very efficiently. And the old apricot tree, those switches always stung, but it sure got rid of my guilt complex. It was healthy, psychologically. But now I am older, no one to take me into the bedroom and apply the psychology. And so I have to do things, abnormal things, neurotic things, in order to be punished. Get people to punish me. Don't tell Romaine I said it, but this is why he is such a fantastic counselor. I mean you come in and he will lay it on ya! If you are wrong, I mean, he will tell you. And you go home relieved. You get angry with him because he is so straightforward, but I mean he will just tell you what a rat you are, you know. And he doesn't realize it, I am sure, but from a psychological standpoint it is very healthy. We see them storming out of here sometimes, steam coming out of the top of their head. And we say, "Well, they have been counseling with Romaine." He is so good.

But when you are trying to hide and cover your guilt, there is an inward roaring that is going on all the time. This inward turmoil. "When I sought to keep silent, my bones were waxing old because of the roaring all the day long."

For day and night thy hand was heavy on me: my moisture is turned into the drought of summer ( Psalms 32:4 ).

"Boy, I will tell you. My life just became all dry. Just like a drought in summertime, no moisture, no life. Felt like I was dying." The Selah brings an end to that strophe of the psalm, and now we move into a new direction.

The first is the endeavor to cover the sin, the endeavor to hide the guilt. But now as we move into the new direction.

I acknowledged my sin ( Psalms 32:5 )

Now the Bible says, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness" ( 1 John 1:9 ). So,

I acknowledged my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the LORD; and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin ( Psalms 32:5 ).

Now, in the Hebrew language there is here the intimation of an immediate process. In other words, "The moment in my heart I said, 'I am going to confess my transgressions,' in my heart. Before I could ever get the words out of my lips, God had already forgiven me." God is only looking for the change of the attitude of your heart. The moment in your heart you say, "Oh God, I am sorry. I am going to confess. I am going to get it right with God." In that very moment, God's grace comes flowing over your life and the sins are all obliterated. Why should we carry guilt, why should we carry the sins, when God is so ready to forgive, so ready to cleanse, so ready to pardon? "The moment I said, 'I'm gonna confess,' Thou forgavest my transgressions."

Now we enter into the third strophe.

For this shall every one that is godly pray unto thee in a time when you may be found: surely in the floods of great waters they shall not come near unto him ( Psalms 32:6 ).

Surely all of us ought to be seeking God, because of His love, of His grace, and of His preserving power. In the times of these great waters, in the times of tragedy, it shall not touch you.

For thou art my hiding place; thou shalt preserve me from trouble; thou shalt compass me about with songs of deliverance ( Psalms 32:7 ).

So another Selah. We enter into a new strophe of the psalm. "God is my hiding place. He is my preserver from trouble. He encircles me with songs of deliverance."

Now in verse Psalms 32:8 we have a whole change of voice, and God is now responding to the psalmist. Up till now David has been speaking of God and his relationship to God, but now God responds to David, and David writes God's response to him. Now this is God speaking to David. God said,

I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way in which thou shalt go: I will guide you with my eye ( Psalms 32:8 ).

The steps of a righteous man are order of the Lord. God said, "I will teach you and instruct you in the way that you shall go. I will guide you with My eye."

Be not as a horse, or a mule, which have no understanding: whose mouth must be held in a bit and a bridle, lest he comes near to you ( Psalms 32:9 ).

So God is saying, "Don't be like stubborn mule where you got to put a bit in its mouth in order to guide it." Now a bit is painful when you jerk on it. But the bit is put in the mouth of a mule or a horse in order that he might be led. That you might have control. So that he doesn't walk or step all over you. You put the bit in their mouth, and if they don't hearken or respond to your reign upon them, then you pull on the bit and it jerks the mouth. And it is painful, but you get the message. You are led.

Now God is saying, "Hey, I don't want to lead you that way. Don't be stubborn like a mule. Where I have to use harsh methods to lead and guide you. I want to guide you with My eye. Okay, that way, son." We are the ones that make it tough on ourselves when we rebel against God. When we won't listen to God. When we are insensitive to God, then He has to get rough. God doesn't delight in the painful processes. God didn't want to send a whale after Jonah; it was just that was the only way that He could get his attention. God doesn't want to lead you in a painful process. He doesn't want to bring painful experiences into your life in order to get your attention, in order to change your directions. So He is saying, "Look, be sensitive. You'll beat him. I will guide you in the right way. I will guide you with My eye. Don't be like a horse or a mule; you've got to put a bit into its mouth in order that you might lead so that it won't step on you and all."

Many sorrows shall be to the wicked: but he that trusts in the LORD, mercy shall compass him about. Be glad in the LORD, and rejoice, ye righteous: and shout for joy, all ye that are upright in heart ( Psalms 32:10-11 ).

As I said, when you are in your own reading of the psalms, it might be an interesting experience for you to, as you read, just sort of follow the exhortations. When it says, "Be glad in the Lord," just be glad in the Lord. When it says, "Rejoice," then you should rejoice. And if it says, "Shout for joy," try it sometime. Just shout for joy unto the Lord. "

Dr. Constable's Expository Notes

Psalms 32

In this psalm of wisdom and thanksgiving, David urged those who sin against the Lord to seek His pardon, with the encouragement that He is gracious with the penitent. He will, however, chasten the unrepentant.

