1 J. Thew, Broken Ideals, 110.
^ A. W. Thorold, Qiiestions of Faith and Duty, 56.
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of sin recur continually in the hymnology of the Church and constitute no small part even of the sacred AVord. Is it not one of the greatest of wonders, while the holiest men esteem themselves so great sinners, while progress in goodness is marked most clearly by an increasing knowledge and abhorrence of personal sin — is it not, I say, one of the greatest of wonders that those who make no pretensions to religion, and have no aspirations after holiness, are scarcely conscious that they are sinners at all, and the greatest transgressors are least troubled by the accusations of conscience ? It was the humble consciousness of his own sinfulness that gave such power to the preaching of Eobert M'Cheyne, whom God took to Himself in the fulness of his youth and promise. With incomparable modesty he said one day: "The reason, I think, why so many of the worst sinners of Dundee come to hear me is that they discover so much likeness between their hearts and mine." And this is the secret of the Psalmist's power over us ; this is the reason why we can hear from his lips such sad descriptions of human nature and yet, instead of cherishing an instinctive feeling of repulsion toward them, can yield our assent and make our penitent confession of their truth.^
I.
Our Hidden Faults.
1. What is the meaning of these words of the Poet-King, when he prays to be cleared from his hidden faults ? It might seem at first to be simple and clear, to be an entreaty that he may be preserved from those sins which we commonly speak of as secret, because they are unknown to our fellow-men ; as dis- tinguished from the open and presumptuous offences which are a shameless and notorious breach of the Divine law. We are all conscious of much in that inner life, known only to ourselves and to God, that is inconsistent with our outward profession of morality and religion, in direct antagonism to His revealed will. But this very consciousness excludes all such offences from the list of those of which David is speaking. There is a further and more subtle analysis of character here implied than that which contrasts itself with an exhaustive division of sins into those which are openly exhibited, and those which are secretly indulged. There ' A. H. Strong, Miscellanies, ii. 360.
348 HIDDEN FAULTS
is a more awful truth to be learned here than that of an inner life of falsehood and impurity and unbelief, which we shrink from disclosing to our fellows. There are sins which are unknown to ourselves, there are evil influences in our hearts of which we are absolutely unconscious, until they have become stereotyped into habits, or suddenly startle us by breaking forth in unmistakable wickedness. There are offences which we cannot confess, or repent of, because we are ignorant of their existence ; which we may vaguely include in our conception of a heart that is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked, in our general petitions for a clean heart and a right spirit ; but which we cannot recog- nize or discriminate, so as to keep a special guard against them or resolve on a detailed renunciation of them. " Who," says the Psalmist, " can understand, or who can mark his errors ? " It is a condition of our finite power of apprehension, that we cannot thoroughly comprehend even our own nature, or penetrate the mysteries of our own sinfulness. From wilful blindness or want of spiritual perception, or the superficial analysis of conduct, which declines to probe down to the intent and motive, or the casuistry which seeks to reconcile things which are irreconcilable, none can reckon how oft he offendeth.
^ We are all a supreme mystery to ourselves ; the mystery of creation in general, profound as it is, is as nothing to the mystery of our own existence and personality. Is there anything we know less about than the entity that says " I " whenever we speak ? The chemist can take up a piece of ore, or a glass of water, and tell you what is in it to its ultimate atoms of oxygen and hydrogen. But he cannot get behind his own consciousness. He experiences states of feeling and perceives successions of ideas, but of the percipient soul he knows nothing. A man may lose his soul; but, even though he be a philosopher, he c&jmot find it}
^ It is with our characters as with our faces. Few of us are familiar with our own appearance, and most of us, if we have looked at our portraits, have felt a little shock of surprise, and been ready to say to ourselves, " Well ! I did not know that I looked like that ! " And the bulk even of good men are almost as much strangers to their inward physiognomy as to their outward. They see themselves in their looking-glasses every morning, although they " go away and forget what manner of men " they 1 J. Halsey, The SxnrU of Truth, 278.
PSALM XIX. 12 349
were. But they do not see their true selves in the same fashion in any other mirror.^