02 - Chapter 2
PSALM X.
Verse 4. The wicked, through the pride of his countenance, will not seek after God. God is not in all his thoughts. Wicked men find and feel God often in their consciences, though they never found him in their affections. God makes offers to wicked men, and though He be not actively in all their thoughts, i.e. they do not willingly meditate and think of God, they maintain no correspondence or communion with Him in their inner man, yet God doth (like an unbidden and unwelcome guest) put Himself into their thoughts, and moves in their minds, this proves their trouble, and becomes a pain unto them. As God is not far from every one of us, because (as the Apostle argues with those at Athens, Acts 17:1-34) in Him we live and move, and have our being, so we may say, that He is not far from many wicked men, because He moves and stirs in them, He presents to their minds some manifestations of Himself in His justice, and holiness, longsuffering and goodness, in none of which they accept acquaintance with Him; and therefore say to God, depart from us, trouble us not; and when once they can banish those thoughts, and live thus without God in the world, then they think they live indeed, and till then they reckon their lives a kind of death.
Verse 14. Thou hast seen it, for thou beholdest mischief and spite to require it with thy hand, the poor committeth himself unto thee, &c. God delights to help the poor, He loves to take part with the best, though the weakest side; contrary to the course of most; who when a controversy ariseth, use to stand in a kind of indifferency or neutrality, till they see which part is strongest, not which is justest. Now if there be any consideration besides the cause that draws or engages God, it is the weakness of the side. He joins with many because they are weak, not with any because they are strong, therefore He is called the Helper of the Fatherless. By fatherless we are to understand not only such whose fathers are dead, but any one in distress; as Christ promiseth His disciples. I will not leave you orphans, that is, helpless, and, as we translate it, comfortless; though you are as children without a father, yes I will be a Father unto you. Men are often like those clouds which dissolve into the sea, they send presents to the rich, and assist the strong; but God sends His rain upon the dry land; and lends His strength to those that are weak, such are His treasure, His jewels, they are graven upon the palms of His hands, and therefore always in His eye, yea always in His heart, though they lie trodden underfoot as dirt in the streets.
PSALM XI.
Verse 1. In the Lord put I my trust, how say ye to my soul, flee as a bird to your mountain. When a foundation is laid in a proportion geometrical, they build, and the more weight is laid on, the foundation is the firmer; so where God is the foundation, settle thy building on Him, entrust thyself and whatever thou art with Him, and be secure for God is able not only to subdue all worldly and bodily enemies, but ghostly also; and by His power can deliver Satan into the chains of darkness, and can rescue out of his Kingdom whom he will and keep them being so delivered unto salvation. Gather thyself therefore under His wings, and trust in the shadow of His feathers. Do we call acts and deeds of men security, and shall we not trust that which God hath sealed and delivered to us? Children rely wholly on their parents, and shall not we rely wholly on our Heavenly Father? In all our extremities therefore we must be sure to secure our faith and conscience in God, as the serpent doth her head, the soldier his shield; And this is the victory whereby we overcome the world (with all it’s allurements or affrightments) even our faith and trust in God, 1 John 5:4.
Verse 2. For lo, the wicked bend their bow, they make ready their arrow upon the string; that they may privily shoot at the upright in heart. ‘Ecce antequam vulner amur, monemur’, saith Origen; before our enemies hit us, God gives us warning that they mean to do so. When God Himself is so far incensed against us that He is turned to be our enemy and to fight against us, as ’tis Isaiah 63:10, yet still He gives us warning before hand, and still comes a lighting before His thunder. God comes seldom to that dispatch, a word and a blow; but to a blow without a word, to an execution without a warning, never.
Verse 3. If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do. This is not a question of desperation, that nothing can be done, but of consultation with God what should be done. Thou knowest, O Lord, I have not been moved with ordinary trials, not though mine enemies prepare and prepare arrows, shoot, and shoot privily, yet these have not moved me; because I had fixed myself upon certain foundations confidences and allowances of deliverance from them. But if O Lord, I see these foundations destroyed, if Thou put me into mine enemies hand, if Thou make them Thy sword, and then if Thy almighty arm, sinewed even with thine own indignation, fitted with that sword, what can I , how righteous soever I were, do?
PSALM XII.
