Proverbs 27

Proverbs 27:1-7

LECTURE LXXXII.

Proverbs 27:1-7 .

“Boast not thyself of to-morrow; for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth. Let another man praise thee, and not thine own mouth; a stranger, and not thine own lips. A stone is heavy, and the sand weighty; but a fool’s wrath is heavier than them both. Wrath is cruel, and anger is outrageous; but who is able to stand before envy? Open rebuke is better than secret love. Faithful are the wounds of a friend: but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful. The full soul loatheth an honey-comb: but to the hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet.”

There is often a marked and melancholy inconsistency between the admissions which men make and the course of conduct which they pursue. The uncertainty of life, and the uncertainty of the events of its successive days, who can possibly question? It is necessarily and universally granted. It has been the settled and traditionary maxim of all generations. Who contradicts the assertion-“Thou knowest not what a day may bring forth?” Yet, admitted as this is,-unquestioned since “by one man sin entered into the world and death by sin,"-men have, ever from that day, been “boasting themselves of to-morrow”-thinking confidently, talking confidently, and acting confidently, on the credit of to-morrow!-ay, and not seldom of much longer periods than to-morrow!

Of the uncertainty of life and of its enjoyments, how many solemn and touching lessons we receive! Among the first tidings I heard on my return home two days ago, was the sudden and affecting death of one of our number, who left his wife, the partner for twenty years of his joys and sorrows, in good health and cheerful spirits, to walk, and to bathe in the river; and, after but an hour or two of agonizing suspense beyond the wonted time of his return, the sad intelligence was borne to her that herself was a widow and her children fatherless! Distressing, but apt illustration of the words before us! O learn from them, and from such sad events, the fully of trusting to the certain continuance, even for a day, of life and of life’s blessings, and let the admonition be taken home, in reference to life’s duties. Let nothing be left till “to-morrow” that can be done and ought to be done, to-day,-“Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest,” Ecclesiastes 9:10 . Thus let us “redeem the time,"-jealous of allowing one moment of it to slip, remembering especially that in matters which pertain to the well-being of others, there is unrighteousness as well as folly in such delay, and that in those which are connected with the glory of God and the interests of his cause there is impiety.

And I would anew press on all an earnest and affectionate caution against the most ruinous of all descriptions of procrastinating confidence in “to-morrow,"-the delay of attention to the concerns of the soul and a coming eternity. Not now, but by and by-is the prevailing maxim here;-a maxim which few pretend to justify, but on which the vast majority persist in acting;-a maxim, of which all grant the folly in words, and by the admission condemn their own practice. Alas! my friends, how many souls has this procrastination ruined! Many a time are the sad consequences of delay exemplified and felt in regard to the affairs of this world. And O that men would but apply the salutary principles on which such affairs ought to be conducted to the interests of the world to come! Yet how frequently may you hear a diligent, active, prudent man of business warn the young against the evil of procrastination, and address to them most admirable lessons for their conduct in life, yet himself acting on the very principle he condemns, respecting interests incomparably more momentous;-the very solicitude about the secular, one of the causes of procrastination as to the spiritual and eternal! How often may you see such a man-while he would not, in any one instance if he could help it, leave the value of a farthing to the contingencies of “to-morrow,” putting off to all the uncertainty of days and years to come, and leaving to “the mercies of a moment” the happiness of an endless existence! Strange infatuation!-and the impiety is not less than the infatuation. With peril to men’s selves, there is insult to God. It may be true, that many yesterdays are gone by, which were once “to-morrows”-and it has, in divine providence, so turned out, that your anticipations of them have not been disappointed. You have “boasted” of many of these “to-morrows,” and they have still successively come;-and the very coming of one has tempted you to trust still more confidently for another. And yet you know-you know perfectly-that the past is no security for the future. You know, that, in multitudes of instances, the to-morrow to which others trusted has never arrived, and that in their case the trust has proved a delusion. You know, that in your own case, the “to-morrow” must come that is to be your last, and that is to close your mortal life. You know that the God of your life has an imperative claim upon you every successive day-a claim as imperative on your heart and your time and your powers to-day as it will be “to-morrow;” and that every to-day and every to-morrow which you allow to pass and to become a yesterday without having given it to Him, or done in it what He commands you to do-accepted His mercy and entered on His service,-carries with it a charge against you to the judgment-seat, and waits your arrival there as a witness against you. You know that delay only hardens evil principle, and gives the world the faster hold of you! You know all this-O then “be wise TO-DAY!”

Verse Proverbs 27:2 . “Let another man praise thee, and not thine own mouth; a stranger, and not thine own lips.” “Self-commendation,” it has been said, “is the prerogative of Deity.” When God reveals himself to His creatures, it cannot be otherwise, if the discovery be according to truth, than as the infinite concentration of all excellence-of all that is great and all that is good. And it must, at the same time, be, as the source to His creatures of all their joys, and to each one of His intelligent offspring the chief good.

The language before us implies that we should seek to possess the excellences that are fitted to commend us to favour, and so to draw forth the approbation of others; we ought to seek these qualities, not, as is too apt to be the case, for the sake of the praise they are likely to secure, but for their own sakes, and for the sake of what the apostle calls “commending ourselves unto God.”

It must never be forgotten that all such passages imply the sincere and earnest cultivation of a real and divinely approved principle. The principle called for in this verse is that of true, self-diffident modesty. Considerations entirely different, and even opposite, may induce the suppression of self-praise:-even the very desire of praise from others. From this arises the danger of holding out-to the young especially-the motive or inducement of getting a character for modesty. This may produce artifice, affectation, simulation, hypocrisy. That which is wanted,-that which God approves and requires,-is honest simplicity, which neither, on the one hand, courts praise, nor, on the other, affects to disdain and undervalue it,-which neither blusters out its own commendation, nor whines and simpers, and depreciates, and makes light of what it is or of what it has done, merely for the purpose of making others say more. The affectation of despising the commendation of others is worse than the self-commendation that is reprehended. It is, in truth, the very same spirit showing itself under another aspect.

There may be occasions when a man not only may with propriety, but must in duty speak in self-commendation. He may be falsely accused,-reproached and vilified. Men may “say all manner of evil against him falsely,” and “lay to his charge things that he knows not.” The self-vindication which, in such circumstances, becomes incumbent upon him, for the sake of his profession and of his usefulness, must to a certain extent include self-commendation. But in these cases, the manner of it will show the motive and principle by which it is dictated.

Verse Proverbs 27:3 . “A stone is heavy, and the sand weighty; but a fool’s wrath is heavier than them both.” Of the unprincipled or irreligious man, who is, at the same time, weak and not governed by reason or discretion, “the wrath” may be expected to be disproportionate, ungovernable, furious, destructive. The figure may be differently understood. It may be taken from the weight of a burden,-or, so far as the stone at least is concerned, from its coming down with mischievous violence on its hapless object. The anger even of a good man may at times go beyond due bounds, in degree and in its working and results;-as when David, in his rage against Nabal, threatened the destruction of all that pertained to him. But in general, the passions of the wise and good will be restrained and moderated by the operation of right principle,-by conscience towards God, and by the influence of God’s truth. But “a fool’s wrath!"-there is no telling to what extremes it may carry him, while the storm rages; or what mischief it may effect in its sudden and frantic transports. The mischief will be in proportion to his power of doing it.

Yet as the next verse indicates, there is a passion which, in Solomon’s estimate, was still worse than uncontrolled anger. That-“cruel,” “outrageous,” and productive of serious damage, though it be, lasts not long. Like the violent tempest, it speedily spends itself; and by prudent, patient, conciliatory treatment it may be softened. “But who is able to stand before envy?” Envy is one of the most malignant principles in our apostate nature. It is the principle that grudges at the well-being of others. It is a stranger to all generosity of feeling. It differs, in this respect, from virtuous emulation. The latter is satisfied that others should keep, in the scale of prosperity or of honour, the point they have attained, while it strives to surpass and to rise above them. It indulges not the mean desire of gaining equality by the degradation of its rival, or seeks to bring that rival down to its own level by low and insidious arts. But envy is a stranger to honour. Let but the hated distinction be done away, it matters not to envy how,-whether by its own rise or by its rival’s fall. Nay, it sighs for the latter quite as earnestly as it aspires at the former. It only “consults to cast down the object of it from his excellency;” and will condescend to the most despicable devices for the accomplishment of its purpose. The very considerations that would soften anger and resentment, tend to the increase of envy; because they procure for its object the greater share of approval and commendation. Even at the excellences by which these are obtained envy grudges; so that by the very means which would disarm wrath of its propensity to cruelty and outrage, you infuse fresh venom into the stings of envy; you promote the secretion of its virulent and deadly poison. It maybe remarked too that “anger” and “wrath,” with their cruelty and outrageous violence, arc open as well as transient. We see them, and we can shun them. But envy mines in secret. It is ever sapping and working under ground. It perseveres in its perfidious occupation with a patience and assiduity worthy of a better principle and a better cause. And the mine may burst upon you, with destructive violence, ere ever you are aware of what it has been busily and darkly doing; and involve you in ruin without a moment’s warning. This is envy’s highest, sweetest, richest gratification. It gloats in delight over the successful result of its deeply laid and secretly prosecuted schemes. And yet, well is it designated “the rottenness of the bones.” It is its own tormentor. It brings down its rival; but its very gratification is its misery. The very sympathy which that rival meets with torments it:-and itself becomes the object of contempt, desertion and loathing, and brings upon it the curses of mankind. “As the devil,” it has been well remarked, “fell by his pride, so he wrought the fall of man by his envy:-and when envy takes possession of a man, it makes him a devil to his neighbours.” The devil had no provocation from man:-and so the envious man works without provocation. The object of it does nothing to excite it,-and often has no suspicion of it till the effects of its hellish working come upon him. Who, therefore, can “stand before it?"-It was envy that murdered Abel, and dyed the earth with the first blood of innocence. It was envy that plotted against Joseph,-consulted to put him to death,-sold him into bondage,-dipped his hated vest in blood, and presented it to the eyes of his distracted parent,-thus slaying at once the fraternal and the filial affections in the bosoms of its subjects. It was envy that delivered up to condemnation and death the Lord of glory, the prince of life, the pattern of benevolence, and purity, and every divine and human excellence.-O! if we cannot help being its objects, let us beware of being its subjects. Let us cultivate every sentiment that is opposed to it; and, instead of grudging at the happiness, or the honour, or the excellence of others, delight in that generosity of heart which makes every stream of others’ joy tributary to the river of our own pleasures!

