n my God, as the
wicked doth. For I have an eye unto all his laws: and will not
cast out his commandments from me. I was also uncorrupt before him:
and eschewed mine own wickedness. Therefore shall the Lord reward
me after my righteous dealing: and according unto the cleanness of
my hands in his eyesight. With the holy thou shalt be holy: and
with a perfect man thou shalt be perfect.'

Faith, again, it is, to turn from David's highest to his lowest
phase--faith in God it is which has made that 51st Psalm the model
of all true penitence for evermore. Faith in God, in the spite of
his full consciousness that God is about to punish him bitterly for
the rest of his life. Faith it is which gives to that Psalm its
peculiarly simple, deliberate, manly tone; free from all exaggerated
self-accusations, all cowardly cries of terror. He is crushed down,
it is true. The tone of his words shews us that throughout. But
crushed by what? By the discovery that he has offended God? Not in
the least. For the sake of your own souls, as well as for that of
honest critical understanding of the Scriptures, do not foist that
meaning into David's words. He never says that he had offended God.
Had he been a mediaeval monk, had he been an average superstitious
man of any creed or time, he would have said so, and cried, I have
offended God; he is offended and angry with me, how shall I avert
his wrath?

Not so. David has discovered not an angry, but a forgiving God; a
God of love and goodness, who desires to make his creatures good.
Penitential prayers in all ages have too often wanted faith in God,
and therefore have been too often prayers to avert punishment.
This, this--the model of all truly penitent prayers--is that of a
man who is to be punished, and is content to take his punishment,
knowing that he deserves it, and far more beside. And why?
Because, as always, David has faith in God. God is a good and just
being, and he trusts him accordingly; and that very discovery of the
goodness, not the sternness of God, is the bitterest pang, the
deepest shame to David's spirit. Therefore he can face without
despair the discovery of a more deep, radical inbred evil in himself
than he ever expected before. 'Behold, I was shapen in wickedness:
and in sin hath my mother conceived me;' because he could say also,
'Thou requirest truth in the inward parts; and shalt make me to
understand wisdom secretly.' He can cry to God, out of