the Ifraelites, cafts light and beauty upon the mercies of God, darkness and confufion of face upon ourselves. Can we help thinking, that, notwithstanding God has thus fecured and hedged us about with a law that is perfect, with commandments that are pure, with judgments that are true and righteous altogether; yet ftill our own weakness is perpetually betraying us into error, our folly or our wickedness driving us into fins, more in number than either we can or care to remember? The royal Pfalmift faw the juftness of this reflection, and whilft his heart glowed with the sense of God's unbounded mercies, he turned fhort upon himself with this complaint, Who can understand his errors?

This complaint is followed by a fervent prayer to God for pardon and protection: from the prospect of the power and goodness of God, and our own weakness and misery, the foul eafily melts into forrow and devotion, lamenting what it feels, and imploring what it wants from the hand which only is able to fave and to redeem: O cleanfe thou me, fays the royal penitent, from fecret faults. This petition flowed from an heart intimately touched with the fense of its own unworthiness: fecret he calls his faults, not with a defign to extenuate his crimes, or as if he thought the actions he had now in his view of fo doubtful a nature, that it was not eafily to be judged, whether they should be placed among the finful, or the indifferent circumftances of his life; and therefore, if they were faults, they were fecret ones, fuch as ftole from him without the confent or approbation of his mind: but fecret he calls them, with respect to their number; so often he had of

fended, that his memory was too frail to keep an exact register of all his errors; but though they were fecret to him, yet well he knew, that God had placed them in the light of his countenance; and therefore, though he could neither number nor confefs them, he begs that they might not be imputed, or rife up in judgment against his foul. This fenfe is well expreffed in our old tranflation, Who can tell how oft he offendeth? O cleanfe thou me from my fecret faults!

But though our fins are more in number than the hairs of our head, yet fome there are that stand diftinguished by an uncommon guilt, and will always be present to our minds, whenever we approach the throne of grace for pardon. These we should particularly lament, against these we fhould particularly pray, when we seek to God for ftrength and affiftance. In this ftrain the holy Pfalmift continues his devotion, Keep back thy fervant also from presumptuous fins; let them not have dominion over me: then fhall I be upright, and I shall be innocent from the great tranfgreffion.

Having thus extolled his Maker for the greatnefs of his power and mercy, and humbled himfelf for the number and the heinousness of his iniquities, he clofes this fcene of praise and of devotion in the language of the text, Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be always acceptable in thy fight, O Lord, my ftrength and my redeemer.

I have endeavoured to open to you the fcheme of thought which runs through this excellent pattern of prayer and meditation; hoping by this more effectually to warm your minds into a fenfe of this duty,

and to fet before you in a better light the beauty both of praise and prayer, when duly performed, and accompanied with proper affections of the heart, than by any thing I could fay to you upon the subject. It is a fubject indeed that speaks for itself: and a prayer, or a song of praise, composed in the true fpirit of piety and devotion, is the greateft incitement, as well as the best direction, for the performance of the respective duties. A man's heart must be as cold as marble, who can read or hear the fongs of holy joy and rapture, with which the faints of old gave praise to their Maker, and not feel fome refentments of the same spirit of joy and gratitude in his breast; or who can go over a prayer which expreffes the guilt of fin, and confeffes the weakness of nature, and pours forth the cries of an afflicted foul for mercy and pardon, and not be touched with the description of circumftances which are fo much his own; or not fend forth the wishes of his own heart to attend the cries for mercy and pardon, which he fo certainly ftands in need of obtaining. A fcene of mifery, drawn either by the poet's or the painter's fkill, has force enough to move the pity of a compaffionate heart; for we are so near allied to the sufferings of our fellow-creatures, by sharing in the fame nature, which as it fubjected them, fo it exposes us to the miseries we behold, that we cannot refift the impreffions of forrow arifing from circumftances which may any day happen to be our own: much less can we ftand by, as unconcerned lookers on, when we behold the mifery of a foul afflicted for fin, or when we hear the ardent prayers which are poured forth in the presence of God for pardon

and mercy, or fee the tears which flow from the pangs of a wounded spirit; for this cafe, this miferable condition, not only may be, but most certainly is our own these tears, thefe cries for mercy, fhould be ours, fince the cause is ours from whence they proceed; nor can we well help partaking in them, nor be altogether infenfible of the grief of our fellowfufferers.

There is the fame reafon for our being affected with the praises of God, and joining to give glory to his name, whenever we read the fongs of thankfgiving recorded in Scripture, as inftances of the tribute which God expects, and which the faints are ufed to pay; for his mercies are difpenfed with an equal hand, he maketh the fun to rife upon the juft and the unjust; and when we share the bleffings, and partake in the fame mercies, how can we refuse to bear our part in offering up the incense of praise or how refift the motions of gratitude, which arife from the sense of thofe enjoyments which are the gift of heaven? This pfalm of David, in how exalted a ftrain is it penned! how nobly is the fong raised from circumftances which at once fet forth in equal beauty the majesty and the mercy of the Almighty! and yet there is not one act of providence mentioned, one inftance of grace recorded, that you do not as largely reap the benefit of, and are as much in duty and gratitude bound to be thankful for, as even David himself. Nay, the advantage is certainly on your fide in this refpect: the heavens indeed are the fame they were in David's time; and day and night, constant to their Maker's law, have walked the fame unwearied round: the fun fhines

out with the fame beauty and light to animate and refresh the world: the material fun I mean; for fince David's time the Sun of righteousness himself has arose in our firmament, and fhed forth the choiceft bleffings of heaven upon the inhabitants of the earth: the glories of the Meffiah's reign, and the happiness of his days, were profpects, which at a distance, and but darkly feen, could fill the mouths of the faints and prophets with the praises of the Lord! And can we be filent, who enjoy the fulness of those mercies, to whom the Saviour of the world has opened the richest treasures of God's bounty and goodness? Look back and fee with what pleasure and rapture the holy Pfalmift speaks of the laws and judgments of God; more defirable they were to him than the finest gold; fweeter than the honey and the honey-comb: and yet he lived under the Mosaic law, a yoke hard to be borne. Had he feen the days of the Gospel, and tasted the righteousness of this new law, I am at a lofs even to imagine in what strains of holy eloquence his joy would have flowed. When he applies to God for pardon and forgiveness for paft offences, for strength and affiftance to preserve him for the future, with what a noble refignation of foul, and fure truft in God, does he discharge this part of his devotion! And yet he had not all the encouragements for this duty which we enjoy: he had never heard the melody of that heavenly voice which daily calls us to repentance, Come unto me all ye that travel and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you: nor had he received. those express promises of grace and fpiritual affiftance, which have fince been confirmed to us by the