Proverbs 24

Proverbs 24:1-12

LECTURE LXXIII.

Proverbs 24:1-12 .

“Be not thou envious against evil men, neither desire to be with them. For their heart studieth destruction, and their lips talk of mischief. Through wisdom is an house builded, and by understanding it is established; and by knowledge shall the chambers be filled with all precious and pleasant riches. A wise man is strong; yea, a man of knowledge increaseth strength. For by wise counsel thou shalt make thy war; and in multitude of counsellors there is safety. Wisdom is too high for a fool; he openeth not his mouth in the gate. He that deviseth to do evil shall be called a mischievous person. The thought of foolishness is sin; and the scorner is an abomination to men. If thou faint in the day of adversity, thy strength is small. If thou forbear to deliver them that are drawn unto death, and those that are ready to be slain; if thou sayest, Behold, we knew it not; doth not he that pondereth the heart consider it? and he that keepeth thy soul, doth not he know it? and shall not he render to every man according to his works?”

The first verse of this chapter is very naturally connected with the close of the chapter preceding. Truly there is little room for “envy” of such characters as the one there so graphically depicted; and of all men on earth, they will be the last whose company will be “desired” by the wise and the good.-But the counsel before us may be taken more generally. Far be it that “evil men” of any stamp should be envied-either for their boasted freedom or their apparent prosperity. Their freedom is but the semblance of the blessing. It is the reality of bondage. They promise liberty, and are themselves the slaves of corruption. And their prosperity-O deem it not a mark of God’s favour! It is all deceitful. It ends in ruin. “Desire not to be with them.” How oft-repeated is this counsel! * And how often is the warning enforced by similar reasons!-“For their heart studieth destruction, and their lips talk of mischief."-Their designs of evil duly matured find utterance. They communicate their projects to others like-minded with themselves;-projects of fraud, peculation, robbery; or if, on such matters, there be a sense of social honour, and an adherence to the conventional morality of the world, there may be projects of impurity,-of lewdness and seduction; of drunken frolic and revel; of the snares of temptation for some simple but sober youth, whom it will be so excellent a joke to induce to join them in sin. All this, under what palliative epithets soever it may pass in the world, is “mischief” and “destruction.”

• Proverbs 1:10 ; Proverbs 4:14-15 .

Verses Proverbs 24:3-6 . “Through wisdom is an house builded, and by understanding it is established; and by knowledge shall the chambers be filled with all precious and pleasant riches. A wise man is strong; yea, a man of knowledge increaseth strength. For by wise counsel thou shalt make thy war; and in multitude of counsellors there is safety."-In these verses the tenses are, in the original, future: and by some are rendered, as the future tense in the Hebrew frequently is-“By wisdom let thy house be builded,” &c. In all probability, such is the designed connexion. Envy at the prosperity of evil men might be a temptation to seek the furtherance of personal or domestic estate by improper, and thus emphatically foolish, means.

The “building of a house” indicates the advancement of family prosperity, and the “establishment” of it is the maintenance of that prosperity. “Wisdom,” “understanding,” and “knowledge,” in this, as in other places, have much the same signification; and are not intended to be minutely analysed into their precise shades of difference. No doubt they imply ordinary prudence and discretion,-the management of everything on intelligent and well-examined principles, and in harmony with the maxims of a sound and judicious policy. Neither personal nor family estate can prosper without this. I am disposed, however, to think when I consider the sense in which these terms are generally used by the writer of this Book, that they mean here something more:-that they have more especial reference to the general tendency of the principles of true religion, when consistently carried out. When thus carried out in the intercourse of life, and the transactions of business, they lead to the uniform practice of all the social virtues. Now such a manifestation of the influence of these principles, as satisfies the world that he who is under their dominion may be trusted,-may be safely depended upon to any extent,-obviously has a tendency to the building, establishing, and ample storing and furnishing of the house,-that is, to the prosperity of personal and domestic interests. The blessing of God is upon the labours of those who thus honour Him by a consistent exhibition of the principles which have His approbation and sanction. Not that God engages by promise for the invariable success and prosperity of all they plan and do. He reserves to himself the prerogative of selecting, in this, as well as in any other department, the means of salutary and faithful discipline. And the man who sets a due value upon the divine blessing, and knows that that blessing can only be enjoyed in the way of consistent obedience,-even though his efforts should not be crowned with success, yea, though all on earth should fail him, will hold fast his integrity. Having faith in God, he will firmly trust that it is for some end in full harmony with the promises of His covenant, and subservient to their ultimate fulfilment, that He is pleased, instead of building, to stop or partially to pull down the rising house, to shake its stability, or to dismantle it of its furniture and diminish its stores. Never will he have recourse to any methods for the prevention of such results that are not in perfect accordance with the principles and precepts of God’s Word; for well he knows that it is such riches only as are gotten in the fear of the Lord, in the spirit of dependence and the exercise of obedience, that can ever merit the appellation here given them, of “precious and pleasant riches,” And “precious and pleasant” they are when enjoyed with a sense of God’s love,-with His paternally gracious smile-when God is in them all.

“Wisdom” and “knowledge” are, in the fifth verse ( Proverbs 24:5 ), represented as procuring, in addition to prosperity, influence and power:-“A wise man is strong; yea, a man of knowledge increaseth strength.” One great use of strength is the security of its possessor:-and this end is represented as still more effectually answered by wisdom. It has a tendency to this result by the respect which it commands, and by the confidence which it inspires. It holds proverbially true, as a general maxim, that knowledge is power; and especially knowledge in union with wisdom. Wisdom may, to a vast extent, supply the want of power; but not power the want of wisdom. And taking wisdom in the sense of true religion, it imparts security to its possessor, which no amount of power which mortal can enjoy is capable of yielding. By making God his confidence it imparts the security to be found in the combined wisdom and power of the Infinite.

In the sixth verse ( Proverbs 24:6 ) the general principle and spirit of the passage is applied especially to kings:-“For by wise counsel thou shalt make thy war; and in multitude of counsellors there is safety.” This stands opposed to two cases,-that of the self-sufficient and self-willed monarch, on the one hand, who follows his own way, and will take no counsel at all:-and on the other that of the monarch who places his entire confidence in some single favourite, who, by flattery or otherwise, has gained an ascendency over him,-who gives himself up entirely to his counsel. To the subjects of the monarch, in both cases, there is danger; especially when, either by the haste and pertinacity of self-will, or by submission to the self-interested and flattering advice of a favourite minister and minion, they are induced to undertake rash and unrighteous wars-wars justifiable by no plea of necessity, which is the only plea of justice.*

• Compare Proverbs 20:18 .

Since the kings of Israel and Judah may be considered as specially referred to, the former part of the verse might, with some plausibility, be regarded as having reference to tho counsel which the good kings solicited and obtained from the inspired and commissioned prophets, who on such occasions were either sent to them with express messages, or sent for by them to receive direction from the Lord. The latter part of the verse, however, appears rather to favour a more general interpretation; inasmuch as, when inspired prophets were consulted, the safety did not arise from “the multitude of counsellors.’’ The voice of God by one, when well accredited, was as sure as if it had been by hundreds:-and one of the prophets of Jehovah was better than any number of others.* While the general principle holds true that in cases of importance it is well not to trust to any single judgment, yet is there room for exception and for caution:-for sometimes in “the multitude of counsellors” there is distraction and indecision-and all the evils consequent upon delay, or upon dubious, shifting, vacillating measures, measures adopted without confidence, and prosecuted without energy.

• Comp. 1 Kings 22:10-30 .

There is a war in which sinners are engaged, which all the created counsel in the universe, united in its support, would not only fail to justify in the principle of it, but could not free from the charge of madness in its utter hopelessness. “Wo to the man that striveth with his Maker!” O hearken to no counsellors that would encourage you in maintaining that war. All the counsellors in this Book, with one voice,-the voice of earnestness, authority, and affection, dissuade you from it. Here is a “multitude of counsellors;” and here is “safety.” And yet the counsel of them all is but one. They all wrote by one Spirit, and their counsel is the counsel of God. Obey it and live.

In the verse following, we have first, a matter of fact,-“Wisdom is too high for a fool."-The fool in this verse is probably the same as the evil man in the first. He is the man of low, grovelling dispositions, desires, and pursuits,-who “minds earthly things;” seeks his enjoyment in the gratifications of sense; does not even cultivate his mind, far less aspire at the highest of all wisdom, “the wisdom that cometh from above,"-the illumination of heaven, the knowledge of God’s word, and the course of life which is in accordance with its principles and directions.-Wisdom being too high for him, does not mean that it is of such difficult acquisition as to be beyond the reach of his natural powers; (were that the case he would not be blameworthy for the want of it) but that he has no desire after it, and therefore will put himself to no trouble to attain to it. The “price of wisdom” may be “in his hand,” but he has “no heart to it,” and therefore it lies neglected and remains as far from him as ever.

Then we have the natural consequence-“He openeth not his mouth in the gate.” As “the gate” means the place of public assembly and judgment, the expression is evidently equivalent to-men never think of placing him in any situation of honour or of trust. They never consult him in difficulties; never choose him as an arbitrator or judge in any cause or controversy. He may be ready enough to “open his mouth;” he may have a sufficiently good opinion of what he has to say; the greater his folly, the more may be his self-conceit; the emptier of all that is worth having, the fuller is he of himself. But his opinion is never asked; and when he does put himself forward to give it ultroneously, all are impatient; he is put down, his judgment being held in contempt.