Verse Proverbs 27:5 . “Open rebuke is better than secret love.” Our first enquiry here is,-What is the contrast, or antithesis, which Solomon, in this verse, intends?

It is not, I apprehend, between “open reproof” and love that is not real but only affected, and, assuming the garb and manner of what is real, flatters and imposes upon its object This could not, with propriety, be called “secret love.” It is not love at all. It is professed love, but secret enmity, or at least secret indifference, making professions for ends of its own. “Secret love” is love which is indeed real, but which fails to speak out faithfully when it ought-when the good of its object calls for such fidelity; which shrinks from doing so because it is unwilling to inflict present pain; which thus connives at existing evils,-silently allowing them to pass, when they are such as ought to be noticed and reprehended. This is that false love, which really injures its object; and which, on this account,-that is, from its injurious tendency, how little soever designed, gets in the Scriptures the designation of hatred: “Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thine heart: thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy neighbour, and not suffer sin upon him,” Leviticus 19:17 . This is far worse than of no service. It is eminently prejudicial. It can never be a favour-unless under a fearful misapprehension of the term,-to have sin allowed to remain in us. Surely it is far better to be without the sin, than to be without the “rebuke.” To remove sin ought to be regarded by every child of God as the highest aim, and the most desirable influence, of love. It is the highest aim of divine love. It is the end of that love in the whole mediation of Christ; and its end too in the entire administration of providence,-especially in all afflictive dispensations. These are divine rebukes; and they are every one of them corrective,-intended to make God’s people “partakers of his holiness.” “By this also shall the iniquity of Jacob be purged;” and “this is all the fruit, to take away sin.”

It is to be feared, that there is often not a little of selfishness in the “secret love” which is here condemned. We shrink from rebuke, more on account of the unpleasantness and trouble of it to ourselves, than on account only of the pain to which it may put our neighbours. Two things are pre-supposed, however, in the verse; that the rebuke is really deserved; and that it be invariably administered in the right spirit-the spirit of love. The rebuke required must not only be open and faithful, but affectionate and humble, in order to its being effectual, and thus proving itself “better than secret love:"-for it is better not to rebuke at all, than to rebuke in a bad spirit.

Verse Proverbs 27:6 . “Faithful are the wounds of a friend: but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful.” The sentiment in this verse, though analogous to that in the fifth, is not the same.-By the process of probing and searching a wound or a sore, and by the subsequent process of cutting, a surgeon may subject a patient to great pain. But it is not because he has pleasure in putting to pain that he inflicts it; but because the health and strength of his patient, his qualifications both for action and enjoyment, perhaps his very life, depends upon his proceeding as he does. Thus his wounds are “faithful”-professionally faithful. Their design is not to inflict suffering, but to prevent and remove it. In the same way, friendly fidelity and reproof may give mental pain,-acute, severe pain. But the wounds, like those of the surgeon, are necessary, for spiritual health and strength and life,-or, it may be, according to the nature of the case, for temporal comfort and benefit. We have already remarked, that such is the design of our heavenly Father’s corrections. His wounds are faithful. They are all in perfect harmony with the promises of His covenant, which are assurances of love. Faithfulness is an attribute of love, and love is an attribute of faithfulness. We can neither be faithful without loving; nor can we love without being faithful. And if we would be affectionately and truly faithful, we must at times wound;-always when there is sin to be reproved.

The antithesis to the faithful wounds of a friend is-“But the kisses of an enemy are deceitful.” These are the kisses of one who feigns friendship. We had the character drawn at length in the preceding chapter:-verses Proverbs 26:23-26 .

Seek you an evidence of the wounds of a friend? You have it in Nathan’s faithful execution of his commission to David, when, after his sin in the matter of Uriah, he delivered to him the parable of the ewe-lamb, and then came home upon his slumbering conscience with the emphatic and pointed charge, “Thou art the man!” Would you know how deep and painful the wound which was thus inflicted? Read the fifty-first Psalm. See him there offering to the God whom he had offended the sacrifice of a broken spirit;-and hear him pleading for mercy, and deprecating divine rejection. Ah! the wound went deep. It inflamed and rankled. But how salutary! It was the faithful wounds of the Lord and his prophet that restored his soul, and brought him back to God and to the “joy of his salvation.”

And for the kisses of an enemy, look at the conduct of Joab and of Judas-of Joab, when, taking Amasa by the beard to kiss him, he said, “Art thou in health, my brother?"-and “smote him under the fifth rib:"-of Judas, when he said to Jesus, “Hail, Master! and kissed him;” and with the same breath of faithless treachery, turning to the ruffian band-“Take him, and lead him away safely!”

Verse Proverbs 27:7 . “The full soul loatheth an honey-comb: but to the hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet.” Who has not experienced the truth of these words? When the appetite is fully satisfied, that which otherwise would be most relished, becomes nauseous, and is ordered away. An appetite too that has been pampered,-vitiated and cloyed by luxury and delicacy,-is seldom a good one. It has no taste for plain, wholesome, nourishing food; and even the dainties and factitious stimulants to which it has been accustomed lose their effect and leave it craving for something new.-Hunger, on the contrary, gives relish to every thing,-to the plainest, the most homely, and even the most unpleasant fare. What the nice and dainty epicure,-or the man of self-indulgence, would turn away from with disgust, is to the poor toil-worn labourer a meal of high enjoyment.

The manna in the wilderness was sweet; “like wafers mixed with honey:"-but the Israelites had plenty of it, and they got dissatisfied with it, and longed for variety,-“Our soul,” said they, “loatheth this light bread-who will give us flesh to eat?” How different the feelings of the poor, starving prodigal, when “no man gave unto him,” and “he was fain to fill his belly with the husks which the swine did eat!”

There is a general principle evidently involved in the proverb. It is this:-that value will be set upon any object, in proportion as the want of it is felt. And this principle applies, with full force, to spiritual as well as to temporal concerns. The proud and self-sufficient, who are full of themselves, and who feed on their self-flatteries, and feel no want, loathe even the rich provision of the gospel feast,-“the feast of fat things and wines on the lees, of wines on the lees well refined.” They turn away from this heaven furnished table. There is no spiritual appetite. But when a poor sinner comes to be sensible of his own emptiness-his utter destitution of all that is good, of all that can satisfy his conscience and recommend him to God,-and begins to “hunger and thirst after righteousness,” a righteousness which he has not in himself,-then nothing but the provision made by the gospel can satisfy his longing soul. And when he has accepted the free invitation to that feast,-to that open table,-he finds there the fulfilment of the assurance-“he shall be filled.” And yet he comes to the experience that the viands there provided are such as never cloy the appetite; but only, the more abundantly they are taken, whet it the more. The fuller, the hungrier.

At the same time, in another sense, abundance is apt to engender nicety. We are in danger of thinking lightly of our spiritual enjoyments, and spiritual privileges, because we have them in so great plenty and variety,-and of becoming very particular and very nice as to the manner of their being prepared and served up to us. O the difference between this state of things and the eagerness with which little portions of the word of God are received, and occasional passing opportunities of hearing it valued, by those whose means are more stinted than ours! The man who has long fasted, and is starving of hunger, will not think much about the cooking, the seasoning, the dish, or the garnish. Let us “take heed to ourselves,” that we do not cherish any such squeamish nicety,-any such spiritual epicurism,-as would blunt our relish for the plain and wholesome truths of the simple gospel. It is on this, after all, that the soul, in its spiritual powers and affections, must become strong; and by these must its vigour be maintained, and its growth in the divine life advanced.

Proverbs 27:8-10

LECTURE LXXXIII.

Proverbs 27:8-10 .

“As a bird that wandereth from her nest, so is a man that wandereth from his place. Ointment and perfume rejoice the heart; so doth the sweetness of a man’s friend by hearty counsel. Thine own friend, and thy father’s friend, forsake not; neither go into thy brother’s house in the day of thy calamity: for better is a neighbour that is near than a brother far off.”

