Proverbs 22

The covetous, the man who is under the dominion of the love of money, “shall not inherit the kingdom of God.” He may not have been an extortioner; but he was a lover of money. He may not have been fraudulent; but he was a lover of money. “He shall not inherit the kingdom of God.” He has had his day and his object. He has sought and may have accumulated earthly possessions. By their instrumentality he may have gratified many other appetites and desires. But he did not seek first the kingdom of God; therefore he shall not obtain it. He “loved the world;” therefore he “shall perish with the world.” He has wilfully bartered his soul for money. Gisborne.

27. The offering of the wicked is in itself unacceptable, because he cherishes neither love nor reverence for God. But when he brings it for the direct purpose of fraud, it becomes still more odious. M. S.

30,31. Two companion-proverbs. Nothing avails against, nothing without, God. The horse appears here, as elsewhere in the Old Testament, as the type of warlike strength, used chiefly or exclusively in battle. E. H. P.—All the boasted preparations of man for victory in battle are vain without the help of God, to whom belongeth victory or deliverance. This expands the sentiment of the preceding verse. M. S.

1. A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches,

And loving favour rather than silver and gold.

2. The rich and the poor meet together:

The LORD is the maker of them all.

3. A prudent man seeth the evil, and hideth himself:

But the simple pass on, and suffer for it.

4. The reward of humility and the fear of the LORD

Is riches, and honour, and life.

5. Thorns and snares are in the way of the froward:

He that keepeth his soul shall be far from them.

6. Train up a child in the way he should go, And even when he is old he will not depart from it.

7. The rich ruleth over the poor, And the borrower is servant to the lender.

8. He that soweth iniquity shall reap calamity: And the rod of his wrath shall fail.

9. He that hath a bountiful eye shall be blessed;

For he giveth of his bread to the poor.

10. Cast out the scorner, and contention shall go out;

Yea, strife and ignominy shall cease.

11. He that loveth pureness of heart, For the grace of his lips the king shall be his friend.

12. The eyes of the LORD preserve him that hath knowledge,

But he overthroweth the words of the treacherous man.

13. The sluggard saith, There is a lion without: I shall be slain in the streets.

14. The mouth of strange women is a deep pit: He that is abhorred of the LORD shall fall therein. 15 Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child; But the rod of correction shall drive it far from him. 16 He that oppresseth the poor to increase his gain, And he that giveth to the rich, cometh only to want. 17 Incline thine ear, and hear the words of the wise, And apply thine heart unto my knowledge. 18 For it is a pleasant thing if thou keep them within thee, If they be established together upon thy lips. 19 That thy trust may be in the LORD, I have made them known to thee this day, even to thee. 20 Have not I written unto thee excellent things Of counsels and knowledge;

21. To make thee know the certainty of the words of truth, That thou mayest carry back words of truth to them that send thee? 22 Rob not the poor, because he is poor, Neither oppress the afflicted in the gate: 23 For the LORD will plead their cause, And despoil of life those that despoil them. 24 Make no friendship with a man that is given to anger; And with a wrathful man thou shalt not go: 25 Lest thou learn his ways, And get a snare to thy soul. 26 Be thou not one of them that strike hands, Or of them that are sureties for debts: 27 If thou hast not wherewith to pay, Why should he take away thy bed from under thee? 28 Remove not the ancient landmark, Which thy fathers have set. 29 Seest thou a man diligent in his business? he shall stand before kings; He shall not stand before mean men.

1. A NAME truly good is the aroma from virtuous character. It is a spontaneous emanation from genuine excellence. It is a reputation for whatsoever things are honest, and lovely, and of good report. It is such a name as is not only remembered on earth, but written in heaven. Hamilton.—A man may desire the approbation and love of friends whom he esteems virtuous and wise. It is inseparable from love to wish to be beloved by its object, and a tender conscience is naturally pleased with the approbation of the wise and good. Both of these principles seem to be here approved by Solomon. But to wish for the “loving favor” of those we love, and a “good name” among the virtuous and wise, is quite a different thing from a general thirst for distinction—a sickly craving for admiration and applause. E. D. Griffin.—A good name is intrinsically precious; but enslaved indeed is he who suspends his peace and comfort on the breeze of popular opinion. Now moral courage, resting on a sure and holy basis, treats with indifference the noisy censure or disesteem of ungodly men. It dares to act alone, and holds its head erect, and soul in high and noble dignity. Jabez Burns.

If a good name be more precious than great riches, no greater injury can be inflicted upon men than to wound their reputation. A heathen once said: “The slanderer is the most terrible of wild beasts.” Anon.—The citizen of Zion knows the worth of a good name, therefore he backbites not, defames no man, speaks evil of no man, makes not their faults the subject of his common talk, much less of his ridicule; nor speaks of them at all but for edification. He makes the best of everybody and the worst of nobody. H—Good men often outlive their bad names. They conquer by God’s help a place of honor for themselves in the judgment of coming times. As the heathen of the first age who called Christians the enemies of the human race were grievously in an error, so it has been since; the world’s supposed enemies have been its true friends, and are owned as such when the tongues that maligned them have been silenced by death, and the reputations that were built on their disparagement are blasted. Thus time, God’s minister, corrects mistakes. T. D. W.

