Chapter XL
A second demonstration, taken from the judgments of saints of themselves in
their confessions, both, 1. At their first conversions ; 2. In after-humblings
upon great occasions.
A second head of demonstration we may take from the auditbooks of the
saints, and the calculations they have left upon record in their free and un
forced confessions. And truly their judgment herein may well be taken by us ; for though God is greater than their hearts, yet their judgment of sin, and of the proportions thereof, is mostly regulated according as God judgeth
* convinceth them of sin, as well as of Christ s righteousness, and what true holiness is, John xvi. 9-10.
(that is, they in their measure), by the Spirit that
1 The knowledge of the holy is understanding, Prov. xi. 10, and especially in
their estimate of sinnings and the rates thereof, into which even natural con
science sees very far, and is as the candle of the Lord, that searcheth the chambers of the belly, Prov. xx. 27 ; but the Spirit s conviction goes and
searcheth far beyond it. This estimate we may take either from the conviction of saints at their first
conversions, or afterwards upon God s visitations of them for sin, and their
deepest humiliations for both.
CHAP. XL] IN RESPECT OF SIN AND PUNISHMENT. 475
I. The confessions of men converted. The greatest convert in the Old Testament was Manasseh, 2 Chron. xxxiii ; the greatest convert in the New was Saul,* and made by conversion one of the greatest apostles.
1. Manasseh. He is commonly reckoned the greatest sinner that was pardoned in the Old Testament, whose transcending wickedness we may read, 2 Chron. xxxiii. from verse 2 to verse 11, and more largely, 2 Kings xxi., from verse 2 to verse 17. And his sins were of the deepest grain, and most heinous nature that could be, as witchcrafts, dealings with the devil, heathenish
idolatry set up in the very temple, in which God had said, I will put my name ; yea, abominations above all that the Amorites did which were before him, and causing Judah to
* do worse than the heathen whom God had destroyed ; shedding also innocent blood from one end of Jerusalem to the other. But Manasseh, after all this, humbled himself greatly before God, &c., and prayed to him, and God was entreated of him.
Now, if we consult that prayer said to be his (which yet was perhaps but the collection of some broken parts of it let down by tradition, and set toge ther by some other), though reckoned among Apocrypha, yet (as Junius
says) is pious, and certainly expresseth the true sense of a deeply-humbled soul. Now, his confessions there run not upon the heinous part of his sins, as such, but upon the many
: ver. 9, For I have sinned above the number of the sands of the sea : my transgressions, Lord, are multiplied, my trans
gressions are exceeding many ; I am not worthy to behold and see the height of the heavens for the multitude of my unrighteousness. The prophet Isaiah had a little before compared the wicked to the raging sea that casts up mire and dirt, for the tumultuousness of it ; and Manasseh, not long after, com
pares his sins to the sands of the sea (which the sea continually casts up), for the number of them.
In the New Testament I exemplified this before in that great sinner and
convert, the woman of Nain.
2. That great convert and apostle that styled himself the chiefest of
sinners and least of saints, view we the account he gives of his humilia
tions at his conversion ; and though in one place he reckons up his talent-
sins, I was a blasphemer, persecutor, and injurious, namely, to the saints,
yet in another place, we find he reckons only those that were minutes, his
farthing sins, as those wherein the multitude of sins is most conspicuous, viz. the abounding of all inward lusts and concupiscence in his heart,
* all manner of concupiscence, Kom. vii. 8, and in verse 5 he mentions chiefly the motions or passions (as he there styles them for their violence) ; that is, of such sins as continually boiled and
* wrought in his members to bring forth fruit to death. And it is the account of such sins which is the total he in that place gives, which yet he professedly speaks of to have been those which deeply humbled him at his first conversion, as in that other to Timothy he had done of his more heinous sins ; yea, in this to the Romans his intent
is more setly to declare that special work of conviction of sin and humiliation, which at conversion is had by the law.
II. Go we to saints alter their conversion. God hath been pleased to enter into heavy reckonings with his best ser
vants after conversion, as with Job ; chap. xiii. 26, 27, For thou writest bitter
things against me, and makest me to possess the iniquities of my youth ; and ver. 27, Thou puttest also my feet into the stocks, and lookest nar
rowly to all my paths ; thou settest a print upon the heels of my feet ; that
is, exactly observest me, and settest an impression upon my conscience of
the iniquity of my heels, speaking of himself in that expression of setting a
* Acts viii. 1, and ix. 4, Saul, Saul, why persecutes! thou me ?
