Proverbs 14
WARDProverbs 14:1-6
LECTURE XXXII.
“Every wise woman buildeth her house: but the foolish plucketh it down with her hands. He that walketh in his uprightness feareth the Lord: but he that is perverse in his ways despiseth him. In the mouth of the foolish is a rod of pride: but the lips of the wise shall preserve them. Where no oxen are, the crib is clean: but much increase is by the strength of the ox. A faithful witness will not lie: but a false witness will utter lies. A scorner seeketh wisdom, and findeth it not: but knowledge is easy unto him that understandeth.”
There is a fulness in the word of God, of which the conviction grows on every fresh perusal, and becomes still the stronger, the closer and more minute our investigation of its various parts. It addresses itself (though, for the best possible reasons, under no systematic and formal arrangement,) to persons in all the various relations and conditions of life. Sometimes we find important preceptive directions conveyed in simple descriptive touches of character, in which approbation on the one hand, or disapprobation on the other, is manifestly designed to be implied. Thus it is in the first verse of this chapter:-“Every wise woman buildeth her house: but the foolish plucketh it down with her hands.”
Here we have female wisdom and female folly contrasted, with special reference to their appropriate department-the management of domestic concerns. It is a common saying amongst ourselves, and it is a pithy and a true one, that “a fortune in a wife is better than a fortune with one.” From the situation which women occupy in the household, it might previously be supposed (and the supposition is daily verified in fact) that a vast deal depends on them, for the comfort, the independence, the respectability, the honour, and the advancement of families. We understand “house” here, as in many other places, to mean family; the “building” of the house, the raising of the family; and the “plucking down” of the house, the depression of the family, in the various ways just enumerated.
Suppose, what many a time happens, to use the word, of the saying just quoted, “a fortune with a wife,” but the wife herself, the owner and bringer of the fortune, destitute of discretion, incapable of managing her domestic affairs, or of keeping account of her expenditure; without home habits; vain, extravagant, fond of finery and show, and rivalry of her superiors; ever gadding about, and ever squandering money with thoughtless indifference,-the fortune will give anything but domestic happiness while it lasts, and that will not be long. It will be the same, indeed, if such a woman have her will and her way, whether the fortune be her own or her husband’s. Many a time have females been the means of bringing families down that before were thriving, and rising in comfort and respectability. This has arisen from their total want of the domestic virtues of activity, economy, and discretion,-of all that passes under the general name of management. “Many a family,” says Matthew Henry, “is brought to ruin by ill housewifery, as well as by ill husbandry.” On the contrary, a prudent, industrious, frugal, domestic, managing wife, animated in all her duties by affection, conjugal and maternal, dignified by the graces of true religion, and guided in all her daily course by a wise discretion, has often essentially aided in bringing forward a family, even from a condition of inferiority, to respectability, independence, and honour, and of retrieving its affairs, when by previous mismanagement brought low.
It is at once the duty and the interest of husband and wife, to co-operate in promoting the common benefit of the family. They must be one in principle and in aim. If not, while the one is “building,” the other will be “pulling down;” the one will overturn what the other has reared; while the one gathers, the other will scatter. Too often may husband and wife thus be seen counterworking each other; the one doing, the other undoing; the one bringing in, the other throwing out. The verse before us relates only to the wife’s side of the house. Let wives remember, that all the industry and toil of their husbands will be vain, unless, on their part, it is seconded by management and economy. It is wonderful, in the families of the workman and the peasant, to see the difference of appearance and of real substantial comfort, on the same means, between one where the wife is cleanly, active, orderly, thrifty, and cheerful, and another where she happens, unfortunately for her husband and her children, to be an idle, dirty, disorderly, peevish slattern. The latter character should never be seen, nor any approach to it, in “women professing godliness."-Christian wives, emulate one another; and emulate those “godly women” who are commended in Scripture, in sedulous attention to the tempers and duties that become you in your domestic relations. Lot the family, next to the soul be the first care. And beware of allowing even a professed concern for the interests of the soul unduly to interfere with, and jostle out of place, any of your incumbent domestic duties. Everything is beautiful in its place and time. I have no idea of that religion which allows a woman, under pretext of enjoying spiritual privileges, and making the most of time and means for the soul, to gad about, visiting, and calling, and talking, and hearing sermons, and attending committees, when her presence and active superintendence are wanted at home, and imperative domestic claims and duties are neglected. Wives must make their families their first care; and if, by regularity and diligence in the discharge of their respective trusts at home, they can redeem time for the more private or more public calls of general benevolence, or for hearing a sermon, or attending a meeting, or enjoying the benefit of a little Christian society, it is well. When the two are thus made compatible, “her own works will praise her in the gates.” But if, by attending to other calls, her husband is left comfortless, and the food and clothing and education of her children are neglected,-she may be “building” elsewhere, but not where she should he; she is “the foolish” woman whose hands “pull down” her own house,-and who is, in the world, a discredit to the religion she professes, and in the church, a stumbling-block to fellow-professors.
Verse Proverbs 14:2 . “He that walketh in his uprightness feareth the Lord; but he that is perverse in his ways despiseth him.”
The pronoun “him,” in the second clause is capable of two references. It may refer either to the “upright who feareth the Lord;” or, as is more probable, to the Lord; in which case there will be a marked antithesis between the character of the man who feareth the Lord, and that of the man who despiseth Him. In the first part of the verse, then, we have again the only true, satisfactory evidence of “the fear of the Lord”-of genuine religious principle. It lies not in words or professions, but in conduct. That man alone fears the Lord, who “walketh in his uprightness.” “This,” says the apostle John, “is the love of God, that we keep his commandments.” This is equally the fear of God. Hear you a man making great professions; wondrously devout; his prayers many and long; his psalm-singing loud; his attitudes and looks and gestures the perfection of acted sanctity? Test him. Mark his conduct. See what he is in the family and in the market,-is all right there? If not, note that man; he is a man of words; his religion is the religion of words; his fear toward God is taught only by the principles of interest and expediency, or by that of compromise; of words for God and actions for himself;-which is the same thing as a compromise, to honour God verbally for liberty to dishonour him practically. Let it be laid down as a settled principle, that whatever be a man’s professions of reverence and devotion-” he who is perverse in his ways despiseth God." Disobedience is the sure proof of contempt. You judge of the professions of children to parents not by what they say, but what they do. Thus judge of men’s religion. Ask not how frequent, how long, how loud, or how austere and rigid his devotions are;-ask what his practice is. There have been men who in the sanctuary have seemed the very patterns of all that is devout, (only that in general it is overdone) whom, when you follow them into the world, you find in the meanest of its mean and the dirtiest of its dirty doings. This is not to “fear” but emphatically to “despise the Lord.” It is the greatest of all the affronts that can be put upon Him-the grossest of insults, the most injurious of wrongs. The child dishonours his father more who speaks fair to his face and rebels behind his back, mocking at the very success of his fair speeches, than if he were openly and consistently hostile and regardless. And so does he dishonour God more who says to Him, “Lord, Lord, but does not the things which He says,” than if he made no profession at all. He adds hypocrisy to rebellion. Actual “perverseness,” or disobedience, is contempt of God’s authority; contempt of God’s glory; contempt of God’s threatenings; and contempt of God’s promises. It shows a scornful disregard of all. They who despise God’s Will despise God Himself.
Verse Proverbs 14:3 . “In the mouth of the foolish is a rod of pride: but the lips of the wise shall preserve them.”
“Pride” may be regarded as one of the attributes of folly. It was the original folly of man; the principle which Satan succeeded in introducing, and by which he seduced man from God. And it has been, in reference to God, his folly ever since. And from the pride which, in their folly, men too frequently indulge towards one another, comes haughty, contemptuous, violent, abusive language; the language of haughty command, haughty censure, haughty scorn. This is “the rod of pride” which is in “the mouth of the foolish.” The foolish smite with it; and by doing so, they expose themselves to many dangers, from envy, resentment, and the spirit of strife. By some the word rendered “rod” is understood of a shoot or branch, from the only other place in which it occurs-“And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots,” Isaiah 11:1 . But even in that passage, there is probably in the shoot springing from the stem of Jesse, an indirect reference to the sceptral rod-the emblem of the royally of which the prophet proceeds to speak;-and the figure of smiting with the tongue as with the “rod of pride” is far more nature (when the mouth is spoken of) than that of a branch springing from pride as a “root of bitterness.”
The general import of the antithesis in the second clause is sufficiently plain:-" but the lips of the wise shall preserve them." “The lips of the wise” are the lips, not of pride, but of humility-not of the contempt and wrath which arise from pride, but of meekness, gentleness, kindness, and peace. And there are two senses in which the preservation spoken of may be understood. First, by prudent and humble-minded dealing-by language well-weighed and well adapted to the characters of the individuals with whom they have to do, and to the circumstances in which they happen to be placed,-they preserve themselves from this very “rod of pride,” and from its sometimes mischievous consequences. Or, more generally; while by their proud and overbearing insolence the foolish bring severe retaliation and correction upon themselves, by the provoking use of their “rod of pride,"-the discretion of the wise, laying restraints upon their tongue, “setting a watch at the door of their lips,” preserves them from many contentions, perplexities, troubles, and wrongs; it gives them favour and good understanding, and thus brings upon them benefit and blessing, instead of ill-will, and angry frowns, and muttered curses-the natural returns of pride.
“Verse Proverbs 14:4 . “Where no oxen are, the crib is clean: but much increase is by the strength of the ox.”
The most natural interpretation of these words seems to be that which proceeds on the principle that two things are put in contrast, between which men are left to choose.
If oxen are not employed, " the crib is clean;"-there is no trouble in feeding, and tending, and cleaning, and keeping all in order from day to day. Here, then, is gratification for indolence and the love of ease. “But much increase is by the strength of the ox.” Here is the expense at which the indolent love of ease is to be indulged. It must be purchased at the expense of all that the labour of the oxen would produce. He who would have the increase, therefore, must submit to the labour of this feeding, and tending, and cleaning. We have thus again, in a fresh form, the great general lesson of everyday use-Nothing without labour.
Wealth will not come of itself The good things of life do not drop into the mouth of the yawning sluggard. Reputation and honour must be won by deeds that deserve them. Discoveries in science and art must be effected by experiment, observation, reflection, and research. Progress in general knowledge must be attained by reading, conversation and inquiry. And if we would, as believers, grow in the divine life, and in holy meetness for heaven, we must obey the command to “work out our own salvation with fear and trembling,” in the use of all appointed means, “giving all diligence to make our calling and election sure.”
Verse Proverbs 14:5 . “A faithful witness will not lie: but a false witness will utter lies.”