Verses Proverbs 24:8-9 . “He that deviseth to do evil shall be called a mischievous person. The thought of foolishness is sin; and the scorner is an abomination to men."-The spirit of these two verses is the same, though the expression be different. There seems at first view in the former something like the tameness of a truism. To be sure, one might say, who should be called a mischievous person, if not the deviser of evil? Two remarks may place it in a correct light:-1. The deep designing villain, who hatches in secret his schemes of evil, may have art enough to draw, by his sly and insidious and plausible representations, the simple and unwary into participation,-and even, as his tools, to take the chief part-in their execution. In these circumstances, the verse teaches that the deviser of the evil should have the infamy, the guilt, the condemnation, the punishment. He is the “mischievous person;” not his unsuspecting and inexperienced dupe. And, when the facts of the case are discovered, and it comes to be known how it stands, so it will be. Men will generally have justice enough to lay the blame, and to affix the infamy and the stigma in their proper place.-2. Thus too it is in the estimate of God. The “deviser of evil” is, in His eyes, the “mischievous person;” and shall be held and treated, condemned and punished, as such, even although his devices should never be carried into execution at all, or should be executed by others than himself.-This, you perceive, brings the sentiment into a close affinity with the first clause of the following verse:-“The thought of foolishness is sin.” But while this connexion may be recognised, the sentiment must be generalized. It holds true in the utmost latitude of application. Every foolish thought-every imagination, every wish, though never uttered to men, and never so much as indicated, even by a look,-is perfectly before the all-seeing, all-searching eye of God. And observe-it is not known only; it “is sin.” If the thinker of the evil meant to be also the doer of it, and was prevented only by causes which he could not control, he will be regarded by the righteous Judge as if he had actually done it. It stands, in the book of God’s remembrance, the same as if thus recorded against him.

How deeply solemn in this view the statement! O how much passes in the mind and heart, to which fellow-men are strangers,-to all of which God is privy! And how does this accumulate the amount of sin in the divine indictment against every one of us! And how should a consciousness of this shut us up to exclusive reliance on the mercy of the gospel! There is not one secret “thought of evil,” that does not require for its forgiveness the virtue of atoning blood; and that does not require faith in that blood, confession, and supplication for mercy, in order to the sinner’s obtaining the forgiveness! Well, then, may we exclaim, “If thou, Lord, shouldst mark iniquity, O Lord, who could stand!”

We have, observe, in the phraseology of this part of the verse, the clearest evidence that foolishness means more than mere weakness, mere intellectual imbecility. It is here, manifestly, moral pravity.

In the latter part of the verse, “the scorner is an abomination to men,”-“the scorner” means, as in other cases, one who openly scoffs at all the restraints of divine authority, the precepts of law, and the principles of rectitude; by whom they are, in word and act, set at defiance; who not only devises evil, but does it, with a stubborn heart and a high hand. Such a character “is an abomination” amongst men; and he is “an abomination to men.” He is so, as a matter of course, to the godly-whose minds are one with God’s, and whose “hearts are right with Him.” And he is so even to men in general, on the principles of that conventional morality, which it is found necessary to maintain, in order to the union and the wellbeing of society; for his pernicious influence is felt on the very bonds of social order. And were his principles and example followed, all would be mutual jealousy, distrust, injury, anarchy.

Verse Proverbs 24:10 . “If thou faint in the day of adversity, thy strength is small."-This also has the aspect of a truism-or at least of a very simple and self-evident truth. But simple truths are often the most important and useful: and such is this when duly weighed in its bearings.

We have seen ( Proverbs 24:5 ) that true wisdom is strength.-Religion, when it occupies with presiding influence the mind and heart, will impart this strength in adversity. A man’s strength-the vigour of his principles, is tried and tested by adversity. It is only then he is put to the proof. A tree or a house may stand firm in the calm and the sunshine, and to the eye present every appearance and promise of immovable stability; but when the clouds gather, and the tempest raves, the one may be uprooted and the other laid in ruins. What was said cruelly and unjustly of Job, is but too frequently verified in human experience-“Now it has come upon thee, and thou faintest; it toucheth thee, and thou art troubled."-Further, in ourselves, we have no strength to bear adversity aright; and it is when a man is made to feel this-to feel, by his “fainting in the day of adversity,” that “his strength is small,” that he becomes truly strong, by being led to rely more on a power above his own.*-Adversity thus contributes, among other benefits, to the deepening of humility,-producing diffidence of ourselves, and confidence in God; while the measure of spiritual vigour,-the power of genuine principle-is drawn out and made apparent, for the advantage and encouragement of others.

• See 2 Corinthians 12:9-10 .

We must beware of self-reliance. Boasted strength will ever be found weakness-ever, in the day when the trial comes, inefficient. Thus was it with Peter. He thought his strength great. O! there was not any thing for which it was not adequate. He was fit for every emergency. Nothing could shake, nothing could daunt him. Yet he “fainted in the day of adversity,” and learned that “his strength was small.” And the lesson, though dearly learned, was of eminent use to him all his days; and the record of it has been of use to many a soul since. Let us learn to place our reliance on the Lord. While in Him we have “righteousness,” in Him too we must have “strength.” All is from His infinite fulness.*

• Comp. Isaiah 40:28-31 .

The two following verses bring before us an important duty and considerations enforcing it:-“If thou forbear to deliver them that are drawn unto death, and those that are ready to be slain; if thou sayest, Behold we knew it not; doth not he that pondereth the heart consider it? and he that keepeth thy soul, doth not he know it? and shall not he render to every man according to his works?”

The duty directly enjoined is evidently that of taking part with the oppressed. The case supposed and described is clearly that of a fellow-creature standing exposed to death, from unrighteous oppression, from false accusation, from malicious prosecution, or from persecution for conscience sake. And the duty incumbent upon us in such a case, whatever be its variety, is that of doing all that lies in our power to deliver such. We may by various causes be tempted to refrain from the discharge of this important duty. But it clearly comes under the comprehensive law of love:-“Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them.” We may dread the vengeance of the imperious and self-willed despot, or the selfish and partial magistrate, or the unjust judge, or the interested and vindictive private prosecutor. We may be tempted by indolence, that cannot be troubled; by selfishness, that says, It is none of my business; by avarice, that shrinks from risk of loss. But let all such excuses be well weighed. They may serve to suppress the demands of conscience now, but they will not stand in the judgment.

The spirit of the duty may be illustrated by a few Scripture examples.-Obadiah fulfilled it, when, at the peril of his life, he took part with the prophets of Jehovah against Ahab and his bloody queen-hiding them from persecuting violence, and providing them with the means of life, when all the resources of royal power and fury were astir to discover and destroy them.-Jonathan fulfilled it, when he placed himself between his exasperated father and the unjustly pursued, the innocent David,-exposing himself, for the sake of his unoffending friend, with noble generosity and self-denial, to the unnatural execrations of an unreasonable and vengefully jealous parent, and to the point of the madman’s javelin.-Esther fulfilled it, when, to save from impending massacre and extermination her own people, treacherously sold to the cruel caprice of the haughty, unprincipled, and mean-spirited Haman, she ventured into the presence of the king, uninvited, at the hazard of his fitful wrath and of her head, saying-“If I perish, I perish."-The midwives of Egypt fulfilled it, when on the ruthless edict of Pharaoh having gone forth to cast all the male children of the Israelites into the Nile the instant they were born, these women, “fearing God,” disobeyed the royal mandate, and saved them alive.-Ebedmelech the Ethiopian fulfilled it, when taking part with the persecuted Jeremiah against the princes of Jerusalem that had accused him to king Zedekiah and demanded his life, and, when the king himself had given him up into their hands from pusillanimous dread of their power,-he went in boldly to the royal presence, protested against the prophet’s accusers, charged them with wrong, obtained an order for his release from the dungeon into which they had cast him, and himself executed the order.-Saul’s guards fulfilled it, or acted at least in the spirit of it, when they disobeyed the command of their master to fall upon and slay the priests of the Lord-an order of most monstrous iniquity; while the time-serving, ungodly, and blood-thirsty Doeg violated it most flagrantly by instant compliance.-Aquila and Priscilla fulfilled it, when for Paul’s sake “they laid down their own necks,” jeoparding their own lives for the preservation of his.

It was in the full spirit of this lesson that all the measures were prosecuted for effecting the termination of the execrable system of slavery with all its horrors of unrighteousness and deadly cruelty; and it is in the spirit of the lesson still, that all possible means should be put in operation for accomplishing the abolition, throughout the world, of the accursed traffic in human flesh, and the breaking of every yoke, that the oppressed may go free,-that the “drawn unto death may live.”

The condition of sinners may be regarded as here very aptly set forth. They are “drawn unto death”-seized, or apprehended for death, and “ready to be slain:"-and the death to which they are doomed,-O how unutterably fearful!

