Psalms 32:3

When God has pardoned our sins, if he leaves us to ourselves, we shall soon run as far in debt again as ever and plunge ourselves again into the same gulf; and therefore, when we have received the comfort of our remission, we must fly to the grace of God to be preserved from returning to folly again, and having our hearts again hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.

What an encouragement is this to poor penitents, and what an assurance does it give us that, if we confess our sins, we shall find God, not only faithful and just, but gracious and kind, to forgive us our sins! Concerning the good use that we are to make of the experience David had had of God's readiness to forgive his sins (

quarantine:debris (2026-07-29) — unbalanced-parens

Silence - From a full and open confession of my sins. Old - My spirit failed, and the strength of my body decayed. Roaring - Because of the continual horrors of my conscience, and sense of God's wrath.

When I kept silence,....

David now gives us his own experience: no instructor is so efficient as one who testifies to what he has personally known and felt. He writes well who like the spider spins his matter out of his own bowels.

When I kept silence. When through neglect I failed to confess, or through despair dared not do so, my bones, those solid pillars of my frame, the stronger portions of my bodily constitution, waxed old, began to decay with weakness, for my grief was so intense as to sap my health and destroy my vital energy. What a killing thing is sin! It is a pestilent disease! A fire in the bones! While we smother our sin it rages within, and like a gathering wound swells horribly and torments terribly. Through my roaring all the day long. He was silent as to confession, but not as to sorrow. Horror at his great guilt, drove David to incessant laments, until his voice was no longer like the articulate speech of man, but so full of sighing and groaning, that it resembled to hoarse roaring of a wounded beast. None knows the pangs of conviction but those who have endured them. The rack, the wheel, the flaming fagot are ease compared with the Tophet which a guilty conscience kindles within the breast: better suffer all the diseases which flesh is heir to, than lie under the crushing sense of the wrath of almighty God. The Spanish inquisition with all its tortures was nothing to the inquest which conscience holds within the heart.

DAVID HERE DESCRIBES a very common experience amongst convinced sinners. He was subjected to extreme terrors and pangs of conscience. These terrors were continual; they scared him at night with visions, they terrified him all day with dark and gloomy forebodings. "Day and night thy hand was heavy upon me." His pain was so extreme, that when he resorted to prayer he could scarcely utter an articulate word. There were groanings that could not be uttered within his spirit; and hence he calls his prayer roaring—a "roaring all the day long." Wherever he was, his spirit seemed to be always sighing, sending a full torrent of melancholy groans upwards towards God; a "roaring all the day long." So far did this groaning proceed, that at last his bodily frame began to show evidences of it. He grew old, and that not merely in the lines of the countenance and the falling in of the cheeks, but his very bones seemed as if they partook of the suffering. He became like an old man before his time. We have heard of some who through severe trouble have had their hair blanched in a single night. But here was a man who did not show merely externally, but even internally, the heavy pressure of grief, on account of sin. His bones grew old, and the sap of his life, the animal spirits, were all dried up; his "moisture was turned into the drought of summer." So intimate is the connection between the body and the soul, that when the soul suffers extremely, the body must be called to endure its part of grief. Verily in this ease it was but simple justice, for David had sinned with his body and with his soul too.

IT is well known that in ordinary cases grief which is kept within the bosom grows more and more intense. It is a very great relief to shed tears—it gives a vent to the heart. We sometimes pity those who weep, but there is a grief too deep for tears which is far more worthy of compassion—we ought most to pity those who cannot weep. A dry sorrow is a terrible one, but clear shining often follows the rain of tears. Tears are hopeful things. They are the dewdrops of the morning foretelling the coming day. So is it, also, a very great consolation to tell your story to a friend. I do not know whether it would not be a comfort, even, to speak it to a little child, even if the child could not understand you. There is something in telling your sorrow and letting it out, otherwise it is like a mountain lake which has no outlet, into which the rains descend and the torrents rush and, at last, the banks are broken and a flood is caused. It is well for you to let your soul flow forth in words as to your common griefs! A festering wound is dangerous. Many have lost their reason because they had good reason to tell their sorrows, but had not reason enough to do so. Much talk has in it much of sin, but a heart full of agony must speak or burst. Therefore let it talk on and even repeat itself, for in so doing it will spend itself— "Sorrow weeps! And spends its bitterness in tears. My child of sorrow, Weep out the fullness of Your passionate grief, And drown in tears The bitterness of lonely years." We shall now, however, think of spiritual sorrows and to these the same rule applies.

DAVID HERE DESCRIBES a very common experience amongst convinced sinners. He was subjected to extreme terrors and pangs of conscience. These terrors were continual; they scared him at night with visions, they terrified him all day with dark and gloomy forebodings. "Day and night thy hand was heavy upon me." His pain was so extreme, that when he resorted to prayer he could scarcely utter an articulate word. There were groanings that could not be uttered within his spirit; and hence he calls his prayer roaring—a "roaring all the day long."

IT is well known that in ordinary cases grief which is kept within the bosom grows more and more intense. It is a very great relief to shed tears—it gives a vent to the heart. We sometimes pity those who weep, but there is a grief too deep for tears which is far more worthy of compassion—we ought most to pity those who cannot weep. A dry sorrow is a terrible one, but clear shining often follows the rain of tears. Tears are hopeful things. They are the dewdrops of the morning foretelling the coming day.

When I kept silence - Before I humbled myself, and confessed my sin, my soul was under the deepest horror. “I roared all the day long;” and felt the hand of God heavy upon my soul.

When I kept silence - The psalmist now proceeds to state his condition of mind before he himself found this peace, or before he had this evidence of pardon; the state in which he felt deeply that he was a sinner, yet was unwilling to confess his sin, and attempted to conceal it in his own heart. This he refers to by the expression, “When I kept silence;” that is, before I confessed my sin, or before I made mention of it to God. The condition of mind was evidently this: he had committed sin, but he endeavored to hide it in his own mind; he was unwilling to make confession of it, and to implore pardon. He hoped, probably, that the conviction of sin would die away; or that his trouble would cease of itself; or that time would relieve him; or that employment - occupying himself in the affairs of the world - would soothe the anguish of his spirit, and render it unnecessary for him to make a humiliating confession of his guilt. He thus describes a state of mind which is very common in the case of sinners. They know that they are sinners, but they are unwilling to make confession of their guilt. They attempt to conceal it. They put off, or try to remove far away, the whole subject. They endeavor to divert their minds, and to turn their thoughts from a subject so painful as the idea of guilt - by occupation, or by amusement, or even by plunging into scenes of dissipation. Sometimes, often in fact, they are successful in this; but, sometimes, as in the case of the psalmist, the trouble at the remembrance of sins becomes deeper and deeper, destroying their rest, and wasting their strength, until they make humble confession, and “then” the mind finds rest. My bones waxed old - My strength failed; my strength was exhausted; it seemed as if the decrepitude of age was coming upon me. […]