Ps. xxxii. 1 — 6. Blessed ishetvhose transgression is forgiven, tvhose sin is covered. Blessed is the man unto zvhom the Lord imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile. When I kept silence, my boties loaxed old through my roaring all the day long : (for day and night thy hand teas heavy upon me : ) my moisture is turned into the drought of summer. I acknowledged my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid: I said, I will confess my transgres- sions unto the Lord ; and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin. For this shall every one that is godly pray unto thee in a time ivhen thou may est he found.
TO have the experience of David in all the diver- sified conditions of life faithfully submitted to us, is an advantage for which we can never be sufficiently thankful. There was scarcely any trouble, either of a temporal or spiritual nature, which he was not called to endure, and under which he has not stated to us the workings of his mind. We are accustomed to hear of his sins and his penitence, his sorrows and his joys : but there is one particular frame of mind, in which he continued for many months, which we are apt, for the most part, to overlook, or to pass by with a mere transient observation ; I mean, his state of impenitence and hardness of heart after the com- mission of his sin in the matter of Uriah. But this is an exceedingly profitable point of view in which to behold him, because of the general tendency of sin to harden the heart : and to see how he obtained peace at last is also of great advantage, inasmuch as it will shew us, how we may obtain peace, even after the commission of the greatest transgressions. When he wrote this psalm he had regained that happy state from which he had fallen : and he here records, for the instruction of the Church in all future ages,
I. Wherein true blessedness consists —
A man who has no prospects beyond this present world, will seek happiness in the things of time and sense. But " a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things that he possesseth." We