But you may naturally meet me with an objection here. In their condition there is no injustice; no unrighteous and cruel oppression. The sentence of death under which they lie is a divine sentence-in perfect accordance with all the principles of equity:-the sword with which they are ‘‘ready to be slain” is the sword of divine justice itself. They deserve to die the death. To attempt to prevent it would be to arrest the hand of God. Ought not divine, and therefore unimpeachable, justice to have its course? The objection-otherwise irresistible-God has himself removed. Justice, infinite justice, had all its claims acknowledged and fulfilled on Calvary. On the ground of the sacrifice there offered,-the atonement there made,-the God of justice and mercy has called on sinners to accept pardon, in the name and for the sake of his Son. His call comes with authority. It is a command. It is in virtue of the satisfaction of justice in the atonement of Christ, that we ourselves enjoy our own deliverance from the death and destruction to which, in common with all. we were devoted. And the very same authority that commanded us to believe and be saved, enjoins on us to be agents in attempting the rescue of others. O! what should we not be ready to do, to sacrifice, to suffer, for such an end!-to effect such a rescue!

Turn we now to the considerations here enforcing the duty:-

1. It is a duty of which the very nature ought to render it agreeable. It is a duty of Benevolence. It ought, in every case, to be a pleasure to have, and to be able to put in operation, the means of doing good-and in a special manner, when the good is, not temporal and secular merely, but spiritual and eternal. Some duties, even of benevolence, are of a mingled character, partly pleasant, partly painful. There are at times contending, or seemingly contending interests;-so that, when we are doing good to one, we are not sure what the possible effects may be to others. But in the present case there is no such apprehension-no drawback. It is all pleasing. By the conversion of a sinner, the sinner himself is infinitely benefited; and what but benefit can accrue to any one else? Benefit to him is benefit to all who come within the sphere of his influence. There is no possible result but blessing. In delivering one who was “drawn unto death and ready to be slain,” we raise up an agent for the deliverance of more. The benefit spreads,-spreads around; spreads onwards. The rescue of one may be the rescue of thousands; and to individuals, to families, to circles of kindred, to neighbourhoods, to cities, to kingdoms, to the world, it is all benefit,-all blessing; blessing for time, and blessing for eternity.-Still, notwithstanding all this, we are in danger of being tempted to the neglect of this duty. Let us bear in mind therefore-

2. That we have an account to render to God of the manner in which we have fulfilled it.

This is evidently the main point in the various awakening questions of the twelfth verse ( Proverbs 24:12 ):-“If thou sayest, Behold we knew it not; doth not he that pondereth the heart consider it? and he that keepeth thy soul, doth not he know it? and shall not he render to every man according to his works?” These questions all go to impress our minds with the light in which even the guilt of forbearing to succour and to seek the deliverance of the wronged and oppressed appears in God’s eyes:-and how much more heinous must the guilt appear to Him of leaving fellow-sinners without even an attempt to rescue them, to perish for ever!

The blessed God has shown His estimate of the worth of human souls, and the value of salvation,-by the ransom He has paid for them. How criminal in His sight must be all indifference! What an affront to Him, to affect to make light of an object on which He has impressed, by the whole scheme of redeeming grace, in the incarnation, obedience, sufferings, and death of His Son, so high a value! We dare not plead indifference with Calvary before our eyes!-with the testimony there borne-borne by the infinite God, in the tears, and agonies, and blood of Immanuel, to the sinfulness of sin, to the fearfulness of the perdition to which it has doomed the sinner, and the unutterable preciousness of deliverance and life!-The expression here used might be interpreted as that of indifference-“Behold we knew it not!” intimating that they cared not to know it,-were at no pains to find it out. But the plea of indifference, on the part of a professed child of God, would be doubly inconsistent and strange. It would imply at once a supercilious disregard of the revealed judgment of God, and the absence of all right impression of the worth of his own soul; for such an impression it is impossible for any one to have, who feels not for the perdition of other souls as well as of his own. No sinner can be in a state of salvation himself, and think, and talk, and act with a spirit of cold-blooded heartlessness and unconcern, about that of his fellow-men!

But we cannot, at the bar of God, plead ignorance. We cannot plead it with regard to the worth of salvation, when God has, both by word and action, so plainly and impressively declared it; so neither can we plead it as to the fact of others requiring it. Many cases of oppression and wrong, of suffering and danger, may exist around us, without our “knowing” them, or being able, by any pains of ours, to discover them. But to say-with regard to-the guilt and misery, and exposure to perdition, of the mass of mankind among whom we daily live and move,-“Behold I knew it not,” would be, and could not but be, the utterance of a lie,-an unblushingly presumptuous falsehood. To live anywhere on earth, where there are human beings, and not to know it, is impossible:-to live in a city like this, teeming with every variety of ungodliness to be found out of hell, and pretend not to know it, would be a plea only to be accounted for by the loss of reason. Thousands are perishing at our very doors, under our very eye, “without Christ, and without hope!” We see it; we know it. The frequency of it is so great,-the sight of it is so constant, that we are in danger of becoming so familiar with it as to lose all impression of the fearful fact. Against this we need to watch. But ignorance can never be our plea.

Further, every plea by which we would vindicate or palliate neglect, would argue ingratitude to God for his kindness and grace to ourselves. This seems to be the spirit of the expression-“He that keepeth thy soul, doth not he know it?” When applied to the case immediately referred to by Solomon-the case of temporal life exposed to hazard from malice, oppression, or persecution-the case of men thus “drawn unto death and ready to be slain,"-the expostulation, (taking the word soul in its frequent application to animal life) has its full spirit:-“He that keepeth thy life,"-sustaining it every moment, guarding it from the approach of ten thousand dangers,-without whom you could not draw a breath, and without whose bounty and beneficence life would be a curse instead of a blessing,-“doth not HE know it?"-know thy unfeeling neglect of the life of thy fellow-men? And “who maketh thee to differ?” Could not He at once reverse your respective circumstances? And how would you feel, and how would you wish, and what would you expect, were your circumstances theirs, and theirs yours? And has not God, by the law of mutual love, made you mutual guardians of each other’s lives and well-being?-And is it becomingly grateful to Him who is the God and the guardian of your life, in whose hand your breath is, and from whom comes everything that in the slightest measure contributes to life’s enjoyment, to be thus heartlessly unconcerned about the lives of others?-Let Christians apply the expostulation to higher interests. The life of your souls is in God’s hands. He has given it; He sustains it. In Him you have your spiritual as well as your animal being, your heavenly as well as your earthly life. Is there, then, anything like becoming gratitude to the author and sustainer of that immortal life, when you are listless and heedless about souls that are dying and dead around you?-Remember the answer of God to the sullen question of the first murderer, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” “The voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto me from the ground.” Remember too, that next to the murderer who directly takes away life, is the man who, with the means of life in his possession, suffers his fellow-creature to die. Remember still further, that this is true of the soul as well as of the body; true with an emphasis proportioned to the superior value of the soul’s life to that of the body,-of the eternal to the temporal.

Finally, mark the principle on which the judgment of the great day will be conducted:-God will “render to every man according to his works.” This implies, that by their world the principles of men shall be tested; and thus the two great classes separated from each other,-those who are placed on the right, and those who have their station on the left hand:-those who believed, and loved, and feared God, being proved to have been under the influence of these principles, by the “work of faith, the labour of love, and the patience of hope.” And of all descriptions of works, none of the least distinctive of state and character will be such works as we have been describing; and foremost in rank the all-important work of caring for the souls of others. If this is not to be a distinguishing criterion, what else will? How, then, shall we find our place on the right hand of the Judge, if we have taken no interest in such matters?-if we have allowed souls to perish around us, without any concern to save them?-if we have failed to do either the much or the little that was in our power?-Have we not reason to put the question to ourselves, “with fear and trembling,” whether will He whom we call Master and Lord in that day own us as his?-“Doth not He consider it?"-Yes; and we have seen the light in which He does consider it. O remember what He who is to be the Judge hath done for souls! And think how heavy, in His estimation, must be the guilt of neglecting them, and leaving them to perish! What evidence can they possibly produce, in vindication of their professed faith in him, who, in this essential point, so sadly fail of resemblance to him? Can they be Christ’s, that leave souls to perish, when for souls Christ shed his blood? Can they be owned as disciples of Him who came “to seek and to save the lost,” who can allow the lost to remain in their lost estate, with hardly a yearning wish or a faint effort for their recovery? It implies also that while the whole of the glory and blessedness of heaven will be the gift of grace, the Father will testify His love to the Son and satisfaction in His work, by proportioning the honour He confers for His sake to the amount of faithful service done to Him by those on whom the honour is bestowed. And that amount will be estimated, not absolutely but relatively-relatively to the amount of talent, opportunity, and means; so that, in many instances, the proportions will not be according to what appeared to men, but according to the righteous measure of divine knowledge. Thus “many that are first shall be last, and the last first.” Ought we not then to be emulous to abound in acts of faithful and devoted service to our divine Master? Is it right in any servant of His, to satisfy himself with as much only as may just serve to prevent his being rejected? Would not the very exercise of a principle thus ungenerously selfish, be sufficient of itself to ensure, or at least to warrant his rejection? Should we not be solicitous to be able to say-“Thy pound hath gained ten pounds?"-not only not to wrap it in a napkin and let it lie unimproved altogether, but to put it forth to the best possible advantage for the credit of our Master and his cause?-And ought we not as a church, collectively as well as individually, to be zealous of good works; and to “consider one another,” to stimulate to their multiplied performance?-that thus we may be mutually “helpers of one another’s faith and joy,” and contribute to brighten the gems of each other’s crowns in the day of the Lord?