2. The course of Providence mingles the rich and the poor together everywhere. Therefore let each remember that the same God is the one Maker and Lord of both classes, and will protect each and all in their respective rights. H. C.—And let both remember that respect, consideration, and sympathy are due from each to the other. B.

The Lord is the Maker of them all. The sacred writer thus introduces all of us into an equal and common relation to God, who is the great parent of us all. We are the creatures of the same hand, the subjects of the same government; we occupy the same economy of Divine providence and grace; and, as to our destination, we all stand in relation to the same future and eternal state of being. Yet these two divisions of society have existed in every period. It is impossible to avoid them, and any attempt to establish an equality of possessions in the present world would be replete with disappointment, confusion, rapine, and misery. The greatest disturbances mankind has ever experienced have arisen from abortive attempts of this nature; nor can any one seriously consider the causes from which these two conditions of society spring, but he must despair of ever realizing anything like equality or anything approaching to equality, as to the possessions and enjoyments of the present state. R. Hall.

The Bible does not teach communism; it preaches brotherhood. And the remedies which it proposes for poverty are not chronic spoliation, nor an impossible, self-destructive leveling down, but the recognition of the right relationship as toward God and between men. Work, help, love, these are the liberté, égalité, fraternité of the Bible; its panacea for the ills of society. A more difficult formula this than the other, which is mostly straw-fire, by which “society” can neither warm nor feed itself. A. E.—In that personal revelation of the living Word, the Incarnation, we find the most absolute of all possible prohibitions of all partialities in the Church—of race or nation, color or rank, property or environment. Why? Because what Christ took upon Him to make Him a Mediator was humanity, simple, whole, undivided. There is no piecing it off among classes any more than among nationalities. If it could be apportioned, graded by any Blue Book, stamped by any society-mark, classified by any sociology or anthropology, the mediatorial glory would be gone because the reality would be gone, and the light of the world would be eclipsed. F. D. H.

Both rich and poor are one at the centre. The differences are reciprocal and transient, while the points of agreement are permanent. The rich are essential to the poor; the poor to the rich. The glory of our age is that the differences between these classes are being obliterated. They are meeting together. Our souls are being lifted to a comprehension of this exalted ideal of the Scriptures. True, says Christ, the poor ye shall have always with you; but we are realizing that they are essentially one with the rich, that God is the maker of all. R. S. S.—The rich and poor are brethren. The feelings and interests which they have in common are far more weighty than those outward circumstances that divide them. Rich and poor are equal when they stand at the foot of the Redeemer’s cross, craving pardon for their sins; seeking His righteousness to cover their uncleanness. They are equal when they come before God to worship. They are equal when both shall stand before the judgment-seat of God. Archbishop Thomson.—Riches are no reproach and poverty is no merit; but the pride so apt to be bred of riches, the idleness, the injustice, the selfishness so often associated with them, is what God likes to reprove; and the graces that may be found in the poor man’s home, the unwearied devotion to duty, the neighborliness and brotherly love, and above all the faith, the hope, and the charity are what He delights to honor. W. G. B.

3. The sense of the word rendered “prudent” is wary, forethoughtful, sagacious—the very qualities of mind which foresee impending evils. The “simple” here are the credulous, the men who are open to all temptations. “Passing on” is less strong than the Hebrew, which means they pass over—in this case, the line of prudence. Of course they meet their reward. H. C.

We say, forewarned, forearmed. It is a proverb of deep meaning. A man warned of an evil, which is not inevitable, may avoid it; he has the means of avoiding it if he will apply them. And even if the evil be inevitable, yet still, being forewarned he is forearmed, and may be prepared to encounter it, so that when it comes he may bear up manfully, and by the provisions he has been enabled to make, in the time given him for such preparation, may come forth, if not absolutely triumphant, yet not destroyed, nor fatally injured. Nay, the wise and earnest grappling with inevitable evil, and the patient endurance of it when it comes, the preparation for it as foreseen, and the discipline in passing through it, may be a great benefit to his character; and on the whole, the evil, he being forewarned of it, and having acted the part of a wise and noble nature in meeting and bearing it, may be an absolute blessing. Cheever.

4. Religion does very much consist in humility and the fear of the Lord—that is, walking humbly with God, we so reverence God’s majesty and authority as to submit with all humility to the commands of his Word and the disposals of His providence. We have such low thoughts of ourselves as to behave humbly toward God and man. Where the fear of God is there will be humility. And there is gotten by it riches and honor, comfort and long life in this world, as far as God sees good; at least, spiritual riches and honor in the favor of God and the promises and privileges of the covenant of grace, and eternal life at last. H.—If thou desire the love of God and man, be humble; for the proud heart, as it loves none but itself, so it is beloved of none but itself. The voice of humility is God’s music, and the silence of humility is God’s rhetoric. Humility enforces where neither virtue nor strength can prevail, nor reason. Quarles.

