God Be Merciful to Me a Sinner!

Several comments may be made on this
familiar prayer.

I. It is a signer’s prayer. K the Bible gave us the prayers only of great saints, we might be at a loss; it gives us the prayers of great sinners. This man is a Publican; and a Publican is prima-facie a sinner. Our Lord evidently means it to be so understood.

The proper place for the sinner is the place of prayer. The very best thing a Publican can do is to go direct to God in prayer. Thus the sinful Zaccheus placed himself in the way. He was perhaps a laughing-stock in that tree by the wayside; but he knew every thing depended on his seeing Christ. It is a blessed thing for a sinner to have words put into his mouth mth which to go to God. If the worst malefactor living could come to the point of turning, here are the words with which to turn.

There was a horrible wretch suspended on the cross at Golgotha; in his agonies he resolved to pray. He saw dying beside him the Saviour of the world. He poured out his sinful, breaking, expiring soul in one great but short petition: “Lord, remember me I” and in a few moments he was in the arms of that Lord in Paradise. What a blessed cheering lesson, that sinners may pray I

IL It is a SIMPLE PRAYER. It is very short; far shorter than the Pharisee’s, though his was short for a Pharisee. Perhaps we have not all he said, in ampHfication of his righteousness. This has but a single petition. There is no multiplication of request. When a man goes to God in earnest, he will usually dwell on the one Am which is his burden; this will swell within him — this will overflow — this will break into language. There have been times, O reader! when all our wishes seemed condensed into one, and we could ask of God only that one thing. Such prayers go from the heart. Infinitely better are they than whole inventories of vain, heartless requests. The message of the heart — that is what God 91 looks at; what the soul pants, wrestles, and longs for, can not live without, y, almost dies for; this is the prayer God hears. As a man prays, when all is at stake — when a first-born is at the brink of the pit — when he is in extreme peril — as you will pray when God shall stand over you, saying, “Thoushalt die and not live!” This is praying in earnest, and it is always simple. All great things are simple. Mighty heavings of desire break away over conventional forms. Like Paul he could say, “One thing I do;” one thing I want. He summoned all his powers to give impetus to one vast petition; it was for a simple good, and that good was, Mercy.

“Mercy, good Lord, mercy I crave,
This is the total sum:
For mercy, Lord, is all my suit,
Lord, let thy mercy come!”

(SlERNnOLD.)

m. It is a LOWLY PRAYER. Every thing m his posture and carriage evinces this; but the words still more. He gives himself one title only, and that the lowest,” a sinner J Has he heard what the Pharisee has just been saying of him to God? Ah! he cares not.

‘God, he knows full well, ngeds not the information; naj, he needs it not himself. Others can not think worse of him than he thinks of himself The sense of God’s all seeing eye, as upon Tis, and of his spotless holiness as against us, makes the judgment by men of very little value. It is then a small thing to be judged by man’s judgment. This is the true source of humility. Looking at oureelves as God looks at us tends to cut down our high thoughts. “Pride was not made for man.” It is abomination to God. Above all, spiritual pride is an inward sin of a deep dye; because it is a vaunting of ourselves in that which, if indeed possessed, we have received as beggars from the hand of God. And pride on our knees, self-complacency in sackcloth, conceit of our own goodness in prayer — what are these but so many insults to Jehovah! “The rich hath He sent empty away.” These boasters, and carnal self-pleasers are they, whom infinite purity and holiness loves to crush. For see the moral of the parable, (v. 14,) “For every one that exalteth himself shall be abased.” How often is it said! how constantly do we need the repetition! Perhaps the very man who is now saying, ‘-/need it not,” needs it most. (Matt. 23: 12,) “Whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased.” (James 4: 6,) “God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble.” We must come in prayer, as the culprit comes, as the leper comes, “or even as this publican.”