On the first reading of the eighth verse it appears a mere truism. Here are two wanderers. The bird is a wanderer; the man is a wanderer. But surely this cannot be all that is meant. Whatever be understood as meant by a man’s “place”-the comparison cannot, most assuredly, consist in the mere fact of wandering. There is a manifestly intended reference to the pernicious results in the two cases respectively;-of the straying of the bird “from its nest,” and the absence of the man “from his place.”

And again:-the “nest” might be regarded as, to the bird itself, the place of rest, repose, tranquillity, comfort, safety. But, although, in this view, there might be points of comparison instituted perfectly just and sufficiently appropriate; it is not, I apprehend, to considerations of this description-considerations of personal ease and convenience and security to the man himself, that the comparison is intended to apply. The nest is, no doubt, a place of warmth, and retirement, of comfort, and safety to the bird, yet it should be borne in mind that these are not the ends for which the nest is built. No bird sets about constructing a nest, as a mere dwelling for itself,-to which it may retire, when fatigued by flight, and lie upon down, and enjoy itself in peaceful and luxurious ease. The nest is built, on the impulse of the wonderful instincts of nature,-instincts implanted by Him, of whom the simple bird knows nothing, but whom those instincts should teach us to adore,-for very different purposes. The nest is the place where the eggs are to be laid; where they are to be warmed and quickened into life; and where the young unfledged progeny are to be lodged, and fed, and protected, and trained to their maturity. Now, in such a comparison as this, we cannot but suppose there is a reference to the purposes for which the nest is constructed. The allusion is doubtless to the period of incubation-to the hatching of the eggs, and the rearing of the young. If the bird “wanders from her nest” during that period, what is the consequence? Why, that the process is frustrated:-the eggs lose their vital warmth; they become cold, addled, and unproductive. Absence, even for a very short time, will produce this effect; and produce it to such a degree, that no subsequent sitting, however constant and prolonged, can ever vivify again the extinct principle of vitality. And then, during the period of early training, when the young are dependent on the brooding breast and wing of the parent bird for their warmth, and on the active quickness of the parent bird, as their purveyor, for their sustenance,-desertion is death. If the mother then “wanders from her nest,” forsaking for any length of time her callow brood-they perish, the hapless victims of a mother’s neglect. They are starved of cold, or they are starved of hunger; or, it may be, their secret retreat is found out by some devouring foe.

Such appears to be the apt allusion. Let us now consider to what cases it may with truth and profit be applied.

1. In the first place then, I apply it to a man’s Home. Home may surely be regarded as most appropriately designated “his place.” It is there he ought to be; not merely enjoying comfort, but imparting it;-not the place of selfish ease and indulgence, but of dutiful and useful occupation. He has a charge there,-committed to him, not by the instincts of nature merely, but by the law of God. His family demand his first interest and his first attention. His fond caresses and endearing smiles are to teach them the reciprocations of love; his counsels, instructions, admonitions, and encouragements, are to form their minds for the usefulness of future life; his example is to confirm what his precepts inculcate; and Ids active industry is to provide for their wants and their comfort. The man who is never easy at home; never settled in the very place of which settlement is the characteristic distinction; who is ever restless, and eager to roam; who is abroad only at home, and at home only abroad, and fancying he will be better elsewhere;-that man is a poor miserable creature himself; it is not in the nature of things that he can carry happiness with him anywhere. And alas! for the rising family of such a wanderer,-so unnatural an absentee from the place which of all others has a title to his presence. Nothing can go well at home, when the heads of the family do not find it the place of mutual rest and comfort, of social delight and useful occupation, and fond attachment, and common cares and common joys. Their rising offspring are neglected-neglected not only in what regards their external provision and comfort, but especially in the most important of all points-the early culture of their minds and hearts. If others than their restless, home-sick, wandering parents care not for them, it is a poor time they have of it, and a poor prospect in looking forward. I have said the heads of the family:-for although the text speaks of “the man that wandereth from his place,” the spirit of the proverb applies, alike truly and alike forcibly, to both. An idle, roaming, gadding, gossipping mother, is indeed, in respect of the mischief produced by such a course to her family, fitly compared to the hen bird that leaves its nest,-its eggs to addle, its offspring to starve! The mother who is a stranger at home was never meant by nature to be a mother. She is an anomaly in the animal creation. And they who give her any encouragement and countenance in her restless rovings, give her encouragement and countenance in what the word of God, in the very severest terms, censures and reprobates.

Do not push my similitude too far, and suppose that I am condemning under it all going from home. It would be foolish to say that a man must never choose a calling that requires his occasional absence from the domestic circle. But such absence on business may be aptly likened to the short but necessary absences of the parent-bird from its nest, when her object is the provision of food for her young. Her leaving the nest becomes, after a certain period, as indispensable as her keeping it. Were she to remain always in it her brood would starve, as effectually as if she remained always out of it. But in such absences, her flight is rapid, and her return quick;-the absence no longer than is absolutely necessary for effecting her purpose, providing sustenance for the nurslings of her instinctive care. The nest is still her home. So should it be with every parent; and so will it be with every dutiful parent, to the utmost extent attainable.

2. I apply the proverb to the SITUATION IN LIFE which has been assigned to a man by Providence. A change may, in some cases, be not only warrantable but imperative. It may be so constrained by circumstances as to be itself as really an act of obedience to providential intimation, as it had been to enter on the situation relinquished. The words of our text are intended to repress a fickle, mutable, roving tendency of mind in regard to a man’s employment. The disposition to such change should not be indulged. There are men who are ever after something new. They enter on a situation with all the eagerness of sanguine anticipation, and with the full assurance and purpose of its being permanent. But they quickly tire of it. They find it does not suit them. There is that about it they don’t quite like. They get dull and disheartened, and wish a change. They make the change; and O how pleased they are! But it is still only for a time. The same weariness, and itching for change recurs. Now the man who is thus fitful and unsettled, ever dissatisfied, and ever “wandering from his place,” is not very likely to prosper. How can he? No business gets a fair trial. He quits it before there bas been time for it to assume a matured form, or to work itself into a course of steady prosperity. He is like the bird that gets impatient of her incubation, and gives not the time required by nature for the eggs to quicken and mature,-or for her brood, when hatched, to arrive at the time when they may shift for themselves: or like a bird (could we fancy such a thing) that should spend her spring and summer, in going about from place to place, building nests, and leaving them as soon as built!-We may, with equal propriety and force, apply the proverb to fits and starts of labour in the situation a man continues to fill. He ought to keep steadily to his occupation while he is in it. No man’s business can prosper otherwise. It will be as unproductive as the incubation of the wandering bird.

And allow me especially to observe, that this steadfast application is indispensable in the case of the man whose occupation is in the service of another. In such a case, it is required by faithfulness and integrity. He who is thus engaged is not at liberty to leave his engagements at his own option. It is his incumbent duty to be at his post. His time is not his own. It is a sad thing when any Christian gives his employer occasion to say of him that he “wanders from his place,"-that he does not mind his proper business; that he is never sure of being found where he ought to be. As the brooding bird should be found upon her eggs, or with her young, so should every servant, in every department, be found in his own place, and at his own occupation. It should be the aim of every man to have it said of him with truth-tell me where he ought to be, and I will tell you where he is.

3. I wish to apply the words to the SANCTUARY OF GOD. I think they may be so applied with perfect appropriateness. Every Christian must delight in God’s sanctuary. It is to him, as a worshipper of God, “his place;"-the place where, at stated times, he ought to be, and where he chooses, and desires, and loves to be. How frequently, how strongly, how beautifully, does the Psalmist express this feeling!-and on one occasion with an exquisitely touching allusion to those birds of the air, that built their nests in the vicinity of the temple; and which,-when banished from Jerusalem and kept at a distance from the sacred precincts,-he represents himself as envying-coveting their proximity to the altars of Jehovah.* When he thus “wandered from his place,” it was not by his own choice. His heart was there. All his desires, all his affections were there. Thither they ever pointed, like the disturbed needle, still, in all its vibrations, settling towards the pole. That is the point of its magnetic attraction; and so is the sanctuary to the soul of the child of God. On the hallowed day of sacred rest, this is “his place.” Here will he be found, “beholding the beauty of the Lord and inquiring in his temple.” The business of religion,-the concerns of the soul, will not thrive, if a man be ever “wandering from his place,” any more than the business of the world and the concerns of this life.

• Psalms 84:1-4 .

Now, brethren, to speak plainly, I wish to be understood at present as meaning, not merely that you should, on the Lord’s day, be in the sanctuary-that is, in some place of worship; but that you should, as regularly as possible, be in your own place of worship. Every member of a Christian church has his own place; and there, generally speaking, he ought to be found. This is seemly. The practice of wandering from place to place indicates a want of stayedness of mind,-a kind of spiritual gossipping,-fondness for variety, and novelty, and change-“itching ears.” It looks like treating the house of God rather as a place of intellectual or spiritual entertainment, than of serious devotion and divine instruction.