Verse 1. Help Lord, for the Godly man ceaseth, for the faithful fail from among the children of men. All Christians who have tasted the sweetness of God’s graces in themselves ought to be witnesses of the fine graces of God unto others, and workers of them in others as much as in them lies. It was said to St. Peter not to engross the gifts and graces of God to himself, but to employ them to a common benefit. To this end David prayed to be holpen and saved himself, but so, as the word in the original imports, that he might save others; the spiritual good of those with whom the righteous man liveth is the chief employment of his prayers and pains.
Verse 5. For the oppression of the poor, for the sighing of the needy, now will I rise saith the Lord. I will set him in safety from him that puffeth at him. God is so good and gracious that he loves not to grieve His creature. When He breaks us to pieces, He delights not in our breakings, nor doth He ever break His own but with an intent to bind them up again. God is so far from loving to oppress, that one of His most eminent works of providence is to receive those who are oppressed. For the oppression of the poor, now will I arise saith the Lord, and when the Lord ariseth, oppressors shall fall.
Verse 6. The words of the Lord are pure words as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times. When the people of God are low then let them look for their raising up, and let their low estate be so far from sinking that it should raise their faith in believing deliverance and exaltation. A low estate is a great advantage for faith; faith that hath surest footing when we lie prostrate upon the ground, that faith stands firmest, because there faith meets with most promises. Promises are the foundation of faith. The people of God have never so much of the word about them, as when they have cast off the world about them. The Covenant fits closest to us when we are divested of the creature. When the river is at the lowest ebb, we are sure that the tide is coming in, when the days are shortest and the winter sharpest, then the spring of mercy is at hand. The lowest downfall of the godly is usually the immediate forerunner of their advancement.
PSALM XIII.
Verse 1. How long wilt Thou forget me, O Lord, for ever? How long wilt Thou hide Thy face from me? We are ready in all our troubles, when we find not present help at hand, to suppose the Lord to be far from us. We are impatient of delay, we cannot endure to wait the Lord’s leisure, so soon as we are entered into the furnace of affliction, by and by we think that God should help us; every moment and minute, appeareth to be a day, and every day a year unto us, until He scatter the coals, and pull us as a firebrand out of the fire. This made our prophet in the heat of affliction to cry out, how long wilt thou forget me, O Lord, forever. By which we see that the children of God are wonderfully assaulted, and the flesh wrestleth against the Spirit, and sometimes prevaileth, and for a time gets the upper hand. But seeing God is never far from us, however He may seem to delay and defer His help, let us learn (how great soever our afflictions be) not utterly to despair of God’s mercy; but to consider, that however God often deferreth to help us, yet He is still present with us. It is the will and pleasure of God to try our faith, to stir up our zeal, to exercise our patience, and to teach us to make greater account of His blessings when we have obtained them.
Verse 3. Consider and hear me, O Lord my God; lighten mine eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death. When David seems to fear death in this verse, it is not that he suspects any detriment to himself by death, that he should be the worse for dying, but that God may lose His glory, when as he adds there, the enemy shall say we have prevailed against him. For as in the primitive church, those that seem prayers for the dead at funerals, are indeed but thanksgiving unto God in their behalf that are departed; so as often as David expresses himself in that pathetical manner, Awake, O Lord, why sleepest Thou? Arise and cast us not off forever, it is a thanksgiving that he hath, and a prayer that he would not forget them.
PSALM XIV.
Verse 2. The Lord looked down from heaven upon the children of men; to see if there were any that did understand, and seek God. Wickedness and ignorance grow up together; ignorance is the mother of prophaneness, not of devotion. And therefore the Psalmist joineth these together; there is none that understandeth or seeketh after God. Would you know the reason why they did not seek after God, it was because they did not understand; and in the 4th verse Have all the workers of iniquity no knowledge? As if he had said, if they had but a little true knowledge among them all, they would not thus greedily have devoured my people; they made no bones of oppression, they swallowed the poor as pleasantly as bread; they did, they cared not; what then? They knew not what they ought to do. The floodgates of wickedness are open, where the door of knowledge is shut.
Verse 4. Have all the workers of iniquity no knowledge? Who eat up my people as they eat bread, and call not upon the Lord. If these trees that brings not forth good fruit are threatened with fire, what shall become of those trees whose fruit, like the vines of Sodom and Gomorrah, is as bitter as gall. If he lie in torments that would not vouchsafe his crumbs to hungry Lazarus, what shall become of them who eat up the poor as bread? And if he must be cast into the fire that hath not given his own goods, whether shall he be sent that hath preyed upon another man’s. If he burn with the devil that hath not clothed the naked, where thinkest thou shall he burn that hath spoiled them?