Different scholars have identified different psalms as wisdom psalms. Bullock regarded 32, 34, 37, 47, 73, 112, 127-28, and 133 as wisdom psalms. Some literary distinctives of wisdom psalms are proverbs, admonitions (often taken from nature), similes, "blessed," "son" or "children," and "better." [Note: Bullock, p. 202.] They are not prayers as such but reflections on life and life’s problems. The wisdom psalms are a subset of the didactic psalm genre, other subsets being Torah psalms and historical psalms. Wisdom psalms can be subdivided into psalms of proverbial wisdom and psalms of reflective wisdom.

"The proverb represents a concentrated expression of the truth. It teaches the obvious because it is a slice out of real life. . . . This proverbial type of wisdom teaching is sometimes called lower wisdom.

"The second type of wisdom, the type represented by Job and Ecclesiastes, is basically reflective. This reflective wisdom puts forth problems that arise out of real life, but it does not have the pat answers that proverbial wisdom offers. . . . This type of wisdom teaching is sometimes called higher wisdom. The Psalms actually contain both types." [Note: Ibid., p. 200.]

Students of this penitential psalm have often linked it with David’s adultery with Bathsheba and his murder of her husband Uriah (2 Samuel 11). While that identification seems probable in view of the content of the psalm, the connection is not indisputable. Psalms 51 was David’s prayer for pardon for having committed those acts. If Psalms 32 looks back on these very sins, David probably composed it later than Psalms 51. Psalms 32 stresses God’s forgiveness and the lesson David learned from not confessing his sin quickly. Other penitential psalms are 6, 38, 51, 102, 130, and 143.

"While they are not all strictly ’penitential,’ Psalms 51, 130 are definitely prayers of penitence, and Psalms 32, 102 are laments related to an illness, perhaps stemming from the psalmist’s sin (Psalms 32:3). The tone of all seven penitential psalms, however, is one of submission to the almighty God, a necessary disposition for anyone who would seek God’s forgiveness" [Note: Ibid., p. 207.]

Thirteen psalms contain the word "Maskil" in their titles (Psalms 32, 42, 44-45, 52-55, 74, 78, 88-89, , 142; cf. Psalms 47:7). The meaning of this term is still uncertain.

"The word is derived from a verb meaning ’to be prudent; to be wise’ (see BDB 968). Various options are: ’a contemplative song,’ ’a song imparting moral wisdom,’ or ’a skillful [i.e., well-written] song.’" [Note: The NET Bible note on the title of Psalms 32. "BDB" is Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, The New Brown-Driver-Briggs-Gesenius Hebrew and English Lexicon.]

Dr. Constable's Expository Notes

David’s failure to confess his sin immediately resulted in internal grief and external weakness for him. God oppressed him severely with discipline (cf. Hebrews 12:6). Consequently David felt drained of energy. Evidently this is a description of how he felt in every aspect of his being-physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

Dr. Constable's Expository Notes

2. The chastening of the unrepentant 32:3-5

Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible

For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me,.... Meaning the afflicting hand of God, which is not joyous, but grievous, and heavy to be borne; especially without his gracious presence, and the discoveries of his love: this continued night and day, without any intermission; and may design some violent distemper; perhaps a fever; since it follows,

my moisture is turned into the drought of summer. That is, the radical moisture in him was almost dried up, as brooks in the summer season; his body was parched, as it were, with the burning heat of the disease; or with an apprehension of the wrath of God under it, or both: and so he continued until be was brought to a true sense of sin, and an acknowledgment of it, when he had the discoveries of pardoning love, as is expressed in Psalms 32:5. The Septuagint and Vulgate Latin versions read, "I am turned into distress, through a thorn being fixed"; and so Apollinarius paraphrases the words,

"I am become miserable, because thorns are fixed in my skin;''

reading קוץ for קיץ; and which Suidas o interprets "sin", that being like the thorn, unfruitful and pricking; see 2 Corinthians 12:7.

Selah; on this word, 2 Corinthians 12:7- :.

o In voce ακανθα.

Henry's Complete Commentary on the Bible

A psalm of David, Maschil.

      1 Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.   2 Blessed is the man unto whom the LORD imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile.   3 When I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long.   4 For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me: my moisture is turned into the drought of summer. Selah.   5 I acknowledged my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the LORD; and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin. Selah.   6 For this shall every one that is godly pray unto thee in a time when thou mayest be found: surely in the floods of great waters they shall not come nigh unto him.

      This psalm is entitled Maschil, which some take to be only the name of the tune to which it was set and was to be sung. But others think it is significant; our margin reads it, A psalm of David giving instruction, and there is nothing in which we have more need of instruction than in the nature of true blessedness, wherein it consists and the way that leads to it--what we must do that we may be happy. There are several things in which these verses instruct us. In general, we are here taught that our happiness consists in the favour of God, and not in the wealth of this world--in spiritual blessings, and not the good things of this world. When David says (Psalms 1:1), Blessed is the man that walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, and (Psalms 119:1), Blessed are the undefiled in the way, the meaning is, "This is the character of the blessed man; and he that has not this character cannot expect to be happy:" but when it is here said, Blessed is the man whose iniquity is forgiven, the meaning is, "This is the ground of his blessedness: this is that fundamental privilege from which all the other ingredients of his blessedness flow." In particular, we are here instructed,