Proverbs 24:13-22

LECTURE LXXIV.

Proverbs 24:13-22 .

“My son, eat thou honey, because it is good; and the honeycomb, which is sweet to thy taste: so shall the knowledge of wisdom be unto thy soul: when thou hast found it, then there shall be a reward, and thy expectation shall not be cut off. Lay not wait, O wicked man, against the dwelling of the righteous; spoil not his resting place: for a just man falleth seven times, and riseth up again: but the wicked shall fall into mischief. Rejoice not when thine enemy falleth; and let not thine heart be glad when he stumbleth; lest the Lord see it, and it displease him, and he turn away his wrath from him. Fret not thyself because of evil men, neither be thou envious at the wicked. For there shall be no reward to the evil man; the candle of the wicked shall be put out. My son, fear thou the Lord and the king; and meddle not with them that are given to change; for their calamity shall rise suddenly; and who knoweth the ruin of them both?”

A COMPARISON is, in the first two verses, instituted between objects of natural and spiritual taste, and natural and spiritual benefit.-God is good. His benevolence appears in this, among other ways, that in the provision made for us in temporal things, He does not, by any rigid law, prohibit the use of all but what is necessary to life and health. There are many things gratifying to taste, and sight, and smell, of which such necessity cannot be affirmed. And from these, when used in moderation, and in the spirit of gratitude and dependence, we are not interdicted. We may eat “honey” not only because it is “good,” or nutritious, but also because it is “sweet.” We must not forget, however, that honey is both; for in regard to both, the comparison appears to be designed. Canaan abounded in honey; and it was used, not only as a luxury to the palate, but as an article of diet. “Butter and honey shall he eat, that he may know to refuse the evil, and choose the good,” Isaiah 7:15 . “Butter” is not considered as the proper import of the original word here. It means thickened or curdled milk, which is “still a favourite article of food in Syria, Arabia, and the neighbouring countries: and, when mixed with honey, is exceedingly agreeable to the taste.”* And that “honey” was used as an article of diet, and an accompaniment to other kinds of food, we learn from an incident on a most interesting occasion-when Jesus appeared to the disciples after his resurrection:-“While they yet believed not for joy, and wondered, he said unto them, Have ye here any meat? And they gave him a piece of a broiled fish, and of an honey-comb,” Luke 24:41-42 .-In the reference to “honey” and “the honey-comb,” then, we have the two ideas of pleasantness and nutritiveness. The comparison follows-“so shall the knowledge of wisdom be unto thy soul.”

• Henderson.

There are some men who might as well, for all the use they make of them, have been without minds. Their mental powers lie dormant. Their enjoyment is all in what is sensual and frivolous. But the experience of such fools no more proves that general knowledge imparts no pleasure, than instances of palates which have lost their relish can prove honey not to be sweet. The cultivation of the mental faculties, and their employment in the acquisition of knowledge, is a source of pure and exquisite pleasure. It is so in regard to general and scientific knowledge, how much more so in regard to divine knowledge,-the knowledge of those truths which divine inspiration has been given to communicate, and divine power has put forth in miracle to confirm!-The truth of the comparison presupposes for its ascertainment, the existence of a spiritual taste. Spiritual things are “spiritually discerned;” and the spiritual perception of their excellence imparts a pleasure to the soul, of which no power of human sophistry can ever deprive it. A man whose palate is in a healthy condition, and who has tasted honey, can never be argued out of the conviction of its sweetness. You may reason with him to the end of his days; but he will die in the conviction that honey is sweet. So it is with the soul that has received “the knowledge of wisdom,” that has once tasted the sweetness of spiritual discoveries, and of those spiritual enjoyments to which the faith of them introduces. Experience is more than all argument;-” more than all the atheists in the world with their sophistry, and all the profane with their banter."*1-And the relish, once felt, produces a growing desire. He who relishes sweetness, having tasted honey, will long for it again. So the sweetness of divine knowledge will quicken the liking for it, and the eagerness for more.*2 The soul having extracted a little of the sweetness of the word of God,-of the “honey from the rock,"-will long, with a keener relish, for a larger portion;-will long for a progressive acquaintance with its rich and varied contents; in their relative bearings, in their beautiful harmony, in their holy and heavenly influence.-And such progress, while pleasant, is profitable to the soul. Its practical effects are most precious. It promotes spiritual growth,-the nourishment and the healthful exercise of all the principles and affections of the divine life.

*1 Henry.

*2 Comp. Psalms 19:7-11 ; Psalms 119:103 ; Psalms 119:97 ; Psalms 119:47 ; Jeremiah 15:16 .

There is one point in which the comparison fails. “Honey” is only good in moderation. If its sweetness tempt to the excessive use of it, it becomes both nauseous and hurtful.* But this is not true and never can be true, of “the knowledge of wisdom “-the knowledge of God’s truth. It never can be found sickening the mind, and producing nausea and rejection. The maxim of all in possession of it will be-a maxim held the more strongly the more abundant has been the acquisition,-“The more the better.”-“Surely there is a reward.” There is a present reward; a reward of present enjoyment, present benefit, present blessing; not the reward of the man who takes honey to excess,-whom it cloys and sickens, and whose constitution it injures; but the reward of spiritual pleasure and spiritual prosperity, in due proportion to the amount of acquirement. And there is a future reward:-“Thine expectation shall not be cut off.” This may refer, indeed, to present enjoyment and present benefit. The “expectation,” in this respect, can never go beyond the reality; the reality will ever be found to exceed the “expectation.” But the “expectation” may be regarded as connected with eternity; with the consummation of the divine life in heaven, as well as with its commencement and progress on earth. That “expectation shall not be cut off,” when every other shall.

• See Proverbs 25:16 ; Proverbs 25:27 .

Verse Proverbs 24:15 . “Lay not wait, O wicked man, against the dwelling of the righteous; spoil not his resting place.” This is an admonition to evil men to beware of all oppression and persecution of the good. The language is evidently not to be confined to unrighteous infliction on account of particular crimes charged, of which the accused are innocent; but extends to, and especially means, the oppressing and evil-entreating those who are “the excellent of the earth,” on account of their very excellence,-as bearing testimony against and condemning the world.

“Spoil not his resting-place.” Thus is his dwelling designated. It is the abode of love and peace, of quietness, and holy harmony and domestic joy. It is the place of his family altar, around which are poured out the social devotions of a united and affectionate group, in tender and blessed mutual sympathy, the sympathy of nature and of grace.-Intrude not, with unhallowed foot, and ruthless hand, on this abode of piety and love-this chosen resting-place of the affections-this habitation of the God of the families of Israel. Disturb not, with the voice of cursing and bitterness, the “melody of joy and salvation” that is heard in the “dwelling of the righteous.” The reason is assigned in next verse-“For a just man falleth seven times, and riseth up again: but the wicked shall fall into mischief.”

It is quite clear that “falleth” here means falling into calamity. Were there nothing else in proof of this, the antithesis between the two parts of the verse would suffice to show it. The sentiment of the verse is, that how often soever the righteous may thus fall by the hand of man, God is still with him, and he shall recover again. There are in Scripture many delightfully encouraging statements of the same general truth;-full of comfort to God’s people, and full of fearful admonition to their enemies.* Even in the very midst of temporal sufferings, there is a sustaining buoyancy in genuine principle. It rises, like the life-boat, over the billows of tribulation. It may seem, at times, as if actually whelmed by them, but it emerges again with noble energy, and braves, and buffets, and rides out the storm! Such principle is of God. He inspires it. He exposes it to the trial. He enables it to bear up and to triumph.

• Job 5:17-19 ; Psalms 34:15-22 ; Psalms 37:23-25 ; Psalms 37:39-40 ; Micah 7:5-10 ; 2 Corinthians 1:8-10 ; 2 Corinthians 4:8-12 .

But I must not pass from these verses without observing how miserably they have been misapplied and abused. The * falling * has been interpreted of falling into sin; and the words have often been so quoted. They have been applied to the doctrine of final perseverance; and as meaning that, how frequently soever, and even how grossly soever, the true believer may fall, he can never finally fall away, so as to be lost. It is easy to give such a statement an aspect of plausibility, and to weave it nicely into the tissue of the orthodox system. But in the Word of God things are in no instance represented in such a light; and it is wrong so to use the language, even in the way of accommodation. As for argument in support of any doctrine, it should never be forgotten-though it too frequently is-that there can never be aught of the nature of argument or proof in any passage, further than as that passage is used in the precise sense it was intended by the Holy Spirit to bear. It is not words, but sentiment, that can have any weight whatever in the way of evidence: and arguments that are founded on a different sense from that which the words were designed to express, have in them just-nothing. They are literally words and nothing more.