Verse 6. You have shamed the counsel of the poor, because the Lord is his refuge. As the godly are far from the counsels of the wicked, so the wicked are far from the counsel of the godly. You have shamed the counsel of the poor, i.e. ye are ashamed of it. By the poor, the prophet means here the godly poor, men fearing God, as it is plain by the end of the verse. You are ashamed of the counsel of the poor, why? because the Lord is his refuge. His counsel doth depend on the Lord; trust in the Lord, walk in His ways, shelter yourselves under His protection, this counsel our poor man gives; and he must needs to be a godly man that gives this counsel. This counsel you have shamed, i.e. despised. What have we to do with this counsel, to make the Lord our refuge? No we will take our own course, and work it out by our own wit.
PSALM XV.
Verse 1. Lord, who shall abide in Thy tabernacle? Who shall dwell in Thy holy hill? From whence we may learn, that some of those who profess to be of the true Church, may be excluded from the communion, when other some shall remain in this state and not be removed. For the question is moved, what are the marks of the members of the Church invisible? And who they are that shall abide in God’s tabernacle, and dwell in His holy hill? We are also taught from hence, that only the Lord that searcheth the heart, can put the difference between the true and the false; for this cause the question is proposed to God; Lord, who shall abide in Thy tabernacle?
Verse 4. In whose eyes a vile person is contemned, but he honoureth them that fear the Lord, &c. Those whom Christ loves we should love also; he that doth service to Christ, the whole profession is engaged to him. A righteous man honors them that fear the Lord; not only honors the master, but honors the servant. For as Alexander said of Hephastion, he is also Alexander, so this is also God’s. For godly men are particles of God, and God will be honored in His particles; he that loveth him that begat, loveth him that is begotten also. God’s friends must not walk up and down, as if they had none but their Master to take them by their hand; but the whole fraternity must acknowledge them. Let God therefore recommend friends to us; if they bring along with them His certificate, the fruits of His Spirit; for their Master’s sake let them be entertained. If the court of heaven hath bestowed honors upon them, and created them noble, let us give them their titles; let us acknowledge the King in His image, God in His saints, and honor Him in them.
PSALM XVI.
Verse 3. But to the saints that are in the earth, and to the excellent in whom is all my delight. All the delight of God’s children should be in such as excel in virtue; we should bless their expressions, and desire their acquaintance; if they be Christ’s, they should be ours. Which may serve to reprove them that leave Christ’s friends to himself. For generally none are acknowledged, but upon particular respects. If they have pleasured us, then we are bounden to them, we are at their dispose, we are their servants, but religion carries no such strict obligation with it; Christ’s relation is none of ours. For let a man be never so singularly endowed with the graces of God, let him be the very reflex of His face, the print of His purity, yet for his meer sanctity he is little respected, precious he may be in God’s eye, but man hath no eye for him; but true Christian friendship is for God’s sake. For a good man will love in man nothing but God, that is, the evidence of his grace.
Verse 5. The Lord is the portion of mine inheritance, and of my cup; Thou maintainest my lot. David does not speak here so narrowly, so penuriously, as to say God hath given me my portion, and I must look for no more; but God is my portion, and as long as He is God He hath more to give; and as long as I am His I have more to receive. And therefore never say God hath given me these and these temporal things, and I have scattered them wistfully, surely He will give me no more; these and these spiritual graces, and I have abused them, surely He will give me no more. For as for God’s mercy, and His spiritual graces; as that language in which God spake, the Hebrew, hath no superlative; so His mercy hath no superlative; He sheweth no mercy which you can call His greatest mercy; His mercy is never at the highest; whatsoever He hath done for thy soul, or for any other, in applying Himself to it, He can exceed it.
Verse 10. For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; neither wilt thou suffer thine holy one to see corruption. Faith in the resurrection to life, encourageth us against all the troubles and afflictions of this life; the hope of future good is a present comfort. For this cause we faint not, saith the Apostle. What cause was that? Because we have this hope, this faith, that he which raised up the Lord Jesus, shall raise us up also by Jesus. Expectations from Christ are as the cordials which keep us from fainting under our burden, and revive us in the sorrows of death itself. The faith of Christ here, in the resurrection of His own body to life, is spoken of prophetically as that which bore up His spirit in the hour of death. Now as that was Christ’s support in His sorrows and sufferings, that He should not be left in the grave, that He should not see corruption; so it is the support of saints, that though they see, yet they shall not for ever lie under the power of corruption.