476 AN UNREGENERATE MAN S GUILTINESS BEFORE GOD, [BOOK XI.
print on his heels, in the same kind of phrase as we use to do of one
arraigned at the bar, where he hath been burnt in the hand. The like account we find made by God with David, Ps. vi. 1 , 2, and xcviii. 4. Take we the holiest and best of saints we can pick and choose. Solo mon s instance we have heard, but we will instance in greater and holier than he.
Let Job first, who is one of God s three worthies in God s own judgment of men under the Old Testament ; I say, let Job first come in as the fore man of this jury to deliver the verdict, in the name of all men else that have been or shall be, though never so holy, chap. ix. 2, 3 ; a chapter wherein,
if ever in the whole Bible, you will view a saint divesting himself of and
throwing away his own righteousness, behold it there in Job, in the renun
ciation of which he comes not a whit behind that most humbled of saints :
Phil. iii. 8, 9, I account all things but loss, &c., not having mine own
righteousness, &c. Read that whole chapter of Job, and observe his deep
* I know it is so of a truth : but how should man be just with God ? If he will contend with him, he cannot answer him one of a thousand ; and then in verse 20, 21, If I justify myself, mine own mouth shall condemn me, (for I sin in every word, and my mouth would condemn me whilst I should speak it) ; If I say I am perfect, it shall also
expressions, first in verses 2, 3,
: yea, though I were perfect, yet would I not know my own soul ; in which latter clause I understand the pulse of his heart to beat
prove me perverse
* Though I know nothing by myself, yet I am not thereby justified, 1 Cor. iv. 4 ; for
the same, if not deeper, than the holy apostle s did, when he said,
Job, with a greater vehemency and indignation, professeth that, if he could
suppose himself never so perfect, yet he would not know his own soul, that
is, as to its having any such perfection in it ; he would take no cognisance of it, he would not entertain one thought of it, nor cast a reflection or one look upon, or have the least regard thereto, that is, so as to stand upon it.
* I would despise my life ; his sense wherein is, either that he would much more despise his former life, which had been so mixed with
It follows,
sin, or else, that if for the future he could continue in that perfection, he should despise even that also ; all which he speaks as in relation to his being
justified thereby afore God, having once been a sinner against God; for that
to be his scope, his conclusion he lays in the 2d verse, which leads on the matter of that gallant chapter as the main argument of it, evidently shews, where he thus begins, How should a man be just with God ? Just, that
is, justified at God s tribunal ; for otherwise, as to that other part of righteous ness, of truth of heart, sincerity, and uprightness, whereby a man that is jus
tified is truly but imperfectly sanctified, we find him afore and after this to
stand upon his points sufficiently ; but, corning to speak of this righteousness of justification he knows not his own soul.
Now, this premised, the words that I seize on, as to my purpose, are
those in ver. 2, How should a man be just with God ? If he will contend with him, he cannot answer him one of a thousand. And truly, if Job had known but any one action by himself, wherein wholly to justify himself, which he had found firm under him, and himself free from sin in it, he would have stood upon that too, as we may perceive by the stoutness of his spirit in those other intercourses betwixt God and himself which follow, wherein
yet we only find that he pleads and insists upon the truth and sincerity of
his heart in his actings, but nowhere doth he stand upon a freedom from sin
in any one act. And what in this passage he acknowledgeth, he does it out
of his having made a sad and experimental survey and trial of this matter :
I know it of a truth.
CHAP. XI.] IN EESPECT OF SIN AND PUNISHMENT. 477
This phrase, one of a thousand, at first sound to English ears might seem but a diminution, and a speaking within compass, as we use to say, that is, as if in some acts, though scarce one of a thousand, that is, of many, when
yet perhaps of twenty thousand, or a vaster sum, Job might have picked out some one to have stood upon terms with God about, and how that he had not sinned therein. But Job s scope and mind is absolutely and utterly to deny that he could in any one thing whatever, in his whole life, acquit him
self, and therefore falls down as deficient, and obnoxious in all some way or other.