We have had this subject repeatedly before us:-Proverbs 6:16-19 ; Proverbs 12:17-19 ; Proverbs 13:5 . The statement in the verse before us may be regarded as somewhat stronger in regard to the characters contrasted. The meaning is that a “faithful witness”-that is a man of sterling integrity and truthfulness, will adhere to truth in all his statements, at whatever risk, and at whatever cost. Nothing will tempt him to depart from it-neither the fear of threatened suffering nor the hope of promised reward. On the contrary, “a false witness”-a man addicted to falsehood, regarding merely what is expedient-and what at the time promises most benefit, whether negative or positive,-such a man will utter lies, let the temptation be ever so small;-sometimes from the very pleasure he has in deceiving others, and seeing them perplexed and confounded, and led astray in their judgment and counsels. A habit of lightness in regard to truth is one which, once admitted even in the smallest matters, grows insensibly,-becoming less and less thought of in matters of greater importance. He who lies in little things is only learning to lie in great things.
Verse Proverbs 14:6 . “A scorner seeketh wisdom, and findeth it not: but knowledge is easy unto him that understandeth.”
The “scorner” is the same description of person as in Proverbs 1:22 . There are indeed two descriptions of the character. There are “scorners” of truth, from pride of intellect; and there are “scorners” of authority, from the pride of self-will. They are nearly allied; and they are frequently united. It is the former that is chiefly meant here; seeing the subject is knowledge rather than duty.
There is a certain spirit and frame of mind necessary to the understanding and successful investigation of divine truth. It is the spirit that counts our own wisdom folly-laying it down at the feet of our divine Instructor, and taking our place as listeners and learners. It is the spirit of Samuel, when he said-“Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth.” It is the spirit of the apostles when they said, “Lord, to whom shall we go but unto thee-thou hast the words of eternal life.” It is the spirit of Mary, when she sat at the Lord’s feet, and “heard his words.” It is the spirit of Cornelius, when he said, “Now, therefore, are we all here present before God, to hear all things that are commanded thee of God.”
To him who submits his understanding to divine teaching,-who, sensible of the many biasing and blinding influences to which he is subject, and by which his mind is in danger of being perverted, looks humbly for promised illumination, and whose mind is disciplined to an implicit acquiescence in all that divine wisdom reveals:-to him “the entrance of God’s word will give light;"-and “knowledge will be easy.” One truth will lead to another; and “the word of Christ will dwell in him richly in all wisdom.”
But is not “a scorner seeking wisdom” a species of contradiction’? We answer-in one sense it is. But words must be understood as their connexion will bear. A “scorner seeking wisdom,” is a man inquiring after divine knowledge under the influence of a spirit opposite to that we have been describing-a self-sufficient, critical, censorious, sneering spirit. We may exemplify the difference by instancing the case of those who came to Christ, in the days of his flesh, with humble-minded desire of instruction, and that of those, on the contrary, who came to him with questions, not for the sake of information, but for the purpose of “entangling him in his talk,” and of “catching something out of his mouth that they might accuse him.” These were not inquiring learners, but prying and evil-minded “scorners.”
The “scorner” is the man who has a high notion of his own understanding; an overweening conceit of himself; trusting “in himself that he is right and despising others;” determined to follow the dictates of his own vaunted reason; having formed his opinions, and holding in disdain whatever contradicts them, and whatever presumes to be above his comprehension;-measuring truth, even should it relate to the infinite God himself, by the line of his own capacity. Such a character, actuated by such a state of mind, may reject divine revelation altogether, and seek wisdom elsewhere without finding it:-or supposing him to have the conviction, from external evidence or from education, that in the Bible we have a revelation from God, he may, in such a frame of spirit, seek wisdom even there without finding it. The man is not in a state of mind to be satisfied with taking the truths made known in their simple and obvious meaning. He scorns that. He must have something of his own; something out of the common course; something that is the product of his own ingenuity and originality. And he who is determined to make something else of the discourses of the Bible than the language of it plainly expresses,-will succeed in misinterpreting and explaining them away.
Beware of this spirit. “Be ye not mockers, lest your bands be made strong”-the bands of ignorance and darkness, and a self-deluded heart. It was when the heathen “did not like to retain God in their knowledge,” and preferred counsels of their own, “that God gave them over to a reprobate mind.” It was when the followers of the man of sin “received not,” when they had the opportunity, “the love of the truth that they might be saved,” that God “gave them up to strong delusion, that they should believe a lie.” It was when “Ephraim was joined to his idols,” that God said, “Let him alone.” It was when the Jews “heard and understood not, saw and perceived not,” wilfully closing their ears and eyes to the truth of the messages of Jehovah, that Jehovah pronounced their sentence of judicial abandonment and blindness.
The poet’s language is fearful but true:-
“Hear the just doom, the judgment of the skies;
He that hates truth shall be the dupe of lies:-
And he who will be cheated to the last,
Delusions, strong as hell, shall bind him fast.”
There is one who is called, by way of eminence, in the Bible, “The Faithful Witness.” It is He by whom, in these last days, “God has spoken unto us;” He “whose name is called the Word of God.” All that he declares is truth-truth without mixture. He bears testimony for God; and “we know that his testimony is true.” He is true in his declarations, and true in his promises. His word is “not yea and nay.” “All the promises of God in Him are yea, and in Him Amen!”
Proverbs 14:7-12
LECTURE XXXIII.
“Go from the presence of a foolish man, when thou perceivest not in him the tips of knowledge. The wisdom of the prudent is to understand his way: but the folly of fools is deceit. Fools make a mock at sin: but among the righteous there is favour. The heart knoweth his own bitterness; and a stranger doth not intermeddle with his joy. The house of the wicked shall be overthrown: but the tabernacle of the upright shall flourish. There is a way which seemeth right unto a man; but the end thereof are the ways of death.”
The counsel in the first of these verses might be enforced on both negative and positive grounds. First of all, the company and conversation of “a foolish man” can do you no good you can derive no profit from it. At the best, therefore, the time spent in his society can be only time wasted and lost. But this is not the full amount of the reason. While he can do you no good; he may do you essential harm: for “the foolish” are the unprincipled; and the “knowledge” not found in their lips is especially the knowledge of the mind and will of God.-Be ye the “companions,” as the Psalmist was, of “them who fear Him.” From such choose your associates. Let their society be the society you love. They say, “Come with us, and we will do you good.” O comply with the invitation, if you would imbibe their spirit, learn their wisdom, and participate in their happiness.
True wisdom is practical. Thus here:-“The wisdom of the prudent is to understand his way.” He first of all estimates, according to their real worth, those abstruse or airy speculations, which terminate in nothing but diverting the attention of him who is fascinated by them from the consideration of the “way " which he ought to be pursuing. Every man has a way to go; has a department in life to fill up. It is “wisdom” to know how to do this with sense, with propriety, with safety, with honour, with advantage to self. With benefit to others. He who does not thus “understand his way,” may have knowledge, but he has not wisdom.
And, to apply the words (as I cannot doubt they were meant to be applied) in the highest of all departments-every man has a final destination before him. The way of all is the way to the grave, and to eternity. But in that eternity in which the present short course must terminate, there are two widely differing states;-the one of perfect purity and perfect bliss, the other of growing sinfulness, and unmingled and unmitigated woe. To these opposite states there are two ways-” the narrow,” and “the broad.” O the infinite value of true wisdom here!-the wisdom that " understands” both ways, and rightly chooses between them!
“But the folly of fools is deceit.” These words may mean that the folly of fools proves to them deceit. They fancy and call it wisdom. But they impose upon themselves. Their confidence in it, and their expectations from it are sheer delusion, and this they will find by bitter experience in the end. Or the sense may be, “Deceit is the folly of fools.” The truly wise and prudent man is an enemy to policy and craft. He is upright and straight-forward; ever acting up to our own established adage-that “honesty is the best policy.” Craft and policy mislead, entangle, and ruin men. They are “taken in their own craftiness.” “New stratagems,” says Lord Bacon, “must be devised, the old failing and growing useless; and as soon as ever a man hath got the name of a cunning crafty companion, he hath deprived himself utterly of the principal instrument for the management of his affairs,-which is trust.” Policy, therefore, on this as on other accounts, is “the folly of fools.”
Verse Proverbs 14:9 . “Fools make a mock at sin: but among the righteous there is favour.” This verse has been differently rendered, and of course differently understood. The word for sin signifies either the trespass or the guilt involved in the trespass, and which exposes to penal consequences. Both at the sin, the guilt, and the consequence, “fools make a mock."-The chief difficulty in the verse is the point of the antithesis in the two clauses of it. The general import, however, seems to be, that the friendship of wicked men, of Scorners, and scoffers, is destitute of principle. You can have no dependence on the man who “makes a mock at sin;” and between men of this description there can be no lasting, sacred, confidential attachment. They feel that they can have no sure hold of each other, neither word nor deed being trustworthy. Between them mutual esteem cannot exist, there being nothing on either side on which such a sentiment can find a basis. On the contrary-“Among” or between “the righteous there is favour”-genuine, disinterested, benevolent regard,-attachment founded on principle, and respect for each other’s character. In the former case, each knows the other’s worthlessness; distrusts, and is distrusted; despises, and is despised. In the latter, there is mutual esteem. Each cleaves to the other in admiring and confiding affection.
The conduct of the man who “makes a mock at sin,” involves impiety, cruelty, and infatuation.
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That it involves impiety is sufficiently obvious. “Sin is the transgression of the law.” It is contrariety to the divine holiness, opposition to the divine authority, ingratitude for the divine goodness, the object of the divine abhorrence, the declared and denounced subject of the divine curse and vengeance. To “mock at sin,” therefore, is to despise God’s holiness, to set at nought God’s authority, to abuse God’s goodness, to disregard and slight God’s glory, to make light of God’s curse and threatened vengeance; which implies a denial of God’s truth and a scornful defiance of God’s power. There cannot be a more profane insult on the infinite Majesty, than is involved in every sin, and especially in mockery at this worst of evils.
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It involves cruelty-cruelty the most atrocious. The scoffer may be a great pretender to humanity and kindheartedness. But there breathes not on earth a more inhuman, a more iron-hearted monster, than the man who “makes a mock at sin.” He may profess to feel for the miseries of mankind; for the ravages of disease and death over their bodies; of fire and flood and storm over their means of life and comfort; of melancholy, and idiocy, and
“Moody madness, laughing wild
Amid severest woe,”
over their minds; and the vast endless catalogue of ills by which the lot of man in this world is afflicted. But he “makes a mock” of that which is the cause, the prolific and accursed cause of all. There is not an ill that man is called to suffer, that does not owe its origin to Sin. Like the “star called wormwood,” in the Apocalyptic vision, it has fallen on every “fountain and river” of human joy, turning all their waters to bitterness. It is the sting of conscience. It is the venom and barb of the darts of the king of terrors. It is the very life of the “worm that dieth not.” It is the kindling and fuel of the flames of hell. Oh! the miserably mistaken flattery, that can speak of the kind-heartedness and humanity of the man who laughs at that which is the embryo germ of all the sufferings of time, and all the woes of eternity! Abuse not language thus. Assail not the unhappy wretch with irony so bitter. Call himself what he will he is “cruel as the grave,” who “makes a mock at sin.”