      I. Concerning the nature of the pardon of sin. This is that which we all need and are undone without; we are therefore concerned to be very solicitous and inquisitive about it. 1. It is the forgiving of transgression. Sin is the transgression of the law. Upon our repentance, the transgression is forgiven; that is, the obligation to punishment which we lay under, by virtue of the sentence of the law, is vacated and cancelled; it is lifted off (so some read it), that by the pardon of it we may be eased of a burden, a heavy burden, like a load on the back, that makes us stoop, or a load on the stomach, that makes us sick, or a load on the spirits, that makes us sink. The remission of sins gives rest and relief to those that were weary and heavily laden,Matthew 11:28. 2. It is the covering of sin, as nakedness is covered, that it may not appear to our shame, Revelation 3:18. One of the first symptoms of guilt in our first parents was blushing at their own nakedness. Sin makes us loathsome in the sight of God and utterly unfit for communion with him, and, when conscience is awakened, it makes us loathsome to ourselves too; but, when sin is pardoned, it is covered with the robe of Christ's righteousness, like the coats of skins wherewith God clothed Adam and Eve (an emblem of the remission of sins), so that God is no longer displeased with us, but perfectly reconciled. They are not covered from us (no; My sin is ever before me) nor covered from God's omniscience, but from his vindictive justice. When he pardons sin he remembers it no more, he casts it behind his back, it shall be sought for and not found, and the sinner, being thus reconciled to God, begins to be reconciled to himself. 3. It is the not imputing of iniquity, not laying it to the sinner's charge, not proceeding against him for it according to the strictness of the law, not dealing with him as he deserves. The righteousness of Christ being imputed to us, and we being made the righteousness of God in him, our iniquity is not imputed, God having laid upon him the iniquity of us all and made him sin for us. Observe, Not to impute iniquity is God's act, for he is the Judge. It is God that justifies.

      II. Concerning the character of those whose sins are pardoned: in whose spirit there is no guile. He does not say, "There is no guilt" (for who is there that lives and sins not?), but no guile; the pardoned sinner is one that does not dissemble with God in his professions of repentance and faith, nor in his prayers for peace or pardon, but in all these is sincere and means as he says--that does not repent with a purpose to sin again, and then sin with a purpose to repent again, as a learned interpreter glosses upon it. Those that design honestly, that are really what they profess to be, are Israelites indeed, in whom is no guile.

      III. Concerning the happiness of a justified state: Blessednesses are to the man whose iniquity is forgiven, all manner of blessings, sufficient to make him completely blessed. That is taken away which incurred the curse and obstructed the blessing; and then God will pour out blessings till there be no room to receive them. The forgiveness of sin is that article of the covenant which is the reason and ground of all the rest. For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness,Hebrews 8:12.

      IV. Concerning the uncomfortable condition of an unhumbled sinner, that sees his guilt, but is not yet brought to make a penitent confession of it. This David describes very pathetically, from his own sad experience (Psalms 32:3; Psalms 32:4): While I kept silence my bones waxed old. Those may be said to keep silence who stifle their convictions, who, when they cannot but see the evil of sin and their danger by reason of it, ease themselves by not thinking of it and diverting their minds to something else, as Cain to the building of a city,--who cry not when God binds them,--who will not unburden their consciences by a penitent confession, nor seek for peace, as they ought, by faithful and fervent prayer,--and who choose rather to pine away in their iniquities than to take the method which God has appointed of finding rest for their souls. Let such expect that their smothered convictions will be a fire in their bones, and the wounds of sin, not opened, will fester, and grow intolerably painful. If conscience be seared, the case is so much the more dangerous; but if it be startled and awake, it will be heard. The hand of divine wrath will be felt lying heavily upon the soul, and the anguish of the spirit will affect the body; to the degree David experienced it, so that when he was young his bones waxed old; and even his silence made him roar all the day long, as if he had been under some grievous pain and distemper of body, when really the cause of all his uneasiness was the struggle he felt in his own bosom between his convictions and his corruptions. Note, He that covers his sin shall not prosper; some inward trouble is required in repentance, but there is much worse in impenitency.

      V. Concerning the true and only way to peace of conscience. We are here taught to confess our sins, that they may be forgiven, to declare them, that we may be justified. This course David took: I acknowledged my sin unto thee, and no longer hid my iniquity,Psalms 32:5; Psalms 32:5. Note, Those that would have the comfort of the pardon of their sins must take shame to themselves by a penitent confession of them. We must confess the fact of sin, and be particular in it (Thus and thus have I done), confess the fault of sin, aggravate it, and lay a load upon ourselves for it (I have done very wickedly), confess the justice of the punishment we have been under for it (The Lord is just in all that is brought upon us), and that we deserve much worse--I am no more worthy to be called thy son. We must confess sin with shame and holy blushing, with fear and holy trembling.

      VI. Concerning God's readiness to pardon sin to those who truly repent of it: "I said, I will confess (I sincerely resolved upon it, hesitated no longer, but came to a point, that I would make a free and ingenuous confession of my sins) and immediately thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin, and gavest me the comfort of the pardon in my own conscience; immediately I found rest to my soul." Note, God is more ready to pardon sin, upon our repentance, than we are to repent in order to the obtaining of pardon. It was with much ado that David was here brought to confess his sins; he was put to the rack before he was brought to do it (Psalms 32:3; Psalms 32:4), he held out long, and would not surrender till it came to the last extremity; but, when he did offer to surrender, see how quickly, how easily, he obtained good terms: "I did but say, I will confess, and thou forgavest." Thus the father of the prodigal saw his returning son when he was yet afar off, and ran to meet him with the kiss that sealed his pardon. What an encouragement is this to poor penitents, and what an assurance does it give us that, if we confess our sins, we shall find God, not only faithful and just, but gracious and kind, to forgive us our sins!