The application of the language to which I now allude is mischievous in the extreme. Everything must be so that holds out the slightest encouragement to confidence and ease of mind under even one fall into sin; much more under repeated, under many such falls. There is nothing of this kind, I again affirm, in the Bible. When sin has been committed, all there is warning and alarm. The order to the man of God then is:-“Cry aloud, spare not; lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and shew my people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins.” Nowhere is there anything to be found that can be interpreted into an assurance of safety, how often soever they may fall. Whatever is there said to preserve against despair, is said in such a way as to forbid presumption. I can imagine no state of mind more antichristian and delusive than that of the professor who gets himself settled down in the conviction that however often he falls, he cannot finally fall away. His confidence rests on a sufficiently manifest, though alas! too imposing a fallacy. It supposes a man to have ascertained to a certainty his being in a state of grace, independently of present evidence. “Once in grace, ever in grace,” may, in a certain sense, express a Bible truth; but so applied, there is not a grosser or more pernicious anti-Bible error. Of present life there must be present evidence. It would be a strange way of proving a tree to be now alive, to enumerate the crops it had borne in former years. To prove it now alive, you must show us the fruit it bears now. In like manner, it will not prove a man to be one of God’s family, to show how good he once was. The question forces itself on notice-What is he now? We have just as good a right to conclude from what he is now, when he is falling into sin, that what he was before has been appearance only and a delusion, as others can have to conclude from what he formerly was, that what he is now is only a temporary backsliding. And in the former conclusion there is less-much less of danger than in the latter. Than the latter, indeed, the devil could not suggest a more ruinous. Every fall into sin should give rise to serious and deep searching of heart,-to self-suspicion,-to humiliation, and confession, and fear,-to the tears and prayers of a broken and contrite spirit. And yet, strange to say, the words have even been improved upon, to render them, as is imagined, still more systematically orthodox, but in reality so much the more pernicious in their tendency and effects:-“the just man falleth seven times in a day, and riseth up again.” O let professors, when they have fallen into sin, instead of indulging in a delusive self-complacency, and unwarrantable and presumptuous confidence in “former signs of grace,"-tremble at their peril, which is imminent. Let them call to mind the Lord’s own words-“Thine own wickedness shall correct, 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 . “Remember whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent,” Revelation 2:5 . “The foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are his. And, Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity” 2 Timothy 2:19 . “Wherefore, giving all diligence, add to your faith, virtue; and to virtue, knowledge; and to knowledge, temperance; and to temperance, patience; and to patience, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness, charity. For if ye do these things, ye shall never fall: for so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ,” 2 Peter 1:5-7 ; 2 Peter 1:10-11 .

Perhaps the words which follow, or the admonition contained in them, are to be connected by a natural association with the close of verse sixteenth ( Proverbs 24:16 )-“but the wicked shall fall into mischief.” No doubt the ultimate reference of the language is to the final and irremediable “mischief” into which the wicked shall fall, when the righteous shall have his reward, and reap the fulness of his believing expectation. But the wicked persecutor may “fall into mischief” now: he may be brought, by the providence of God, and that too even by means of his violence against God’s people, into circumstances of trial and calamity. And when such happens to be the case, the admonition suited to his case is here addressed to those righteous, who had been the object of his rancour and violence:-“Rejoice not when thine enemy falleth; and let not thine heart be glad when he stumbleth.” Such is the propensity of our corrupt nature. Had not our nature fallen from its original innocence,-had it not “left its first love,”-“enemy” would have been a word unknown; for it expresses a state of feeling which no need would ever have existed of a term to indicate. There would have been no doing of wrong, and therefore no resenting of it. But multiplied, alas! are the wrongs done; and many, and often strong, are the temptations to both the feeling and the act of vengeance. The injunction in this verse is, in the highest degree, spiritual. It condemns the inward feeling of satisfaction at the fall of an enemy, even when we have in no way contributed to bring it about. Though we should not actually, and with our own hand, avenge an injury,-being aware how express and peremptory the precepts are against that; and while, for the same reason, in order to keep out character clear among men from the imputation of a resentful spirit, we carefully conceal our feelings,-we may yet be secretly, within the privacy of our own bosoms, cherishing the very feeling, which we abstain from uttering or putting into act. We may be inwardly delighted on learning that our enemy has met with what we cannot but think, and call to ourselves, well-merited retribution. So it must not be. Never must we in this spirit say within ourselves,-“Ah! so I thought: no more than I have been looking for and desiring might come.” The reason is in the next verse:-“Lest the Lord see it, and it displease him, and he turn away his wrath from him.” The import of this evidently is-lest the tokens of God’s displeasure, which would have come on thine enemy, should be transferred to thyself; lest thou, instead of he, should be made to bear them. On this case observe-

1. When we thus inwardly rejoice-our joy is the very spirit of revenge; and our abstaining from actual and open retaliation is thus shown to have arisen from no proper principle, but to have been dictated by considerations themselves of a selfish character; or at least by some self-deceiving distinction between doing the thing with our own hand, and being gratified in seeing it done for us;-two things which, in the principle of them, are the very same-for God looks to the heart.

2. Solomon cannot possibly intend to intimate, as a motive to prevent our rejoicing in the fall of an enemy, that thereby we may turn away his calamity, and arrest the hand of God from inflicting it; because this, it is clear, would be still the very same spirit. It would be rejoicing in the continuance of the divine displeasure, and taking care to avoid whatever would remove it. This would evidently be to suppose him making the very gratification of the spirit of vengeance in one way, the consideration by which it is restrained from giving itself indulgence in another,-the very gratification of the temper prohibited, the motive to its suppression.

The frequency with which the counsel of the next verse is repeated, is well fitted to impress on our minds the strength of the tendency existing in our fallen nature to the evil reprehended,-and the consequent need for unceasing vigilance against it. O! it is a sad tendency! Only in an apostate and sinful nature can it ever be found;-the tendency to prefer prosperity without God, to adversity with Him; to look with an enviously wistful eye to the “purple and the fine linen, and the sumptuous fare” of “the rich man;"-and to forget, in the contemplation of his destitution and nakedness, the ample and blessed reversion of the poor and afflicted Lazarus.

And what is the reason assigned for the suppression of all envious feelings and desires?-It is ever substantially the same: (Proverbs 24:20 .) “For there shall be no reward to the evil man; the candle of the wicked shall be put out.” We are thus always carried forward to the end. O! what is the “light” of that worldly prosperity,-what is its worth-which is so speedily to be quenched in darkness! How much better to go through darkness to light, than to go through light to darkness! How much better to pass through a trial of fire to a “wealthy place,” than to pass through “a wealthy place” to the “fire that never shall be quenched!”-“The candle (or lamp) of the wicked shall be put out.” His light-that is, whatever contributed for the time to spread a temporary joy through his heart and his habitation, shall be extinguished for ever. At the very moment when the light of God’s people shall rise in all its pure and unfading splendour,-at the very moment when their “day dawns and their day star arises,"-the sun of the wicked’s earthly glory and earthly joy shall go down in unending night. But to the righteous,-” the Lord shall be their everlasting light, and their God their glory!”

Verses Proverbs 24:21-22 . “My son, fear thou the Lord and the king; and meddle not with them that are given to change: for their calamity shall rise suddenly; and who knoweth the ruin of them both.” There are some words of general import which are susceptible of application to different objects with modified amounts of that import. Of this description is the word “fear” which is here applied to Jehovah and to human rulers:-“Fear thou the Lord and the king.” The word expresses the general idea of reverence,-or of holding in awe. God is to be feared according to the nature and authority of His government, kings according to the nature and authority of theirs:-God supremely; kings subordinately:-God as the source of all power; kings as holding theirs of God, and responsible to Him for the use they make of it:-God for His character, as well as for His authority; kings simply as the representatives of power-their personal character being, not seldom, anything but venerable:-God with a fear ever associated with the love of complacency toward all that He is; kings with a fear with which such love can be blended only in cases where the personal character admits of it,-love being out of the question where there is nothing of the amiable.

The connexion of the two fears in the passage before us is evidently intended to impress the one by the other:-If you fear God, fear the king. God, whom you are bound supremely to fear, and whose fear should produce obedience to His will, has enjoined the fear of earthly rulers:-so that a failure in the fear due to them becomes a violation of the fear due to Him.

I need hardly say, that by the king we are to understand the government of the country. It may be monarchical, or it may not. We are by no means to look upon such expressions as this, in Scripture, as attaching the authority of inspiration to one form of government more than to another. Respecting the comparative merits of different forms, the word of God should not be regarded as giving any decision, whether for the kingly, the aristocratical, the popular, or the mixed. The respect, or fear, is due to the legislative and executive powers, of whichsoever description these may be.

