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| He Seeks Rest in God, and Pardon of His Sins.
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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
| 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 | 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
| 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. | I do not,
therefore, contend in judgment with Thee, for “if Thou, Lord,
shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand?”145
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