Psalm 32:1-7 Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.… The Lord imputes not, that is, the Spirit of the Lord, the Lord the Spirit, the Holy Ghost, suffers not me to impute to myself those sins, which I have truly repented. The over-tenderness of a bruised and a faint conscience may impute sin to itself when it is discharged, and a seared and obdurate conscience may impute none when it abounds; if the Holy Ghost work, he rectifies both; and if God do inflict punishments after our repentance and the seals of our reconciliation, yet He suffers us not to impute those sins to ourselves, or to repute those corrections, punishments, as though He had not forgiven them, or as though He came to an execution after a pardon, but that they are laid upon us medicinally, and by way of prevention, and precaution against his future displeasure. This is that peace of conscience, when there is not one sword drawn: this is that meridional brightness of the conscience, when there is not one cloud in our sky. I shall not hope that original sin shall not be imputed, but fear that actual sin may; not hope that my dumb sins shall not, but my crying sins may; not hope that my apparent sins, which have therefore induced in me a particular sense of them, shall not, but my secret sins, sins that I am not able to return and represent to mine own memory, may: for this "non imputabit" hath no limitation; God shall suffer the conscience thus rectified to terrify itself with nothing. (John Donne, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: {A Psalm of David, Maschil.} Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.WEB: Blessed is he whose disobedience is forgiven, whose sin is covered. |
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