- Such mockery is most infatuated. Sin is the evil that is ruining the poor sinner himself-hurrying him to perdition. It is the disease that, whether he is sensible of it or not, is preying upon his own vitals, and must terminate in “the second death.” It is the secret consuming fire, that is wasting his eternal all. Sin has separated him from God. Sin has doomed him to toil, to trouble, to sorrow, to death, and to the grave. And sin will “destroy both soul and body in hell.” Yet the deluded victim of its power laughs at it-“makes a mock” and a jest of it! O the infatuation, the self-murderous madness of mocking at sin! Beware of it, my hearers. It is mockery of God, mockery of all the sufferings in the universe, mockery of your own damnation!-And let the mutual “favour” that subsists between the people of God, manifest itself in their keeping each other from sin; in their cherishing in each other’s bosoms right impressions of its exceeding sinfulness, and such a holy dread and detestation of it, as shall lead them to seek, with all earnestness and assiduity, its crucifixion and destruction in themselves, in one another, and in all around them!*
- The verse has been rendered, “Sin-offering mocks fools; but among the upright there is ready acceptance,” the meaning being, that “when sin-offering is presented formally by fools, it mocks their hopes because it is not accepted;” whereas the offerings of the upright “find good will, that is, ready acceptance.” Some consider that the structure of the Hebrew sentence makes this rendering imperative. Be this as it may, it in no way affects the solemn truth so forcibly illustrated.
Verse Proverbs 14:10 . “The heart knoweth his own bitterness; and a stranger doth not intermeddle with his joy.” We may connect this verso with the preceding; and in this connexion, it naturally suggests the thought of the “bitterness” of a spirit wounded by the accusations of conscience-the stings keen and rankling, of remorse; of the inward, secret, dark anticipations of death and judgment, hell and eternity, unacknowledged, but acutely felt by the fools who “make a mock at sin.” His mockings are many a time but the flimsy cover of a spirit ill at ease, and the poor expedient for alleviating for the moment the “bitterness” which his own heart alone knows, and which he is proudly anxious to conceal. And this may be contrasted with the heartfelt “joy” of the righteous-” the joy of the Lord”-the joy of God’s salvation-the “peace that passeth all understanding,"-the delightful sense of God’s pardoning mercy and paternal love-the cheering “hope of glory, honour, and immortality.”
Or the words may be taken more generally, as expressing a distinct and independent sentiment.-We are not competent judges either of the happiness or the unhappiness of others. The sentiment is emphatically true of the latter. All is not happiness that bears the semblance of it. How often are there secret griefs concealed in the inner chambers of the heart, and engendering there a “bitterness” unknown but by him who feels it! How often are fondly cherished desires and hopes frustrated!-and, as no one knew the sweetness of the sanguine anticipation, no one can duly estimate the “bitterness” of the disappointment. How many circumstances are there which give special poignancy to sorrow which another cannot appreciate! The remark might be illustrated from the feelings that arise out of the peculiar relations of life. Who but a parent can fully know the “bitterness " of his grief who “mourneth for an only son”-of him who is “in bitterness for his first-born!” O, who but a parent can sympathise with the " bitterness " of the royal mourner’s anguish, when over a son that had died in rebellion against his father, and his God, he exclaimed, “O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son!” “Who but a widow can realize the exquisite “bitterness” of a widow’s agony, when bereft of the loved partner of her joys and sorrows, her cares and her comforts; and when gazing with tearful eye and bleeding heart on her fatherless babes! “Who but a pastor can know, in all its intensity, the “bitterness " of soul experienced in seeing those on whom he counted as genuine fruits of his ministry, and on whom he looked with delighted interest, as his anticipated “joy and crown” in “the day of the Lord,” falling away-” going back and walking no more with Jesus!"-the “blossom of his hopes going up as dust,” or ripening into the “fruits of Sodom and the clusters of Gomorrah!”
But still, amid all descriptions of secret woe-of heart-felt and heart-hidden “bitterness,” the child and servant of God possesses “a joy” with which " a stranger doth not intermeddle.” It is a joy imparted to the heart by the Spirit of God. It is many a time most sweetly and exquisitely felt, when other joys are withdrawn,-when the springs of earthly pleasure are stinted or dried. The world cannot give it; nor can the world, blessed be God! take it away. “Who?-what “stranger?"-what creature, in heaven, earth, or hell-can “intermeddle with the joy " of the believer, when, in the darkest and most desolate of the hours that pass over him-his dearest joys all swept away and his fairest hopes blasted,-he can still sit down and sing, “Though the fig-tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labour of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls: yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation?” Habakkuk 3:17 .
The language may also be applied to the gracious and divinely awakened convictions of sin, and the secret anguish thence arising, when the conscience is aroused, the “heart pricked,” and the cry of distress wrung from the inmost soul. “What shall we do?"-and to the peace and joy, contrasted with this, which arise from the spiritual discernment of the gospel, in the freeness and richness of its grace, and the adaptation of its provisions to all the sinner’s exigencies-
“When in that trembling sinner’s view
The wonders of the cross arise,
His agonizing fears subdue,
And change to joy his hopeless sighs.”
In the verse following, the “house of the wicked” stands in contrast with the " tabernacle of the upright.” The one may be a palace, the other a hut; but, as we had occasion before to remark, the lowly mud-walled cottage of the pious poor is, with the blessing of heaven abiding under its roof and resting on its inmates, incomparably better than the splendid and spacious mansion of the man of the world, who is living without God, and enjoys not His favour and love:-” The house of the wicked shall be overthrown; but the tabernacle of the upright shall flourish.” *
- Compare Proverbs 3:33 ; Proverbs 12:7 .
Verse Proverbs 14:12 . “There is a way which seemeth right unto a man; but the end thereof are the ways of death.” There are some ways which can hardly “seem right” to any man,-the ways, namely, of open and flagrant wickedness:-although even in these the presumptuous sinner may delude himself, with false, self-flattering views of the divine mercy,-fondly assuring himself that God will not be hard upon him, and that all, no doubt, will be well at last! But many are the ways which, under the biasing influence of pride and corruption, “seem right,” and yet their “end” is “death.”
There is the way of the sober, well-behaved worldling. He thinks of the law as if it had but one table, the first being entirely overlooked. He passes among his circle for a man of good character. He flatters himself in proportion as he is flattered by others, that all is right, and that there is no fear of him. And yet he lives “without God”-a stranger to the spiritual feelings and exercises of a renewed heart; without regard to the divine authority as his rule, the divine glory as his end, the divine love as his motive, the divine blessing as his portion. And, with all his earth-born virtues, goes down to the grave “with a lie in his right hand.” His way “seems right;” but it is not the way of life, for God is not in it.
There is the way of the formalist. He follows, strictly and punctually, the routine of external religious observance. He reads his Bible. He goes pretty regularly to church and sacrament. He maintains, perhaps, “by tradition from his fathers,” a form of family worship, and. even, possibly says a prayer when he rises, and when he goes to bed. But his heart has not been given to God. The world still has it. He compromises the retention of its affections for the things of the world and of sense, by giving to God the pitiful and worthless offering of outward homage. It will not do. The services cannot terminate in life, which have no life in them. The way of mere form is the “way of death.”
There is the way of the religious speculatist-or the speculative religionist. Prom education, or as a matter of curiosity, he has made himself an adept in theological controversy-especially, it may be, in the particular questions of the day. He holds by the creed of orthodoxy, and is readyarmed at all points in its defence: and he imagines that this kind of knowledge is religion. “His way seems right to him.” And yet there may not be in all his knowledge and in all his talk one atom of religion-one “vital spark” of its “heavenly flame.” The heart may not be touched-neither warmed nor purified in any one of its affections; nor the conscience rendered sensitive and tender in its submission to the dictates of the divine will. Speculative opinion is not saving knowledge;-is not the faith which “worketh by love” and “overcomes the world.” It is not the way of spiritual life; and the “end thereof are the ways of death.”
There is the way of the self-righteous. It is, we shall suppose, a combination of all the other three-of sobriety, formality, and knowledge,-and of self-confidence thence arising. Such was the way of the Pharisees in Christ’s time; on whom, notwithstanding their high pretensions, he denounces the heaviest and most terrific woes. And such was the way of the unbelieving Jews of that age more generally; of whom” Paul in his Epistle to the Romans presents such a graphic and powerful description.*
In the " way which seemeth right unto a man” may be comprehended, in short, all that bears the semblance of religion and may be mistaken for it, but is not the reality. The “end” of everything of this kind is and must be “the way of death.”
God’s way must be the only right way. It is, we remind you anew, the way of faith and obedience; of faith producing obedience-of obedience springing from faith. The way to heaven-the way of life, is measured from Calvary. From the foot of the cross alone can any sinner set out in it. The course of holy obedience commences with the acceptance of mercy there. It is there, through faith in atoning blood and mediatorial righteousness, that the sinner is freed from the burden of conscious guilt and heart-sinking fear; and thence, under the spring and elasticity of a light and joyful heart, he starts in “the narrow way”-the one and only divinely provided way to heaven. “I AM THE WAY,” says Jesus; “NO MAN COMETH UNTO THE FATHER BUT BY ME.”
Proverbs 14:13-24
LECTURE XXXIV.
“Even in laughter the heart is sorrowful; and the end of that mirth is heaviness. The backslider in heart shall be filled with his own ways: and a good man shall be satisfied from himself. The simple believeth every word: but the prudent man looketh well to his going. A wise man feareth, and departeth from evil: but the fool rageth, and is confident. He that is soon angry dealeth foolishly: and a man of wicked devices is hated. The simple inherit folly: but the prudent are crowned with knowledge. The evil bow before the good; and the wicked at the gates of the righteous. The poor is hated even of his own neighbour: but the rich hath many friends. He that despiseth his neighbour sinneth: but he that hath mercy on the poor, happy is he. Do they not err that devise evil? but mercy and truth shall be to them that devise good. In all labour there is profit: but the talk of the lips tendeth only to penury. The crown of the wise is their riches: but the foolishness of fools is folly.”
It is, at times, unavoidable, and all but a duty, to assume external appearances not quite in harmony with inward feelings. For the sake of his company, a man is often obliged to keep his secret sorrows in abeyance, and to seem cheerful when in reality his heart is depressed and sad; and often, from the painful effort it costs to maintain the semblance of a joyous spirit, deeper is the dejection into which he sinks. Even thus, “in laughter the heart is sorrowful; and the end of that mirth is heaviness.”