PSALM XVII.
Verse 7. Shew Thy marvelous loving kindness, O Thou that savest by Thy right hand, them which put their trust in Thee, from those that rise up against them. David calls God’s mercy here, multiplicatam, and mirisicatam; it is manifold, and it is marvelous; and therefore this sweet singer in many places carries it above His judgments, above the heavens, above all His works. And for the multitude of His mercies; put together that which David saith, Psalms 89:1-52. Where are Thine ancient mercies; God’s mercies are as ancient as the Ancient of Days, even Himself; and that which another prophet saith, His mercies are new every morning; and put between these two. God’s former and His future mercies, His present mercies in bringing thee this minute to the consideration of them, and thou hast found manifold and wondrous mercy.
Verse 8. Keep me as the apple of Thy eye; hide me under the shadow of thy wings. David under this metaphor, the shadow of thy wings, doth not so much consider an absolute immunity, that we shall not be touched; but as a refreshing and consolation when we are touched, though we be pinched and wounded. The names of God which are most frequent in Scripture, are these three, Elohim, Adonai, and Jehovah; and to assure us of His power to deliver us, two of these three are names of power; but then the name Jehovah is not a name of power, but only of essence, of being, of subsistence; and yet in the virtue of that name, God relieved His people. So then, if in mine afflictions God vouchsafe to visit me in that name, to preserve me in my being in my subsistence in Him, if I be not shaked out of Him, disinherited in Him, let Him at His good pleasure reserve His Elohim, and His Adonai, the exercises and declarations of His mighty power, to those great public causes that more concern His glory, then anything that can befall me. But if He impart His Jehovah, enlarge Himself so far towards me, as that I may live, and move, and have my being in Him; though I be not instantly delivered, nor mine enemies absolutely destroyed; yet this is as much as I should promise myself; this is as much as the Holy Ghost intends in this metaphor, the shadow of thy wings; that is, a refreshing a respiration, a conservation, a consolation, in all the afflictions that are inflicted upon me.
Verse 14. From men which are Thy hand, O Lord, from men of the world, which have their portion in this life, and whose belly thou fillest with Thy hid treasure &c. Sometimes it is called God’s hand, when it is the hand of a creature; it is God’s hand in a creature’s hand. God’s hand when it is the hand of wicked men; God’s hand when it is Satan’s hand. So here you see a wicked man is God’s sword, and God’s hand. For God’s hand may be understood of an instrument; and thus Satan himself may be God’s hand to punish, in that sense as wicked men are said to be His hand, from the men that are Thy hand; though there be other readings of that place. Some read it, deliver me from men by Thy hand; and others, deliver me from men of Thy hand; but the first reading is most received; upon which account Titus Vespasian, being extolled for destroying Jerusalem, said, I have only lent God my hand, but He Himself hath done the work.
Verse 15. As for me, I will behold Thy face in righteousness; I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with Thy likeness. One main sign and special character of love, is to suffer for Jesus the Father of sufferings, and King of the afflicted. Therefore the royal prophet saith here, I am well pleased when I shall behold myself marked with the characters of Thy sufferings. Jesus Christ in the great sacrifice of patience made in the beginning of ages, supplies the person of a great bishop, putting on flesh wholly imprinted with dolours, a heart drenched in acerbities, a tongue steeped in gall. Round about Him are all the most elevated and courageous souls, who all wear His livery, and both constantly and gloriously dispose themselves to this great model and pattern of sorrows. Suffering our trade, our vow, our profession; our souls are engaged by oath to this warfare, so soon as first we enter into Christianity. Love which cannot suffer, is not love; and if it cease to love when it should suffer, it never was what it professed.
PSALM XVIII.
Verse 2. The Lord is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliver, my God, my strength in whom I will trust, my buckler, and the horn of my salvation, and my high tower. In all this inventory; in all this armory and furniture of the Church, there is never a sword, no material sword in the Church’s hand; arma nostra preces & lacryma; the primitive Church fought with nothing but prayers and tears; and with this artillery did they lay siege to and take even heaven itself.