TV. It is a PENITENT PRAYER. This above all things it is. The voice of true compunction breaks through, as in a sob of grief. A sinner! a sinner I just as the leper, under the law, was to stand afar, and cry: “Unclean! unclean.” O ye hardened sinners; 0 ye unhumbled Pharisees; how little do ye know of the grief of a soul pouring itself out to God under a sense of the turpitude, magnitude and multitude of sins! To you, how much of the prayers of the church, and of the prayers of David, must be a dead letter! How little conception have ye of the solitary moanings of one who loathes himself on account of sin, and smites his breast on account of his impotency, and acknowledges his utter vileness and un worthiness! God’s law laid closely to the conscience, and God’s holiness beaming on the sinful heart, work such a contrast and conflict that the best expression is often that of Job: “I abhor myself and

GOD BE MEECIFUL

repent in dust and ashes.” And thotigli you now think this whole matter an exaggeration, and flatter yourself in your own eyes until your iniquity be found hateful, it is because your eyes have never been opened, and “ye must be born again!” In the hour of true repentance, there is such a justifying of God and such a condemning of self as sometimes dissolves the soul into a penitential sorrow which bedews and kisses the feet of Christ; which will not forgive itself even when He forgives; which exclaims, ‘’ To me who am less than the least of all saints “— to me “the chief of sinners.” Nay, what can be more full of pathos, than this gush of heart from the convinced Publican: “God be merciful to me a sinner!”

Y. It is a PRAYER OF FAITH. This wa might argue from the effect. Without faith il is impossible to please him: but this did please him. He that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a re warder of them who diligently seek him. The Pub - lican so believed, and so came, and so sought, and was so rewarded. He that is in need is to ask of God; “but let him ask in faith,” says the Apostle James. Many a man has had a ddfep, and despairing, and almost damning sense of his guilt, so as to be driven to the cries of Cain and the suicide of Judas, and yet lias never uttered this prayer; for this reason, that he has had no belief in God as a justifier of the ungodly, and no sight of Christ as a sufficient and willing Saviour. It is a lesson we are slow to learn, yet most true and important, that true sorrow for sin never begins till there is some sight of grace. The Law, in its manifold agency of alarm, conviction, remorse, fear, horror, crushing of soul, can only harden. Increase this, until it reach utter despondency, like that of the lost, who have legal awakening in its extreme, still it has no tincture of gracious affection. But let the Gross appear; let God be revealed as jready to pardon; let the gift of his Son atpract the love of the heart; let the blood of Calvary trickle warmly over the obdurate bosom; and these morose, proud, and relentless habits give place to childlike sorrow and melting contrition. Then the soul can pray. “Behold he prayeth!” Then the sinner can pray to God as no longer vengeful and unforgiving; and can call on him by his chosen name, “The Lord, the Lord God merciful and gracious.” Then he can utter the petition which Christ has honored, “God be merciful to me a sinner I”

YI. It is an accepted prayer. Often, alas! we praj, and never afterward concern oSrselves, as to whether we have ben heard or not. The Pharisee is so sure of his own merits that he scarcely needs to ask. The Publican, whether he knows it or not, is heard and answered: “I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other.” Reader, it is a blessed thing to go from the sanctuary to the home with a justified soul: many have so gone; and you might so go. The whole need not a physician; the Pharisee sought no pardon; but they that are sick — the Publican — the sinner — such as you and I, make this the burden of prayer, and earnestly beseech God to show us this favor. Could you, as you now read, under a pressing, poignant sense of your own unwor. thiness, and transgression, and defilement, abandon all your good works, good intentions, and good feelings; and as a sinner, empty of all good, of all power, and of all preparation, could you, just as you are, look away from that dark chaos within you, on which you have been gazing, to the Lamb of God who taketh away the sin of the world; could you be all on a sudden withdrawn from looking self- ward to looking (7Amward, so as to be absorbed in the contemplation of an excellency, a love, a mercy, a grace, a forgivendfes, which ask no condition, and brook no bounds; and could you, in all your present sense of hardness, impenitency, and unpreparedness, flee forever from all your own deservings, and your own strivings, and cast yourself headlong into the ocean of divine love in Jesus Christ, crying, God be merciful to me a sinner! you would go down to your house justified. And how great a blessing would this be! for I have further to say of this petition.