“Were the system of wandering really a profitable one, I should grant that the text did not admit of a just application to it; for the wandering of which the text speaks is one that is prejudicial and destructive. But in this respect the application is strong. A desultory and ever-changing system of hearing,-one sermon here and another there,-one minister this Sabbath and another the next,-will never be at all so profitable as a regular continuous course of sabbatical instruction. Besides, those who have chosen their own “pastors and teachers,” should feel it their duty to encourage them. Few things, you must be well aware, can be more discouraging to a pastor than when hearers, and more especially any of his own flock, are thus unsteady. It unavoidably gives him the impression of dissatisfaction on the part of these absentees-these wandering spirits. He sighs over the apprehension,-not that he fails to please merely-that were little-but that he fails to interest and to edify. And it may not seldom happen, that, when he has been at special pains with a particular subject, which he has conceived to be needful for a particular class of his hearers,-he sees, to his mortification and regret, that the very individuals perhaps to whose character, or case, or circumstances, the discourse was peculiarly adapted, are not present! They have “wandered from their place:"-and thus the double evil is produced, of their losing the benefit, and his losing the satisfaction of imparting it, and one of the objects that stimulated his mind in study, and animated him in the prospect of the Lord’s day service. His affectionate faithfulness misses its principal aim.

Some of you may probably have been thinking with yourselves, that while I have been speaking of the duty of the Christian people, there is no individual to whom, in the churches of Christ, the words of the text are more directly and strongly applicable, than the pastor himself. I grant it. It is unquestionably the duty of those who have the stated instruction of the brethren intrusted to them, not to be wanderers from their respective places. Their own charges ought to be their constant care. Yet the people should beware of unreasonable extremes. “While it cannot but be a gratification and an encouragement to a pastor to know that his people do not wish him away,-still they should remember that, while their own churches are their primary charges, pastors still may have duties beyond them,-duties connected with. the general interests and prosperity of the denomination of Christians to which they belong, and, what is still more important, of the cause of Christ in general. On this account, he should not be regarded as “wandering from his place,” when ends of this description are connected in any way with his absence. He is in his place; just where he ought to be:-and his brethren, instead of murmuring, should approve and encourage. There is another consideration which may be pleaded; that an occasional absence may prove conducive to that health and vigour that are necessary to the efficient fulfilment of their home labours,-and that the sight and intercourse of other pastors, and other churches, tends to impart not only a pleasing and profitable spiritual excitement, but also information, and experience, and enlargement of mind and heart, that are eminently conducive to the same end; and thus good for their people as well as for themselves. They should not, therefore, on every occasion of absence, be compared to the “bird that wanders from her nest” in brooding time; but rather to the same bird, when it wings its way, fleetly and briefly, to cater for its own. If the pastor is, in body and mind, the better for his absence, so are his people proportionally benefited. In serving others, he serves them.

Allow me here to put in a word in behalf of young preachers of the gospel. Nothing ought to be a source of greater pleasure to the hearts of the people of God, than to see youthful piety consecrating itself to the service of the sanctuary, and of the truth and kingdom of the Redeemer;-the Timothys,-the rising hopes of the church and cause of God. Under this impression, it should be their anxiety to hail their appearance, to encourage them, to cheer them on in their course, making every allowance for early imperfections, receiving their instructions with affectionate candour, and showing them all the countenance in their power. I cannot but look upon it as unkind, selfish, and sinful, to discourage the hearts and weaken the hands of youthful ministers and preachers, by “wandering from your place” when they are expected to officiate. Tell me not of the duty of attending to your own edification. I grant the duty. But if there is an humble frame, and a real, spiritual, lowly desire to be edified, you will rarely miss it, in some degree or other. And should the degree at times be small, forget nut that the wrong you do to others by your absence may be much greater than the negative wrong you do to yourselves by your presence:-and, having myself, in my day, known by experience the feelings of a young beginner in the service, I cherish for them a kindly sympathy, and plead for them with a corresponding earnestness.

Besides, brethren, you must not forget, that it is not merely to hear sermon that you come to God’s house,-your place on His holy day. You come to hold fellowship with His people in all the social exercises of devotion. You come to remember and celebrate along with them the dying love and the triumphant resurrection of the “Lord of glory.” It is becoming and desirable, that you should be found, as regularly as possible, doing this in company with those in whose communion you have, from principle, felt it your duty to unite.

I may be permitted to make a special reference to the ordinance of the Lord’s supper. O why should any, on that interesting occasion, be found “wandering from their place.” That it is where they ought to be the authority of the New Testament determines, and their own professions admit. Truly, when they thus absent themselves, may they be likened to the “bird that wandereth from her nest.” They lose benefit to themselves, and they inflict injury upon others. They deprive their fellow-believers of a part of the benefit as well as delight of the social commemoration of their common Lord, and the united and cheering anticipation of his second coming; and they thus so far contribute to dishearten and weaken them by depressing in their bosoms that “joy of the Lord which is their strength;” as well as distract their minds by painful misgivings and fears. Like the swallows or the ring-doves, then, that found their nest at the altars of God, be you there from Sabbath to Sabbath, duly as the day returns, unless when necessarily prevented. Eat and drink there of the provision made for you; and assure your own and each other’s hearts before your Lord, in the joint remembrance and celebration of His love. “Wander not from your place.”

Brethren, there is one place to which you have come for safety and for happiness. That place is Calvary. It is your place, as believing sinners. O wander not thence. You will then indeed be “as a bird wandering from its nest.” Beyond the sacred precincts of that holy mount,-the mount on which “the Lamb of God took away the sin of the world,"-all is danger, all is ruin.

Verse Proverbs 27:9 . “Ointment and perfume rejoice the heart; so doth the sweetness of a man’s friend by hearty counsel."-This verse does not seem to be very happily rendered, although the sense may be considered as substantially given. The Vulgate Latin has it-” The heart is refreshed by ointments and perfumes; and the soul is soothed by the good counsels of a friend.” Another version has-“Ointment and perfume rejoice the heart; so doth the counsel of a man’s friend sweeten the soul.” The comparison is, plainly, that of the influence of good counsel, kindly administered, upon the mind, to the refreshing and cheering effect of the fragrance of rich perfumes upon the sense and upon the spirit. This is especially felt in times of trouble and in seasons of difficulty and perplexity. When the heart is heavy and depressed, and the mind troubled with conflicting and distracting thoughts,-how soothing is the salutary counsel of a judicious and affectionate friend!-how does it sweeten the embittered, and settle the agitated spirit! Such was the effect of the sound and divinely approved counsel of Jethro upon the spirit of Moses, when overburdened and oppressed with the multitudinous cares of his office as judge of Israel:-and such the effect of the counsel of Jonathan to David,-the counsel of a friend that “loved him as his own soul,"-when he was harassed and kept in dread of his life by the persecuting malice and envy of the frantic Saul:-he “strengthened his hands in God,” and set his heart at rest, O! that friendship and its hearty counsel were sweet indeed, amid the bitterness of David’s outcast condition!

Surely, we may apply the comparison, in all its emphasis, to the counsel that directs the awakened and alarmed sinner,-whose spirit is pricked and embittered by a sense of sin, and whose heart sinks within him under the apprehension of impending wrath,-to the grace of the gospel-to the cross,-to the way of salvation,-to the rich and free mercy of a covenant God in Christ! What ointment and perfume can diffuse so sweet and soothing a fragrance, as that counsel diffuses, through the believing soul! O my friends, this is truly of all counsel the best. The counsel that brings the troubled sinner to Christ and to God,-that introduces into his heart a sense of pardoning mercy and paternal love, is indeed “as ointment poured forth!” It imparts to the soul an unceasing source of comfort and joy.-And such too is the counsel that sends the desponding believer back to the same simple and blessed truth that gave him peace and joy at first. Not, indeed, if his despondency is the effect of indulged sin, and that sin unrepented of and unforsaken. To speak of grace to such a man would only be to add to his delusion, and ultimately to augment the bitterness and oppression of his spirit. It is false friendship indeed; as false as the pretended friendship of the father of lies, when, under promise of an increase of blessing, he tempted to the deed which brought the curse.

We take the two parts of the following verse distinctly-“Thine own friend, and thy father’s friend, forsake not.” Forsake not, that is, a friend that has “shown himself friendly” both to thy father and to thyself for his sake:-a steadfast, unswerving friend; one who maintains his affection to the living, as he did to the dead. This is parallel to the “friend that sticketh closer than a brother.” Such a friend, principled, steady, and self-denying, is indeed a treasure,-not to be parted with on trifling grounds, but to be kept with care as we would guard a precious jewel. In the designation there is a double bond of attachment:-“Thy own-and thy father’s friend.” There is the twofold appeal to gratitude and to filial affection. And when that affection has been enshrined and hallowed by the death of the parent, all the sacredness that attaches to a parent’s dust and a parent’s memory comes to be associated with the friendship of which he was the object when living. To forsake such a friend becomes thus a kind of sacrilegious violation of the claims of filial devotedness and duty.

“Forsake him not.” Forsake him not in his time of need. To forsake him then would justly stamp your character with an indelible stigma of ungrateful baseness. Forsake him not, by neglecting and undervaluing his counsel; and forsake him not by declining his kind offices. To a truly generous spirit, there are not many things more hurting-more deeply and tenderly wounding, than this. Even if we should see good cause for declining to accept what we are not satisfied would be really beneficial-even then, the intended kindness should be declined with grateful acknowledgments, and gentle unwillingness to offend. And to refuse the proffered services of such a friend, when he is desirous to serve us as he did our fathers,-to tell him in effect that we can do without him and will dispense with his interference,-is to inflict a wound that may go deep and rankle long,-not, it may be, resentfully, but in the spirit of mortified kindness, that has intended and attempted good, but has been slighted. And forsake him not, on your rising yourselves in life;-on your mounting, it may be, to a higher level in society, than that which he and your father before you occupied. It may not be in your power to raise him with you. But it were sadly wrong, and unworthy of correct principle and right feeling, so to leave him beneath you, as to forget him and let him feel that he is forgotten,-to allow his kindnesses to slip from memory, and to decline recognizing him, as now below your status in life.

