Who can understand [his] errors?
&c.] Sin is an error, a wandering out of the way of God,
swerving from the rule of his word; and many mistakes are made by
the people of God themselves; even so many that they cannot
number them; they are more than the hairs of their head; they
cannot understand, find out and express, neither their number,
nor their evil nature, nor the many aggravating circumstances
which attend them: this the psalmist said, upon a view of the
large extent, glory, and excellency of the word of God; and upon
comparing himself with it, in which, as in a glass, he saw how
far short he came of it, and what a disagreement and want of
conformity there was in him unto it; see ( Psalms
119:97 ) ( Romans 7:14 ) ; and he
suggests, that though the word he had been describing was
perfect, pure, and clean, he was not; nor could he expect any
reward of debt, but merely of grace, for his observance of it;
and that it was best, under a sense of sin, to have recourse, not
to works of righteousness done by men; but to the grace and mercy
of God in Christ, as follows:
cleanse thou me from secret [faults];
by which are meant not such sins as are done in secret, and are
unknown to men; such as David's sin with Bathsheba, ( 2 Samuel
12:12 ) ; nor the inward motions of sin in the heart, to
which none are privy but God, and a man's own soul; not but that
each of these may be properly enough included in such a petition;
but sins, which are unknown to a man himself are meant: there are
some actions, which, though known when committed, are not known
to be sinful ones; and there are some sins which are committed
unadvisedly, and through carelessness, and pass unobserved; not
only many vain and sinful thoughts pass to and fro uncontrolled,
without being taken notice of; but many foolish and idle words
are spoken, and many evil actions, through infirmity and
inadvertency, are done, which, when a good man, at the close of a
day, comes to reflect upon the things that have passed in it, are
quite hidden from him, are unknown to him, being unobserved by
him; wherefore such a petition is highly proper to be inserted in
his address at the throne of grace: and which also supposes the
person sensible of the defiling nature of sin, and of his own
impotency to cleanse himself from it; and that God only can do
it, who does it by the application of the blood of his Son, which
cleanses from all sin; for this respects not regenerating and
sanctifying grace, but pardoning grace; a manifestation of it, a
view of acquittance from sin by Christ, and of freedom from
obligation to punishment for it.