Beyond controversy, humility is indispensable to the true life of the soul. There are graces which may be given or withheld; there are experiences, assurances, raptures, ecstasies. But no man ever went to heaven without learning humility on this side of the grave. Without humility, a contrite heart and a prevailing prayer for pardon are impossible. It is only when the proud heart is broken that a man casts himself at the feet of our crucified Saviour, to pray for the atoning stream of blood which may wash out his deep stains of guilt, and give him peace in giving him pardon. Without humility religious progress is impossible. The true growth of the soul is not to be measured by our attempting many extraordinary duties, but by our power of doing simple duties well; and humility, when it reigns in the soul, carries this principle into practice. It bids us hallow our work, especially whatever may be to us hard or distasteful work, by doing it as a matter of principle. It bids us, when on our knees, use simple prayers. It enriches common acts of neighborly and social kindness with that intensity of moral effort which is due to every act of which the deepest moving power is the love of God. Without humility no soul that has turned to God and is learning to serve Him is for a moment safe. The whole life of the living soul is the work of Divine grace; and while pride claims merit for self, and therefore goes before a fall, humility confesses, day by day, “By the grace of God I am what I am.” For humility is the condition and guarantee of grace; and, as Augustine says, there is no reason, apart from the grace of God, why the highest saint should not be the worst of criminals. H. P. L.

6. Train up a child. It is common sense to put the seal to the wax while it is soft; to go to the fountain-head, and guide the current of the stream; and to lay hold upon the young tendrils of the shooting vine, and to train them as we would have them to go. Jackson.—It is the law of the human nature that, when it is beginning to grow, it shall be soft as wax to receive all kinds of impressions, and then that it shall gradually stiffen and become hard as adamant to retain them. In our great museums you see stone slabs with the marks of rain that fell hundreds of years before Adam lived; and the footprint of some wild bird that passed across the beach in those old, old times. The passing shower and the light foot left their prints on the soft sediment; then ages went on, and it has hardened into stone; and there they remain and will remain forevermore. That is like a man’s spirit; in the childish days so soft, so susceptible to all impressions, so joyous to receive new ideas, treasuring them all up, gathering them all into itself, retaining them all forever. And then, as years go on, habit, the growth of the soul into steadiness and power, and many other reasons beside, gradually make us less and less capable of being profoundly and permanently influenced by anything outside us; so that the process from childhood to manhood is a process of getting less impressible. A. M.

A scriptural training in youth starts a moral bias that is apt to survive and force its way, because it is in the line of our original character, and because the original motives are acting upon the conscience. Not that any moral training can restore the lost image of God. That must be created in us, as at the first. But these promptings of conscience and struggles after moral rectitude, if only outward, are some feeble revival of the old original bias to virtue. They are traces and hints of our first estate. What a gratifying fact is this, that scriptural instructions and moral habits, early confirmed, have this vitality. This thoroughly strange thing, in such a race and such a world as ours, ought to be insisted on everywhere. It is too important to be permitted to lie in silence. This “an early bias to good is inveterate”—ought to be written on the door-posts of every home and over every teacher’s desk. Let no one lose faith in it. Interior.—The child believes what with discretion and persistency he is-taught to believe. The child’s creed is the mother’s creed, and with nothing at the start but faith in his mother to guarantee it. He sees through his mother’s eyes, thinks in his mother’s thoughts, believes through his mother’s faith, and calls the Bible God’s Book, because she taught him to. C. H. P.

The child needs formal teaching by words, but his principles are formed and practical habits moulded chiefly by that action of those around him which expresses their inner life. From this there is a subtle and pervasive influence that no direct teaching can counteract. M. H.—Little may a parent be aware of that infantile sagacity that translates things before it knows the meaning of words. Example sows the seeds of life’s harvest, sometimes before a child can speak. That early home, by the still, quiet influence of example, moulds the character into such a shape, that all the after-years of probation, all life’s storms, all the jar and bustle of business cannot change it. It is like a pen of iron and the point of a diamond graving on the rock. A child knows well and needs no one to tell it, that while words may speak the mind’s knowledge, actions declare the heart. What a man is, is far more than what he says. Gillett.—The child knows no logic but that of the heart. Parental assertion and example are its only evidence; emotion its best proof. Here, therefore, example is everything. In proportion as the spirit of piety educates, the means become unimportant. It finds them without seeking. And that alone is deserving the name of education in which, however small the amount of knowledge imparted, that knowledge is sought to be applied; in which the great aim is to reach the heart of the child, and to impress it with a sacred regard for truth and duty, and a deep reverence for the will of God; in which the character is sought to be built up into habits of order, attention, and filial obedience, based on that piety which is the beginning of wisdom. J. H.

The child is capable of being trained for God, and God has entrusted him to the parent that he may be thus trained. The only effectual way in which the parent can do this is himself to be what the child should be. There is an example, an imperceptible and pervading influence that can be had in no other way. Let this be good in principle and judicious in outward form, and all other good influences will almost, of course, fall into its train. M. H.

—The child looks and listens, and whatever tone of feeling or manner of conduct is displayed around him, sinks into his plastic, passive soul, and becomes a mould of his being ever after. The very handling of the nursery is significant, and the petulance, the passion, the gentleness, the tranquillity indicated by it, are all reproduced in the child. His soul is a purely receptive nature, and that, for a considerable period, without choice or selection. A little further on he begins voluntarily to copy everything he sees. Voice, manner, gait, everything which the eye sees, the mimic instinct delights to act over. And thus we have a whole generation of future men, receiving from us their very beginnings and the deepest impulses of their life and immortality. They watch us every moment, in the family, before the hearth, and at the table; and when we are meaning them no good or evil, when we are conscious of exerting no influence over them, they are drawing from us impressions and moulds of habit, which, if wrong, no heavenly discipline can wholly remove; or, if right, no bad associations utterly dissipate. H. B.