But such is not the case here intended. The “laughter” is that of violent and boisterous merriment-what Solomon elsewhere calls “the laughter of the fool.* And well might he say of such laughter-the laughter of intemperate mirth-“it is mad.” In such a world as this,-in such a condition as that of fallen man, and with such prospects before him, it becomes a species of insanity. It is often, Solomon alleges, but the veil of a heart ill at ease-a heart fretted by the stings of an accusing conscience, and oppressed with the forebodings of futurity which conscious guilt engenders. The jovial merriment of the social board is courted for the very purpose of repressing these-of drowning care, and silencing the inward monitor, whose voice, in solitude and quietness, is too well heard for the sinner’s peace. When the glass, and the jest, and the laugh go round, there is a partial, and to others it may seem an entire suspension of these inward gnawings and secret fears. But even then the success is seldom complete. Could you look within; could you see the inner depths of the sinner’s heart-you might find there something widely different from what outward appearances indicate. You might find the begun tortures of the undying worm, and real sadness in the very midst of the most boisterous revelry.-And when left to himself; when the song and the glass, the joke and the laugh have ceased with the breaking up of the company, and solitude and reflection follow, how emphatically true-” the end of that mirth is heaviness!”
And may we not apply the words to the case of the deluded sinner, who attempts to be jocular and merry even on the bed of death? Ah! surely, in such a case, the lips and the heart belie each other. Jesting and levity, in these circumstances can be only the symptoms, while they are the attempted concealments, of internal disquietude. This is what we might naturally and fairly suspect; and many a confession, from those who have been brought back from the gates of death, and have subsequently come to a better mind, has confirmed the suspicion into certainty. There can be nothing more out of all reason,-nothing more affecting and shocking to every pious, and even to every soberly-thinking mind. Emphatically might it be said of such mirth-“it is mad.” Even were the system of infidelity and annihilation true, the very thought, were there no more, of the final and irrecoverable extinction of conscious being, might be enough to render any man at least thoughtful and serious.
O how different from the “laughter” and “mirth” of the men of this world the joy of the Christian! that cheerful serenity of soul-that inward sunshine, which diffuses on every hand its benign and smiling influence!
What was before affirmed respecting the wicked and impenitent generally, is in the next verse affirmed specially of “the backslider”-of him who has “left his first love,” and declined from the ways of God-“The backslider in heart shall be filled with his own ways: and a good man shall be satisfied from himself.”
Temporary backsliding may take place in the true children of God; but the “backslider” here is evidently he who, in the language of the Apostle, “goes back unto perdition.” Solomon alludes to such “perpetual backsliding” on the part of those who thus prove themselves to have been no more than professors-” having the form of godliness, but denying the power thereof." Such characters, whatever appearances they present to the eyes of men,-even of the people of God, with whom they associate, never were vitally and savingly one with Christ, and one with true believers in Him. This is as plainly affirmed as it is in the power of language to affirm it: “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us,” 1 John 2:19 . It is of such characters, therefore, that we must interpret other passages that describe final and fatal backsliding.*-O let professors be upon their guard; jealous of themselves; “keeping their hearts with all diligence;” “working out their own salvation with fear and trembling;” “building themselves up on their most holy faith.” Let them ever remember, there may be a great deal of what Solomon here calls “backsliding in heart,” that does not discover itself to the view of others in the outward conduct:-a declension in the inward vitality of true godliness,-a deadening of the tender sensibilities of the new nature,-the sensitiveness of conscience, the warmth and interest of heart in spiritual things. And backsliding, though temporary and partial, will be the occasion of severe though salutary correction, and bitter distress of soul. Thus it was in David’s case; and thus it was in Peter’s. And the general threatening from the Lord is, “Thine own wickedness shall correct thee, and thy backslidings shall reprove thee: know therefore and see that it is an evil thing and bitter, that thou hast forsaken the Lord thy God, and that my fear is not in thee, saith the Lord God. of hosts,” Jeremiah 2:19 . Even when restored, “the backslider” is “filled with his own ways.” He returns through the valley of humiliation, with a burdened, aching, broken spirit, and may, as the merited result of his sin, be allowed to go mourning many a weary day in the bitterness of his soul. Of the final apostate the doom is the most fearful of all that the word of God describes.
*As Hebrews 10:26-30 ; 2 Peter 2:20-22 .
Mark the antithesis:-“The backslider in heart shall be filled with his own ways; and a good man from himself.” For the supplement “shall be satisfied” there is no need. “From himself,” some would render “from above himself,” and refer it to his receiving from God, from the divine fulness of blessing and grace. This, however, though the original may bear it, seems rather a straining, to insure orthodoxy. It is unnecessary. For as “the backslider” is he who departs from God, the “good man” is he who cleaves to God; and as the one is “filled with his own ways,” in their sad results, so are there in “the good man”-in his heart, and in his ways, which are the ways of God,-springs of true satisfaction and delight. He enjoys present happiness,-flowing from a sanctified state of mind; from the holy exercise of its renewed affections; from what the Apostle declares to have been his rejoicing, “the testimony of conscience” to the “simplicity and godly sincerity” of his conduct; from growing evidence of interest in the salvation of God, and in the well-founded hope of eternal life; and from the pleasure, pure and blessed, of pious and benevolent deeds. And, when he acts under the influence of Gospel principles,-having learned what it is to renounce self and to serve God from grateful love and glad devotedness,-he knows that “God is not unrighteous to forget his work and labour of love;” that He will own all at last, and say to every one who, instead of backsliding and apostatizing, perseveres in the right course, “Well done, good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy Lord!”
Verse Proverbs 14:15 . “The simple believeth every word: but the prudent man looketh well to his going.”
The words may first be applied to the concerns of the present world. “The simple”-the thoughtless and inconsiderate, are easily imposed upon by the specious and the artful-by their plausible representations, their confident protestations and assurances, their flattering and fawning speeches, insinuating address, and fair and ‘ample promises. Possessing no depth of discernment for the discrimination of character, and no steadiness of observation and comparison to enable them to profit by experience, they are credulous of all. This is a very different thing from the “charity which believeth all things.” Charity, assuredly, should be more prone to believe good than evil, and ever disposed, where two views present themselves of any case, to credit that most favourable to the character of another;-but not against evidence; not so as to flatter any one into a false conception of his spiritual state, or even of his temporal affairs. What we have here described is the credulity of the simple, not the candour of the charitable.
Now “the simple,” on finding himself often deceived and imposed upon, and thus injured by those in whom he unwittingly confided-“believing every word”-not unfrequently degenerates into the contrary extreme. He has his temper fretted and soured. He becomes universally and without distinction distrustful. From having, in his simplicity, taken the word of all men for honesty and truth, he comes to reckon all men cheats, liars, rogues; and appears in the wretched character of an embittered, jealous, all suspecting misanthrope.
“But the prudent man looketh well to his going?” We may liken “the prudent man,” when at all in perplexity, to an intelligent traveller who has lost his way, or is not at least sure of it. He reflects. He brings before his mind the relative positions of places,-the time of the day with the direction of the sun in the heaven; and, laying all things together, considers which of two or three roads is the most likely to conduct him to his destination. Or, if he is in possession of a map, he examines it for his guidance. He does not, like “the simple,” strike at once into the first way that offers itself, or choose without thought, or rashly take the advice of any one who may chance to give it him. In every matter of importance, he “looks well to his going;” first to find the right way, and next to keep it.*
- Comp. Proverbs 4:26 .
“We may apply the verse, in all its emphasis of meaning, to eternal concerns.-“The simple” hear different persons on the subject of religion, and take it for granted that all they hear is right. They are easily bewildered by sophistical arguments; led away by appeals to feeling; swayed and mastered by false eloquence; seduced by flattering assurances, palatable to the selfishness of the heart. They get thus entangled in error and delusion, or in a strange confused jumble of error and truth, between which they have no clear discernment. They are the sport of all that is novel-” tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine." On the contrary, when interests so vast are at stake, as those of the whole man, body and soul, for an interminable existence, the “prudent man” will inquire earnestly and cautiously; will feel his way; will ponder every step; will deliberately examine every statement, and every argument, taking nothing upon trust. He first bends his earnest thought to the question of the divine authority of the Bible-a question next in importance to that of the being of God; and having ascertained its authority, he will go to it, with humble-minded candour and anxiety, to learn its lessons. Having the map, he will examine for himself the way to heaven as there delineated. Having a divine directory, he will trust no human guide.
Verse Proverbs 14:16 . “A wise man feareth, and departeth from evil: but the fool rageth, and is confident.” In this verse, the evil from which the “wise man departeth,” may mean either suffering or sin. Both may with propriety be included, the one being the cause of the other-all suffering having its origin in sin.
We might take the maxim as only a further illustration of prudence and folly. Thus, in regard to temporal evils, the wise man estimates aright the magnitude of the mischief and the degree of the danger; and, by discreet precaution, shuns impending harm. The fool, on the contrary, sees no danger; dreads no harm; pushes recklessly forward, and falls into mischief. The wise man, again, will take, and will profit by a hint of caution and friendly direction or dissuasion; but the fool, in his self-sufficiency, is impatient of every thing of the kind. He resents it, as implying a reflection on his own penetration. He takes it short and high. He breaks out into passion-as if, forsooth, he could not see that! He calls the adviser, how modestly soever he may have ventured the hint, officious, vain, forward, pragmatical. He frets and blusters. And though sensible of the goodness of the advice, he will go directly against it rather than appear to act by the counsel of another. He prefers being wrong in his own way to being right in another man’s. He “rageth, and is confident.”