And, first, that the phrase, one of a thousand, should import thus much, a thousand being a perfect or periodical number, is put to express all,-, and any the greatest number that can be supposed, be it what it will be ; and so one of a thousand should be as much as to say, not one of all, or not one at
all. Yea, saith Aquinas,* a thousand is put for an infinite number, for, as he observes, there being between one and a thousand no proportion, a thou sand is therefore at random used to express a number numberless, an infinite-
ness, such as a man s thoughts who hears it gives up the accounting of, as of a sum that is without bounds or limits ; and so it comes to this, that I cannot answer God one (no not one) of all the innumerable actings of mv heart and life. And truly, if this import had not been in the phrase ofthose times intended, then it would follow, when, in the like tenor of speech, Christ in the book of Canticles is extolled by the spouse as the chiefest of ten thousand, her meaning must have admitted, or at least have left a sup position, that yet perhaps one amongst twenty thousand might have been found to match him ; but her scope therein is to extol him absolutely, and so as to exclude and shut out the infinity of all other worthies or eminencies that have been, or can be supposed to be : so here. Or else, secondly (which I as readily judge may be the purport of that phrase and Job s intendment), that holy Job having upon this heavy affliction, and at other times often before examined and viewed over his whole life as it were by thousands, that
is, by parts and piecemeal, sometimes this and sometimes that heap of actions as they had been acting ; sorted as it were into several thousands, as
several heaps of coin use to be ; and that he had sometimes singled forth
this, then that week s actions, in every of which a man s soul or mind coineth thousands of smaller or lesser pieces, that is, of thoughts, affections, inten
tions, desires, and ends ; and that yet he should, upon the survey and issue, find that he could not find so much as one, no, nor one of those heaps of thousands that were wholly pure gold or pure silver for the substance of them ; but so as clip any of them where he would, yea, single forth what he had judged the purest out of any parcel, still he discovered some dross
or false metal mingled in it, even in any one of them whatever ; or at least
that that one was otherwise some way deficient, as in weight, &c., some way
or other rendered not perfect current. Yea, let us make these two further
suppositions, that he had by choice singled forth some day or week wherein
his heart had been kept, and wound up to the holiest and intensest frame of communion with God and holy walking. Or, furthermore, that he had by a
yet more refined elective discretion or discernment, culled forth a thousand
actions out of all the heaps, the million of millions of his whole life, as hop
ing to have found some one at least of this last choice selected thousand * Inter unum et mille nulla est determinata proportio
: millenarins nutnerus pro infinite sunntur; itaque signin cari nulla nuineri specie aut mensura exprimi posse. Which, although Pineda in Job ix. 3, num. 3, thinks this of Aquinus to be iiimis
argulum in him, yet his fellow Sanctius falls in with it. Si Dens niillr, id cst. infijiita
objecerit, quse damnare vult ; homo nou habebit quod illorum uni possit honestire-
spundere. Com, in Job ix. 3.
478 AN UNREGENERATE MAN S GUILTINESS BEFORE GOD, [BOOK XT.
which he might have stood upon. No; Job had experimented it in all these or the like ways so far and so often, and every way so much, as he is now confounded, and despaireth of any essays that should anew be made of this
kind, and yields, therefore, as convicted in the whole, that he could not answer God in one of such a thousand, or all the thousand thousands of life, and professeth to speak this knowingly, and as one that had experimented
it thus often, I know it is so of a truth. And as Solomon said of his own, having experienced that all was vanity, What can the man do (that way) * that cometh after the king ? so, in point of justifying his actions, thoughts, or speeches, or any one of them, Who can come after holy Job ? of whom God pronounced a non-such. They can do no more than what hath been done already, but fall down all must, and say, We cannot answer thee, Lord, in one of all in our whole lives.