It would certainly too be a grievous mistake, were the admonition here tendered against association with those who are “given to change,” so interpreted as to condemn and proscribe everything of the nature of public spirit. There may, in different countries,-in their different administrations of government and political usages, be many things in which change is most desirable and essential. There may be flaws in old systems which require to be rectified; customs that are absurd and injurious, which it is desirable to have exploded or modified; partial and oppressive laws which demand revision and alteration; principles of policy which have become unsuitable to the times and to the advancing character and civilization of a people, which call loudly for amelioration. Such improvements patriotism may render it a subject’s incumbent duty to do what he can to promote;-to use for this purpose all legitimate and constitutional means which he finds accessible for their attainment; and with a zeal, an energy, and a perseverance proportioned to the magnitude and importance of the end in view, as it bears upon the prosperity and well-being of the community,-or the greatest good of the greatest number. It may not only be lawful, on the great principles of public morality, for a man to desire and seek such changes, but his manifest and incumbent duty to labour and make sacrifices for their accomplishment. Valuable changes have thus been effected, at different periods, in our own country; and there is room for beneficial changes still. They are in progress. Great principles of improvement are at work. But we should be on our guard. All change is not improvement. Some restless spirits are in danger of identifying the two. The men against whom we are here warned are men of a discontented, unsettled, factious, turbulent, revolutionary spirit; men who can be satisfied with nothing as it is; who, with a mighty conceit of their own wisdom, talk and act as if they thought the world would never be right but under their dominion, and boast of what a world it would be, could they but get all their own way. They are such seditious demagogues as keep a country, for any purpose or for none, in a perpetual ferment; whom nothing pleases; who are thankless for the liberty they have, however far surpassing that enjoyed in other nations, because this or that is not entirely to their mind; who look to their real or imaginary grievances, much more than to their many and valuable privileges; who are ever finding dead flies in the precious ointment, that turn all to unsavouriness,-so that even the sweets of the greatest amount of liberty enjoyed by any nation under heaven, would to them be turned to bitterness by whatever little circumstance, in the constitution or administration, not exactly to their mind, should from time to time discover itself. It must be obvious, that some such characters are intended by “them that are given to change:"-inasmuch as to be “given to” anything means to be set upon it, and dissatisfied without it, and ever on the look-out for it; seeking, and therefore sure to find, reasons for it. Every man must admit that all change is desirable that is a change from wrong to right, and there seems to be no reasonable qualification to this but one; namely, that, since it is a rare thing that changes can be effected in the policy of nations without a greater or a less degree of public agitation and dissension, we should always be sure that the change which we set ourselves to prosecute is of such a nature,-such in the principle of it, or such in the results anticipated from its introduction,-as to warrant for its sake, the incurring of what must always be an evil, the temporary excitation of discordant passions, and the possible risk of more permanent disunion. Such will be the conduct of every reasonable and sober-minded citizen. As for the men who are “given to change”-ever on the hunt after novelties, and reckless of present or future consequences to the peace and well-being of the country, if they can but draw away political “disciples after them,” get themselves the credit of leaders of a party, and make themselves notorious as agitators of the public mind, mere political adventurers;-these are the men whom the people of God will shun, neither imbibing their spirit, nor giving them any countenance. They will themselves, while, as in duty bound, they cherish public spirit, as the spirit of patriotic benevolence,-and while, in such questions as, they are satisfied, involve great public interests, they give all the weight of their influence, actively and zealously, on what they believe to be the side of truth, and liberty, and humanity, and justice,-they will, at the same time, bear in mind the example of that Master whose followers they profess to be, who was “meek and lowly in heart,” firm in purpose and act, but gentle in the manner of its prosecution,-who “did not strive nor cry, nor cause his voice to be heard in the streets.” They will not imitate those who seem as if they thought it the mark of a manly and independent spirit to scorn and vilify all above them, and the higher others rise, to make it a point of honour to slight and traduce them the more; but, at the risk of the contempt and abuse of such, will remember the authority which condemns “speaking evil of dignities,” and while they “fear God” will by that very fear be induced to “fear” and to “honor the king.”

There is one motive by which the conduct enjoined is here enforced. Of all peoples on earth no people were ever so unjustifiable in being “given to change” as were the people of Israel. Even when Jehovah himself was their king, they were “given to change.” Their very desire of an earthly king over them, like the other nations, arose from their infatuated love of change. They then rejected Him from being king over them: and in many instances did they suffer for it. But, when they had a king, it became their bounden duty to fear him. And in their history, various striking illustrations present themselves of the fulfilment of the words of this verse. The calamity of insubordination and rebellion “rose suddenly;” and both leader and led came to overthrow and ruin. And how frequent have been the exemplifications of the same thing in the history of modern Europe!-and never more than within the last half-century. How many aspiring demagogues, who have seemed for a time to get all their own way,-the tide of public favour rising and flowing along with them,-have experienced the instability of that favour, the fickleness of a mob, the sudden mutability of their likings and dislikings; have found themselves overtaken by unanticipated reverses, and have perished in their own ambitious devices:-up to the very throne today, and down to the grave to-morrow. Genuine patriots, it is true, there have been who, for their resistance to real tyranny and unrighteous oppression, have bled on the scaffold, and whose death has been their honour. It is not, I repeat, of such that Solomon speaks, but of the devotees of an ambitious selfishness, who bring upon themselves not “the wrath of the king” only, but the wrath of the King of kings:-and then, well may it be said-“Who knoweth the ruin of them both?”

Proverbs 24:23-34

LECTURE LXXV.

Proverbs 24:23-34 .

“These things also belong to the wise. It is not good to have respect to persons in judgment. He that saith unto the wicked, Thou art righteous; him shall the people curse, nations shall abhor him: but to them that rebuke him shall be delight, and a good blessing shall come upon them. Every man shall kiss his lips that giveth a right answer. Prepare thy work without, and make it fit for thyself in the field; and afterwards build thine house. Be not a witness against thy neighbour without cause; and deceive not with thy lips. Say not, I will do so to him as he hath done to me; I will render to the man according to his work. I went by the field of the slothful, and by the vineyard of the man void of understanding; and, lo, it was all grown over with thorns, and nettles had covered the face thereof, and the stone wall thereof was broken down. Then I saw, and considered it well; I looked upon it, and received instruction. Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep: so shall thy poverty come as one that travelleth, and thy want as an armed man.”

The principle laid down in the first of these verses, while it immediately relates to the public exercise of judicial power, and (as we have had occasion more than once to notice, and to show from many express citations from the Old Testament,) is by divine authority strongly and repeatedly urged on judges under the ancient economy,-has obviously, at the same time, a direct and forcible application to other two cases:-to the case of private arbitration, and to the discipline of the church of God. Every arbiter or referee, in any cause, is by such reference constituted a judge, and bound to the honourable and faithful exercise of the judicial function. Departure from this in one iota would involve the twofold guilt of a violation of integrity and a breach of trust,-of a sin against God and a crime against man. And as to the discipline of the church, the very same law is actually laid down for it, as for the dispensation of justice by civil functionaries.*

• Comp. Leviticus 19:15 as a specimen of such passages in the Old Testament, and James 2:1-9 for the same principle in the New.

Verse Proverbs 24:24 . “He that saith unto the wicked, Thou art righteous; him shall the people curse, nations shall abhor him."-Integrity, honesty, justice, are virtues of society, which the men of the world, though themselves without godliness, and regardless of the dishonour done by the violation of them to the divine Lawgiver, are fully competent to appreciate, in regard to their influence on the condition and well-being of civil communities. They will bear with much that is dissolute and vile in the conduct of their rulers. They think little of it. They regard it as if it affected only their private characters,-nay, in this respect they are not at all ill-pleased to have the countenance of such high example in what they are inclined to practise themselves; and as to religion, they never give a thought to the question whether they know anything about it or not:-but they are very sensitive as to the violation of the principles of equity in the administration of the laws. When a public man acts a flagrantly unrighteous and dishonest part,-whether he does it under the influence of fear, or self-interest, or avarice, or indolence, or favouritism, or any other misleading principle and motive,-he becomes the object of general detestation. His people, instead of looking up to him with affectionate gratitude and confidence, become alienated from him, and-timidly and secretly perhaps at first, but more and more openly and loudly as they find a responsive feeling in the bosoms of others,-they load himself and his government with bitter execrations:-so that if the man has any feeling, he will read his sin in his punishment, as, amidst spreading and thickening murmurs and imprecations, coming, even though partially on his ear, he trembles on his throne:-for though he may have found that “the king’s wrath is as the roaring of a lion,” and that his subjects for a time quailed before it, yet the wrath of a once awakened and vengeful people, roused and united by a sense of common and deep-felt wrongs, is incomparably more fearful.

How pleasing the contrast, verse Proverbs 24:25 :-“But to them that rebuke him shall be delight, and a good blessing shall come upon them.” Whence this delight? From various and obvious sources:-as 1. From the consciousness of having done rightly. He who acts unjustly, treating the wicked as righteous, and the righteous as wicked, cannot have this;-the sweetest and richest of inward delights,-infinitely surpassing, in real value and happy influence, all the charms of adulation and flattery. Of all conceivable things, indeed, to a man who has any conscience at all remaining, or any sensibility, praise must be the most cutting and distressing when there is the inward consciousness of its being undeserved, and that it comes out of either ignorant or feigned lips:-2. From the possession of public approbation, affection, and confidence. The attachment of others to him should not be either a man’s or a magistrate’s supreme end. But still, the enjoyment of it is sweet. Few things, indeed, to a mind of sensibility, can be more so. For a monarch not only to be greeted with the assurance by the lip of fulsome flattery, but to see and know by indubitable proofs, that he reigns in the hearts of a devoted and grateful people, must be a spring, to that monarch’s bosom, of a “delight” inexpressible:-3. From a sense of divine approbation. Human commendation and attachment little avail any one, unless they are in harmony with this. God’s blessing,-and that is indeed “a good blessing,” the best of all,-comes upon the head of the man who, in the firm exercise of right principle, in opposition to all intimidation and to all allurement, to the frown of one and the favour of another, keeps, with unshaken steadfastness, to the dictates of straight-forward truth, and unbending rectitude.-4. From the affection and complacency of all good men,-and-the grateful acknowledgments of those whose causes have been carefully, disinterestedly and righteously investigated and determined:-even those who fail having, notwithstanding, a testimony in their consciences to the soundness of principle and the sincerity of the desire to do right, with which all has been conducted.