Verse 4. The sorrows of death compassed me, and the floods of ungodly men made me afraid. David was here, as a man bound and pinioned to execution, so that he saw nothing but death before him, and the snares and cords of the grave beset him, so hopeless was his estate, as if he were laid forth already, and wrapped up in the bonds and clothes of death. Now if you demand wherefore the Lord suffereth His enemies to ensnare His people so far, that their case seems desperate, their deliverance impossible. Tis answered, first, that hereby we may see our simplicity, who can neither observe nor prevent the wiles of Satan and his instruments. Secondly, that we may take notice of God’s patience towards His enemies, in suffering them as long as He may; and then His justice, in taking them at the height. Thirdly, that we may learn to depend on God’s power and wisdom for safety and defense. Lastly, that the greater the dangers be, God’s goodness may be the more magnified; and that in most desperate evils we may acknowledge our deliverance to be miraculous; that so the praise of all may be referred to the Lord, who is a very present refuge in time of trouble.
Verse 7. Then the earth shook and trembled; the foundations also of the hills moved and were shaken, because He was wroth. The troubles and confusions which are in the creature, are tokens and effects of the anger of God. As the settling and establishment of the creature is an effect and sign of God’s goodness; or as these tell us that God is pleased, so when the Lord hurls the creature this way and that way, when He tosses it up and down, as if He cared not how this is an argument of His anger. Thus when David was in distress, and his enemies encompassed him round about; what then? Then the earth shook and trembled, &c. That God might rescue David out of that hand of trouble, He troubled the foundations of the earth, He made the world shake, and kingdoms tremble, that His David might be settled upon his throne.
Verse 23. I was also upright before Him; and I kept myself from mine iniquity. God hath given man that form in nature, much more in grace that he should be upright, and look up and contemplate heaven; and God there. And therefore to bend downwards upon the earth, to fix our breast, our heart to the earth, to inhere upon the profits and pleasures of the earth’s; this is a manifest declination from this uprightness; from this rectitude of David. Nay, to go so far towards the love of the earth, as to be in love with the graves to be impatient of the calamities of this life, and murmur at God’s declining us in this prison; to sink into a sordid melancholy, or irreligious dejection of spirit, this is also a declination from this rectitude, this uprightness. So it is too to decline towards the left hand, to modifications and temporizing in matter or form of religion; and to think all indifferent, all one; or to decline towards the right hand, in an over vehement zeal, to pardon no errors, to abate nothing of heresy, if a man believe not all, and just all as we believe; to abate nothing of reprobation, if a man live not just as we live; this is also a diversion, a deviation, a deflection from this rectitude, this uprightness. For the Hebrew word of this text signifies rectitudinem & planitiem, it signifies a direct way; for the devil’s way was circular, compassing the earth; but the angel’s way to heaven upon Jacob’s ladder was a straight, a direct way. And then it signifies as a direct, and straight; so a plain, a smooth, and even way; a way that hath been beaten into a path before, a way that the Church hath walked in before; and not a discovery made by our curiosity, and our confidence, inventing from ourselves, or embracing from others new doctrines and opinions.
Verse 25. With the merciful Thou wilt show Thyself merciful; with an upright man Thou wilt show Thyself upright. But doth the Lord take color from every one He meets, or change His temper as the company changes? That’s the weakness of sinful man; he cannot do so, with whom there is no variableness nor shadow of changing. God is pure and upright with the unclean and hypocritical, as well as with the pure and upright; and His actions shew Him to be so. God shows Himself forward with the forward, when He deals with them as He hath said He will deal with the forward, deny them and reject them. God shows Himself pure with the pure, when He deals with them, as He hath said He will, hear them, and accept them. Though there be nothing in our purity and sincerity which deserveth mercy, yet we cannot expect mercy without them; our comforts are not grounded upon our graces, but our comforts are the fruits and consequents of our graces.
Verse 37. I have pursued mine enemies, and overtaketh them; neither did I turn again till they were consumed. He that maketh half repentances, makes none. Men run out of their estates, as well by a negligence and not taking account of their officers, as by their own prodigality. Our salvation is as much endangered, if we call not our conscience to an examination, as if we repent not those sins which offer themselves to our knowledge and memory. And therefore David here places the consummation of his victory in this, I have pursued mine enemies, &c. God requires a pursuing of the enemy; a search for the sin, and not to stay till an officer that is, a sickness or any other calamity light upon that sin, and so bring it before us. God requires an overtaking of the enemy, that we be not weary in the search of our consciences; and God requires a consuming of the enemy not a weakening only, a dislodging and dispossessing of a sin, and the profit of that sin, but all the profit, and all the pleasure, of all the body of sin. For he that is sorry with a godly sorrow, he that confesses with a deliberate detestation, he that satisfies with a full restitution of all his sin, but one, that man is in no better case, then if at sea he should stop all leaks but one, and perish by that. Sivis solvi, solve, catena, saith St. Bernard. If thou wilt be discharged cancel all thy bonds, one chain till broke holds as fast as ten.