      VII. Concerning the good use that we are to make of the experience David had had of God's readiness to forgive his sins (Psalms 32:6; Psalms 32:6): For this shall every one that is godly pray unto thee. Note, 1. All godly people are praying people. As soon as ever Paul was converted, Behold, he prays,Acts 9:11. You may as soon find a living man without breath as a living Christian without prayer. 2. The instructions given us concerning the happiness of those whose sins are pardoned, and the easiness of obtaining the pardon, should engage and encourage us to pray, and particularly to pray, God be merciful to us sinners. For this shall every one that is well inclined be earnest with God in prayer, and come boldly to the throne of grace, with hopes to obtain mercy,Hebrews 4:16. 3. Those that would speed in prayer must seek the Lord in a time when he will be found. When, by his providence, he calls them to seek him, and by his Spirit stirs them up to seek him, they must go speedily to seek the Lord (Zechariah 8:21) and lose no time, lest death cut them off, and then it will be too late to seek him, Isaiah 55:6. Behold, now is the accepted time,2 Corinthians 6:2; 2 Corinthians 6:4. Those that are sincere and abundant in prayer will find the benefit of it when they are in trouble: Surely in the floods of great waters, which are very threatening, they shall not come nigh them, to terrify them, or create them any uneasiness, much less shall they overwhelm them. Those that have God nigh unto them in all that which they call upon him for, as all upright, penitent, praying people have, are so guarded, so advanced, that no waters--no, not great waters--no, not floods of them, can come nigh them, to hurt them. As the temptations of the wicked one touch them not (1 John 5:18), so neither do the troubles of this evil world; these fiery darts of both kinds, drop short of them.

Spurgeon's Verse Expositions of the Bible

Terrible Convictions and Gentle Drawings

May 6, 1860 by C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892)

"When I kept silence, my bones willed old through my roaring all the day long. For day, and night thy hand was heavy upon me: my moisture is turned into the drought of summer." Psalms 32:3-4 .

