Psalm 19:12 Who can understand his errors? cleanse you me from secret faults. Look at this two-fold deliverance asked for — grace to cleanse from secret or presumptuous faults. All sins come under the category of secret sins, or those of presumption. The conscience of David was becoming more sensitive; secret sins could be secret no longer. We may perhaps compare that development of moral sensitiveness which the law is always promoting within every right-minded man with those advances of physical science by which unknown worlds above and beneath us have been brought into view, and disease detected in stages in which its presence was unsuspected by our forefathers. A century ago man's observations had not got very far beyond the range of his unassisted senses. Our astronomers have scarcely completed the sum of the stars brought into view by the newest telescopes. The biologist has discovered just as many new worlds as the student of the heavens. He finds sphere of marvellous life within sphere, and yet other spheres more deeply bidden within these, like ball within ivory ball in Oriental carving. An Italian doctor brings his microscope to bear, and, floating within a foot of the soil of the Campagna, finds the malignant bacillus which is at the root of the malarial fever of Rome. Our forefathers knew only the superficial facts of disease, corruption, decay. The biologist brings his concentrated lenses and his polarised light to bear, and he watches every movement of the tiny armies of iconoclasts as they undermine and break up the structure of the body at points where the ordinary observer did not suspect their presence. He projects an electric beam through tubes filled with stifled air, and the air is found to teem with spores that are undeveloped epidemics, with potentialities of worldwide disaster in them. Within recent times we have heard of the elaboration of instruments that may reveal new worlds of sound to us, as marvellous as the worlds of form revealed by the microscope. It is said that no man ever knows what his own voice is like till he hears it in Mr. Edison's phonograph. We are told of another instrument by which the breathings of insects are made audible. The medical expert may yet be able to detect the faintest murmur of abnormal sound in the system that indicates the approach of disease. And in the same way there must be the growth within us of a fine moral science, that will bring home to our apprehension the most obscure of our secret faults. But of all the sciences it is the most primitive and the most neglected. All that we should know is known to the Searcher of our heart long before we become conscious of it. He not only detects the flagrant faults, but the hidden blight that poisons the vitality of religion. But how can there be responsibility for sins of which we are ignorant? And how can there be guilt without responsibility? If ignorance is fated and inevitable, there can be no responsibility. But ignorance is often self-caused. Many of our sins are secret because we insist upon judging ourselves by human rather than Divine standards of life and righteousness. Our sins assume popular forms and ramifications. No more striking illustration of what the naturalists call the "law of protective colouring" can be found than that which presents itself in the realm of ethics. You know what that law is. The arctic fox, it is said, assumes a white fur in the winter months, so that it may pass undetected over the snows. When the spring comes and the brown earth reappears, it sheds those white hairs and assumes a fur the colour of the earth over which it moves. Many fishes have markings that resemble the sand or gravel above which they make their haunts. You may watch for hours, and till they move you are unable to recognise their presence. The bird that broods on an exposed nest is never gaily coloured. However bright the plumage of its mate, it is always attired in feathers that match its surroundings, if it has to fulfil these dangerous domestic duties. Large numbers of insects are so tinted as to be scarcely distinguishable from the leaves and flowers amidst which they live. One insect has the power of assuming the appearance of a dried twig. And is there not something very much like this in the sphere of human conduct? Our sins blend with the idiosyncrasies of the age and disguise themselves. Of course, we do not sin in loud, flashing colours, if we make any pretension to piety at least. Our sins always perfectly compose with the background of our surroundings. As a rule, they are sins into which we fall in common with men we esteem, men who have established a hold upon our affections, men whose sagacity we trust, and who by their excellence in some things lead us to think very lightly of the moral errors they illustrate in other things. Oh, the blinding tendency of this judgment by popular standards to which we are so prone! All this was sure to be illustrated in the history of the Psalmist. In the rough and tumble of his wandering life and coarse associations he would be prone to forget the inner and more delicate meanings and obligations of the law. The moral atmosphere pervading the Cave of Adullam was not more wholesome than that pervading our unreformed bankruptcy courts. The cave was not the best possible place in which to school a man in the finer shades of right and wrong. Most of David's sins in after life seem to have been lurid reflections of the brutality, the unthinking ruthlessness, the impetuous animalisms of his former companions in arms. He evidently felt the danger he was in of falling to the level of his surroundings and of forgetting by how much he had fallen. Let us beware of gliding into an unconfessed habit of testing ourselves by human standards, when God has given to us higher and holier standards by which to measure ourselves. It is said that all organic germs cease a few miles out at sea. Air taken from the streets or the warehouses of the city yields large numbers of these germs. The air circulating through the ship in dock is charged with them. After the shore has been left behind the air taken from the deck is pure, but they are still found in air taken from the hold. After a few days at sea the air on deck and in the hold alike yields no traces of these microscopic spores that are closely connected with disease. Let us be ever breathing the spirit of God's love. Let us get away from the din and dust and turmoil of life, out upon that infinite sea of love that is without length or breadth or depth, and our secret faults will vanish away and we shall by and by stand without offence in. the presence of God's glory. Passion, prejudice, ambition often blind men to their faults. When great passionate forces hurry us on we are not more apt to see the shortcomings and specks of corruption in the motives and actions of the passing moment, than the traveller by a racing express to see the little ring of decay in the lily of the wayside garden past which he is flying. During the Franco-Prussian War a regiment of Prussian soldiers was deploying from the shelter of a wood, in full face of French fire. The appearance of the regiment as seen from a distance, said one of the war correspondents, was like that of some dark serpent creeping out from beneath the wood. The far-stretching figure seemed to leave a dark trail in its path. The correspondent looked carefully through his glass, and this trail resolved itself under close inspection into patches of soldiers who had fallen under French fire. Some of them were seen to get on to their feet, stagger on a few paces, and fall again. The passion of battle was upon them, and they were scarcely conscious of their wounds. And is it not thus with us? We are intoxicated by the passion of life's battle, the battle for bread and place and power and conquest of every kind; and we stagger on, unconscious of the fact that we are pierced with many a hidden wound. The excitements that are in the air whirl us along, and we are all but insensible to the moral disaster He sees who watches the battle from afar. Our slowness to recognise the hurt that has overtaken us may be the sign that the pulse of vitality is fluttering itself out. "Keep back Thy servant also from presumptuous sins." It is restraint, not purification, from presumptuous sin that the Psalmist asks in the second portion of his prayer. Presumptuous sin has no place in a true child of God. "He that is born of God doth not commit sin." Cleansed by the forgiving grace of God, we ought to need only deliverance from errors of inadvertence and infirmity. "He that is bathed needeth not save to wash his feet." No hallowing process, however complete, can remove susceptibility to the temptation even to presumptuous sins. The work of cleansing from secret fault sometimes creates a new peril. We need to be kept back from it, as the restive horse needs the curb. David felt this, and therefore prayed this prayer. (Thomas G. Selby.) Parallel Verses KJV: Who can understand his errors? cleanse thou me from secret faults.WEB: Who can discern his errors? Forgive me from hidden errors. |
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