suffering and of great kindness, whose anger might be averted, and whose favour might be obtained by the humble and penitent. He casts himself down therefore at the footstool of divine mercy, and cries fervently for pardon and forgiveness; Have mercy upon me, O God, after thy great goodness. He rests all his hope on the great goodness and loving kindness of the Lord; not on any former acts of piety; not on the greatness of his present rank; not on the strength of any good resolutions; not on the power of the temptation to sin; but on the great goodness and tender compassion of the divine Nature. We cannot easily express the full meaning of the original word, here rendered loving kindness; it conveys the idea of benignity, beneficence, pity, and unmerited favour. It is that perfection or quality in God which inclined him to pity our first parents when they had fallen by their transgression; which led him to provide propitiatory sacrifices for the Patriarchs, and also for the Israelites under the law of Moses, that the sinner might come to his altar in penitence and faith, and might there obtain the remission of his sins. It was this which moved him to intermix so much of Gospel grace and mercy with the legal dispensation, and to point out the great Re

deemer by various rites and ceremonies, and to describe his person, and offices before hand by the ministry of his ancient Prophets. It was this loving kindness which caused him, in the fulness of time, "to give his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." To this divine quality in the Lord his God, David makes his affecting appeal in the words of our text. He goes for mercy to the fountain of

mercy.

Then he says, according to the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions.---His language implies that as his offences and transgressions were numerous, so he could only hope for pardon according to the multitude of God's tender mercies; as he prays in another place, "pardon mine iniquity for it is great. The tender mercies of God are his bowels of compassion, by which he yearns over his penitent children; as an earthly father pitieth his repenting child, or as a tender mother has compassion on her feeble infant. Thus in the hundred and third Psalm, verse 13, it is said, ແ Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him."

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Then he says, Blot out my transgressions, or do away mine offences. We are told by the Apostle John that, "sin is the transgression of the law." When any man sins, he passeth over the bounds which the divine law has prescribed; he perversely follows his own devices, and wanders astray from the path of righteousness. Transgression is a passing over from the camp of the godly, from the standard of rectitude, to the bands of the ungodly, to the tents of the enemy. All sins are offences in the eyes of God; they offend his purity; they provoke his justice; they stir up his wrath ; and, unless they are deeply repented of, they will bring upon us the rod of his sore displeasure.

Blot out my transgressions. From this it appears, that God keeps, as it were, a book of accounts against every man, in which he notes down his sins and transgressions, as debts, which are to be brought against him in the day of judgment. The act of blotting these out, is the effacing or cancelling of them, so that they shall not be brought into court against a man, but shall be clean done away, and no more be laid to his charge. David comes into the presence of his all-wise and righteous judge, as a 11 John iii. 4.

guilty criminal, who acknowledges his transgressions and sues for mercy. He cannot rest while he knows that an indictment so weighty may be pleaded against him, to his utter confusion and condemnation.

He was conscious that his sins were written as with a point of a diamond, but he prays that God, in the multitude of his tender mercies, would blot them out.

Verse 2. Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.---Here he enters more deeply into the fountain of evil. He desires not only that his actual transgressions may be blotted out and done away, but that he may be washed and cleansed from his iniquity, thoroughly and entirely, from all inward depravity and wickedness. The Hebrew word for iniquity signifies perverseness, obliquity, and distortion. This iniquity and perverseness of heart is the root of all those evils which disturb human life; and unless this root of bitterness and corruption be taken away, it avails but little to cut off the external branches. This fountain must be cleansed, or else it will constantly send forth its unwholesome streams. Wash me entirely from mine iniquity and cleanse me from my sin; as if his

heart and all his members were sorely polluted and altogether unclean. Perhaps there is an allusion here to the numerous washings and sprinklings under the law, which were intended to shadow forth the cleansing efficacy of divine grace. Cleanse me from my sin; 'account me pure in thy sight, that my great sinfulness may not be the means of shutting me out from thy gracious presence.' He is anxious to obtain purity of heart, ceremonial purity according to the law, and also a pure conscience.

Verse 3. For I acknowledge my transgressions and my sin is ever before me. Here the penitent implores forgiveness on the ground of his submissive and open confession of his sins. He is fully persuaded that he can entertain no hope of pardon and peace, so long as he harbours any evil in his heart, and is not ready to confess and bewail his transgressions. "He that covereth his sins," says Solomon, "shall not prosper: but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy." David also says in another Psalm, "I acknowledged my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my trangressions unto the Lord and thou forgavest the inquity of my sin." The sins of the true penitent are ever

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Psalm xxxii. 5...