^ The feeling which is here concentrated in one despairing sentence is amplified in the 51st Psalm. "Against thee only have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight." "Wash me throughly from my wickedness, and cleanse me from my sin." " Lo, thou requirest truth in the inward parts." " Turn thy face from my sins, and put out all my misdeeds. Make me a clean heart, 0 God ; and renew a right spirit within me." " O give me the comfort of thy help again, and stablish me with thy free Spirit." " The sacrifice of God is a troubled spirit ; a broken and contrite heart, 0 God, shalt thou not despise."
^ The oldest tradition regards this 51st Psalm as the out- pouring of David's soul at this crisis, when the crowning sin of his life was brought home to him in all its heinousness. The ancient heading in our Bibles so describes it. Nor need we question the truth of this tradition. To the thoughtful mind it will appear to bear the very stamp of that terrible crime and that deep penitential sorrow. It would be difficult to fix on any incident, or any man, in the whole range of history, to whom the language and the feelings would be so appropriate as to the man after God's own heart in the first revulsion of spirit after his terrible fall. One objection only is offered to this ancient and widespread belief. The concluding verses seem to speak of a later period, when the city was rebuilding after the return
1 riiillips Brooks.
2 SAMUEL XII. 13, 14 337
from Babylon. But is it not reasonable to suppose that these two verses were a later addition to adapt the Psalm to liturgical uses ? 1
(4) And what more is there in the true confession of selfish- ness ? Only one thing, and that is the acknowledgment that the selfish acts which we confess are representations and expressions of a selfish character and heart in which our true guilt abides. If we could make out an absolutely complete list of all the selfish acts that we have ever done, all the selfish words that we have ever spoken, all the selfish thoughts that we have ever thought, and, bringing it up, should unroll it in the sight of God, and, pointing with shame down the long catalogue, should say, " Look, Lord, and read. They are all there. I have not left out one. The black tale is complete " — when that is over, have we confessed our sinfulness ? We have not touched it. As fertile and as foul as ever, it lies deep in our heart, ready to breed new selfish acts when these are cleared away. Not till we trace these things down to their roots ; not till we say, " I did wrong things because I was a wrong thing. I lived for myself, not for my neighbours, and so broke God's law in my heart before I broke it with my hands. I was, I am, a living violation of it every day I live " ; not till a spiritual logic thus traces back corrupt deeds to their source in a corrupt nature ; not till " I have sinned" means "I am sinful," is the confession finally complete.
•[I How feebly we talk and think about the judgment-day ! We tremble when we picture God upon His great white throne, hurling at our dismayed terror the long succession of our sins. We shudder at the thought of this deed and that which we must meet again. The true horror of the judgment-day will be the making manifest of hearts. What I have done will fade before the pre-eminent shame at what I have been. Then, if not before, deeds will take their true places as mere fruits and types of character. Just as we grow into the solemnity of the judgment- day we attain its point of view already, and learn to enlarge David's " I have sinned" into Simon Peter's " I am a sinful man, 0 Lord." 2
1 J. B. Lightfoot. « Phillips Brooks.
DEUT.-ESTH. — 22
338 REPENTANCE AND RETRIBUTION
II.
Pardon.
"The Lord also hath put away thy sin."
1. Can there be anything more striking, can there be anything more in the nature of a gospel to us all, than this brief dialogue ? " David said unto Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord. And Nathan said unto David, The Lord also hath put away thy sin."
The two things to take account of are the immediacy of the pardon and its completeness.
(1) The pardon was immediate. — David had hardly been brought to own his guilt, had hardly got the words of confession off his lips, before the prophet, who represented before him the justice and authority of God, gave back the answer as if he had it all ready upon his lips and had been waiting for the chance to give it. "I have sinned against the Lord." "The Lord also hath put away thy sin." The whole was but the transaction of a moment. One minute he was standing obstinate and rebellious, stout in his sin, and the next minute the whole change had come, and the hard heart was softened and the proud will had bent and the sin was gone.