Training up a child may be said to consist in four things—true teaching, discipline, example, and prayer. True teaching, or, if you will, the teaching of the truth which concerns it in its relations to God and man. Store children’s minds with truth. Let them know all that it is right to do, both with respect to God and man, that they be not destroyed for lack of knowledge. Example. To tell a child what is to be done is a very valuable thing, but to show how it is done is far more valuable. The power of one’s example is the power of character. Prayer. You are not left to this work alone. There is none in which you may more certainly calculate on the help of God, if you seek it, than in the endeavor to guide your children in the way that leads to heaven. He Himself is concerned for the welfare of your children. They are His gifts to you, and are meant to be, not curses, but blessings. He may seem for a season to delay His answers, but even while He delays He may be working out the very results you have so earnestly sought. Mellor.

All Christian training is summed up in this: “Bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.” This general exhortation has so many parts in it that we cannot even name them. But these are some. Look to the health of the body, for that is the basis in this world of other things. No studies or accomplishments should be allowed to injure that; for that, when injured, will affect injuriously all the higher things. Consider, as far as may be, the temperament and peculiarity of each. There is a Divine individualism of each soul, before which, when we find it, we should bow down as in the presence of a pure work of God, and to which we should yield as we do to the great steady laws. Give the mind knowledge of proper kinds, in due measures, at seasonable times. Develop the affections, truly and tenderly, under the leadings and breathings of the royal law of love. Try to put habits into the life of industry, carefulness, and benevolence, from the very first, that the powers may work by these more easily. Provide for times of recoil and relaxation. Never be afraid of play—of what even might seem idleness to another if you are sure that it is wholesome rest. Above all, try to secure the whole heart for God. Everything must bend to that. The whole manifold culture should grow up into that. Throw around them, as you may instrumentally, so much of the Fatherhood of God, that they shall not be able without a tremendous and distressing struggle to leave it, and when at last away from it shall not be able to live without it. Let them know, without mistake, from your own lips, in face-to-face communication, that the good Shepherd loves them, is watching them with kindly care, is calling them by name, and waiting for their following. When they follow Him, you may sing in gladness and thankfulness of heart. Raleigh.

A wise parent will remember that it is the books which the child reads out of school which leave the deepest impression, and, therefore, require the most careful selection. Let him distinguish between children’s books and childish books. Let him not fall into the mistake that everything must be written down to the comprehension of children. Their sense of interest runs ahead of their understanding and helps it on. He should know that manhood is not distinguished from childhood, not so much by superiority as by difference of capacity—and that no book suited for the child’s department can be too old for it. J. H.—Hardly any reading can interest a child without contributing in some degree, though the book itself be afterward totally forgotten, to form the character; and the parents, therefore, who merely requiring from him a certain course of study, pay little or no attention to story-books, are educating him they know not how. Whately.

Children should always be fairly and kindly answered when they ask after anything they would know and desire to be informed about. Curiosity should be as carefully cherished in children as other appetites suppressed. Locke.—Table-talk ought to be such, in every family, as to make the hour of home meal-time one of the most attractive as well as one of the most beneficial hours of the day to all the children. But in order to make table-talk valuable, parents must have something to talk about at the table, must be willing to talk about it there, and must have the children lovingly in mind as they do their table talking. S. S. T.

“Children, obey your parents,” is a Divine command. Until they come to years of understanding God expresses His will to them through us. We teach them to obey us in order that it may become easy to submit to the will of God at a later period. We also teach them obedience because they are ignorant of their own best interests, and incapable of safely directing themselves. Hence, it is not so much our prerogative to require obedience as the child’s privilege to yield it. With that thought in mind, what parent can be impatient with a child who has been disobedient? Few parents neglect to blame their children when they do wrong, but many a child never hears a word of commendation. Their ears grow accustomed to the language of reproof, while their hearts ache for encouragement in their efforts to do right. An appreciative word at these times, warm from a loving parental heart, will not only bring happiness to a deserving child, but will go further in establishing right principles than many reproofs. But reproof and praise should be given with no other thought than the good of the child. To reprove from a mere sense of our own right, or to vary in our manner of reproving according to our own moods and tempers, is injustice to those too weak to defend themselves. Every child has a right to a share of the time and personal attention of both parents. The father who is too busy to give an occasional hour to his children is robbing them of more than he can ever will to them. To think he has done his full duty when he has made proper provision for their physical and intellectual wants is more than a mistake. It is a crime. When a father becomes merely a “provider,” he consents to a loss of manhood; and if he does not lose his self-respect, he will, at least, lose the respect of his children. Mothers are expected to come in hourly contact with their families, but who pleads for the children’s right to their fathers? Not but what fathers are affectionate and indulgent. Not unfrequently does a father yield a desired point to a child that the mother would unhesitatingly refuse; not because he loves him more, but because he is less acquainted with him. Many a father would be a better man if he lived with his children a little more. Let fathers and mothers both remember that no one can take their place in the children’s lives. Free Church Monthly.