David here describes a very common experience amongst convinced sinners. He was subjected to extreme terrors and pangs of conscience. These terrors were continual; they scared him at night with visions, they terrified him all day with dark and gloomy forebodings. "Day and night thy hand was heavy upon me." His pain was so extreme, that when he resorted to prayer he could scarcely utter an articulate word. There were groanings that could not be uttered within his spirit; and hence he calls his prayer roaring a "roaring all the day long." Wherever he was, his spirit seemed to be always sighing, sending a full torrent of melancholy groans upwards towards God; a "roaring all the day long." So far did this groaning proceed, that at last his bodily frame began to show evidences of it. He grew old, and that not merely in the lines of the countenance and the falling in of the cheeks, but his very bones seemed as if they partook of the suffering. He became like an old man before his time. We have heard of some who through severe trouble have had their hair blanched in a single night. But here was a man who did not show merely externally, but even internally, the heavy pressure of grief, on account of sin. His bones grew old, and the sap of his life, the animal spirits, were all dried up; his "moisture was turned into the drought of summer." So intimate is the connection between the body and the soul, that when the soul suffers extremely, the body must be called to endure its part of grief. Verily in this ease it was but simple justice, for David had sinned with his body and with his soul too. By fornication he had defiled his members; he had looked out from his eyes with lustful desires, and had committed iniquity with his body, and now the frame which had become the instrument of unrighteousness, becomes a vehicle of punishment, and his body bears its shave of misery, "my moisture is turned into the drought of summer." We gather from what David says in this Psalm, and indeed in all these seven penitential Psalms that his convictions on account of his sin with Bathsheba, and his subsequent murder of Uriah, were of the deepest and most poignant character, and that the terrors he experienced were indescribable, filling his soul with horror and dismay. Now, this morning, I propose to deal with this case, so common among those who are under conviction of sin. There are many, who, when the Lord is bringing them to himself, are alarmed by reason of the hardness of the stroke with which he smites them, and the sternness of the sentence which he pronounces against them. After having dealt very solemnly with that character, I shall then turn and spend a fear moments in trying to comfort another class of parsons, who, strange to say, are without comfort, because they do not have these terrors, and are unhappy because they have never experienced this unhappiness. Strange perversity of human nature, that when God sends the terrors we doubt, and when he withholds them we doubt none the less. May God the Spirit bless my discourse doubly to these two different conditions of men. I. First, then, let me address myself with lovingkindness to those who are now THE SUBJECTS OF GOD'S REBUKE AND THE TERRORS OF GOD'S LAW. To you would speak on this wise; first, detect the causes of your terror. In the second place tell you God's design in subjecting you thereto, and then point you to the great remedy. 1. As for the causes of your terror they are many, and perhaps in your case the cause may be so peculiar that the wit of man may not be able to discover it. Nevertheless, the remedy which I have to propound at the end, will most assuredly be adapted to your case, for it is a remedy which reaches all diseases, and is a panacea for all ills. You tell me you are sore troubled by reason of conviction, and that your convictions of sin are attended by the most terrible and gloomy thoughts, I am not at a loss to tell you why it is. I shall this morning borrow my divisions from quaint old Thomas Fuller, whose book happened to be thrown in my way this week by Providence, and as I cannot say better things than he said, I shall borrow much of his description of the causes of the terrors of conviction. First, those wounds must be deep which are given by so strong a hand as that of God. Remember, sinner, it is God that is dealing with you; when you lay dead in your sins he looked on you, and now he has begun not only to look, but to smite; he is now wounding you with the design of afterwards making you whole; he is killing you that he may afterwards make you spiritually alive. You have now entered the lists with DO other than the Almighty God; do you wonder, then, that when he smites, his blows fell you to the ground? Are you astonished that when he wounds, his wounds are deep and hard to heal? Besides, remember it is an angry God that you have to deal with; one who has had patience with you in your sins these thirty, forty, or fifty years, and now he has come forth himself to compel you to throw down the weapons of your rebellion, and to take you captive by trio justice, that he may afterwards set you free by his grace. Is it any marvel, then, that when an angry God a God who has restrained his anger these many years comes out in battle against you, you find it hard to resist him, and that his blows bruise you and break your bones, and make your spirit feel as if it must verily die, crushed beneath the mighty hand of a cruel one? Be not astonished at all your terrors; God on Sinai, when he came to give the law, was terrible; but God on Sinai, when he comes to bring the law into the conscience, and to strike it home, must be more terrible far. When God did but stretch out his hand with the two tables of stone, Moses did exceedingly fear and quake; but when he throws those tables of stone upon you, and makes you feel the weight of that law which you have broken, it is but little marvel that your spirit is bruised and mangled, and dashed into a thousand shivers. Again, it is no wonder that you are sore troubled when you remember the place where God has unrounded you. He has not wounded you in your hand, or in your head, or in your foot; he is striking at your conscience the eye of your soul; he wounds you in your heart in your inmost soul. Every wound that God gives to the convicted man is a wound in the very heart in the very vitals; he cuts into the core of the liver, and makes his darts cut through the gall, and parches your inward parts with agony. It is not now a disease that has laid hold merely on your skin or flesh, but it is a something which makes the life-floods boil with hot anguish. He has now shot his arrows into your inmost spirit, thrust his fingers into your eyes and put out their light. Oh! ye need not wonder that your pains are fearful, when God thus smites you on the tenderest part of a conscience which be has made tender by his grace. He may well smart that has salt rubbed into hi' wounds. You have been lashed with the ten-thonged whip of the law till your heart is all bare and bleeding, and now God is scattering, as it