This kind of general approbation is strongly expressed in the following verse:-“Every man shall kiss his lips that giveth a right answer."-It is a truth, established by the history of the world, that a truly conscientious and good ruler, who acts upon principle, and in all things shows that he is seeking his people’s good, will be the object of a warmly loyal attachment, such as would rally that people round him at the risk of life for his protection and that of his throne,-ready to shed their blood, if need be, in his cause. It has been at times, of course, the fate even of such, to be mistaken and misrepresented; and to become for a season the victims of prejudice and alienation most unmerited. But the misapprehensions having been cleared away and the suspicions proved unfounded, the wrong felt to have been done him has but endeared him the more.

Similar will be the attachment of the people to such ministers and counsellors of the crown as “give a right answer”-an answer dictated, not by flattery, not by a desire to secure the royal favour to themselves by conforming to the royal likings, but by a sincere regard to right principle and to the national welfare;-that is, public favour will be the lot of the man who, having the royal ear, avails himself of the privilege and the confidence, to give faithful and disinterested counsel. And although royal fools (for such there have been) may cast off such men, because they refuse to give counsel against their own convictions, merely to please their masters and keep their places,-yet monarchs even of ordinary principle will respect the conscientious principle that sacrifices interest to fidelity and truth; and on experiencing the happy results, will “kiss the lips that gave a right answer” instead of one time-serving, selfish, and flattering.

And the words certainly involve a pointed condemnation of all the venial and unworthy adulation too often lavished on wicked men when in power, by sycophant courtiers; by orators, and poets, and party authors; by ministers of state, and alas! by ministers too of the altar of the God of truth!-palliating and excusing vice and injustice,-extolling unreal or questionable virtues,-investing wickedness and licentiousness with a halo of false and illusive splendour,-bestowing on the tyrant or the debauchee the honour and the praise that belong only to the upright prince and to the good man. O how sadly and criminally have human talents and human influence been thus prostrated and prostituted at the shrine of power, in the spirit of selfish venality!-“This proverb,” says a judicious expositor, “contains a useful rule for private persons, as well as for rulers. When we are asked an important question, or consulted on an affair of importance, every man will esteem and love us, if we ‘give a right answer.’ And, that our answer may be right, it is necessary that it should be sincere, prudent, and meek. We must not give an answer calculated merely to please the person that advises with us; for that would not be consistent with integrity. We must consider all the circumstances of the case, that we may give a proper and pertinent answer; and we must speak with that meekness which renders wisdom lovely. If our answers to those who advise with us have these qualifications, although they may sometimes be distasteful, because truth compels us to speak things disagreeable, yet they will tend, on the whole, to the advancement of our character:-and our character is no contemptible object, because the goodness of it is necessary for us in accomplishing the great business of life, glorifying God, and doing good to men.” *

• Lawson.

There is one question, my hearers, to which, above all others, “a right answer” is desirable. The question is that of the jailor at Philippi:-and assuredly he would have kissed those lips that gave him the answer,-the faith of which inspired his own heart and those of his family with “joy unspeakable.” It was the right-the only right answer. It was the answer “given by inspiration of God.” The same had come from those lips into which “grace was poured”-the lips of the “faithful and true witness.” Sinners, in their infatuation, may wish a different answer. But the “right answer” is the only one that will obtain favour in the end. All who receive that answer, and experience the blessed results, will “kiss the lips” that have given it. But, “whether men will hear, or whether they will forbear”-the one answer must be given. It is the answer that points to the “Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world.” The answer that was the right one to the jailor is the right one to each of you:-“BELIEVE IN THE LORD JESUS CHRIST, AND THOU SHALT BE SAVED.” We might give you an answer more in accordance with your spirit of self-righteousness, and worldliness, and pride. You might bless our lips for it, possibly, now; but we are fully assured, you would curse them in the latter end.

Verse Proverbs 24:27 . “Prepare thy work without, and make it fit for thyself in the field; and afterwards build thine house.” A large number of proverbial sentiments, and maxims of practical wisdom, are to be found couched in terms taken from particular departments of life and business. Every one at all acquainted with even the ordinary, but frequently very terse and pithy proverbs of our own country, must be aware of this. It is so in the verse before us. The advice thus given, to bring the lands into good heart, and make the estate productive, before we lavish large expenditure upon the mansion, is clearly intended to convey a general lesson. What is it? I answer-One or other of two things.

1. Begin no undertaking, without due forethought and adequate preparation. Let needful calculations be previously made. Look before you. Think what you are doing. See that you have means for going forward and finishing as well as for commencing. Let all be planned and laid out; materials collected or secured; your way clear. This view of the admonition is often too little regarded; and the important principle of it too often violated. Men set about objects of great magnitude with little of either reflection or anticipation,-with partial information, inadequate provision, and unascertained resources. All is imposing in the outset, and great expectations are excited. But all comes by and by to a stand; and shame, disappointment, and loss are the result,-their unfinished works remaining to future generations as the memorials of their folly.

2. Let those things which are obviously most important and necessary be done first, and the less urgent afterwards. Let not a man begin business by building, and expensively furnishing, a fine house. Let the land be first cultivated. Let your business, whatever its nature, be faithfully and diligently minded, and well established, as far as human industry can effect, or human foresight calculate. Be content, in the mean time, with inferior accommodation. There is an ambitious hasting to be great upon little, as well as an eager hasting to make little much, that is deeply reprehensible, because it is injurious to others as well as to the speculator himself. A man should have property well realized and secured, before he enters on schemes of expensive building. He must not, with sanguine infatuation, appropriate the very first proceeds of his trade to the erection of a palace to live in!

The principle of the general maxim, as one of prudential wisdom, is applicable in other departments than those of worldly business. The man violates it who, in the department of literature or science, undertakes works for which he either has not from nature adequate capacity, or for which he has not adequately endowed himself by preparatory study and information. There is the certainty, in such cases, of a disgraceful failure; and, if others have been made to depend upon his instructions, and he proves himself utterly incompetent to redeem the pledge held out, he becomes chargeable with the injustice and wrong done to them, as well as the butt of ridicule himself.

By the highest of all authorities, Jesus himself, the principle is applied, in tho department of religion, to the duty and importance of avoiding a hasty and inconsiderate profession of it. He wished and warned all to think what they were doing; to count the cost; to act on the principles of prudential calculation; to consider, whether what they were to obtain by becoming his followers, was, or was not, worth the sacrifices which the step might demand of them. The man who founds a mighty profession on very scanty and imperfect acquaintance with the doctrine he professes, and with the nature and effects of the profession it requires, is like the man who makes a fine show by rearing a splendid mansion, while his fields are not in a condition to support it. Such a man, instead of maintaining his profession out of his capital, puts all his capital into his profession. There is nothing else. He cannot stand.

The principle of the maxim has also been justly applied to spiritual knowledge. “There are first principles which ought in the first place to be well studied, and then we must ‘go on unto perfection.’ To think of going on to perfection without learning the first principles is as foolish as to think of raising the superstructure of a house without laying the foundation; and to rest in the first principles, is as foolish as to lay the foundation of a house, and then to fancy that our work is all over.”*

• Lawson.

Verse Proverbs 24:28 . “Be not a witness against thy neighbour without cause; and deceive not with thy lips."-So far as witness-bearing is concerned, we have had this same subject repeatedly under our notice. It may be an imperative duty at times, painful as it ever must be, to “bear witness against our neighbour.” It may bo required of us, by our regard to the good of society, to the glory of God, and to the rights of individuals. Our testimony, whensoever we are called and bound to give it, must invariably be according to the strictest truth. But there is, in this verse, something more than this. Not only are we forbidden to bear false witness against our neighbour,-we are not to bear witness against him at all,“without cause:"-that is, when our unfavourable testimony is uncalled for; when it is not required by any of the considerations mentioned, or even by that of self-exculpation,-when we are implicated, and our character, reputation, or interest, is at stake, and cannot be vindicated or secured without the crimination of another. The interdiction is violated, when a man, from any improper motive, ultroneously and needlessly, pushes himself forward to offer his testimony,-though fully aware of the results to the party who is the subject of it. If a man is induced to give unfavourable testimony by any selfish or unwarrantable consideration, he transgresses this prohibition. You will at once perceive,-and I trust you will have the impression of it fixed deeply and indelibly in your minds, so that it may duly influence your entire practice,-that the terms apply, directly and forcibly, to all descriptions of scandal that consist in the needless repetition of real evils. Of this there is a vast and lamentable amount. Slander is properly “false invective;” but there may be a great deal of scandal, even where there is not an atom of slander. Deem it not enough that the evil you tell of your neighbour is true. Still think of the golden rule. Still ask the question, whether, if you are conscious of anything wrong in yourselves, which another knows, you would like the possessor of the secret to bring it into publicity. And, as you feel how decidedly you would deprecate this in your own case, venture not on it in the case of another. Venture not, even in the way of the most confidential secrecy. Keep what you know in your own bosoms. It is best and safest there. In all such matters, proceed on the maxim that a whisper in solitude may one day become the buzz of a public * fama* ,-that what is “told in the ear in closets” may be by and by “proclaimed upon the housetops;” that however unseen you drop the stone into the stillness of the lake, you give thereby the first impulse to a circling and widening wave.