If the objection be, that it is barely said that but in many things we offend all, and not in all and every action, Am. It is true that we do not sin in all and every action, but then we must understand it, as the apostle there doth intend that speech, namely, that take such actions as for the matter and substance of the act, are such as
are against the very outward letter of the law, as to speak evilly of others, or idle words, &c., and in that sense God forbid that it should be thought that saints do sin in all and every action, namely, such sins as these ; though in many actions, greater or smaller, even that are such sins, the saints may and are found to err and slip more or less. But that which we have been
speaking of out of Job is, that in the best actions, yea, if we could suppose a saint never outwardly to sin in what is materially sinful, but always to
think, speak, or do what is substantially holy and good, yet there is and will be that adjacent sinfulness found cleaving to all such actings, even to our
sincerest affections and intentions ; or, at least, there is a deficiency of that
holiness that should be in them, as will cause any holy man that shall com mune with his own heart to cry out, I cannot answer thee, Lord, one of
all. And that is it which Job extends his speech unto. And it is apparent that that maxim, in the coherence of it, was uttered about such offences as the
critical eye of men may observe in one another, to be sinful in the outward
appearance of them, and so not of such as in the utmost extent are betwixt God and us, and which he observes in us, for the apostle s scope was thereby to retund the masterly arrogance of men that would take on them to censure
others for any visible infirmity their censorious eye could discern. Be not many masters, says he, for in many things we all offend, though some very small ; and therefore be not thus prying and censorious in marking what ye may espy to be amiss in one another, for then every man must be continu
ally reproving one another.
Next, David. There are two sorts of visitations from God, and discoveries of sin set
upon the hearts of his people. 1. Such as are joined with wrath and dis
pleasure. 2. Such as are more gentle, and are sweeter illapses of light about
our sinfulness. David had experience of each : he had many and frequent visitations from God by way of rebuke for sin, and sometimes such as were
joined with wrath ; as Ps. xxxviii. 1, Lord, rebuke me not in thy wrath ; verse 4,
* Mine iniquities are gone over mine head, as an heavy burden they are too heavy for me. Such visitations usually are for gross and more hein
ous sins. But at other times he was visited with more mild and still rebukes and discoveries of his sins, which, as they are more calm, so prove more
deep and thorough discoveries. Under the first, the soul is as the air in a
storm, disturbed and muddied, in a hurry, and so sins are presented more
CHAP. XI.] IN KESPECT OF SIN AND PUNISHMENT. 479
dimly and darkly, and with an horror ; but in the latter it is with the saints as in a sunshiny day without clouds, in the shine whereof the smaller motes and minutes of sinfulness are easily discerned through the pureness of the
light let into, and quietness of the soul.
Now at and upon such a time it was, whenas David s soul had been taken up into a holy contemplation and admiration of the perfection, purity, and
enlightening power of the law, Ps xix. 7, 8, and so on ; in the midst thereof he cries out,
* Who can understand his errors ? cleanse thou me from secret sins. And what was the matter caused him so to do, that is, thus to divert ? That which befell him was, that whilst his mind was environed about with this admiration of the glory of the word and law, which now shone through and through his soul, the Holy Spirit did turn his eyes, and caused him to cast them down upon that rriv eunzgiGraTov a^a^iav, Heb. xii. 1, The cor
ruption that surrounded him ; and he having been first let into this clear
surrounding light of the law (by which comes the knowledge of sin, Rom.
iii. 20), he thereby saw and penetrated far, even to an infinite distance, into the deep chaos of his own heart, and far farther than ever he had done be
fore. And as when the sun shineth into a Jakes in a clear summer s day, one s eye may discern thousands of small crawling creatures, vermin en
gendered in that filth, which else had, and at all other times do pass one s
sight ; so here it fell out. As it did also with the apostle, Rom. vii., When the law, says he,
* came, that is, a new and spiritual light of it, in upon his
* all concupiscence had wrought in him And thus it was with David ; such an innumerable company of sins appeared to him, as caused him
soul, he saw
abruptly to cry out, Who can understand his errors ? And observe, that he utters not this of himself and of his own particular alone, as if he spake what he saw his own sins for multitude to be, though upon occasion thereof, but he speaks in the persons of all or any the greatest or most discerning saint or saints, that was or should ever be in the world ; and saith not only, who doth, or who shall understand his errors ? but who can ? And thus the rise and reference of this his speech from and with the fore
going passages in the psalm, may be understood to have been either, 1, that from a fresh prospect and view of all those sins, whereof he had in former times the conviction, all along in his life, by parcels, as they had been com
mitted, that now came to be represented together, and rendezvoused before him in one general muster ; and sometimes the Holy Spirit of God makes to
his people s apprehensions, a quick, sudden, and large scheme and prospect of
their forepast sins (as Satan did of the glory of the world), and upon such a
view, these his sins might arise in his apprehension to such a vast heap and
sum, as utterly passed all comprehension ; or else, 2, it may import such a
discovery made to him of sins, which he had never descried before, but which
by the light of that brighter beam that had now visited his soul, did appear to be an infinite number, and so that thereupon it was from this new experi ment that .he should infer and pronounce this,
* Who can understand his
errors ? And if this latter be intended, his inference and collection there
upon was very just ; for although he had digged deep into his heart before,
yet now he had discovered a new mine. And in reference to this sense it may well be thought it was, that in the next words he terms them hidden or