Then, with regard to evil in the sense of sin. Set before the considerate-“prudent” man the nature and extent of its consequences,-its fearful results-here and hereafter-present and eternal-he thinks, he pauses, he trembles, he “departs from it.” If sin is brought home to his conscience, he confesses and forsakes it. The fool, on the other hand spurns all restraint. He is provoked and offended by every tiling in the form of prohibition or threatening. The very commands of God irritate him. He foams, and winces, and champs the bit that checks him in his wild career. The secret stings of conscience goad him to madness. He is galled and chafed by the suggestions of this inward monitor, but not held back. He is only driven to pursue sin with the more headstrong and frantic avidity. Reproof is like a spark struck amongst combustibles. The man’s irritable passions are inflamed; and, in return for the reproof how gently and kindly soever administered, he only repeats the sin in word or act, whatever it may happen to be, with strong manifestations of displeasure at the presumption that has ventured to find fault,-repeats it in an aggravated form, from pure spite and passion. He “rageth, and is confident.” Thus too it often is when any one hints at the danger of the way in which he is expecting salvation, and presumes to recommend another-even when the hint is given from an avowed and heart-felt solicitude for the welfare of his soul and his eternal happiness. “What business,” he mutters, “have people with me and my soul? Let them mind their own, and leave me to mind mine; impertinent intermeddlers with matters they have nothing to do with!-every man’s religion is his own concern I” And thus, the very presumption, as he regards it, that would set him right, confirms him in wrong. He “rageth, and is confident.” Suppose he is on the way to hell-that is his own concern; and if he chooses to keep that way, who has a right to hinder him ?-No one certainly, poor sinner. But neither have you a right to hinder us from wishing you well;-that is all. It is duty to give you the counsel, whether you hear or forbear. And when you angrily adopt the poet’s words, and say-
“‘Twere well, would you permit the world to live
As the world chooses;-what’s the world to you?”
we might adopt the poet’s answer-claiming kindred and brotherhood with you, and insisting on the privilege of kindred love. You surely cannot but approve the conduct of the servants of Naaman, when their master on receiving the prophet’s order-" Go, wash in Jordan seven times, and thy flesh shall come again to thee, and thou shalt be clean,"-“raged and was confident,” saying, “Behold, I thought, He will surely come out to me, and stand, and call on the name of the Lord his God, and strike his hand over the place, and recover the leper.” “My father,” said these discreet counsellors, “if the prophet had bidden thee do some great thing, wouldst thou not have done it? how much rather then, when he saith to thee, Wash, and be clean.” Now this is all we would say to you. We point you to the divinely appointed remedy for the deadly malady of sin, common to you with us all, and entreat you to avail yourselves of it. If you will" rage and be confident;" if you will rather retain the distemper and die eternally than be cured by any other means than your own; if you will prefer going to hell in your own way than to heaven in God’s way-we cannot help it; we have delivered our own souls, and are clear of your blood: but you cannot prevent our still pitying and praying for you!
Verse Proverbs 14:17 . “He that is soon angry dealeth foolishly: and a man of wicked devices is hated.”
In the Septuagint Greek the verse is otherwise rendered, but without sufficient reason. The antithesis, as it stands in our own translation, which appears faithful to the Hebrew text, is abundantly manifest.
“Foolish” indeed is the conduct of the man of a quick, touchy, irritable temper. O! what would the irascible man many a time give to have his hasty words recalled!-His anger, however, vents itself in the vehement bluster of the moment. He utters rash and mischievous things, it may be; but people come to know him, and to appreciate these. His burst of passion is quickly over. The storm soon spends itself. The calm returns; and perhaps an apology for his haste and violence. How troublesome and unpleasant soever such a temper may be, it is not to be compared with that of the “man of wicked devices”-the man, that is, who studiously conceals and covers up his passion; broods over it; nourishes and cherishes it in the secret recesses of his bosom; waits his most favourable time for vengeance; watches, and contrives plans of retaliation; and all the while, perhaps, shows no external symptoms of the internal ferment, but possibly assumes the very opposite-is all smiles and courtesy. Than such a character none is more odious; and it is dangerous as it is odious. Such a character cannot but be “hated.”
In the following verse, simplicity and prudence are again presented in a somewhat fresh point of contrast. “The simple inherit folly.” This means not, as some would have it, that folly is theirs by hereditary possession, as part of the heritage of their fallen nature; but that through their inconsiderate and vacant listlessness, folly becomes their patrimony-with its full train of serious consequences-scorn, perpetual imposition, deranged affairs, distress and calamity, bankruptcy and ruin. The very designation of fool is the inheritance of the thoughtless simpleton, with all the derision that accompanies it. He stands as a neglected cipher in the intercourse of life, or becomes the dupe of every unprincipled deceiver.-On the contrary, “the prudent are crowned with knowledge.” They acquire knowledge; and this knowledge becomes their crown. It brings them respect and honour; advances and elevates them in society.
The language, as in other cases, is equally true of the interests of the world to come. “The simple “-careless sinners, who pursue heedlessly " the course of this present world;” who disregard the gospel message, “the word of truth and love;” who, if hearing it at all, hear it with an ear between which and the mind the avenue is closed-in the end “inherit folly.” All they find awaiting them as their portion, is the exposure of their folly, by the verdict of Heaven, before the assembled world,-with the “shame and everlasting contempt " which is the necessary consequence. While the “prudent “-the truly thoughtful and wise in heart-are raised to the most exalted honour-honour far transcending what belongs to earth; have placed on their brows a diadem of glory-the “crown of life that fadeth not away:"-all the result of that divine “knowledge” to which they lent a willing ear, and welcomed to their hearts. “For this is life eternal to know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.”
Verse Proverbs 14:19 . “The evil bow before the good: and the wicked at the gates of the righteous.”
All that Solomon intends by this language, so far as what is merely temporal is concerned, is, that not seldom the real, sterling superiority of righteousness and goodness over vice and impiety is made apparent. It does frequently happen, that " the wicked,” by whom “the righteous” were scorned, have come, by a reverse of circumstances, to feel their need of their counsel and aid; to feel the excellence of that which they had contemned-the true nobility of goodness. They have been fain to have recourse to them; to fawn where they had despised; to cringe at the gate of those from whom they would have withheld even a passing look; to petition where dependence would have been disdained, and the very proposal of application for help resented as an insult.
Such instances may be only occasional, but the superiority of the righteous to the wicked is universal. And its universality will appear in the “judgment of the great day,"-the day when the light of eternity shall be thrown upon the honours and the possessions of time. O the agonizing regret with which the miserable mistakes of the past will then be recollected!-and how utterly will every thought be absorbed in the awful present and the still more awful future-the eternal future!
Verses Proverbs 14:20-21 . “The poor is hated even of his own neighbour: but the rich hath many friends. He that despiseth his neighbour sinneth: but he that hath mercy on the poor, happy is he."-Taking these two verses together, the connexion shows that the former of the two is not to be understood as if by all his neighbours in every case, the poor were hated. Those there are who “have mercy on the poor,” and who are sensible that to “despise " them is to be guilty of sin. But, alas! for the selfishness of human nature!-the case supposed, and the principle involved in it, are far from rare. From the poor there is nothing to be got. There is not only no share of property to be had from them, by any process of attention and flattery, but no respectability; no distinction arising out of any connexion with them. Nay, even to be seen in their company is to insure being shunned by all who love the honours of the world, and are set upon what the world call good society.-” The rich hath many friends.” There is keen satire in these words; but there is no slander. They are words of truth. The rich have friends, on both the accounts mentioned-interest and honour. If they are bountiful, the friends they have are not those who are attracted by the admiration of their benevolence, and become attached to them from love to their amiable and generous spirit. They are the friends who are drawn around them by the hope of sharing in the plunder-of getting something by it-profiting by their generosity and profusion-ever studious to please, and ever hinting, broadly or otherwise as circumstances may require. They are friends, not of the man, but of his table and of his purse. And if the rich man be a miser, his friends are his hangers-on, his parasites-persevering in attentions, fawning, flattering, accommodating, submitting to any indignity, patient of contradiction and insult, anticipating every wish, watching every look, running on every service; and all without one solitary feeling of real regard to aught else whatever but the coffers and the lands.
The spirit of the former of the verses is many a time very affectingly exemplified in the case of persons who have been reduced from affluence to poverty by sudden or gradual reverses. How many, in these circumstances, prove, as good Matthew Henry calls them, “swallow-friends, that leave in winter.” They become shy of him to whom they had paid court. They find out plausible excuses for avoiding his company, and withdrawing from his house. They put the best face upon it they can, while every one sees the true cause. Poverty has stripped off all the former attractions. There is no longer anything to be had. Their friendship thus ceases at the very moment when it comes to be most needed.-Let not the blame of desertion, however, be put down, without exception, to this score. It does sometimes happen, that persons who are reduced in their circumstances act in such a manner as to bring upon themselves the very desertion and neglect, of which they subsequently complain, and which they are fond to impute, with real or affected selfcomplacency, to the pride, and selfishness, and insensibility of others,-casting severe reflections on those by whom they are forsaken, when the fault lies entirely with themselves; when, by their unbecoming temper and behaviour, they have driven off those by whom they might otherwise have been befriended and succoured.
A selfish spirit, however, when that leads to the conduct described, is always a sinful spirit. “He that despiseth his neighbour “-his poor neighbour, “sinneth “-sinneth against God. There is sin against the arrangements of His providence. There is sin against the frequent and express commands of His word.*1 There is sin against the manifestations of His distinguishing love: for God has not only, in the strongest terms, avowed himself jealous for the poor, making their interests his own; but “to the poor the gospel is preached,” and of those who become the subjects of God’s grace, and heirs of glory, a large proportion belong to this class.*2 And, finally, there is sin in the contempt at once of God’s threatened vengeance against all who treat the poor with neglect or cruelty, and of His promised special favour to all who treat them with kindness and generous sympathy.
*1 Comp. Deuteronomy 15:7-11 ; Luke 12:33 ; Luke 14:12-14 . rr
*2 See James 2:5-7 .
“He that despiseth his (poor) neighbour sinneth;” and in sin there can be no happiness. Hence the force of the antithesis-“He who hath mercy on the poor, happy is he.” “Happy is he,” for his conduct is obedience to God’s command;-and in “the keeping of his commandments there is a great reward.” “Happy is he,” for he hears a voice saying-” Is not this the fast that I have chosen, to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house; when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh? Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thine health shall spring forth speedily: and thy righteousness shall go before thee; the glory of the Lord shall be thy reward. Then shalt thou call, and the Lord shall answer; thou shalt cry, and he shall say, Here I am.. .. The Lord shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones: and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not.” He is “happy " also because of the pleasure found in the gratification of the benevolent affections-God having so constituted our nature, that in proportion as it is delivered from the disturbing forces of corruption, and restored to its original rectitude, it derives enjoyment from the exercise of kindness. “Happy is he,” in a word, for he is God-like-like Him whose bounty supplies the universe.
Verse Proverbs 14:22 . “Do they not err that devise evil? but mercy and truth shall be to them that devise good.” This may still be applied to the poor.* They who thus “devise evil” against the poor do egregiously err, if they expect to prosper. The hidden curse of God is upon them. But the verse may be understood more generally-of the “devising of evil,” of whatever kind, and from whatever motive, whether of malice, resentment, envy, avarice, or ambition. To him who “devises good “-who lays himself out in planning and executing designs of benefit to others, there shall be “mercy and truth.” From his fellow-men he shall experience universal love and esteem. He shall find sympathy in his distresses and reverses, faithfulness in dealing (for if anything will secure a man from being cheated and defrauded, it will be a character for disinterested kindness, tenderness, and liberality) and the general exercise of practical gratitude. And the Lord will make him to experience His love, and will fulfil to him faithfully all His “precious promises.”
- Comp. Isaiah 32:6-8 .