Be very gentle with the children God has given you; watch over them constantly; reprove them earnestly, but not in anger. In the forcible language of Scripture, “Be not bitter against them.” “Yes, they are good boys,”

I once heard a kind father say; “I talk to them very much, but do not like to beat my children—the world will beat them.” It was a beautiful thought, though not elegantly expressed. Yes, there is not one child in the circle round the table, healthful and happy as they look now, on whose head, if long enough spared, the storm will not beat. Adversity may wither them, sickness may fade, a cold world may frown on them, but amid all let memory carry them back to a home where the law of kindness reigned, where the mother’s reproving eye was moistened with a tear, and the father frowned “more in sorrow than in anger.” Elihu Burritt.—We are to love our children as they are to obey their parents, “in the Lord;” never forgetting that He who lends may resume His gifts whensoever it pleases Him; never forgetting that the fairest flowers of the family may soon wither and die; ever striving as we keep our children in their own place in the house nor allow them to usurp ours, to keep them in their own place in our hearts nor allow them to usurp God’s; ever seeking in our nurseries to rear plants for heaven, and so train up our children in the saving knowledge of Christ and the devout love of God, that we shall have the consolation of knowing, if death enters our house and plucks them from our arms, that our loss is their gain; that if a chair in the circle by our fireside is empty, a blood-bought throne is filled in heaven; that if there is one voice less in the Psalm when we are assembled for worship, there is one more ringing sweet and clear in glory, praising Him through whose dying love and in whose blissful presence we shall join our lost and loved—to weep and to part no more. Guthrie.

Too many Christian people seem to suppose that their children, by virtue of their birth, belong to the devil and have to be delivered from the devil by Divine grace when capable of understanding and responding to the Gospel. The precise contrary of this is true. They belong to Christ by virtue of their birth, and have to be kept by the power of Divine grace from going over to the devil. It is this great fact which is affirmed in baptism. Infants are born the subjects of Christ, and He will keep them safe from His foes and theirs, until they revolt against His authority. They are His, not because their parents dedicate them to Him, but because He died for them and has “received power over all flesh.” They are His more truly than they are ours; we acknowledge this claim when we bring them to receive baptism. Herein lies the significance of the rite, so far as parents are concerned. Children should be reminded, as soon as they are capable of understanding it that Christ claimed them as His own in their infancy; parents should constantly remember that they have implicitly acknowledged the claim. In baptism it is not affirmed that the children ought to become Christ’s, but that they are His. Already, apart from their own choice, apart from the act of their parents, they are His. They belong, not to a lost race, but to a race that has been redeemed by “the precious blood of Christ,” and over which He reigns. Lon. Cong.—They are born into a redeemed world. They belong to Christ from infancy, and He says, “Take them, and train them for Me.” They should be so treated as to see in their parents some likeness to their heavenly Father before they can understand verbal teaching. They should be so treated that the truth may be at once received, “Like as a father pitieth his children,” and “As one whom his mother comforteth.” As a child cannot remember when it began to love and obey its parents, so should be its love to God. This may be expected if the parents not only teach doctrine but represent Christ. Children soon discover whether a parent’s chief aim is to please God or to win the world; whether the child’s nurture in Christ or worldly advancement is most desired. They will be more likely to imitate what parents are, than to do what parents say. They learn more by what they see in them than what they hear from them. The writer well remembers, when a child, overhearing his mother, in her mid-day retirement, praying so earnestly for his “salvation” that he longed to get “salvation,” whatever it was, so as to give his mother what would be her greatest delight. By such training, home and school will become nurseries for church and heaven. Newman Hall.

9. A “bountiful eye” is literally a good eye, in the sense of an eye to pity: an eye that sees suffering and want, and indicates a heart and a hand of generous benevolence. God will bless such an eye. H. C.

11. Whoever loves purity, grace (i.e., gracious or acceptable) will be his lips, and the king will be his friend. Michaelis.—Purity in heart implies a care of the heart; a discipline of the imagination; a covenant with the eyes not to look upon vanity; an avoidance of all appearance of evil; a conscientious regulation of our secret thoughts and affections as in the sight of that God with whom we have to do, who requires purity as well as truth in the inward part. R. Hall.

God is for that man, and that man is for God, who carries about with him a pure heart; heart purity makes a man beloved of heaven. Many affect pure language, pure houses, pure habits, pure hands, pure air, pure meat and drink, who yet, for want of purity of heart, shall never see the face of God in glory; heart purity speaks a man eternally happy. H. Brooke.—The divinest views of life penetrate most clearly into the meanest emergencies, and, so far from petty principles being best proportioned to petty trials, a heavenly spirit taking up its abode with us can alone sustain well the daily toils, and tranquilly pass the humiliations of our condition; and, to keep the house of the soul in order and pure, a God must come down and dwell within. Martineau.

16. This man pursues two methods of enriching himself: he robs the poor; he gives to the rich; but in both cases he will only impoverish himself. His two methods have the same end in view, and both alike will fail of the end he seeks, and will really bring him not riches but ruin. H. C.—Whatever you save as against righteousness, justice, and love has no lasting in it. God’s judgment or blessing rests upon the whole flock, floor, and wine-press. The money saved from the man who had a right to it shall be lost. Do not imagine that God has abandoned all the commercial relations of life and handed over marts and exchanges to the dominion of the devil. The Lord still reigneth, and all history, interpreted by a Christian spirit, ends in this, that whoever endeavors selfishly to upset the Divine regulation is never really the richer for the money he has stolen. Honest money goes far and brings sweetness with it and light and hope, and a blessing full of unction may be asked upon the little loaf bought by the honestly-earned penny. Whatever we have let it be honest money, and then the more we have the more everybody else will have, for we shall be but trustees and stewards, sowing with both hands and reaping with both hands night and day. This is God’s law; this doctrine lies at the very root of Divine legislation and social economy. J. P.