secret sins. Why, but because he had now discovered such as had been hidden
to him, and never discerned before ? And thus by comparing his former con
victions and his new experiment together, he had the greatest reason to cry
out, Who can understand his errors ? for having but even now seen the law
of God to be so perfect, and likewise all his former knowledge of sin to have
fallen so short of what he now had anew attained thereby, he might well con-
480 AN UNREGENERATE MAN S GUILTINESS BEFORE GOD, [BOOK XI.
elude from thence, Oh, how am I still infinitely defective, and to seek in the
knowledge of myself! and might therefore think with himself, there may,
yea, and there do yet lie hid a great multitude of sins behind, as utterly still unknown by me, as there had done afore, even swarms of hidden sins I never imagined to have been in me ; and thereupon to judge, I am yet as
far off, or as far to seek as ever. Even as it is with a deeply knowing man
in point of learning, who, observing that the farther he wades into it, the
farther off he is (as Solomon himself, in Eccles. vii. 23, I said, I will be
wise, but it was far from me ) he therefore concludes, that the most of what he knows is but the least part of what he yet doth not know. Thus David here in point of knowing himself. And hence it was that he adds, Cleanse me from secret sins, that is, that are as yet utterly secret to myself, which himself had never as yet been privy to, nor was ever like to be in this life ; which yet defiled him.
So that it falls out in this our discovery of sins, like to what is made of
the stars (under the numberless number of which the Scripture often express-
eth any innumerable multitude), the multitudes of unseen stars are far more than the visible ones. Skilful astronomers have told the number of those
that are visible, and yet the Scriptures tell us more certainly that the stars
are so infinitely many, that it is an appropriate honour to God alone to know
the number of them : Ps. cxlvii. 4, 5, He calls them all by their names. The angels (though of heaven) are not able to make a dictionary of them ; and therefore this must be spoken in respect of stars that are unseen by us, which must therefore indeed be innumerable. That large tract, the milky way, that runs thwart the heavens, is discerned to be but a conglomeration of so many small stars, like a long causeway strewed thick with small sparks of
diamonds, (the heavens Maldivte I call them, in allusion unto those thousand
small islands that, like mole-hills or small tufts of earth, stand thick to
gether in the Indian Sea, and stretch out into a great length) which we can not discern to be distinct stars by any several twinklings, and yet they cause
that gleam. In like manner the Pleiades (or seven stars, as we call them, because no more ordinarily appear) are discovered to be in all seventy-two ; an heavenly septuagint of lights and sweet infiuencers, as God himself (Job xxxviii. 31) speaks of them. And thus it is with godly men s sins and their own discoveries of them, the secret or hidden ones (as David here terms them) do infinitely far exceed the known or those that are conspicuous, until their
spiritual sight is elevated by some new telescope or fresh illumination of the
Spirit, presenting them to their view ; and yet then that sight also falls
infinitely short of what they are in an abounding of them in our hearts and
lives.