were, the salt, and making all those wounds to tingle and smart. Oh! ye might wonder, if ye did not feel, when God is thus casting bitterness into the fountain of your life. Besides these, there is a third cause for this your pain, namely, that Satan is now busy upon you. He sees that God is wounding you and he does not wish that those wounds shall heal; he therefore trusteth in his fangs, and teareth open the flesh, and trieth if he cannot pour his poison into that very flesh which God has been wounding with the sword. "Now," saith he, "that God is against him will I be against him too. God is driving him to sadness; I will drive him farther still, and urge him to despair. God has brought him to the precipice, to the edge of his self-righteousness, and bidden him look down and see the yawning gulf. Now," says Satan, "one push more, and over he will go." He has come forth, therefore, with all his strength, hoping that the hour of your conviction shall be also the hour of your condemnation. He will tempt you, perhaps, as he did Job, till you any, "My soul chooseth strangling rather than life." He will seek to bring you low, like Jeremiah, until you are ready to wish you had never been born, rather than that you should suffer like this. You can well understand, if a man had been wounded, that it were hard work for the most skillful surgeon to heal him if some vile wretch should tear away the liniments and rend open the wounds as fast as they began to close. Oh! pray against Satan! Cry aloud to your God to deliver you from this fiend, for he is the cause of much of your distress; and if you were rid of him, it may be that your wound would soon heal, and you would find peace. But, remember, the remedy that I shall have to propound to you is a remedy against devils. It is the fiend's confusion as well as sin's destruction. Let them come against you as they may. The remedy I shall have to propound can heal the wounds of Satan, and the tearings of his tangs, as well as those sorrows of soul which God has brought upon you. You may discover a yet further reason why you are so sore wounded, when you consider the terrible nature of that weapon with which God has wounded you. He had not made a little gash with some slender instrument, but if I understand your case aright, he has brought against you the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. Its Word condemns you; its threatenings strike you like barbed arrows. You turn to the law as it is here revealed, and it is altogether on a smoke against you. You turn to the promises, and even they wound you, because you feel you have no right to them. You look at the most precious passages, but they do not assuage your grief, but the rather increase it, because you cannot realize them and lay hold upon them for yourself. Now, this is God using his Word against you, and you know what a weapon that is, "the sword of the Spirit, which is quick and powerful, piercing to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart." They are cut deep that are wounded by the Word of God. If it were my words which had brought you into this fear, you might soon get rid of it; but these are God's words. Were it a father's curse, it might be hard to give you comfort; but it is God's curse that bath gone out against you the curse of the God who made you. He himself bath told you that the sinner shall not stand in his sight, and that he hateth the workers of iniquity. He has himself brought home to your conscience some of those awful passages: "God is angry with the wicked every day;" "He will by no means clear the guilty;" "Our God is a consuming fire;" "The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God." With such weapons as these; with red-hot shot fired against you with all the power of the Spirit, it remains no longer a wonder that your soul should be sharply racked, and your very bones should wax old through your roaring all the day long. Furthermore, there is another cause for this deep disease of conviction, namely, the foolishness of the patient. Physicians will tell you that they can heal one man vastly more quickly than another, even though the disease be precisely the came, and the same remedies be used; for there are some men who help the physician by the quietude of them spirits by the ease and resignation of their minds,their heart is and this gives "health to the navel, and marrow to the bones." But other men are fretful, disturbed, vexed, anxious, questioning this and questioning that; and then the remedies themselves cease to have their proper effect. It is even so with you; you are a foolish patient; you will not do that which would cure you, but you do that which aggravates your woe; you know that if you would east yourselves upon Christ Jesus you would have peace of conscience at once; but instead of that, you are meddling with doctrines too high for you, trying to pry into mysteries which the angels have not known, and so you turn your dizzy brain, and thus help to make your heart yet more singularly sad. You know that you are trying still to work out a righteousness of your own, and this is making your wounds stinking and corrupt. You know, too, that you are looking more to your faith than you are to the object of your faith; you are looking more to what you feel than to what Christ felt; you spend more time in looking at your convictions than you do at Christ's vicarious sacrifice upon the cross. You are a foolish patient; you are doing that which aggravates your complaint. Oh that you were but wiser, and these terrors and these pangs might the sooner be over; you would not tarry so long in the prison if you would but use the means of escape, instead of seeking to dash your head against its strong walls, walls that will not move with all your ravings, but which will only break, and bruise, and wound you the more. You seek to file your fetters, and you rivet them; you seek to unbind them yourself, and you thrust them the deeper into your flesh; you grasp the hammer, and here is the fetter about your wrist; you think to snap it, but you send the iron through the flesh, and make it bleed; you make yourself worse by all your attempts to make yourself better, so that much of your sorrowful conviction is due to your own absurdity, your own ignorance and folly. And, once more, I must give you another reason. There is no wonder that you are under great and terrible pain when under conviction, for it is a disease in which nothing can ever help you but that one remedy. All the joys of nature will never give you relief. I have heard of some vain man who once wore the gown of a clergyman, who was "visited by a poor creature under distress of mind, in the days of Whitfield;" he said to the penitent, "You have been among the Methodists." "I know I have," said he. "Then don't go among those fellows; they have made you mad." "But what am I to do to get rid of the distress of mind I now feel?" "Attend the theater," said he; "go off to balls; take to gaming and the like; and in that way you will soon dissipate your woe." But as he that poureth vinegar