“Neither go into thy brother’s house in the day of thy calamity.” This has certainly the appearance of a very strange advice. “Whither, in the day of our calamity, should we go, if not to the house of a brother? Where are we to expect a kind reception, and the comfort we require, if not there? But the proverb, like all others, must be understood generally, and applied in the circumstances and the sense obviously and mainly designed. The meaning seems to be-either:-1. Do not choose “the day of thy calamity” for making thy visit, if thou hast not shown the same inclination to court and cultivate intimacy before, in the day of thy success and prosperity. This unavoidably looks not like the impulse of affection, but of felt necessity, or convenience and self-interest:-“Ay, ay,” your brother will be naturally apt to say, “I saw little of you before: you are fain to come to me now, when you feel your need of me, and fancy I may be of some service to you.” Or-2. Let not sympathy be forced and extorted. “In the day of thy calamity,” if thy brother has the heart of a brother, and really feels for thee, he will come to thee; he will seek and find thee. If he does not,-then do not press yourself upon his notice, as if you would constrain and oblige him to be kind. This may, and probably will, have the effect of disgusting and alienating him, rather than gaining his love. Love and sympathy must be unconstrained as well as unbought. When they are either got by a bribe, or got by dint of urgent solicitation, they are alike heartless, and alike worthless. The reason is-

“For better is a. neighbour that is near, than a brother far off.” The antithetical phrases “at hand” and “far off”-have evident reference here, not to locality, but to disposition. A friendly and kindly disposed neighbour, who bears no relation to us save that of neighbourhood, is greatly preferable to a brother,-to any near relation whatever that is cold, distant, and alienated.

Even natural affection requires to be exercised with discretion. When appealed to injudiciously-at improper times-in improper circumstances, and with improper frequency-it may be cooled-it may be lost-it may be turned to dislike. On the other hand, however, there is a danger of a selfish exclusion of a brother “in the day of his calamity,” as well as of a selfish solicitation on such a brother’s part;-and against that tendency we have reason to be guarded, as well its against thp other.

Proverbs 27:11-20

LECTURE LXXXIV.

Proverbs 27:11-20 .

“My son, be wise, and make my heart glad, that I may answer him that reproacheth me. A prudent man foreseeth the evil, and hideth himself; but the simple pass on, and are punished. Take his garment that is surety for a stranger, and take a pledge of him for a strange woman. He that blesseth his friend with a loud voice, rising early in the morning, it shall be counted a curse to him. A continual dropping in a very rainy day and a contentious woman are alike. Whosoever hideth her hideth the wind, and the ointment of his right hand, which bewrayeth itself. Iron sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend. Whoso keepeth the fig-tree shall eat the fruit thereof; so he that waiteth on his master shall be honoured. As in water face answereth to face; so the heart of man to man. Hell and destruction are never full; so the eyes of man are never satisfied.”

The oft-repeated admonition in the first of these verses, “My son, be wise, and make my heart glad,”* is here enforced by a new consideration:-“That I may answer him that reproacheth me.” O how happy a thing it is to a Christian parent, when, with delighted though humble confidence, he can point to his children, as a silent but convincing testimony to his faithfulness in the fulfilment of his trust, and a refutation of every malicious insinuation and charge to the contrary! True, indeed, every parent will be disposed, in lowliness of spirit, to acknowledge that in this, as in all other things, he has “failed and come short of the glory of God.” Yet no satisfaction can be more exquisite to a parent’s heart than that which arises from the practical proof, of diligence, fidelity, affection, and prayer, in a family growing up “in the fear of God;” and proving a credit to him in the eyes of others;-“The father honoured in the honoured son.”

• See Proverbs 10:1 ; Proverbs 15:20 ; Proverbs 23:15-16 ; Proverbs 24:25 .

The principle of the verse may be applied to spiritual fathers and spiritual children; and to the relation of a pastor and his people. It cannot fail, on the one hand, to he a source of delight to him, when he can point to his spiritual children and to the people of his charge, maintaining full consistency of Christian deportment,-“abhorring that which is evil, and cleaving to that which is good,"-as the most convincing evidence of the purity of his doctrine and the faithfulness of his ministrations;-and a sad unhappiness to him, on the other, when the enemy finds occasion for “reproach” in their many inconsistencies, and deflections from the way of God’s commandments.-It may even be applied to the case of Heavenly Wisdom herself, teaching by the word. She is “justified of her children;"-and the most satisfactory reply to all insinuations against the doctrines there taught, as leading to licentiousness, should ever be, a simple appeal to the lives of those who believe them.

The two following verses are an exact repetition of the third verse of chap. 22d ( Proverbs 22:3 ), and the sixteenth verse of chap. 20th ( Proverbs 20:16 ); to which the reader is referred.

In verse fourteenth ( Proverbs 27:14 ), the words, “it shall be counted a curse unto him,” do not mean that his “friend” will be apt to curse him for it; but rather, he shall be reckoned as if he cursed his friend. The character intended is evidently that of the man given to flattering and laudatory adulation. The reference is to public, extravagant, unceasing, unseasonable, commendation. The man is supposed to make it his business to praise another,-day after day, and all the day long-proclaiming his excellences to all, and taking precious care, at the same time, that he himself shall hear!

To a man of any real modesty this will be painfully irksome,-insufferably offensive. It is putting him on the rack,-torturing his spirit. And further, such conduct is sure to produce either ridicule and laughter at the expense of the object of such overdone commendation; or envy and jealousy, with the inevitable results;-a system of detraction to counteract the praise; or a leering insinuation that the parasite is secretly encouraged and in pay for his flattery; or too high expectations from him who is thus lauded to the skies, and consequent disappointment;-it being, on this account, a serious disadvantage to any one, to be held up as a public prodigy by the extreme of eulogy. A wise man will prefer reviling and reproach to the disgrace of being thus befooled with flattery. And the flatterer, instead of being liked and encouraged, will be disliked, and held at a due distance, as one who is to be suspected of unworthy motives,-one who in bepraising others is only looking after his own interests.

The subject of next verse has also come repeatedly before us; and it certainly has no such attractions as to tempt one to repetition: “A continual dropping in a very rainy day and a contentious woman are alike:” but the sixteenth verse presents a new view of the same topic;-“Whosoever hideth her hideth the wind, and the ointment of his right hand, which bewrayeth itself.”

A prudent man, who has regard to his own and his family’s respectability, as well as his wife’s reputation, will be anxious to cover, as far as possible, her temper and behaviour, and the unpleasant differences and outbreakings thence arising. But alas! the attempt is vain. The utmost meekness, discretion, and caution, will not do. Her own unruly and wayward temper will, in spite of all, bewray itself. The attempts will be like endeavours to hold the wind, or to retain in the hand the smell of a fragrant and volatile ointment. The more closely the hand is pressed, the more will its warmth disengage the odour. So, the efforts of gentleness and calmness to mollify and to conceal may have the very opposite effect,-provoking all the more to openness, from resentful disdain, and the very love of contradiction-exposing herself, for the express purpose of disappointing and fretting, and mortifying him!

O far be all such scenes as these from the firesides of professedly Christian families! Heaven is the home of love and peace. And there must be love and peace here among those who are looking forward to that home;-where the blessed inhabitants “neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven.”

Verse Proverbs 27:17 . “Iron sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend."-It would be wrong to say that this verse, as it stands in our translation, conveys no distinct idea. “Sharpening the countenance” does convey an idea. We immediately think of a man’s face being enlivened and emboldened; and we infer that the enlivening and emboldening of the countenance arises from the enlivening and emboldening of the spirit,-and that this has been the effect of the man’s standing by his friend-supporting and encouraging him. Still, the words appear much more natural and emphatic, when rendered-“So doth a man’s countenance sharpen his friend.”

By a very common figure, we use the word countenance for encouraging approbation, support, incitement. When a man is left to think and determine and work alone,-especially when it so happens that he has no firm confidence in the scheme itself about which he is engaged, or in the method by which he is prosecuting it, or in his ability and resources for carrying it through,-he gets flat and spiritless. His wits are blunted. They lose their keen edge and efficient energy; so that they do not serve him with their wonted acuteness and promptitude. In these circumstances, let a friend step forward, and take him by the hand; let him approve and smile on his undertaking, and offer his co-operation in forwarding it;-what a change! He is like another man. His spirits revive. His wits are sharpened. He proceeds with eager assiduity and cheerfulness, putting forth all his powers, and making corresponding progress toward a successful issue.

There is a general principle here. It is-that all individual and solitary application has a tendency to languish: whereas social exertion keeps up its life and spirit, by the influence of mutual excitement. This appears in childhood and youth-in the effect of a well-directed emulation: and on the same principle are founded all the institutions of social religion, in which the truth of the maxim is signally experienced.