Verse Proverbs 14:23 . “In all labour there is profit: but the talk of the lips tendeth only to penury.” It must be obvious that by “the talk of the lips” is to be understood, not the legitimate use of the powers of speech in professional business. This, of course, comes under the description of the “labour in which there is profit.” The reference is to vain, idle, empty talk-useless gossip. The character is that of the man whose tongue is ever in motion; who is uneasy till he gets some one on whom to inflict his prosings or his frothy tattle. He goes in quest of such.. He gets them inveigled to hear him. He stands or sits idle with them. His work and his family are neglected. The great talker is seldom a great worker. A busy tongue makes idle hands. If the mouth will be heard, the noisy loom must stop; and he who prefers the sound of his tongue to that of his shuttle, had need, at the same time, to be a man who prefers talk to meat, hunger to fulness, starvation to plenty. The husband’s words will neither make into food nor clothing. Back and belly must alike starve: such talk “tendeth only to penury.”
Verse Proverbs 14:24 . “The crown of the wise is their riches: but the foolishness of fools is folly.” The meaning of the first clause is obvious. When a wise man has “riches” it is a part of his wisdom to know the proper use of them: and by putting them to that use,-by doing with them all the good in his power, they become a crown to him. He thus frames for himself a diadem of beauty more truly glorious than if the most exquisite skill were expended in working up all his gold and jewels into one as rich and costly as ever adorned a monarch’s brow. O what is the most gorgeous and dazzling earthly crown compared with a diadem of which the component parts are the blessings of the destitute relieved, the ignorant instructed, the vicious reclaimed, the afflicted comforted, the dying cheered with the hope of life, the perishing rescued from perdition and brought to God! This is a royal crown indeed!
“The foolishness of fools is folly,” is an expression which, taken by itself, might simply signify, that place a fool in any variety of circumstances, he will still identify himself; his “foolishness” will still be “folly “-never long-concealed: while it is folly, in regard to its ultimate product, to himself as well as to others. Of no benefit to his fellow-men, it leaves him in a fool’s plight at last. Ah! surely that “foolishness is folly” indeed, of which this is the termination!
But it cannot fail to strike you, that there is no direct antithesis between the one clause of the verse and the other; there being no reference to " riches” in the latter, as there is in the former. To remove this defect, it has been conceived by some that in the latter part of the verse there is what critics call a paronomasia; the same assortment of letters having two significations, equally arising out of the primary meaning of the root-the one, fulness or wealth, and the other grossness, stupidity, or folly. It will then read-“but the fulness of fools, or the wealth of fools, is folly;"-and what may be called the play on the words has been successfully enough imitated in English-” but the abundance of fools is abundant folly.” The sentiment will thus be, that while, by the use of his riches, the wise man converts them into a crown of glory, the possession of riches by the fool only augments his folly, by giving him new and more varied means and opportunities of displaying it. His wealth puffs him up. His foolish and weak mind is inflated by it; and, in the littleness of his vanity, and the trifling, ostentatious, or absurd uses to which he applies his ill-bestowed abundance, he only renders himself the more a fool.
In conclusion, let Christians, rich and poor, seek grace so to regulate their whole course that they may put honour upon the Son of God, and that “the word of God and his doctrine be not blasphemed.” Beautiful is it to see, in all situations, the happy influence of right principle-the faith of divine truth showing itself in appropriate conduct; and appropriate conduct avowing its originating and guiding principle in the faith of divine truth! This is “holding forth the word of life.”
Proverbs 14:25-31
LECTURE XXXV.
“A true witness delivereth souls: but a deceitful witness speaketh lies. In the fear of the Lord is strong confidence: and his children shall have a place of refuge. The fear of the Lord is a fountain of life, to depart from the snares of death. In the multitude of people is the king’s honour: but in the want of people is the destruction of the prince. He that is slow to wrath is of great understanding: but he that is hasty of spirit exalteth folly. A sound heart is the life of the flesh: but envy the rottenness of the bones. He that oppresseth the poor reproacheth his Maker: but he that honoureth him hath mercy on the poor.”
“A True witness delivereth souls.” The words might be rendered with greater propriety, and wider comprehensiveness-” a true witness saveth lives.” But it may be said, and said justly, that a faithful testimony does not always save life. Such a testimony may evidently condemn a man as well as acquit him. It depends entirely, not on the fidelity of the witness, but on the facts of the case. If the facts are criminatory, a true witness must tell them as they are-” the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth,"-and the fault rests not with him that his testimony warrants a sentence of condemnation. The duty of giving such evidence may often be most painful; but the “true witness” must submit to this: the truth must be told.-And while true testimony may condemn, false testimony may acquit; while the former may destroy life, the latter may save it. Many a time has a false and perjured witness brought off a pannel that was guilty and deserved the punishment pronounced by the law against the offence charged.
It is probable, therefore, that the intended antithesis relates, not so much to the actual fact of truth saving and falsehood condemning, as to the dispositions and intentions of the faithful witness on the one hand, and the lying witness on the other. The faithful witness delights in giving testimony that will save life-that will be salutary and beneficial to his fellow-creatures. The lying witness will, in general, be found actuated by a malevolent and wicked purpose, having pleasure in giving testimony that mil go to condemn the object of his malice. The sentiment will thus be, that truth is most generally found in union with kindness of heart, and falsehood with malevolence. And this is natural; the former being both good, the latter both evil; falsehood more naturally akin to malice, and truth to love. “A deceitful witness” is evidently not intended to be understood of a witness who deceives for the good of others. A man may occasionally deceive for such a purpose; but this is the exception, not the rule. The deceitful man deceives for his own advantage:-while the man of truth regards not the results, whether to others of to himself; but, be they painful or pleasant, considers only what fidelity and veracity demand of him: not things as he may wish them, but things as they are.*
- Comp. Proverbs 6:19 ; Proverbs 12:17 ; Proverbs 13:5 .
Verse Proverbs 14:26 . “In the fear of the Lord is strong confidence; and his children shall have a place of refuge.”
He who fears God, according to the revelation He has given of himself, may well have “strong confidence.” That in which he confides is all infinite:-the truth, the love, the wisdom, the power of his covenant God! What confidence shall be strong, if this is not strong? The God whom he fears and loves (for in the Scripture sense he cannot fear without loving) has given, in the name of his Son, “exceeding great and precious promises;"-precious in themselves, in the fulness of blessing, for time and for eternity, which they contain; precious, as given by divine fidelity; precious, as pledged and made sure of fulfilment by all the resources of divine wisdom and divine power. Whatever the love of God has induced Him graciously to promise, no power or combination of powers in existence can stay from being done.
The psalms abound with expressions of confidence, corresponding with the phraseology of the latter part of the verse-“And his” (the Lord’s) “children shall have a place of refuge.” This does not mean merely that God in His providence will see to their protection and preservation in seasons of danger and calamity-true though that is, but that, to them, as His children, He Himself will be “as a hidingplace from the storm, and a covert from the tempest;” so that they shall fully realize the security; and, in the enjoyment of “perfect peace,” say with the prophet, “The Lord is good, a strong hold in the day of trouble; and he knoweth them that trust in Him,” Nahum 1:7 .
What is before said (Proverbs 13:14 .) of “the law of the wise,” is in next verse said of " the fear of the Lord.” “The fear of the Lord is a fountain of life, to depart from the snares of death.”
There is a perfect and beautiful harmony between the two. “The law of the wise,” is the great practical principle by which their whole character is formed and their whole conduct regulated, and that principle is “the fear of the Lord.” And if the “law of the wise” be interpreted in the former passage, more generally, of the divine word, which the wise take as the “light of their feet and the lamp of their path,” the authoritative guide of all their ways,-what, we still ask anew, is the leading lesson of that very word? Is it not that the fear of the Lord is wisdom, and the beginning of wisdom? Is not the very purpose of God’s word to reveal Him to guilty men in the appropriate character of the God of their salvation? And is not the very purpose of the manifestation of God’s mercy to rectify the state of the heart toward Him? Is there not “forgiveness with Him that He may be feared?”
Now “this fear of the Lord is a fountain of life, to depart from the snares of death.” From these it effectually preserves; while they who have it not are “broken and snared and taken”-led astray to their destruction-“entangled and overcome.” All the streams that flow from this fear are streams of life-waters of joy. And when the principle is perfected above-when every foreign and bitter ingredient is separated from the fountain-when all that is impure is filtered out-how sweet will be the waters! The untainted fountain of holiness will then indeed prove itself “a fountain of life”-a spring of eternal and unmingled blessedness. O! is not true religion, we again ask,-is not the “fear of the Lord” true wisdom? Would you be wise-prudently and practically wise-wise as it respects your own happiness? choose it for your law; disown every other; resist every interfering and counteracting influence, every temptation to throw off its salutary dominion, and say, with full determination of spirit-“I FEAR GOD, AND KNOW NO OTHER FEAR!”
Verse Proverbs 14:28 . “In the multitude of people is the king’s honour: but in the want of people is the destruction of the prince.”
There is a natural tendency in the population of a country to increase; and, according to the estimates of some political economists, (into the discussion of which it would be inconsistent both with place and time to enter) to increase in a more rapid ratio than the means of subsistence. When, therefore, population, instead of thus increasing, diminishes, there must be some cause or causes counterworking nature. The subjects of the country may be wasted in destructive and depopulating wars; they may be driven by oppression to quit their native land, and to seek a refuge in other and distant regions; they may be starved and reduced by measures that are injurious and ruinous to trade, and especially to the industry and comfort of the artisan-measures that keep up the price of bread, and depress the wages of labour; and may thus be necessitated to seek an easier and a more abundant subsistence for themselves and their families, elsewhere.
There may be circumstances in providence, let it be granted, over which no Government can exercise any control, which may contribute to the production of similar results. But no Government that is desirous of its only real stability;-a thriving, vigorous, well-educated, happy, and loyal population, will trifle with those laws which manifestly and essentially tend either to its production on the one hand or to its diminution and extermination on the other. Such a population, as Solomon here teaches, is the glory and the strength of every Government. Its existence is a mark of freedom, of wise and impartial legislation, of paternal care;-and it is the palladium of all that is desirable in the results of human rule. It is the honour and the security of a country. Such a population will be jealous of the liberties and the blessings they enjoy, and will maintain, with unanimity of resolution and vigour, the throne and the laws under which they are enjoyed.
On the contrary, in a thin, diminishing, scattered, discouraged, and heartless people, whence is the power of protection and defence to come? They can feel no interest and no energy in repelling aggression, and protecting from injury and hazard, that from which they derive so very little good. Go where they will, they naturally think, the change cannot be materially for the worse. There may, however, be circumstances, which, even in a free, thriving, and happy country, may at times render the emigration of individuals and families desirable; and when those who take leave of their country itself go to the colonies, more or less distant, of that country, they may still be regarded as belonging to “the multitude of the people”-the “king’s honour.” They remain among his subjects, and may contribute more to the prosperity of the land they leave than they would have done by remaining at home; just as a man may do better for himself and family, and better contribute his little quota to the prosperity of the community, by shifting his place and changing his occupation, within the country itself.
