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The multitude of Your tender mercies
(J. C. Philpot, "Man's
Misery and God's Mercy" 1867)
"Have mercy upon me, O God, according to Your
loving-kindness—according unto the multitude of
Your tender mercies blot out my transgressions."
Psalm 51:1
What a sweet expression it is—and how it seems
to convey to our mind that God's mercies do not
fall 'drop by drop'—but are as innumerable . . ..
as the sand upon the sea-shore;
as the stars that stud the midnight sky;
as the drops of rain that fill the clouds before
they discharge their copious showers upon the earth.
It is the multitude of His mercies that makes Him so
merciful a God. He does not give but a drop or two of
mercy—that would soon be gone, like the rain which
fell this morning under the hot sun. But His mercies
flow like a river! There is in Him . . .
a multitude of mercies,
for a multitude of sins,
and a multitude of sinners!
This felt and received in the love of it—breaks, humbles,
softens, and melts a sensible sinner's heart—and he says,
"What, sin against such mercies? What, when the Lord has
remembered me in my low estate, and manifested once
more a sense of His mercy? What, shall I go on to provoke
Him again—walk inconsistently again—be entangled in
Satan's snares again? O, forbid it God, forbid it gospel,
forbid it tender conscience, forbid it every constraint of
dying love!"
"Have mercy upon me, O God, according to Your
loving-kindness—according unto the multitude of
Your tender mercies blot out my transgressions."
Psalm 51:1
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