Thus endeth the second division of the Book of Proverbs, containing chaps. 10-22:16. What follows is miscellaneous down to chap. 25. It is collected from different sources, and might have the title which is proffered to us in v. 17—viz., The Words of the Wise. M. S.

17-19. With v. 17 commences a third part of this Book of Proverbs, distinct in some points of style and method from those which precede or which follow. This part closes with chap. 24. The writer invites most diligent attention to the words of wisdom which he has to speak. “Shall be fitted in thy lips” (v. 18) means shall be confirmed or established upon thy lips, to be always (as we might say) at thy tongue’s end, fresh in memory and ever at hand, not only for reflective thought but for ready utterance; words in season fitly spoken. I have taught thee these great truths in order that thou mayest fully trust the Lord. H. C.

18. The words of the wise should be so thoroughly considered and learned, that the learner will be always ready to speak of them or to recite them. We express the like idea by saying, Learn by heart, i.e., make them quite familiar. M. S.—The counsels of the wise should be not in the heart only, or on the lips only, but on the lips from the abundance of the heart. What is “pleasant” in the sight of God and man is the union of the two, belief passing into profession, profession resting on belief. E. H. P.

20,21. The emphasis is here most laid upon this, that they are made known to thee, even to thee and written to thee as if it were a letter directed to thee by name; it is suited to thee and to thy case; it is intended for thee, to be a rule to thee, and by it thou must be judged. We cannot say of these things, They are good things, but they are nothing to us; no, they are of the greatest concern imaginable to us. To make thee know the certainty of the words of truth. That thou mayest know what is truth, mayest plainly distinguish between it and falsehood, and mayest know upon what grounds thou receivest and believest the truths of God. It is desirable to know, not only the words of truth, but the certainty of them; that our faith may be intelligent and rational, and may grow up to a full assurance. H.

The Bible itself, studied in its text, and compared with all else that the world has to offer as bringing to us direct messages from God, furnishes ample and irrefragable evidence that only the Author of our own being could have been the Author of that Book of books, with all that it shows us of ourselves, and with all that it discloses concerning our needs, our duties, and our destiny. S. S. T.—If religion is to be a practical thing, it must depend, not upon beautiful thoughts, but upon matter-of-fact certainties. Its truths must come to us in a form in which we can carry them with us, and bring them to bear upon our motives in the hour of temptation. When tempted we need something solid to fall back upon; not a picture, not a mist, not a view, not an hypothesis, but a fact. For eighteen centuries Christianity has responded to this supreme necessity of the soul of man. And we may be sure that if she had done otherwise she would long ago have ceased to command interest at the hands of those who seek in religion, not an amusement for the passing hour, but a kind friend, with a firm hand, who will guide them through the changes and chances of this mortal life to the gate of that other world which we must all, in whatever guise, reach at last. H. P. L.

The Bible grapples with the highest subjects which can engage the attention of mankind. It advances instantly to the highest lines of spiritual inquiry. God, creation, invisible worlds, sin, death, immortality, are its familiar themes. But more important than the fact of its grappling with such subjects is its peculiar method of treating them. Its approach, so to speak, is invariably from the higher side; the Bible reveals, it does not suggest; it declares, it does not investigate. Looked at in the light of presumptive inspiration, this is precisely the proper result. If God has spoken at all, He must have spoken positively and authoritatively. J. P.—The point of view of the writers in the Bible is the Divine. Here is the strong proof of the genuineness and authenticity of any part of the Scriptures. Here is stronger proof of inspiration than that of miracles. In the Bible is revealed a law of conduct from which men would withdraw if they could. The human mind would not originate it. We have also here presented a human character as unlike what we find in man as the imagination can conceive. So the promises touching the needs of men are not at all what men would have thought necessary. Man does not believe he has need of forgiveness, save as enlightened by the Bible. He would say, “I need to be educated; I need more power; I live as best I know.” Even now, after all that has been wrought by the bleeding hands of Christ on earth, men feel little the need of a Saviour. So all through the Scriptures the point of view is God’s not man’s. The law that is uttered is Divine; the promises given are Divine; the judgment of human nature, the cause of its woes, its needs, its all, is most manifestly from above. To understand any part of the Bible we must look at it from this Divine standpoint. R. S. S.

The style of the Book accommodates itself to the modes of thought and speech common among men in their successive generations, rather than to the technicalities of science or the modes of thought and speech current among learned men. While a Divine book, therefore, it is the most human of books. The infinite mind that suggests its truths presents their finite side toward finite men that they may apprehend and commune with them. S. R.—If the Bible was to be adapted to human wants, it must have a human side complete and perfect. It is by the complete incorporation of all human methods of expressing truth that the Bible is made an intelligible and adequate revelation of the Divine will; and to criticise the Bible, because it employs every device of language and literature by which truth is conveyed from one mind to another, is to reveal the fallibility of our own logic rather than the imperfection of the Bible. A revelation from God that did not come in human costume, and that was not penetrated with the spirit of human sympathy, would be ill adapted to its purpose, and would be like a Saviour who should have come neither eating nor drinking, and subject to no ordinary temptations. But as it behooved Christ to take upon Him not the form of angels, but of the sons of Abraham, and to be tempted in all respects as we are, yet without sin; so it behooves the Divine revelation to be altogether human in its form, except that it give no positive countenance to error. G. F. W.