Verse Proverbs 27:18 . “Whoso keepeth the fig-tree shall eat the fruit thereof; so he that waiteth on his master shall be honoured.” There is here encouragement to servants,-to all who, in whatever department or way, are in the employ of others. The comparison is a sufficiently obvious one. The sweet and luscious fruit of the fig-tree is the reward of the pains and labour bestowed upon its cultivation. He who plants and waters, who prunes and dresses it, will in due time eat of the fruit:-so honour, confidence, reward, advancement, will be the result of a servant’s diligent and faithful attendance upon his master; while, if he acts otherwise-neglects his master’s business, follows his own inclinations, wastes his time, loiters on his errands, does his work indolently and inefficiently, to the prejudice of his master’s reputation and interest, he must look in vain for such “honour.” Then nothing is his due but disgrace and dismissal. See to it then, ye servants, that with the encouragement, you bear in mind the duty. And ye masters, be sure that ye overlook not the lesson to you, (which, if not so directly expressed, is so manifestly implied,) and, while you look for the duty, forget not the encouragement:-by which I mean, not merely the payment of wages punctually and fully when they are due;-but the smile, and look, and expression of approbation, and the occasional bestowment, when work has been done in an exemplary manner, of some little more substantial token of satisfaction,-some little extra reward.

And let us not forget the application of the words to ourselves as the servants of Christ. He is, both to servants and masters, a perfect example. In discharging his trust, in the former relation, as the voluntary SERVANT OF HIS FATHER, he was faithful to Him that appointed him. His language was,-language in perfect harmony with truth, “I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work”-“My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work.” And in his relation to his people as a Master, he “sends no one a warfare on his own charges.” He demands no work but what is rightfully due. He is large in his promises. He smiles graciously upon active fidelity; and He will prove himself generous and liberal as well as just, in fulfilling his engagements. “Hath he said, and will he not do? hath he spoken, and will he not make it good?”

Verse Proverbs 27:19 . “As in water face answereth to face; so the heart of man to man."-Calm bright water is here considered as a mirror. The countenance reflected from it is the counterpart,-the exact image of the reality:-“so the heart of man to man.” What means this? 1. There are certain principles and feelings in our nature common to all mankind. Not it may be in the same degree; but still so universal as that every man may, to a certain extent, judge of others by himself. If there are exceptions, they are so rare as only to confirm the rule. These principles and feelings remain the same, amidst all varieties of situation and character. Take for example parental affection. When God says, “Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him,” He proceeds on the assumption of fond and strong affection being the generic character of the paternal relation. Hence, one father may know from what his own heart feels what the hearts of other fathers feel. The same holds true, in a special manner, of self-love, in all its various modifications. It has certain universal likings and dislikings, desires and aversions. Every man prefers being loved to being hated,-being well-spoken of to being slandered,-being honourably dealt with to being cheated,-being the object of respect and kindness to being the object of disrespect and unkindness. This may not strike you as of so much importance as it really is. Remember the great “golden rule,” or " royal law,” is based upon it. Were there no such general correspondence of feeling and desire, how could this rule be possibly applied? This golden rule of equity and love, then, is founded on the fact that “as in water face answereth to face; so the heart of man to man.”

2. In regard to the character of the unrenewed,-it maybe, and it is, greatly modified by constitutional temperament, by peculiarities of education, and by the diversity of circumstances in which they are placed;-yet, in the great staminal principles and essential features, their characters are very much alike. The substantial sameness, or identity, is discernible amidst all the diversity. Their likings and dislikings, their desires and aversions, their passions and propensities, are all closely akin to each other. So that, by observing in what manner corruption, in certain circumstances, operates in one, you may shrewdly and pretty surely estimate its operation in all. While the ambitious man loves power, the avaricious man wealth, the licentious man pleasure, and the one may not enter into the estimates and desires of the other in the precise particular on which the heart of each is set,-still, there is in them all one element of character, in which “there is no difference.” They are all “of the earth, earthy.” They are all “after the flesh;” and “minding the things of the flesh.” “They are all going astray,” under the influence of a common principle of rebellion and ungodliness, although each goes astray “in his own way.” They all understand one another, and sympathise with one another, in the general feelings which they cherish. All cast in the same common mould, their features have undergone different descriptions of modification and distortion. There is the family sameness, and the individual varieties.

3. In like manner with regard to the new nature-the spiritual nature of the regenerate,-the children of God. It too is the same; so that “as in water face answereth to face,” so doth the heart of one child of God to another. There is much variety, no doubt; yet there is a great deal of general, and even of minute and exact correspondence, in their views and their feelings. Their experience may be diversified in its details; but it is the same in its general principles. The spiritual conflict, though subject to many varieties, is, in its essential nature, alike in them all. It is the “flesh lusting against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh;”-“the law in the members warring against the law of the mind.” They all know this; they all feel this. Bring them to their knees together; and let any one of them be the mouth of the company in prayer to their common God and Father,-what a sympathy is immediately felt! In the confessions, the deprecations, the intercessions, the petitions, the thanksgivings, they are “of one heart and of one soul.” They adore a common God; they love a common Saviour; they live by a common Spirit; they own a common unworthiness and guilt; they trust in a common atonement and a common mercy; they draw their supplies from a common fountain; and on a common ground anticipate a common heaven.

“Their fears, their hopes, their aims are one,

Their comforts and their cares.''

In the sentiments of humble self-renunciation, and “glorying in the cross,"-in gratitude for the Lamb’s redeeming love,-in love to all that are His,-in zeal for God’s glory,-in joy in the conversion of sinners to Him,-in delight in His word, His day, His ordinances, His worship,-in the feeling and acknowledgment of their constant proneness to “depart from the fountain of living water,” and in their entire and incessant dependence on grace and obligations to it,-where is the individual dissentient? “When one believer breaks out into the song, “O to grace how great a debtor!” where is the other believer, whose emotions do not correspond,-whose pulses do not beat in unison? The Christian, then, who watches his own heart, and attends closely to its secret movements, will, generally speaking, be no great stranger to the hearts of his fellow-christians. From this cause it arises, that men, in hearing particular sermons, take fancies, as they many a time do, that the preacher has been hearing something about them; that some one has been giving him information. He has only been sketching from nature; and the sketch has met their consciousness. He has been describing a genus; and the description has been found to suit the individual. This has especially been the case, when the workings and tendencies,-the inward thoughts and desires of our common corruption have been faithfully and vividly delineated. It has then not seldom been very difficult to convince particular hearers, that a sermon has not specially been aimed at them.

There is one point in which the verse cannot hold true. There is a wide and essential difference between the regenerate and the unregenerate. The latter are altogether incapable of entering into the views and feelings of the former. Hence the unrenewed man is startled and astonished at the terms of self-annihilation and self-loathing in which the renewed man bemoans himself before God. He can neither understand it nor sympathise with it. He thinks if all that his godly neighbour says of himself be true, he must be bad enough with a vengeance. The reason is, that he is an entire stranger to the standard by which the renewed man estimates his character. He has never brought himself to the test of the holy heart-trying law of a holy heart-trying God; and has never seen himself in the light of the cross. Let him only be convinced of sin, and renewed in the spirit of his mind-and all will be plain. Then he will see clearly what puzzled and perplexed him before. Then he will enter into feelings which before he could not even imagine. Having received the vital principle of the new nature,-all its peculiar sentiments and emotions, its regrets and its sorrows, its estimates of self and its estimates of God, of sin and holiness, of this world and the next, its love and its hatred, its fear and its hope, its aversions, its aspirations, its longings,-all will immediately become his own:-and his only wonder now will be, that he should ever have thought and felt otherwise than he does,-otherwise than they did whom before he could not comprehend. Now, “as in water face answereth to face,” so does his heart to theirs!

Verse Proverbs 27:20 . “Hell and destruction are never full; so the eyes of man are never satisfied.” " * Hell* " or * Sheol* , means the place of the dead: and having this general meaning, it has come to be used with different particular meanings according to the connexion in which it occurs:-sometimes for the separate state-the invisible world; sometimes for the grave; sometimes for the place of torment.-“Destruction” may here be considered as signifying-by a species of personification-all the variety of ways taken together by which men are removed out of the world,-or as meaning “the second death”-the pit of woe. It is sadly true of both the grave and hell, that they are never “full;"-the word is the same as that translated, in the other clause of the verse, “satisfied,” and might, in both occurrences, be well rendered sated. Generation after generation are swept into the grave; and of each successive generation the vast majority, alas! goes down to hell,-the vast majority living and dying without God. Thus the tomb and the pit are never sated.

And “so the eyes of man are never sated.” The eyes, by a very natural figure, are put for the desires. Upon that which is the object of our desire, we fix our eyes; and that with an intensity of settled eagerness proportioned to the degree of the desire.*1 The meaning, then, is not merely that the sense of sight never has enough of its own peculiar enjoyments, but that the desire that is by the eye expressed is never satisfied by any amount of present gratification.*2 The desires of men are insatiable. They set their hearts on some particular object, and long for its attainment. They fix in their mind some point of advancement in the acquisition of the world,-some measure of wealth, or of power which they think, if once realized, would satisfy them to the full. They get what they want; but they still long as before. There is ever something unattained. Having gained the summit of one eminence, they see another above it; and as they mount, their views widen and their conceptions and wishes amplify, and still more is required to fill them.