Verse 42. Then did I beat them small as the dust before the winds. I did cast them out as the dirt in the streets. I did scatter them, saith the original. Such a state, such a dispersion and scattering doth the heart and soul of an habitual sinner undergo. The wanton and licentious man sighs out his soul, weeps out his soul, swears out his soul in every place, where his lust, or his custom, or the glory of victory in overcoming and deluding puts him upon such solicitations; and this is a scattering of the soul. In the corrupt Taker his soul goes out, that it may leave him insensible of his sin, and not trouble him in his corrupt bargain; and in a corrupt Giver, ambitious of preferment; his soul goes out with his money; which he loves well, but not so well as his preferment. This year his soul and his money go out upon one office, and the next year more soul and more money upon another. He knows how his money will come in again; for they will bring it that have need of his corruptness in his offices; but where will this man find his soul, thus scattered upon every woman corruptly won, upon every office corruptly usurped, upon every fee corruptly taken.
Verse 48. He delivereth me from mine enemies; yea, Thou liftest me up above those that rise up against me; Thou hast delivered me from the violent man. What punishment soever is inflicted upon the enemies of God’s Church; proceeds from God Himself, it is His work. Thus in the deliverance of David from Saul, and the murder that was acted by Saul upon himself, the vengeance in this story, the loss of Saul’s life must not cost David the loss of his innocency. Saul had for a long time persecuted David, and now he is returned to persecute himself. His own fear and sword quickly dispatch him. David was revenged, when Saul was slain, but God was revenged, when Saul slew himself. Saul fell by his own hand, and by God’s; his own hand acts the murder, but God’s the revenge.
PSALM XIX.
Verse 6. His going forth is from the end of the heaven, and His circuit unto the end of it; and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof. As David saith of the sun of the firmament, the Father of Nature, there is nothing hid from the heat thereof. So we may say of the Son of God the Father of the faithful, in a higher sense then Abraham was so called, there is nothing hid from Him; no place, no person excluded from the benefit of His death. The Son hath paid the Father, hath received enough for all, not in single money only for the discharge of thy lesser debts, thy idle words, thy wanton thoughts, thy unchaste looks; but in massie talents to discharge thy crying debts, the clamors of those poor whom thou hast oppressed, and thy thundering debts, those blasphemies by which thou hast torn that Father that made thee; that Son that redeemed thee, that Holy Ghost that would comfort thee.
Verse 12. Who can understand his errors? Cleanse Thou me from my secret faults. When we have passed many scrutinies, many inquisitions of the conscience, we can never get beyond the necessity of this petition. Lord cleanse me from my secret sins. We shall ever be guilty of sins which we shall forget, not only because they are so little, but because they are so great; that which should be compunction, will be consternation; and the anguish, which out of a natural tenderness of conscience, we should have at the first entering into those sins, will make us dispute on the sin’s side; and for some present ease, and to give our heavy soul breath, we will find excuses for them; and at last slide and wear into a customary practice of them; and though we cannot be ignorant that we do them, yet we shall be ignorant that they are sins; but rather make them things indifferent; or recreations necessary to maintain a cheerfulness, and so to sin on; by which means we shall never be able to shut our mouths against this petition, cleanse me from my secret faults; for though the sin be manifest, the various circumstances that aggravate the sin, will be secret.
Verse 13. Keep back Thy servant also from presumptuous sins, let them not have dominion over me; then shall I be upright, and I shall be innocent from the great transgression. The original word for transgression, is a word that signifies sin in all extensions, the highest, the deepest, the weightiest sin; it is a malicious and a forcible opposition to God; it is when this Herod and this Pilate (this body and this soul of ours) are made friends, and agreed, that they may concur to the crucifying of Christ. When not only the members of our bodies, but the faculties of our souls, our will and understanding are bent upon sin; when we do not only sin strongly, and hungrily, and thirstily (which appertain to the body;) but we sin rationally; we find reasons (and those reasons even in God’s long patience) why we should sin. We sin wittily, we invent new sins; and we think it an ignorant, a dull, and unsociable thing not to sin; yea we sin wisely and politically; and make our sin our way to preferment. And thus the word used here by the Holy Ghost expresseth both the vehemence, and the weight, and the largeness and the continuance; all extensions, all dimensions of sin.