Chapter V.—He Seeks Rest in God,
and Pardon of His Sins.
5. Oh! how shall I find rest in Thee? Who will
send Thee into my heart to inebriate it, so that I may forget my
woes, and embrace Thee my only good? What art Thou to me? Have
compassion on me, that I may speak. What am I to Thee that Thou
demandest my love, and unless I give it Thee art angry, and
threatenest me with great sorrows? Is it, then, a light sorrow not
to love Thee? Alas! alas! tell me of Thy compassion, O Lord my God,
what Thou art to me. “Say unto my soul, I am thy salvation.”
138
So speak
that I may hear. Behold, Lord, the ears of my heart are before
Thee; open Thou them, and “say unto my soul, I am thy
salvation.” When I hear, may I run and lay hold on Thee. Hide not
Thy face from me. Let me die, lest I die, if only I may see Thy
face.
139
6. Cramped is the dwelling of my soul; do Thou
expand it, that Thou mayest enter in. It is in ruins, restore Thou
it. There is that about it which must offend Thine eyes; I confess
and
know it, but
who will cleanse it? or to whom shall I cry but to Thee? Cleanse me
from my secret sins,
140
O Lord, and keep Thy servant from
those of other men. I believe, and therefore do I speak;
141
Lord, Thou
knowest. Have I not confessed my transgressions unto Thee, O my
God; and Thou hast put away the iniquity of my heart?
142
I do not
contend in judgment with Thee,
143
who art the Truth; and I would not
deceive myself, lest my iniquity lie against itself.
144
I do not,
therefore, contend in judgment with Thee, for “if Thou, Lord,
shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand?”
145
138
Ps. xxxv. 3
.
139
Moriar ne moriar, ut eam videam
. See
Ex. xxxiii.
20
.
140
Ps. xix. 12, 13
. “Be it that sin may never
see the light, that it may be like a child born and buried in the
womb; yet as that child is a man, a true man, there closeted in
that hidden frame of nature, so sin is truly sin, though it never
gets out beyond the womb which did conceive and enliven
it.”—
Sedgwick
141
Ps. cxvi. 10
.
142
Ps. xxxii. 5
.
143
Job ix. 3
.
144
Ps xxvi. 12
,
Vulg.
“The danger of
ignorance is not less than its guilt. For of all evils a secret
evil is most to be deprecated, of all enemies a concealed enemy is
the worst. Better the precipice than the pitfall; better the
tortures of curable disease than the painlessness of mortification;
and so, whatever your soul’s guilt and danger, better to be aware
of it. However alarming, however distressing self-knowledge may be,
better
that
than the tremendous evils of
self-ignorance.”—
Caird
.
145
Ps. cxxx. 3
.