The prince who reigns over a numerous, thriving, contented, and attached people, may be likened to the proprietor of a vineyard where all is rich, flourishing, fruitful, productive; thus fully rewarding his expense, time, and care,-bringing him at once credit and profit. Whereas the prince who sways his sceptre over a draining, exhausted, and dispirited people, is like the proprietor whose vineyard, for want of cultivation and judicious management, becomes, in its vines, stunted and sapless, and, in its soil, weedy, poor, and sterile,-at once his disgrace and his ruin.
The sentiment of the following verse is a kindred one to that in verse seventeenth ( Proverbs 14:17 )-“He that is slow to wrath is of great understanding: but he that is hasty of spirit exalteth folly.” The man whose resentments, instead of quickly kindling are slow of excitement, may, by the men of the world, be censured and despised, as tame and spiritless. But after all, this self-command is true greatness of mind,-one of the marks of a powerful intellect. Hasty and violent tempers make their subjects often both to say and do things that cause subsequent regret and shame. Thus “he that is hasty of spirit exalteth folly.” He gives folly for the time being the throne and sceptre of his mind, and fulfils her preposterous and mischievous dictates. And when reason, for the time deposed, resumes her vacated seat, she finds no easy task before her to repair the evils which have been done in the brief but stormy reign of passion. But the subject has been already more than once before us. I dwell not on it.
Verse Proverbs 14:30 . “A sound heart is the life of the flesh: but envy the rottenness of the bones.”
The word sound signifies healthful; free from moral distempers-the distempers of “the inner man:” such distempers as discontent, malice, and envy. And here “a sound heart” stands in contrast with a heart under the power of the last of these. And the influence of each on the general constitution, and even on the welfare of the body, is strongly set forth.
Strictly speaking, “a sound heart”-a heart entirely free from the evil passions that belong to fallen nature-is not to be found. But in Scripture “a sound heart,” and even “a perfect heart,” are phrases used to signify the real sincerity and predominant rule of right principles and affections. Of the corruption of human nature, to which I have referred, the passions noticed are parts and modifications; and of all the malignant influences of which the heart can be the subject, that of “envy” is perhaps the most odious in itself, and the most corroding, torturing, and wasting to the spirit of which it takes possession. It is here called “the rottenness of the bones”-not a mere surface sore, but a deep-seated disease; like caries or inflammation in the substance of the bone itself. It burns and destroys inwardly. Its poor agonized victim writhes in misery at every report that reaches his ear of the success or prosperity of the object of his malevolence; or even of the elevation and progress of others in general. And the connexion is intimate between mind and body,-between the spirit and the tabernacle in which it resides. They mutually affect each other. When such a passion preys upon the heart, the body will sicken, pine, and consume-the appetite failing, and the flesh wasting away. On the contrary, there is not a more effectual preservative of the health and vigour of the physical frame, than a contented and cheerful spirit,-a spirit that shares the happiness of all around, and makes every stream of enjoyment that gladdens the heart of others tributary to the river of its own pleasures. This, instead of rottenness, is marrow to the bones.
Verse Proverbs 14:31 . “He that oppresseth the poor reproacheth his Maker: but he that honoureth him hath mercy on the poor."-We had a similar sentiment before us in last lecture. I then mentioned, amongst other views of the sin, that scorn of the poor was contempt of the appointments of divine providence. The idea here corresponds with this.
“Oppression,” however, is something more than contempt or neglect. It is the using of superiority and power with rigour and severity; taking advantage of the dependence of the poor to “grind their faces;” exacting then-hard toil for an inadequate compensation; adding to their work, and screwing down their wages; making necessity on their part the reason, not for treating them gently, but for dealing hardly and cruelly by them.
He who acts such a part to the poor, “reproacheth his Maker” For first, he acts as if the poor were of another species-an inferior order of beings; whereas they have all the attributes of the same manhood with him by whom they are contemned. It is kindred blood that flows in the veins of both; their constitution of soul and body is the same; their sensibilities are the same; the sources of their joys and sorrows, their pains and pleasures are the same; their eternal destinies are the same; their ruin by sin is a common ruin,-the salvation provided for them by Christ a common salvation. And further, because he acts as if the circumstances in which the poor had been placed by his Maker were a warrant for him to imitate the divine conduct, and to depress them still further; which is a reproach of God, as if He dealt with the poor in the spirit of unkindness and partiality, and meant His own dealings as a signal for fellow-creatures to withhold good and to inflict evil, instead of intending to present occasions for the exercise of the very opposite dispositions and conduct.
On the contrary-“he that honoureth him”-that is, God, “hath mercy on the poor.” The inverse of course holds-that he who “hath mercy on the poor honoureth God.” And yet, perhaps, this may be questioned, unless duly explained and guarded. A man may have mercy on the poor who does not “honour God.” Humanity may, and often does, exist without godliness. But godliness cannot exist without humanity. Kb man can honour God without “having mercy on the poor: “-and it will be well for both descriptions of persons to examine themselves. The humane and merciful man should examine, whether he has any consideration of the glory of God in what he is doing; whether his benevolence springs at all from, or has any connexion with, piety: and the professedly pious and godly, those who say they have the glory of God at heart, do well to reflect whether this be one of the ways in which their regard for God’s glory manifests itself.
Jesus-who of all that ever lived on earth honoured God most, showed most of mercy to the poor. This was prophesied of him;* and the prophecy was amply verified in his entire life on earth. The poor were ever around him. He was ever dispensing to them temporal good, and ever vouchsafing to them his gracious and saving instructions. It was at once the delight of his heart, and one of the proofs of his Messiahship, to be able to say, in connexion with the enumeration of his miraculous works-” And to the poor the gospel is preached.” He, therefore, who most imitates him, most honours God;-for him God “delighteth to honour,” and delighteth to see honoured; and those who most resemble him will have most of God’s blessing.
- Comp. Psalms 72:4 ; Psalms 72:12-14 .
Let me close by remarking that they do not imitate aright either Jesus or the Father that sent him, who confine their imitation to mere outward, present, temporal good. Vast was the amount of such good scattered around him by Jesus when on earth; but not for that purpose did he come from heaven. He had a higher errand. That errand was salvation. Men were spiritually poor-destitute for eternity; and herein is the signal “grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for our sakes he became poor, that we through his poverty might be rich,"-not rich in the wealth of this world, but rich in spiritual blessings, rich in the divine favour, rich in the promises of God’s covenant, rich as heirs of “the better country, even the heavenly,” rich in God Himself. Do you pity, then, the spiritual destitution of mankind? Do you seek to relieve and supply their wants? Otherwise you honour not God. You dishonour Him. You are not of one mind either with Him or with his Son. It was to provide for the wants and woes spiritual and eternal of mankind, that the whole scheme of the mediation of Christ was devised and carried out. And if, professing to pity the poor, you confine your mercy to their temporal condition, you are really “reproaching their Maker”-reproaching Him as having done a needless thing, as having expended an immense amount of the most marvellous means, for accomplishing an end which you do not think it worth your while to mind, either for yourselves or for others. Your benevolence is spurious. It is not the benevolence of God. It is not the benevolence of Christ. It is not the benevolence of wisdom or prudence. It is the benevolence of the physician, who should expend all his care and skill on the binding up of a bruised finger, while he left a deadly malignant distemper preying unheeded on the very vitals. If you honour God, you will act as God acts. The souls and eternal interests of men will be highest in your estimate, and first in your attention. To make men “rich toward God” will be your chief concern. And to those who mind their temporal interests, while they overlook those that are spiritual and eternal, we would say, in the terms of Jesus on another subject-” This ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone.” If you would honour God, you must seek to fill this impoverished world with “the unsearchable riches of Christ.”
Proverbs 14:32-35
LECTURE XXXVI.
“The wicked is driven away in his wickedness: but the righteous hath hope in his death. Wisdom resteth in the heart of him that hath understanding: but that which is in the midst of fools is made known. Righteousness exalteth a nation: but sin is a reproach to any people. The king’s favour is toward a wise servant: but his wrath is against him that causeth shame.”
The first of these verses might be specially applied to the characters in the verse preceding-on the one hand, the unmerciful oppressor who has for a time succeeded in his schemes of rapacity and iron-hearted avarice, and the merciful man on the other, who, under the influence of the principles of faith and love, has honoured the Lord in the exercise of compassionate kindness.
We take the verse, however, in application to the righteous and the wicked generally. When it is said of the latter-“The wicked is driven away in his wickedness,” the contrast in the close of the verse shows to what period the words refer. It is to the time of death. And the contrast, though briefly stated, is very striking. The two characters are brought, as it were, to the verge of eternity. Of one the whole heart, in all its affections and desires, has belonged to the present world. He has lived in the pleasures of sin, “without God,” neglecting the salvation of his soul, and in utter destitution of any well-founded hope for futurity. His heart fails him. Conscience sets his sins in dread array before him. Imagination, stimulated by conscience, anticipates the terrors of a coming judgment-the vengeance of a holy God. Yet his heart is still carnal, hard, unyielding; his iniquities are unrepented; his evil lusts and habits remain in their full force. How he clings to life!-what a death grasp he keeps of this world! Unprepared for the world beyond, he shrinks back from it; he dares not look into it. O what would he give-what would he not give for a little longer lease of time! for but a year, a month, a week, a day! But go he must. It is anything but willingly. He goes by force. He is “driven away in his wickedness”-compelled to quit his hold of the world, and hurried into eternity.
“But the righteous hath hope in his death.” He is not driven away. The world that is before him, and on which he is about to enter, has been anticipated by him. It is not strange to his mind. It is his country; it is his home. The present world he has not regarded as his world, the world to which he belongs. The next is properly his-the place of his future and eternal settlement. While here, he is a stranger and foreigner,-staying only for a short season, and journeying towards his destined abode. The world to which his hope looks forward has attractions far superior to that in which he now dwells. Not that he is insensible to tender and strong attachments drawing and binding him to the scene he is about to leave. He loves his friends; his wife and children are dear to his heart; and so are father and mother, brothers and sisters; and fellow-Christians,-one with him in the communion of saints; with whom he has “taken sweet counsel,” “walking with them to the house of God in company:” and he feels at the thought of leaving them. But he has friends in heaven too-earthly friends who have gone thither before him-patriarchs, prophets, apostles, martyrs-all the saints of God from Abel to himself; and above all, his best, his divine friend. And there too are better, and higher, and purer blessings-the sinless perfection of those which he has tasted and learned to relish here below.-And then, with regard to all in whom he is interested on earth, he has a covenant God in whose hands he can leave them with firm and steadfast faith, the living faith of a dying hour, and sing-
“Ye fleeting charms of earth, farewell,
Your springs of joy are dry:
My soul now seeks another home,
A brighter world on high.
Farewell, ye friends, whose tender card
Has long engaged my love:
Your fond embrace I now exchange
For better friends above!