Yir. It is the PRAYER OF A SAVED SOUL.

Has it not been heard? Has it not been answered? Has not Christ spoken the whole parable to teach this very thing? Has not the Publican gone down to his house justified? Has not God been merciful to him a sinner? Then of a truth he is forever saved I His sins, which were many, are forgiven, and he loves much and goes on his way rejoicing. Can any thing be more just cause of joy to a human soul than a consciousness of pardon

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GOD BE MERCIFUL TO ME A SINNER!

and divine acceptance? It is salvation begun. The assurance may not ensue upon the prayer. One may be in darkness and yet be a true believer. Those are not the safest Christians who boast of the most unchanging frames. Their comparisons of themselves with weaker brethren savor of the Pharisee’s gratulations. But the soul is safe, which has even once fled for refuge to lay hold on the hope set before it in the Gospel. Being joined to Christ it can not be disj oined. It is as pure from guilt as the blood of Christ can wash it. It is as righteous in the sight of law, as the righteousness of Christ can make it. He that spared not his own Son, can not withhold lesser gifts. “Whom he called, them he also justified; and whom he justified, them he also glorified.” To be justified, then, is to be saved. This must be admitted, unless you can produce some power able to effect a separation between the Head and the members: and what power shall this be? Tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, peril, sword, death, life, angels, principalities, powers, things present, things to come, height, depth, any other creature? nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors, through him that loved us! 90

0 sacred Head 1 now wounded,

With grief and shame weighed down;
Now scornfully surrounded

With thorns, thy only crown;
0 sacred Head I what glory.

What bliss till now was thine I
Yet, though despised and gory,

I joy to call thee mine.

0 noblest brow, and dearest I

In other days the world
All feared when thou appearedst;

What shame on Thee is hurled 1
How art thou pale with anguish.

With sore abuse and scorn;
How does that bosom languish

Which once was bright as morn.

The blushes late residing

Upon that holy cheek,
The roses once abiding

Upon those lips so meek;
Alas I they have departed;

Wan Death has rifled all!
For, weak and broken-hearted,

I see thy body fall.

What thou, my Lord, hast suffer, d

Was all for smners’ gain;
Mine, mine was the transgression,

But thine the deadly pain.
Lo I here I fall, my Saviour I

‘Tis I deserve thy place.
Look on me with t’ly favor,

Vouchsafe ti mc thy grace.

Receive me, my Redeemer,

My Shepherd, make me thine;
Of every good the fountain.

Thou art the spring of mine.
Thy lips with love distilling

And milk of truth sincere.
With heaven’s bliss are filling

The soul that trembles here.

Beside thee. Lord, I’ve taken

My place — forbid me not 1
Hence will I ne’er be shaken,

Though thou to death be brought.
If pain’s last paleness hold thee,

In agony opprest — Then, then will I enfold thee

“Within this arm and breast.

The joy can ne’er be spoken,

Above all joys beside,
When in thy body broken

I thus with safety hide.
My Lord of life, desiring

Thy glory now to see.
Beside the cross expiring

I’d breathe my soul to thee.

What language shall I borrow

To thank thee, dearest Friend,
For this, thy dying sorrow,

Thy pity without end I
0 make me thine forever 1

And should I fainting be,
Lord, let me never, never

Outlive my love to Thee,

Be near when I am dying,

0 show thy cross to me I
And for my succor flying,

Come, Lord, to set me free.
These eyes new faith receiving,

From Jesus shall not move,
For he who dies believing,

Dies safely through thy love.

Note. — The author of this translation, from Paul Ge’rhardt, desires to say that it has been frequently republished with changes and mutilations, which do great injustice to the German original. — A.