Scripture also often inculcates the same. In Ps. 143, 9: And enter not into judgment with Thy servant; for in Thy sight shall no man living be justified. This passage denies absolutely, even to all saints and servants of God, the glory of righteousness, if God does not forgive, but judges and convicts their hearts. For when David boasts in other places of his righteousness, he speaks concerning his own cause against the persecutors of God's Word, he does not speak of his personal purity; and he asks that the cause and glory of God be defended, as in Ps. 7, 8: Judge me, O Lord, according to Thy righteousness, and according to mine integrity that is in me. Likewise in Ps. 130, 3, he says that no one can endure God's judgment, if God were to mark our sins: If Thou, Lord, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand? Job 9, 28: I am afraid of all my sorrows [Vulg., opera, works]; v. 30: If I wash myself with snow-water, and make my hands never so clean, yet Thou shalt plunge me in the ditch. Prov. 20, 9: Who can say, I have made my heart clean, I am pure from my sin? 1 John 1, 8: If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us, etc. And in the Lord's Prayer the saints ask for the remission of sins. Therefore even the saints have sins. Num. 14, 18: The innocent shall not be innocent [cf. Ex. 34, 7]. Deut. 4, 24: The Lord, thy God, is a consuming fire. Zechariah also says, 2, 13: Be silent, O all flesh, before the Lord. Is. 40, 6: All flesh is as grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field; the grass withereth, the flower fadeth, because the Spirit of the Lord bloweth upon it, i. e., flesh and righteousness of the flesh cannot endure the judgment of God. Jonah also says, chap. 2, 8: They that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy, i.e., all confidence is vain, except confidence in mercy; mercy delivers us; our own merits, our own efforts, do not. Accordingly, Daniel also prays, 9, 18 sq.: For we do not present our supplications before Thee for our righteousnesses but for Thy great mercies. O Lord, hear; O Lord, forgive; O Lord, hearken and do it; defer not for Thine own sake, O my God; for Thy city and Thy people are called by Thy name. Thus Daniel teaches us in praying to lay hold upon mercy, i.e., to trust in God's mercy, and not to trust in our own merits before God. We also wonder what our adversaries do in prayer, if, indeed, the profane men ever ask anything of God. If they declare that they are worthy because they have love and good works, and ask for grace as a debt, they pray precisely like the Pharisee in Luke 18, 11, who says: I am not as other men are. He who thus prays for grace and does not rely upon God's mercy, treats Christ with dishonor, who, since He is our High Priest, intercedes for us. Thus, therefore, prayer relies upon God's mercy, when we believe that we are heard for the sake of