Cheerful I leave this rale of tears,
Where pains and sorrows grow;
Welcome the day that ends my toil,
And every scene of woe!”
Many now present can bear testimony to the fact that “the righteous hath hope in his death;” and amongst them some who have been recently called to mourn the departure of one of the oldest members of the Church-one dear to a large circle of affectionate relatives; a Christian of long standing, and approved character; and one whose sun, though it went down somewhat suddenly, yet set without a cloud.-” Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his!” Is this your wish, my hearers? Then you must live the life of the righteous, under the influence of the faith of the righteous.
Verse Proverbs 14:33 . “Wisdom resteth in the heart of him that hath understanding: but that which is in the midst of fools is made known.” The meaning is not, of course, that the man of “understanding” makes no use of his “wisdom” for the benefit of others,-keeping it all to himself-all locked up in his own mind; but that he uses it discreetly. He chooses his time and his company, unfolding his mental treasures at appropriate seasons, to appropriate persons, in appropriate circumstances. The fool has little, and that little he is anxious to show, ever seeking to be thought as wise as possible; and he exhausts perpetually, over and over again, his little stock of common-places, and of such extraordinaries as he has chanced to pick up and remember. The folly of the one is “made known” to all. The wisdom of the other “rests in the heart” of him who possesses it, discovered only by degrees, and by the few with whom he comes into intimate contact.*
- For farther illustration see Proverbs 12:23 ; Proverbs 13:16 .
Ver. Proverbs 14:34 . “Righteousness exalteth a nation: but sin is a reproach to any people.”
The sentiment may be applied to riders and to people. Righteousness in the rulers “exalteth a nation;” and the general prevalence of righteousness in the community “exalteth a nation.” The true honour of a nation, like that of an individual, lies in character;-and even as to what is too often placed by the thoughtless first-even as to national wealth and temporal prosperity, and the extension of possessions and dependencies, it is character that tends most effectually to their attainment; and it is character, in a special manner, that alone secures their permanence. How often, in the history of nations, has character procured wealth and aggrandizement; and then the wealth and aggrandizement, by their seductive and corrupting influence, gradually, but with accelerating progress, destroyed character!-And again, as the final step, how often has the destruction of character proved the decline and fall of the empire even in its temporal and secular greatness, and hastened its complete extinction!
When there is, in any community, the prevalence of true religion, with its inseparable attendants and proportionals, the personal and social virtues, sobriety, justice, mutual integrity and honour, industry, and practical benevolence,-there are in that community the elements of national greatness,-of true, internal, independent happiness, as well as of advancing prosperity and elevation. The tendency of these to promote such results is manifest. They produce peace, union, stability, and concentration of energies; with personal and social, civil and religious liberty. They are, moreover, the means of bringing down the divine blessing on a country,-without which, what is there that can prosper? “Without which all will be failure, all blight and barrenness, all disappointment and discomfiture, all declension and penury, and slow or rapid consumption. The prevalence of impiety, with its accompanying vices, tends, in the very nature of things, to ruin,-to ruin both personal and national: and the tendency is aggravated by its withdrawing the protection and smile of the Almighty,-the “righteous Lord, who loveth righteousness.”
We find the great general principle of divine providence, in regard to nations, thus laid down by Jehovah himself to the prophet Jeremiah-“At what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, and to pull down, and to destroy it; if that nation against whom I have pronounced, turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them. And at what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it; if it do evil in my sight, that it obey not my voice, then I will repent of the good wherewith I said I would benefit them,” Jeremiah 18:7-10 . This was a principle, not applicable to Israel exclusively:-for we find it expressly applied to the Amorites, the Canaanites, and the inhabitants of Sodom and of Nineveh. And, the Old Testament bringing before us specimens of the divine administration,-the Spirit of God letting us so far into the secrets of its principles and laws,-we have every reason to believe that in the government of God over the world, the same principle is still in operation, though we may not be able to trace it,-that, had we only an inspired record of what takes place now, we should see it clearly in all cases; and, even without such a record, there are cases in which it would be equal impiety and blindness not to discern and own it.
Let us all be assured, then, that we do most efficiently promote the security and prosperity-the true glory and the true happiness of our country, in proportion as we contribute, in any way, to the advancement of the interests of religion amongst its inhabitants. Of the contrary, alas! there is a vast and growing amount in the British Isles; and it is aggravated by the greatness and abundance of our privileges,-of the light of divine knowledge and the varied means of piety and virtue. There are systems in operation, of which the tendency is to the deterioration of all that is good, and the introduction of all that is evil. By every legitimate means we should seek their counteraction. But by legitimate means, I am not to be understood as intending the interference of the strong arm of law,-the staying even of irreligion and immorality themselves by prohibitory statutes and penal enactments,-unless in cases where injury is done to person or property, or to the peace and safety of individuals, neighbourhoods, or the country at large. I mean, the personal and the combined activity of the friends of the truth, and of true religion, to diffuse right principles, and thus to counterwork the spread and influence of wrong ones. In proportion to the zeal and efforts of the abettors of error, let the adherents of truth bestir themselves. If the agents of the enemy of souls be busy, let the agents of the Redeemer of souls be busy too. Let all moral means, especially, be put diligently into operation for circulating the knowledge, impressing the importance, urging the obligation, and promoting the influence of principles in accordance with the word of God; in suppressing intemperance; in checking all descriptions of vicious indulgence; in diffusing education; in promoting, by Sabbath-schools, by Bible and Tract distribution, by visits of mercy to the poor, the knowledge and the leavening influence of religious truth; by town missions and country missions, circulating light and dissipating darkness; and, at the same time, it should be added, by such measures of private philanthropy, and by countenance and aid to such measures of legislative authority, as are fitted to augment the independence and comfort of the inferior classes of society, and thus to repress the spirit of discontent and turbulence, and to encourage that of satisfaction, quietness, and peaceful industry, and to engender a disposition of greater willingness to attend to those means which may be used for their higher and better interests.
And let it be our prayer, that the “righteousness which exalteth a nation” may ever be found in the administration of its government;-that its great men may be good men-men “fearing God and hating covetousness”-not actuated by selfish but by truly patriotic and disinterested principles:-of which, though there are honourable exceptions, we have always so much reason to lament that the amount to be found on any side of political partisanship, should be so sadly small!-Let it be our prayer, that “the throne may be established in righteousness,"-and that, from the throne downward, righteousness, in principle and practice, may pervade the nation. “While we bewail the amount of varied wickedness in our own land, let us not be unmindful of the good, nor unthankful for it. There is much. There is much of true religion. There are many renewed and praying souls; many who are the salt of the earth; many objects of divine love; many who imitate that love in active benevolence, and who benefit the community, both by example, activity, and prayer. By this salt is Britain preserved from universally pervading corruption. By this shield of prayer is Britain protected from divine vengeance. This is Britain’s glory; this Britain’s security.
There is a close connexion between this and the following verse, as nothing has a better tendency to diffuse righteousness in a community, and to maintain and perpetuate it, than the character of the reigning prince:-“The king’s favour is toward a wise servant: but his wrath is against him that causeth shame."-These words state what ought to be. No one ought to be the king’s or the queen’s servant who is not wise; and toward every such wise servant the royal favour should be specially extended. And who is a wise servant? Not a servant who flatters royal vanity; accommodates itself to royal foibles; indulges royal prejudices; chimes in with royal caprices; tolerates and connives at royal vices, whether personal or official. No. A wise servant must be a servant of conscientious principle, and of bland but unflinching fidelity. He is one who gives prudent and faithful counsel; who “speaks truth as he thinks it in his heart;” whose counsels are dictated by a right understanding of the times and knowledge of what such times require,-not by a wish to ingratiate the minister with the prince, and so to promote his own personal advantage, but by the principles of genuine patriotism as well as loyalty. Such a public servant is a blessing to the throne, and through the throne to the country. Such a servant will, unquestionably, on the supposition of his being under its influence himself, do all that lies legitimately in his power to promote the interests of true religion; and he will avail himself, for this purpose, of the augmented influence which his high station gives him. This is quite a distinct thing from exerting official authority in religion. I have spoken of what may be legitimately in his power. But the exercise of such authority is not legitimate. The principles and laws of true religion are in the Bible; and in the Bible alone is their authority; and in the Bible alone are the gracious rewards and the penal sanctions, by which obedience to them is encouraged and the infraction of them restrained. Every interference of human authority in such matters is an interference with the exclusive prerogatives of the Most High. But influence may be more than legitimate: it may be incumbent. On every man, in every station, who knows the truths of religion and feels their power, it is incumbent. He will use it in every way that is in harmony with freedom of conscience, and with the independence and spiritual character of the kingdom of Christ.
The expression “causeth shame” corresponds perhaps to the word “reproach” in the verse preceding. That servant “causeth shame,” by whom that is encouraged from which reproach arises; that is who encourages sin. Against a minister of this description the king’s wrath ought to be directed: he should frown him from his presence.-That servant too “causeth shame,” who, from whatever motive, gives counsels to his prince which, he has reason to believe, must prove either prejudicial or abortive;-such as can hardly fail to render him unpopular with his people, and expose him, by their failure, to the derision of foreign states-a derision in which the kingdom as well as the throne-the people as well-as the monarch, are involved.-That servant too “causeth shame” who is the enticer and tempter of his royal master to evil, to vicious and licentious indulgences, from which, ultimately, he finds himself involved in personal infamy, and in official disgrace and embarrassment. He then awakes, but too late, to a sense of his folly in allowing himself to be thus seduced and duped; and then his bitter reflections awaken his wrath against the unprincipled and faithless servant who has brought him to shame.
The example of the Court necessarily spreads downward to the very lowest, through all the intermediate grades of society. We find this strikingly exemplified in the recorded history of the kings of Israel and Judah. According to the character of the prince was, to a great extent, the character of the people. And indeed, we might select many hardly less striking exemplifications of the same thing from the history of our own country. So that, in every view, it is of eminent consequence, that the throne should be based on righteousness; and that those around it should be men of righteous principle-wise, faithful, upright, fearing God. Let Christians, then, comply with the apostolic admonition-” I exhort, therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men; for kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour; who will have all men to be saved and to come unto the knowledge of the truth,” 1 Timothy 2:1-4 .
If the character of the reigning monarch thus affects and moulds the character of his people, let the subjects of the King of Zion consider the character of their Prince. Let them set that character, in all its perfect beauty and glorious excellences, ever before them. The more closely they imitate it, the more complete will be their own personal honour and happiness; and the more complete too will be the honour and happiness of the collective spiritual community. When that community is finally assembled in the heavenly city, all shall be fully conformed in character to their King and Head, and the glory and blessedness of the community shall thus be perfected. O my brethren, let us show that our hope of likeness to Him then is no delusion, by a growing earnestness of desire to be like him now.