“All very good,” you may say, “as regards friends and neighbours that have done one no wrong, and to whom one owes no grudge. But what of enemies, of persons who have slandered and injured us ?-are we to be schooled and censured for only paying them in their own coin?” The answer is in next verse. It is clear and pointed. Ponder it well;-“Say not, I will do so to him as he hath done to me; I will render to the man according to his work.”*

• On the general subject of retaliation, see on verses 17th and 18th of this chapter ( Proverbs 24:17-18 ) and preceding passages.

The general subject of the following verses ( Proverbs 24:30-34 ) has been more than once noticed;* but they not only bear but require repetition,-” line upon line, precept upon precept.” Solomon describes what had come accidentally under his eye. It was a scene of desolation,-not the result of the barrenness of the soil, nor of the violence of the invading foe, but of indolence and neglect. The field which had before been cultivated lay waste; the vineyard, which before had been dressed and productive, was now overrun with every description of useless and noxious weeds. Solomon looked on this scene, and gathered a lesson from it; a lesson to himself, which the Holy Spirit directed him to put on record for all generations:-“Then I saw, and considered it well; I looked upon it, and received instruction.” It has been said, and truly said, that “wise men profit more by fools, than fools by wise men: for wise men will learn to avoid the faults of fools, but fools will not learn to imitate the virtues of wise men.” Let us learn from the scene described-

• As in Proverbs 6:6-11 .

1. How gradual may be the approaches of the evils of sloth, while, at the same time, they are irresistible in the end. This is the lesson of the thirty-fourth verse. The traveller approaches by degrees. When comparatively at a distance, he appears harmless; but, when he has advanced a certain length, he is discovered to be “an armed man,"-all resistance to whom is too late, and consequently vain. Famine, though gaunt, is irresistibly mighty. Who can stand before it? Not the man of habitual sloth. The very habit has the more thoroughly incapacitated him for plucking up any spirit to ward off the final ravages of the frightful enemy. He succumbs, sinks, and dies.

The same lesson is read to us in the case of the field and the garden. It is by degrees that they come to the state of utter desolation and luxuriance in all that is profitless and hurtful, here described:-but though slowly, it is surely. And so surely is the tendency realized in a neglected business and a neglected family. You may possibly have chanced to see two little gardens adjoining each other; the one the garden of the diligent-neat, clean, orderly, beautiful, wellstocked and productive; the other that of the sluggard, here so graphically described. Now, as you see the garden without, you may expect to find the family within:-in the one, all clean, and snug, and tidy, and comfortable; in the other, all dirty, and bare, and tattered, and cheerless: and this too, where there is the same amount, or rather the same scantiness of means,-nay perhaps the advantage, in this respect, on the side of the sluggard.

How opposite the feelings produced by these two scenes!-what delight in the one! what disgust in the other! And of one emotion, in contemplating each, we are especially conscious. If circumstances of trial and loss are imagined to come upon the one, how prompt in purpose we feel to help him,-to keep him up, or, when he falls, to raise him again. His neighbours will unite to stock his garden for him from their own store,-to provide for his children, and to furnish him anew with the means of doing well, and will pray for a blessing upon him. The other will meet with but little sympathy. He will be left to reap the bitter fruit of his own laziness and folly; no eye pitying, no hand helping him.

2. Our souls are committed by God to our own spiritual cultivation. This is no sinecure. They will not thrive themselves. If we would have them “as a watered garden, and as a field which the Lord hath blessed,” we must apply spiritual activity and labour, to stock them with the appropriate graces, affections, and virtues, and to promote the growth and productiveness of them all. We must sow the seed, and seek by prayer the showers of the divine blessing,-the promised influences of the divine Spirit. We must watch over the germination, the springing, the growth, and the fructifying of the seed. “Without this all will be stunted and sterile. The noxious and unsightly weeds of sin will spring and luxuriate, and overspread the soil; all growing tliat ought not to grow, and nothing growing that should. Ignorance and error,-foolish and sinful imaginations,-all the lusts and passions,-all the thoughts, and words, and acts of vice and wickedness,-will make room for themselves, choking up and destroying everything else. If there be any fruit in the field, it will be “thistles instead of wheat, and cockle instead of barley:"-if any grapes in the vineyard, they will be “wild grapes;"-the “grapes of Sodom, the clusters of Gomorrah,” “grapes of gall, clusters of bitterness,"-while all the under-soil will be fertile only in what is worthless or worse,-in the weeds of foolishness, and the poisons of iniquity and death. A neglected garden is unsightly; but how much more unsightly to the spiritual eye, a neglected soul!-a soul left to itself; uncultivated, and unprotected; left to produce what it will, and exposed, by the breaking down of its fences, to the ravages of every passing devourer; “the lion from the bottomless pit wasting it at his pleasure!”

Let us, then, my beloved brethren, attend with unremitting diligence to the fencing and the cultivation of our minds and hearts, in the knowledge, and faith, and love, and holy influence, of divine truth; that so all that is noxious may be repressed and rooted out, and that we may be “filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are, by Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.” “Herein,” said Jesus, “is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit: so shall ye be my disciples.” O let us beware of bringing upon ourselves the complaint of Jehovah against his ancient people-who enjoyed so much privilege, but proved so sadly degenerate-fertile in evil, and sterile of good!* Let us bear in mind, that it is only when we wait for, and “drink in” the rains of divine influence, and “bring forth fruit unto God,” that we can receive an increase of blessing; and that when, in the midst of all means and all advantages, we are, solely through our own listlessness, and indolence, and negligence, in the use and improvement of them, barren and unfruitful, or fruitful only in evil, we are exposing ourselves to the righteous desertion and curse of God.

• Comp. Isaiah 5:1-7 .

Let parents apply the principle to the spiritual instruction of their children. Your families are as vineyards committed to your care and culture. Imagine not that, when left to themselves, they will spontaneously yield good fruit. The experience of all generations reads you an opposite lesson. You must enclose; you must dig, and sow, and water, and watch, and protect the springing blade, till it comes to the ear, and the full corn in the ear. You must train from their earliest germs your tender plants, and guard, and support, and prune them, and clear and manure the soil around them. The incessant care of both parents must be bestowed upon this; and all little enough. They must look for the help and for the blessing of God. O see to it, that the verses before us be not a just description of any of your families,-from your parental negligence, indifference, and sloth. Let every family be as a sacred enclosure for God; fenced in from the blasts and blights of the world, where the “plants of his right hand’s planting” are reared from the seed, for future productiveness.

And it would ill become me to forget,-deeply humbling as the remembrance is, as being associated with the consciousness of great failures, and great, though some of them unavoidable, deficiencies,-that the Church is the Lord’s vineyard, and that every separate church of Christ is a section of that vineyard; that ministerial watchfulness, and diligence, and fidelity, and prayerfulness, are required, for its protection from the inroads of Satan, and for its suitable culture, and divinely required fruitfulness. When, through erroneous, unfaithful, speculative, heartless preaching,-by a shunning to declare the whole counsel of God,-by the teaching of doctrine without practice, or of practice without doctrine,-and by the laxity or entire neglect of instituted discipline,-by carelessness in the admission of members, and the want of vigilance over their conduct when received,-by allowing to pass without admonition what ought to be admonished, and retaining that which ought to be excluded,-any portion of that sacred enclosure becomes overrun with the briars and thorns of conformity to the world from which it ought to be separate, and from which its distinction ought to be apparent to all,-a solemn responsibility may be incurred, and a heavy account may have to be rendered.

And let us look with pity on the vast outfield of the world, both in Christian and in heathen lands. Is it not, on a fearfully extensive scale, what is here described? “It is all grown over with thorns, and nettles have covered the face thereof, and the stone-wall thereof is broken down.” It is overspread, in sad luxuriance, with all the varieties of sin; it is open to the wasteful malignity of the enemy of God and of souls. Instead of being, as it should have been, one great garden of the Lord, it is rank with all that is hateful in His sight. It is the duty of Christians to reclaim this desolation. Jehovah has given to his Son “the heathen for his inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for his possession.” The “desolate heritages” must be brought in. It has been through the criminal indolence and apathy of the church of God, that they have lain so long and so extensively waste. The world, as committed to the care and culture of the people of God, has, alas! for many an age, been “the field of the slothful, and the vineyard of the man void of understanding.” There has been for some time an awakening to a more intelligent view of the relation of the church to the world, and to a sense of the sin and shame of former indolence and neglect. The great duty is now, in no small degree, felt, of clearing away from the face of this apostate earth the “thorns and nettles” of sin and the curse, and bringing the whole into spiritual cultivation and productiveness. O let Christians be more and more, personally and unitedly, diligent in this good work, that so “the wilderness and the solitary place may be glad for them; and the desert may rejoice and blossom as the rose,” Isaiah 35:1 . Let the prayer of the ancient church be ours: “God be merciful unto us, and bless us; and cause thy face to shine upon us. That thy way may be known upon the earth, thy saving health among all nations.” Psalms 67:1-2 .