The understanding has its proper work to do with respect to the Bible, because the Bible consists of human writings and contains a human history. Only let us remember that the understanding cannot ascend to things Divine; that for these another faculty is necessary—reason or faith. If this faculty be living in us, then there can be no rationalism; and what is called so is then no other than the voice of Christina truth. Where a man’s writings show that he is keenly alive to the Divine part of Scripture, that he sees God ever in it and regards it truly as His Word, his judgments of the human part in it are not likely to be rationalistic; and if his understanding decides according to its own laws upon points within its own province, while his faith duly tempers it and restrains it from venturing upon another’s dominion, the result will in all probability be such as commonly attends the use of God’s manifold gifts in their just proportions—it will image after our imperfect measure the holiness of God and the truth of God. It is very true and should be acknowledged in the fullest manner, that for the study of the highest moral and spiritual questions another faculty than the understanding is wanting; and that without this faculty the understanding alone cannot arrive at truth. But it is no less true, that while there is, on the one side, a faculty higher than the understanding, which is entitled to pronounce upon its defects; “for He that is spiritual judgeth all things,” so there is a clamor often raised against it, not from above, but from below—the clamor of mere shallowness and ignorance, and passion. Wisdom is gained, not by renouncing or despising the understanding, but by adding to its perfect work the perfect work of reason, and of reason’s perfection, faith. T. Arnold.

If any man, says Jesus, wills to do the Father’s will, he shall know of the doctrine whether it be of God. An obedient spirit leads the inquiring mind to such a perception of the internal, historical, and practical evidences of the Gospel as gives sufficient assurance to himself that it is of God and not of man. And the combined testimony of the Evangelical Church in all her branches seals the truth, as thus certified by so many individual experiences, as the power of God unto salvation. Or, to state the doctrine more fully, the Bible, as the inspired Word of God, is the ultimate standard and the infallible rule of faith and practice; it is known to be the Word of God not only by its internal contents and character and by the Christian consciousness of the individual believer, but by the like consciousness, the sanctified judgment, and the uniform testimony of the living, spiritual Church, both of the past and the present, the whole family of God on earth and in heaven; and this catholic Church is known, not as a particular mechanical organism, but by its fruits—the fruits of practical faith, and earnest, continuous consecration to the moral and spiritual ends and objects of its high calling, whatever the imperfections of its formulated beliefs or organizations, or of character in many of its several members. The Church was indeed before the Bible; but the Bible, since written, is the Church’s text-book and guide, and they are mutual witnesses for each other through the Holy Spirit in both together. R. W. Patterson.

Carry back words of truth. Knowledge is given us to do good with, that others may light their candle at our lamp, and that we may in our place serve our generation according to the will of God. And those who make conscience of keeping God’s commandments will be best able to give a reason of the hope that is in them. H.

22,23. To rob and oppress the rich is a great sin; but to rob and oppress the poor is a greater; but to rob and oppress the poor because he is poor, and wants money to buy justice, is the top of all inhumanity and impiety.

To oppress any one is sin; but to oppress the oppressed is the height of sin. Poverty, and want, and misery should be motives to pity; but oppressors make them the whetstones of their cruelty and severity, and therefore the Lord will plead the cause of His poor oppressed people against their oppressors without fee or fear. Anon.—Poverty is the load of some, and wealth is the load of others, perhaps the greater load of the two. It may weigh them to perdition. Bear the load of thy neighbor’s poverty and let him bear with thee the load of thy wealth. Thou lightenest thy load by lightening his. Augustine.

26,27. This admonition has occurred already (6:1-5 and 11:15). The doctrine of suretyship as it appears in this Book of Proverbs should be studied and judged of in the light of the age of Solomon and of the Mosaic system. From Moses to Solomon the Jews had never been a commercial people. For obvious reasons it was manifestly the Divine policy to prevent them from becoming such. Their system of agriculture, with no costly implements, required but little capital. Hence while they kept aloof from traffic, they had but the least possible occasion to loan money on the guarantee of another. H. C.

28. The primary application, possibly even the only one, makes the words a protest against the grasping covetousness which leads men to add house to house and field to field (Isa. 5:8), regardless of the rights of the poor upon whose inheritance they encroach. E. H. P.

29. Such men as Joseph and Daniel work themselves up to high responsibilities by dint of their “diligence in business.” They bring to their service capacity, energy, industry, application. Doing everything they attempt in the best manner possible, they soon come before kings because they are wanted. H. C.—Not only is vital godliness perfectly consistent with commercial success, it ought to be a means thereto. “Seest thou a man diligent in his business?” asks the Book of Proverbs. “He shall stand before kings, . . . he shall not stand before mean men.” And who should be more diligent than the servant of the Most High God? But godliness, having the promise of the life that now is, as well as of that which is to come, naturally brings riches in its train. Diligence and frugality, the children of true religion, are in turn the parents of wealth. J. M. Oxley.

