14 FORGIVENESS OF SIN. where he had no firm foundation to stand upon, nor ability to come out; as he further explains himself, verse 15. There are also internal depths, depths of conscience on account of sin. " Thou hast laid me in the lowest pit, in darkness, in the deeps." Psalm 88 : 6. What he intends by this expression the Psalmist declares in the next words, ver. 7, " Thy wrath lieth hard upon rne." Sense of God's wrath upon his conscience, on account of sin, was the deep he was cast into; so, ver. 15, speak- ing of the same matter, he saith, "I suffer thy terrors ;" and ver. 16, " Thy fierce wrath goeth over me :" which he calls water, waves, and deeps; according to the me- taphor already explained. And these are the deeps that are here principally in- tended. Augustine says on the place, " He cries out under the weight and waves of his sins." This the en- suing psalm makes evident. Desiring to be delivered from these depths out of which he cried, he deals with God wholly about mercy and forgiveness; and it is sin alone from which forgiveness is a deliverance. The doctrine also that he preaches, upon his delivery, is that of mercy, grace, and redemption, as is manifest from the close of the psalm; and what we have deliver- ance by, is most upon our hearts when we are delivered. It is true, indeed, that these deeps do often concur; as David speaks, " Deep calleth unto deep," Psalm 42 : 7. The deeps of affliction awaken the conscience to a deep sense of sin. But sin is the disease, affliction only a symptom of it; and in effecting a cure, the disease itself is principally to be heeded, the symptomwill fol- low, or depart of itself. This, in general, is the state of the soul, as described in this psalm, and is as the key to the ensuing discourse, or the hinge on which it turns. Hence we deduce these two propositions :
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