*1 See for example-Proverbs 23:5 . rr

*2 Compare, for a similar sentiment-Ecclesiastes 1:8 ; Ecclesiastes 2:10-11 .

There is one thing and one only that can fill and satisfy-really and permanently satisfy-the amplest desires of an immortal mind. They possess it who can say, “the Lord is the portion of mine inheritance and of my cup;” and who can continue to sing, even amid the desolation of all that is earthly in their lot-

“Should I this spacious earth possess,

And all the spreading skies,

They never could my thirst appease,

Or yield me full supplies.

Without my God, with all this store,

I should be wretched still;

With thirst insatiate, crave for more,

My empty mind to fill!

But when my soul’s of God possessed,

What can I wish for more?

Here let me ever fix my rest,

And give all wandering o’er!

When the affections are “set on the things that are above;” when the chosen treasure is in heaven, and the heart is there also; when the eye of delighted contemplation is fixed on the glories and beauties of the “better country, even the heavenly”-the “inheritance that is incorruptible and that fadeth not away,"-this moderates the desire of earthly things. The eye ceases to fasten on them with its former avidity, having found a more powerful attraction-being drawn and fixed by something better. And then, when riches “make to themselves wings and fly away,” instead of the sight being strained in gazing wistfully and painfully after them in their flight, it is directed to the “better and more enduring substance:” it “enters through the gates into the heavenly city,” and settles on the fulness of its glory and joy.

Proverbs 27:21-27

LECTURE LXXXV.

Proverbs 27:21-27 .

“As the fining-pot for silver, and the furnace for gold; so is a man to his praise. Though thou shouldest bray a fool in a mortar among wheat with a pestle, yet will not his foolishness depart from him. Be thou diligent to know the state of thy flocks, and look well to thy herds: for riches are not for ever; and doth the crown endure to every generation? The hay appeareth, and the tender grass sheweth itself, and herbs of the mountains are gathered; the lambs are for thy clothing, and the goats are the price of the field. And thou shalt have goats’ milk enough for thy food, for the food of thy household, and for the maintenance for thy maidens.”

The ordinary interpretation of the words in the first of these verses makes the praise try the man. But the words in our translation, and in the original. make the man try the praise:-and this appears to be the correct interpretation. Of the comparison two views may be taken:-

1. It may express what every man, with reference to the praise bestowed upon him, ought to do:-that is, he ought to do with it what the “fining pot” does to the “silver,” and the “furnace to the gold.” He should try it well. There is a deal of dross frequently in it; and men are apt to be fonder of the dross, in some of its appearances, than of the sterling metal. Let the following rules, then, be attended to:-First, reject as dross all flattery: it is worthless: it springs from false and selfish motives.-Further, use the “fining-pot” for all praise that is bestowed by persons who are in the habit of talking extravagantly, of using complimentary words without being very nice or considerate in weighing their amount of meaning. If you don’t, you are sure to take them at a great deal more than they are worth.-Again, be very cautious in receiving without abatement all that is dictated by the known partiality of friendship. It may all be sincere, and all well meant, but it requires refining. It will not all pass with others, though the partial friend thinks it genuine.-Reject, too, entirely and at once, all commendation that is bestowed for qualities or for actions that conscience tells you have not the clear sanction of the word of God, how much soever they may be admired in the world. When this is tried in the crucible of truth and rectitude, it turns out all dross. None of it-no, not an atom, should be received and kept; all should be thrown away.-Finally, be jealous of those particular descriptions of commendation for which you are conscious of a special liking, and which are most apt to puff you up with undue self-elation, and to make you “think of yourself more highly than you ought to think.” There ought to be the most careful scrutiny here-a sensitive apprehension of receiving more than enough,-of allowing that to pass for gold which has the glitter and the colour of it merely, without the solid value. The process of refining should in this case be very cautiously pursued: just as a chemist, if anxious for the correct result of an experiment with the crucible, will be the more careful in making it, in proportion as he is conscious of any leaning towards a particular theory,-lest this should bias his mind and put him off his guard.

2. “A man is to his praise what the fining-pot is to silver, and the furnace is to gold,” because a man’s conduct actually does put to the test the commendation bestowed upon him. That conduct is like “the fining-pot” and “the furnace” to it, in regard to the estimate formed of it by others. His behaviour detects whether it be or be not just and merited. Commendation naturally excites notice. All eyes are on the man who elicits applause, to ascertain if the applause be well founded. In this way the commendation is put to the test; and the man himself is the tester;-proving or disproving the justice of the character given him.

The principle here, you will at once perceive, is applicable to the character of societies as well as of individuals,-of families, of communities, of churches. Suppose a family has got high commendation bestowed upon it by one who professes to know it from long-continued intimacy, for mutual domestic affection, concord, sympathy, and practical kindness amongst its members,-anything of an opposite nature discovered among them, tests the praise, brings out the refuse, and operates as a deduction from the character, showing the eulogy not to be all genuine, but to have had in it so much at least of alloy-of baser material. So, when a church has been praised for purity, for love, for liberality, that church becomes its own “fining-pot.” It must act up to the character, if it would prove the commendation deserved. And so as to communities, when they have been commended for education, for morality, for religion. Scotland has had a high character for these,-much higher, it is to be feared, than now at least is merited. A stranger comes. He has great expectations. But he begins to find a much larger number than he anticipated uneducated, and without the morality and the religion for which the community had been so eulogized;-much of vice and crime; much of worldliness, and of the form of godliness without the power:-what he actually witnesses will operate upon the praise as “the fining-pot” does upon the silver. The actual character tries the reported character.

The twofold lesson, then, is-that we be self-jealous and humble in testing all commendation bestowed upon us to our face: and that we strive to maintain such a character as will prove the truth of what is bestowed upon us to others. They are both important lessons. Yet there is another still with which they ought to be associated. We should ever remember that there is a still higher test of commendation and of character than either our own judgment of ourselves or that of our fellowmen concerning us. Paul felt the necessity of bearing this in mind, when he said respecting the opposite of commendation-the false insinuations and charges of his enemies-“I am conscious to myself of nothing; yet am I not hereby justified; but He that judgeth me is the Lord.” The same principle applies equally to praise. There is a tribunal even above conscience itself, which is liable, as Paul had before experienced, to various biassing and perverting influences;-so, that while amid the applause of our fellow-men, we may be “conscious to ourselves” of no flattery, of no undue partiality or extravagance in their praise,-and fancy it all no more than really belongs to us,-we do well to remember, that “he that judgeth us is the Lord."-O what is to become of the man, who receives the praise of his fellows, and is encouraged by it to flatter himself that he stands well with God,-when, upon his character being subjected to “the lining pot” of the divine law, and to “the furnace” of the divine omniscience, it all comes out as dross, mere worthless dross-the praise found to be “of men but not of God?”

Verse Proverbs 27:22 . “Though thou shouldest bray a fool in a mortar among wheat with a pestle, yet will not his foolishness depart from him."-To analyse this figure would be to render ludicrous what is most significant and impressive. It is a strong proverbial expression for what is superlatively difficult or impossible. You may separate the straw and the chaff by thrashing,-you may take off the husk by rubbing and trituration,-you may turn the grain to meal or flour by grinding,-but to drive folly from the human heart, is more than man can do.

By the fool here might with truth be understood the weak and senseless man,-of little mind, and at the same time (as not seldom happens), of no little self-conceit; who is ever obstinate and headstrong,-tenacious of his own opinions and his own ways; ever saying and doing absurd and preposterous things, and still stoutly and with mulish stubbornness maintaining their propriety, to the annoyance and vexation of all about him or connected with him; and whom no instructions, no expostulations, no reproofs, and no fatal consequences of his errors, how much soever experienced by both himself and others, will mend. His folly is engrained; and the very next thing he does will be as absurd and preposterous as before. But here, as in most other places in this book, the “fool” is the unprincipled man. And the sentiment is, that the native corruption of the human heart, especially when it has acquired the additional force of habit, is such that no mere means whatever, applied with even the largest amount of persevering diligence, will effectually overcome and remove it. And though means of all descriptions may be included, those most naturally suggested by the figure are correction and suffering. The meaning will then be,-that no parental admonitions and chastisements,-no pains and penalties of human infliction,-no divine judgments,-will radically and permanently change the heart. Its corruption is not like a husk, which envelopes the grain, and does not enter into its substance, and which an external application of a little skilful force will remove. The corruption is in the heart itself-penetrates and pervades its entire substance, even to the very core, and vitiates all that proceeds from it.

Mistake not. There is no assertion made at variance with the universally admitted tendency of means, and the duty and necessity of using them. But the power of “the old man” is too strong for them, and successfully resists them all. Temporary impressions may be made,-such as appear promising; and external and partial reformations may manifest themselves. Thus it was with Herod under the faithful ministry of the Baptist. He “feared John, because he was a just man and holy; and when he heard him he did many things, and heard him gladly.” Yet he set at nought and insulted Him of whom John testified-” He that cometh after me is mightier than I; the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to stoop down and unloose;” and he lived and died in impenitence and wickedness. Where the impression and the reformation are the effects of the operation of means alone, working on the natural principles of reason and conscience, they will, in like manner, prove superficial and evanescent:-

“Can aught beneath a power divine

The stubborn will subdue?

‘Tis thine, Eternal Spirit, thine

To form the heart anew.”