If we will further inquire what kind of sins they were, the apparition of which had at that time surprised holy David, and most amazed him with their multitude ; it appears they were of the smaller sort of sins, they were sins had cleaved to his tongue (which the apostle so complains of), and also the inward sins of his thoughts. Thus much his prayer (that was occasioned by this new sight of his sins) which followeth, shews, the malady is known by the remedy. Now in his prayer that follows thereupon, he instantly seeketh,
* Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight ; by the light of which coherence I gather, that it being the
contrary holiness unto that abounding corruption which is found to be in
speeches and thoughts, that was the thing he sought for, that therefore the
secret sins he had now been thus convinced of had especially lain hid in these two ways of sinning, and had so exceedingly abounded in times past in him, and therefore he calls upon God for so special a remedy against these two, in
CflAP. XI.] IN RESPECT OF SIN AND PUNISHMENT. 481
these words, Lord my strength and my Redeemer. First, he calls upon God as a redeemer for the pardon of these sins past, as needing plenteous redemption for the multitude of them, Ps. cxxx. 7, 8; as also that he might be redeemed out of that corruption, the power whereof had and did incline him so much to sin in these two ways ; and then that his thoughts and
speeches might for time to come be formed and framed, through God s
strength and assistance, Lord my strength, in such manner, as they might be acceptable to God, which he had now seen to have been so abominable unto God ; for which also he abhorred himself. I shall but add to this instance that other in Ps. xl. 12,
* Innumerable
evils have encompassed me about, mine iniquities have taken hold on me, so that I am not able to look up ; they are more than the hairs of my head, therefore my heart faileth me. Which, whether spoken by David of himself
only, or of Christ (for whom purposely some passages in the psalm were made, compare vers. 6-8 with Heb. x. 5-9), when God did lay upon him the
iniquity of us all, or of both, the one in the type, the other in the antitype, I
will here waive the dispute of ; we will for the present understand it as spoken by David of himself. And then there is that obvious in it, which is full to our purpose in hand, that it was the multitude of his sins which he intendeth, as appears by his multiplying expressions to set forth that multitude.
1. He says they are innumerable : innumerable evils have encompassed me. These evils were his sins, miseries, and troubles in his spirit for his
sins ; for in explaining himself he subjoins, My iniquities have taken hold
of me, The original is, usque ad nan nuwerum, multiplied till they surpass all number.
2. He says they came over him, yea, over his head : circumdedenmt super me, they besieged me. The allusion is to an army, that first besiegeth round about ; but, secondly, to such an army as besiegeth over head too, for what here is said to be super me, over me, is in Psalm xxxviii. 4 thus expressed (speaking of his sins), they came over my head, which is an unheard-of way of besiegement, such as other enemies are not wont to.
3. If you inquire the space and room they take up over our heads, or how
high they planted their siege over his head (by which we may estimate their
multitude), it is elsewhere told us that they are so many as are piled up, and reach as high as heaven, and so fill up that infinite eocpamum over our
heads. This addition we find Ezra ix. 4, fcOur iniquities are increased over our head, and our guiltiness is grown up unto the heavens ; as if you could suppose an heap, which at first was but small, were yet so increased
by being added to continually, that it grew so high as it reached up to heaven
itself; thus here. Those spiritual wickednesses, our enemies the devils, do
environ us over our heads indeed, and assail us, yet they are confined to the lower regions of the air ; but sins extend to heaven.
4. No wonder then that if he says, I am not able to look up, that is, I
cannot know them ; for so those words thus translated / cannot look up, are
rendered by most, et non potui ut viderem, I could not see nor descry them.
5. He addeth an expression more familiar to vulgar ears, They are more
than the hairs of mine head ; which, though in reality would seem far less
expressive of a multitude than the former, for the hairs of any man s head may de facto be numbered by man, yet because proverbially it was used to
set out any innumerable multitude, as that not one of a thousand you heard
also was ; and this suiting best to popular ears, he therefore addeth it. This
for the multitude of them.
The effect hereof follows, Therefore my heart fails. It is not, you see, VOL. x. H h
482 AN UNBEGENERATE MAN S GUILTINESS BEFORE GOD,
so much the heinousness of his sins is mentioned or insisted on, as the in
finite number he saw, and beyond what he could see, that has the therefore put upon it : Therefore my heart fails, or sinks ; that was it which appalled him. He had compared them to an army, and it is the multitude in an army (when orderly set and well armed) that hath the terror in it, although also some Goliaths may be among the multitude. This we find in Scripture ; as
1 Sam. xiii., The Philistines gathered themselves together, thirty thousand
chariots, and six thousand horsemen, and people as the sand of the sea for
multitude, ver. 5 ; which when the men of Israel saw, it is said they hid
themselves in caves and in rocks, &c., vers. 6, 7. Now, the day is coming wherein God himself will
* set thy sins in order
before thee/ as Ps. 1., as an army in full battalia, or battle array. And how
will thy heart, even the stoutest heart of any of the sons of men, sink when
it sees the multitude of small sins, as the infantry, to be for multitude more than the sands of the sea ; and then great sins, as millions of chariots and
horsemen, how wilt thou in that day call upon the rocks to cover thee, and
the cliffs to hide thee !