upon nitre, so is he that singeth songs to a sad heart; it is taking away a man's garment to make him warm; it is heaping snow upon his head to dissolve the frostbite, sending him back to draff and dung that he may stay his hunger therewith, thrusting him into the kennel that he may get rid of the stench that offends his nostrils Nay, but if these be the true woundings of God, sinful pleasures will make you worse instead of better; and even the usual comforts of life will lose all power to console you. The words of the tenderest wife, the most loving husband, the mercies of Providence, the blessings of home, all these will be of no avail to you to cure this disease. There is one remedy for it; but none of these will so much as touch it. Quaint old Fuller uses language to this effect, when Adam had sinned, he became suddenly plunged in misery; the birds sang as sweetly, the flowers bloomed as brightly, and the air was as balmy, and Eden quite as blissful; but Adam was in misery; he had unparadised paradise. God had not said a word against him, and yet he went and hid himself under the trees of the garden to find a shelter there. There was nothing in the whole garden that could give Adam a moment's delight, because he was under a sense of sin. And so will it be with you. If you could be put in paradise, you would not be the happier. Now that God has convinced you of sin, there is only one cure for you, and that one cure you must have; for you may ramble the world round and you will never find another. You may try your best with all the pleasures and mercies of this life, but you would be in torment, even though you could be taken to heaven, unless this one remedy should appease your aching heart. 2. I have thus, I think, given you sufficient reasons for the great poignancy of your grief; but now, secondly, what are God's designs in thus plunging you deeply in the mire? He does not deal so with all his people; some he brings in a very gentle way to himself. Why, then, does he deal thus hardly with you? The answers to this question are these: there are some questions best unanswered; there are some dealings of God about which we have no right to ask a question If he draws you to heaven, though it were through hell itself, you ought to be content. So long as you are but saved, however fearful the process, you ought not to murmur. But I may give you some reasons after all. In the first place, it is because you were such a stony-hearted sinner, so dead, so careless, that nothing else ever would have awakened you but this-trumpet. It would have been of no use to bring out the gospel with its dulcet notes; it would have been of little service for David to play on his harp before you. You needed to be aroused, and therefore it is that God has hurled his thunderbolts at you one after another, and has been pleased to make heaven and earth shake before you that you might be made to tremble. You were so desperately set on mischief, so stolid, so indifferent, that if saved, God must save you in such a way, or else not at all. And then again, the Lord knows that there is that in your heart which would take you teach to your old sins, and so he is making them bitter to you; he is burning you, that you may be like the burnt child that dreads the fire; he is letting you see the disease in its full climax, that you may from henceforth avoid the company in which that disease was found; he has taught you the full evil of' your heart, the full obnoxiousness of sin, in order that from this day forth you may become a more careful walker, and may the more zealously hate every false way. Besides, it may possibly happen that he designs this out of love to your soul, to make you the more happy afterwards. He is filling your mouth with wormwood, and breaking your teeth with gravel-stone, that you may have a richer appreciation of the luscious flavour of the will of pardon when he pours it into your heart. It is making you feed on ashes the serpent's meat that when you come to eat children's meat the bread of heaven your joy may be multiplied sevenfold. I am one of those poor souls who for five years led a life of misery, and was almost driven to distraction; but I can heartily say, that one day of pardoned sin was a sufficient recompense for the whole five years of conviction. I have to bless God for every terror that ever seared me by night, and for every foreboding that alarmed me by day. It has made me happier ever since; for now, if there be a trouble weighing upon my soul, I thank God it is not such a trouble as that which bowed me to the very earth, and made me creep like a very beast upon the ground by reason of heavy distress and affliction. I know I never can again suffer what I have suffered; I never can, except I be sent to hell, know more of agony than I have known; and now, that ease, that joy and peace in believing, that "no condemnation" which belongs to me as a child of God, is made doubly sweet and inexpressibly precious, by the recollection of my past days of sorrow and grief. Blessed be thou, O God, for ever, who by those black days, like a dreary wilt bath made these summer days all the fairer and the sweeter! The shore is never so welcome as when you mount it with the foot of a shipwrecked mariner just escaped from the sea; food never so sweet as when you sit at the table after days of hunger; water never so refreshing as when you arrive at the end of a parched desert, and have known what it is to thirst. And yet one other reason let me give you, and I need not keep you longer on this point. Possibly, God is bringing you thus, my dear friends, because he means to make great use of you. We are all God's weapons against the enemy. All his saints are used as instruments in the Holy War; but there are some whom God uses in the thickest part of the battle. They are his swords whom he wields in his hand, and strikes innumerable blows with them. These he anneals again, and again, and again. He is annealing you. He is making you meet to be a mighty one in his Israel by-and-bye. Oh! how sweetly you will able to talk to others like yourself, when you once get comfort; and oh! how much you will love him when he once puts away your sin! Will you not? Oh! I think I see you the first day after your sins are forgiven. Why you will be wanting to preach: I should not wonder if you will be going out into the streets, or hurrying to your old companions, and saying to them, "My sins are washed away." Why there will tee nothing too hard for you. The Lord gets his best soldiers out of the highlands of affliction. These are Highlanders that carry everything before them. They know the rivers of sin, they know the glens of grief, and now their sins are all washed away, they know the heights of self-consecration, and of pure devotion; they can do all things through Christ, who strengtheneth them, the Christ who has forgiven them. Do you not think I have just driven the nail home here? Do you not feel in your spirit, that if Jesus would forgive you, you would do everything for him? Oh! I know if I should give out that hymn