The sentiment here so strongly expressed, and in such harmony with other statements of Scripture, should he seriously weighed by those who entertain the idea that the punishments of a future world are to operate correctively, and to work an ultimate reformation upon the offenders who, having died impenitent, are their unhappy subjects. Suffering may and must produce regret-bitter, agonizing regret: and this, indeed, is an ingredient in the suffering,-the agony of regret, when known and felt to be too late and to be of no avail. But suffering can never subdue enmity,-can never generate love. Regret is not repentance. It cannot turn the heart to God. It will rather turn it against Him, embittering the virulence of its hatred and its tormenting but impotent vindictiveness.

The Spirit of God, it is true, can and does make use of judicial inflictions in this life, amongst the means of awakening, convicting, and converting sinners. But of themselves they will never work the change. It is not till God himself touches the heart that Ephraim is heard thus to bemoan himself-“Thou hast chastised me, and I was chastised, as a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke: turn thou me, and I shall be turned; for thou art the Lord my God. Surely after that I was turned, I repented; and after that I was instructed, I smote upon my thigh: I was ashamed, yea, even confounded, because I did bear the reproach of my youth,” Jeremiah 31:18-19 . And beyond the present world, the divine influence by which true penitence is produced, and the heart changed from enmity to love, does not extend. Hell will make no penitents–no converts. “He that is unjust shall be unjust still; and he that is filthy shall be filthy still.”

The verses which follow to the close of the chapter relate evidently to one subject. There are two different views taken of them.

1. By some the verses have been considered as the wise man’s recommendation of the simplicity, the comforts, the general enjoyment and happiness of a country life,-a life of rural retirement, and labour, and competency; and as designed for the purpose of repressing, in the bosom of the man of privacy and rustic seclusion, the rising envy of the wealth and the honours of a city life,-or a life of greater eclat and publicity:-the natural effect of such envy being indolence and inaction, arising from dissatisfaction with the occupations of his own sphere.

According to this interpretation, the “riches which are not for ever,” and “the crown”-or honours of this world-that “endure not to all generations,” must be understood of the riches and the honours by which envious desires have been engendered. These riches and honours are proverbially insecure.* Royal dignity itself may soon pass from one to another. Even “the crown” sits not firm upon any brow. Instead, therefore, of repining in envious dissatisfaction-apply thyself, says the wise man, assiduously and cheerfully, to thy rural occupations. “Be thou diligent to know the state of thy flocks, and look well to thy herds.”

• Proverbs 23:5 .

The further motive to this course is-the personal and social comfort which such a life was fitted to yield. Here is a picturesque exhibition, as such commentators understand the passage, of the attractions of a rural life.

i. We have, in the first place, the cheerful loveliness of nature, rising before the eye, in all its freshness, luxuriance, and beauty: “The hay appeareth, and the tender grass showeth itself, and herbs of the mountains are gathered.” There is something in the scene itself that is interesting and attractive to a mind of which the natural tastes have not been perverted, independently of all idea of profit and personal advantage. How charming is the green and glittering freshness of a dewy summer morning,-when every blade of grass is decked with diamonds, sparkling in the light of the rising sun,-when the mower plies his task, and the fragrance of the new-mown hay scents the air; and the cornfields wave in promise of the coming autumn, and the hills are clothed with their appropriate trees, and shrubs and herbage! How preferable such a scene to the dingy smoke and manifold pollutions of the crowded city! Custom and habit, it is true, and diverse associations of ideas, both form and change men’s tastes. But surely nature is on the side of the country:-

“God made the country, and man made the town.”

ii. We have here too before us, in association although not in expression, the simplicity and comparative harndess innocence of rural life. I speak only comparatively:-and comparatively, it must, I think, be admitted. Great towns necessarily become scenes of concentrated profligacy, of mental contamination and progress in vice. Many a youth that comes from the country, with all the simplicity and unsuspiciousness of rural habits, is ruined by this fatal contagion, for which his experience has not prepared him, when he enters on a town life. As evil is much more readily and effectually learned than good, wherever there is the crowding and intermixture of a dense population, there will be the rapid spread of its infection,-there will be the accumulation of immorality. We must, however, be on our guard against sentimentalism and romance. Some appear almost to forget that the corruption of our nature extends to the country at all. But the country alas!-and that even in its most retired seclusiveness, has its irreligion and ungodliness, its vices, its sins and crimes, as well as the city;-the glories and the beauties of nature too frequently presenting a mournful contrast to the moral and spiritual desolation and deformity prevalent among the inhabitants who live in the midst of them. God makes himself known in all around; yet even in the midst of all the manifestations of Him that are fitted to elevate the soul to the adoration of His perfections, He is by multitudes forgotten and disregarded. But we speak now of what the country is in its native tendencies, not of what man is in his compliance with or resistance of those tendencies.

iii. We have next the profit and comfort which are the fruit of rural occupations, when attended to with diligent and patient industry: “The lambs are for thy clothing, and the goats are the price of the field. And thou shalt have goats milk enough for thy food, for the food of thy household, and for the maintenance of thy maidens.” The fleece of the lambs, when they come to maturity, furnishes the means of comfortable clothing and protection from the cold:-the goats assist in producing payment for the rent of the laud,-or in yielding interest and profit upon “the price” of it, and the outlay upon it;-and the family is maintained and served, with decency and comfort, in the homely and simple, but wholesome and happy style of rural economy:-not the less happy for being free of the luxury which advancing prosperity and the emulation of refinement and show arising from it, ever introduce into great towns and cities.-The farmer, then,-even with all his cares and solicitudes, and all his peculiar difficulties and trials, need not envy the city merchant, even in his highest prosperity and honour.-

2. It is quite as likely, if not more so, that Solomon here, under one description of earthly property,-intends to include all,-and while inculcating duty, to recommend mindfulness of the uncertainty of the possessions of this world in general, and the moderation of desire and pursuit of them which that should produce. In this view, we have-

i. The duty of industry and diligent application to our temporal affairs: “Be thou diligent to know the state of thy flocks, and look well to thy herds.” The duty is very frequently enjoined in this Book, and throughout the Bible. Neither in rural nor in city occupations, are men to expect success without the prudent and active employment of means. And the duty is enjoined on the people of God as well as others. Nowhere does He teach them to beware of having any thing more to do with secular business,-to be entirely absorbed in their spiritual concerns, and leave the world to shift as it may-the men of the world to mind the world’s affairs. No. It is theirs to set an example of industry with moderation, of active application without undue solicitude, and without undue regret in case the industry should fail of success; of the compatibility of “diligence” in worldly matters with true spirituality of mind,-of doing earthly work with having “the heart in heaven,"-of being “not slothful in business,” whilst “fervent in spirit, serving the Lord.” Then we have-

ii. The precariousness and transitory character of all that pertains to time and the world, is adduced as a motive to the diligence enjoined. “For riches are not for ever: and doth the crown endure to every generation?” The riches and honours of this world are not acquired in perpetuity,-no, not even with the security of a day. It is necessary to look well after them, to give diligence to keep as well as to get, inasmuch as, even with all attention and care, “riches make themselves wings and fly away.” With it they may; and without it they must. And the time being not only uncertain, but short at the longest, it is the dictate of prudence,-Use them while you can. Take the moderate and the comfortable enjoyment of them, so long as God may be pleased to continue your possession of them. It is a pleasing view of the kindness of Him whose “tender mercies are over all his works,” to be assured, that what He bestows it is his design that we enjoy:-that we “use without abusing,"-that we take the benefit, and apply it for the comfort of ourselves and families, in the first instance, with decency and respectability, but without extravagance and waste. He does not give, and with the gift issue an order not to use it. There is nothing to be found in the Bible of that kind of self-denial which consists in the penance of self inflicted privation,-in the practice of voluntary mortification and abandonment of all the innocent enjoyments of life. If God gives “flocks and herds “-they are for “food and for clothing,” and for the comfortable maintenance of the household establishment:-“If any man provide not for his own, and especially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel.” But then-

iii. Whenever we make admissions of this kind, they are in danger of being perverted. When we tell men of God’s kind, indulgences,-they are ever prone to take advantage of them, and to forget the restrictions under which those indulgences are placed. The different parts of the divine word are to be viewed in their connexion. A passage like this must not be taken by itself, and the inference drawn from it that while we are expending what God gives on the food and clothing and comfort and enjoyment of our families, we are doing what God requires and all that God requires. We should then be forgetting other requirements not less obligatory than these, and showing in the latitude with which we interpret what is most to our mind, the amount there is remaining in us of personal and domestic selfishness. On the contrary, we ought to be most on our guard on the side of self-most on our guard where we are most in danger of erring. We should be jealous of ourselves; and, aware of the deceitfulness of our hearts, to keep our ear the more open, and our heart the more open, and our purse the more open, to the claims of the poor, and to the claims of God and of a perishing world, in proportion as self and family put in their plea with earnestness.

Finally, while we are all abundantly sensible of the value, and eager for the acquisition, of the comforts and the wealth of the present world, O let us remember and feel the infinitely superior value of the “treasure in the heaven that faileth not.” On this, above all, let our hearts be set,-as the gift of God, “without money and without price,"-which “cannot be gotten for gold, neither can silver be weighed for the price thereof.” “Where our treasure is, there let our hearts be also.”