The man of methodical industry and honorable pursuits realizes, says Coleridge, the ideal divisions of time, and he gives a character and individuality to its movements. If the idle are described as killing time, he may justly be said to call it into life and moral being while he makes it the distinct object not only of the consciousness, but of the conscience. He organizes the hours, and gives them a soul; and that, the very essence of which is to pass away, he takes up into his own permanence, and endows with the imperishableness of a spiritual nature. Of the good and faithful servant, continues our philosopher, whose energies, thus directed, are thus methodized, it may rather be said that he lives in time than that time lives in him. His days, months, and years, as the stops and punctual marks in the records of duties performed, will remain when time shall be no more. W. H. Adams.—To do what we have to do deliberately, carefully, punctiliously, conscientiously, that is the main concern. Virtuous diligence is a continual exercise of the understanding, of reason, of reflection, of self-command. The industrious man lives in the entire, true, intimate consciousness of himself. He rejoices in his life, his faculties, his endowments, his time. He can give an account of the use and application of them, and can therefore look back upon the past with satisfaction, and into the future without disquietude. He experiences neither languor nor irksomeness. He who really loves work can never be wanting in means and opportunities for it. To him every occupation is agreeable, even though it procure him no visible profit. He alone knows the pleasures of rest, for he alone really wants it, he alone has deserved it, he alone can enjoy it without reproach. Zollikofer.

A man industrious in his calling, if without the fear of God, becomes a drudge to worldly ends—vexed when disappointed, overjoyed in success. Mingle but the fear of God with business, it will not abate a man’s industry, but sweeten it; if he prosper he is thankful to God that gives him power to get wealth; if he miscarry he is patient under the will and dispensation of the God he fears. It turns the very employment of his calling to a kind of religious duty and exercise of his religion, without damage or detriment to it. Sir Matthew Hale.—Many of the best and most valuable Christian disciples we have, are such as come up out of the walks of business. They know how to move with alertness and turn their hand nimbly as things require, keeping everything still in the training of order and practical system; playing in, under these and to fill them out, all most practical mercies and tenderest graces. So that if we want the best engineering of counsel and the most energetic flexibilities of movement, we are more likely to get our supply from the class of disciples in trade than from any other. Operations are their study, and they get limbered in it for all most cautiously safe and practically efficient operations in religion. H. B.

The Christian man of business has, as the foundation of all, a supreme love to God and a deep conviction that religion is the principal thing, the oxygen which is let down into the mine ere the miner descends to dig in it, rendering it safe for him to work; he resolves that it is necessary for him to be religious, though it is not to be rich; he makes time on his busiest days for family and private devotions; he lives with his household as its head, not as its slave, toiling for its support. He will himself know something personally of the luxury of doing good; he will seek a blessing on every day’s transactions, give thanks for success, be content with honest gains, and not cast down by losses; he will not obtrude his Christian way of doing business pharisaically upon others, as a model; he will honor God and bless his fellow-men with offerings laid aside as God hath prospered him; and this would be the Christian man of business, and this the way for him to be kept from the evil that is in the world. W. H. Lewis.—A man can maintain the love of God by faith and prayer, and go on to make all most solid attainments of character in the life-occupation of trade. When the question how is raised, the very first, always indispensable thing is that he shall be faithfully set to it, and expect to succeed only by fighting out the great human battle with self-seeking and the love of money, and by standing fast in God’s name in all holiest integrity. He must not go into trade as any sharp work to be shrewdly done; he must not pitch himself recklessly into making his fortune; he must not look upon his business future with a mind wholly slack toward God and religion, willing to be floated whither the tide will carry him. No true character is ever made in that way in any employment. And it is precisely in that way that trade has come to be regarded as a kind of life so pre-eminently hostile to the interests of character. But the man who is in it can have and is bound to have God with him in it; to begin his day with God’s smile, to end it in God’s approbation, and to pass it all through in the testimony that he pleases God. Going thus into and onward in trade, he will have no difficulty in being a Christian in it. He is fast anchored in all right practice and right living by holding himself to courses that permit the enjoyment of God, and then the enjoyment of God will in turn hold him to his courses. Such a man can be a Christian anywhere, and will as certainly be in trade as anywhere else. H. B.

The duty of the Christian is plain—not to avoid the acquiring of riches, but to show the world how riches rightly acquired may be rightly expended. No other can do this so well as he. The man who has piled up millions by corners in grain or pork, by railroad wrecking or breaking banks, may, forsooth, endeavor to effect a compromise with his own conscience, or, lacking that troublesome monitor, with public opinion, by spasmodically handing over some portion of his unlawful gains to universities or hospitals; but there is no moral value in such a proceeding. It is the continuous, consistent employment of wealth in the work of the Lord that tells. It is when one’s business is “done in the name of Jesus, in the spirit of consecration; its gains made useful in a Christ-like way; its ventures all baptized in prayer; its extension sought only as a means to greater good; its whole conduct and character and profit decided by considerations pertaining to the next world as well as to this.” (H. Johnson.) Riches accumulated in this spirit will bring with them no poison that need hereafter be extracted; and only thus can be realized the sacred truth that “the blessing of the Lord, it maketh rich, and He addeth no sorrow with it.” J. M. Oxley.