"Then loudest of the crowd I'll sing, While heaven's resounding mansions ring With shouts of sovereign grace."

you would say, "Ah, that I will; if ever he forgives such a wretch as I am, and takes such a poor worm as me to his bosom, nothing shall be too hard for me. I will give him all in this life, and I will give and eternity of praise in the life to come." 3. But now I am impatient to come to the word of comfort which I have for you upon the great remedy. Sinners' distressed on account of sin, and bowed with terror down, there is a way of salvation for thee, a way open and accessible, accessible now. Thou mayest now have all thy griefs assuaged, and all thy sorrows may flee away. Hear thou then the remedy, and hear it as from the lip of God, and take care that thou availest thyself of it now, for the longer thou tarriest, the harder will it be to avail thyself of it. "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved." Dost understand me? Trust Christ and you are saved; trust him now and all your sins are gone; there is not one left. Past, present, and to come, all gone. "Am I to feel nothing?" No, not as a preparation for Christ; trust Jesus and thou art saved. "Are there no good works required of me?" None, none; good works shall follow afterwards. The remedy is a simple one; not a compound mixture of thy things and Christ; it is just this the blood of Jesus Christ. There is Jesus on his cross. His hands are bleeding; his heart is bursting; his limbs are tortured; the powers of his soul are full of agony. Those sufferings were offered to God in the place of our sufferings, and "Whosoever believeth in him shall not perish, but have everlasting life." Believe on him now. "But I may not," says one. Thou mayest, nay, not only thou mayest, but thou art condemned if thou dost not believe him now. "I cannot," saith one. Canst not believe thy Lord? Is he a liar? Canst thou not believe his power to save? The Son of God in agony, and yet no power to save!! "I cannot think he shed his blood for me," saith such an one. Thou art commanded to trust him. Thou shalt read thy title clear in him afterwards. Thy business now is simply with him, not with thine interest in him. That shall be known afterwards. Trust him now and thou art saved. Faith is not believing that Christ died for me. If Christ died for every man, then every Arminian, saved or unsaved, bath the true faith: for he believes Christ died for every man. We as Calvinists, do not believe this, but we believe faith consists in trusting Christ, and whosoever trusts Christ shall know as the effect of that trues, that Jesus died for him, and he is saved. Trust Jesus now; just as thou art, fall flat on thy face before him. Away with that last dirty rag of thine that last good work; away with that last filthiness that last good thought; thy good thought, and thy good works are rags and filthiness. Come just as thou art; naked, lost, ruined, helpless, poor. If thou art so bad that I cannot describe thee, and thou canst not describe thyself, yet come. Mercy's free, mercy's free. I am never afraid of preaching grace too free, or a Christ too willing to save. You do want a Mediator to come to God with, but you want none to come to Christ with. You do need some preparation if you are going to the Father; you want none if you are coming to the Son. Come as you are; and God himself must be untrue, his throne must have foundations apart from righteousness, Christ must be false, and this Bible a lie, before one soul that trusts Jesus can ever perish. There is the remedy, by the power of the Holy Spirit; avail thyself of it. Now God help thee and thou art fully saved. II. I shall now want your patient attention for another five or ten minutes, while I take upon myself what was a double duty, because I was afraid w shout the last part of the sermon the first part might do hurt. In the last part of the sermon I have to deal with some WHO HAVE NEVER FELT THESE TERRORS AT ALL, AND WHO STRANGE TO SAY IT, WISH THEY HAD FELT THEM. I suppose I may have conversed now with somewhere verging upon two thousand souls who have been brought to know the Lord under my instrumentality, and I have very often noticed that a considerable proportion of these, and of the best members of our Church too, were brought to know the Lord not by legal terrors, but by gentler means. Sitting one day last week, I saw some twenty-three, and I should think that there might be as many as twelve out of the twenty-three whose convictions of sin were not distinctly marked with the terrors of the law. An excellent young woman comes! before me "What was the first thought that set you really seeking the Savior?" "Sir, it was Christ's lovely character that first made me long to be his disciple. I saw how kind, how good, how disinterested, how self-sacrificing he was, and that made me feel how different I was to what he was. I thought Oh! I am not like Jesus!' and that sent me up to my chamber, and I began to pray! I often have cases like this I preach a terrible sermon upon the law, and I find sinners get comfort under it; I preach another sermon upon Election, and I find poor sinners get awakened under it. God blesses the Word in the very opposite manner to which I thought it would be blessed, and he brings very, very many, to know their state by nature by things which we should have thought would rather have comforted than alarmed them. "The first religious impression I ever had," said another, "that set me seeking the Savior, was this; a young companion of mine fell into sin, and I knew that I was likely to do the same if I was not kept by some one stronger than myself; I therefore sought the Lord, not on account of past sin at first, but because I was afraid of some great future sin. God visited me, and I then felt conviction of sin and was brought to Christ." Singularly enough too I have met with at least a score of persons who found Christ and then mourned their sins more afterwards than they did before. Their convictions have been more terrible after they have known their interest in Christ than they were at first. They have seen the evil after they have escaped from it; they had been-plucked out of the miry clay, and their feet set on a rock, and then afterwards they have seen more fully the depth of that horrible pit out of which they have been snatched, So that it is not true that all who are saved suffer these convictions and terrors;. There are a considerable number who are drawn by the cords of love and the bands of a man. There are some who, like Lydia. have their hearts opened not by the crowbar of conviction, but by the pick-lock of divine grace. Sweetly drawn, almost silently enchanted by the loveliness of Jesus, they say, "Draw me, and I will run after thee." And now you ask me the question "Why has God brought me lo himself in this gentle manner? "Again I say there are some questions better unanswered than answered. God knows best the reason why he does not give you these terrors; leave that question with him. Put I may tell you an anecdote. There was a man coce who had never felt these terrors and he thought within himself "I never can believe I am a Christian unless I do." so he prayed to God that he might feel them, and he did feel them, and what do you think is his testimony? He says, "Never, never do that, for the result was fearful in the extreme." If he bad but known what he was asking for, he would not have asked for anything so foolish. I knew a Christian man once who prayed for trouble. He was afraid he was not a Christian, because he had no trouble; but when the trouble came, he soon discovered how foolish he was to be asking for a thing which God in mercy had kept back from him. O be not foolish enough to sigh for misery. Thank God that you go to heaven along the walls of salvation; bless the Master that he does not call you in the cloudy and dark day, but brings you gently to himself; and be content, I pray you, to be called by the music of the voice of love. May it not happen that Jesus Christ has thus brought you for another reason? He knew that you were very weak, and your mind was very frail, and if you had felt these terrors you might have gone, mad; and you might have been in a lunatic asylum now instead, if you had passed through them. It is true his grace could have kept you, but God always tempers the willed to the shorn lamb, and he will not treat the weak ones as he does the strong ones. And I think again, it may be that if God had given you these feelings you would have grown self-righteous. You would have trusted in them, so he has not given you them. You have not got them to build on, thank God for that, for now you must build on Christ. You say "If I had felt these things, I think I should have been saved." Yes, then you would have trusted in your feelings; the Lord knew that, and therefore he has not given you them. He has given you nothing at all, therefore you must now rest on Christ and nowhere else but there. Oh! do so now. It may be, again, that he has kept you there because he means to make you needful useful to some who like yourself have come gradually to him, for you can say to them when you find them in distress, "Why Jesus Christ brought me gently, and therefore be of good cheer, he is bringing you too." I always like to see in my church some of all sorts. Now there is a brother I could point out this morning who has never known in his life, and I think never will know, about the plague of his own heart, to such an extent as some of us have learnt. He has never gone through fire and through water, but on the contrary is a loving-hearted spirit; a man who spends and is spent in his Master's service, he knows more of the heights of communion than some of us. For my part though I do not want to change places with anybody-I think I could trust my Master if I had his experience, as well as I can trust him with my own. For what has experience to do with it after all? We do not rest on experiences, and frames, and doings;

"Our hopes are fixed on nothing less Than Jesus blood and righteousness."

Now to you then, in conclusion, I preach the same remedy. Poor soul, thou longest to be troubled; ay! but I'd rather have thee long to get relief. Jesus Christ hangs on the cross, and if thou wilt trust him, thou shalt be saved. Just as thou art, as I said to my other friend just now Just as thou art, take Christ as he is. Now, never think about getting ready for Christ; he does not want anything of yours. You need not trim and dress yourselves to come to Christ. Even your frames and feelings are not the wedding garment. Come naked. "But sir, I am so careless." come careless, then. "But I am so hardhearted." come hard-hearted, then. "But I am so thoughtless." come thoughtless, then, and trust Christ now. If you trust him, you will not trust a deceiver. You will not have put your soul into the hand of one who will let it fall and perish. ' Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved," whether convicted by terror or by love, for "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved. he that believeth not "feel what he may, and be in terror though he may. "shall be damned." Amen.