Illustrations of the Proverbs - Gordon College Faculty

Laws from Heaven for Life on Earth.
ILLUSTRATIONS
OF THE BOOK OF PROVERBS.
BY THE
REV. WILLIAM ARNOT,
ST. PETER'S FREE CHURCH, GLASGOW.
Second Series.
Vol. 2 LONDON:
T. NELSON AND SONS, PATERNOSTER ROW;
EDINBURGH; AND NEW YORK.
MDCCCLVIII.
1858 TO THE READER. WHILE, as a series of practical comments upon texts selected
from a Book of Scripture, the two volumes now published
constitute one whole; yet, from the nature of the sub-
jects, and the manner in which they have been treated,
each is complete in itself, and independent of the other.
For the sake of those who may see this volume first, or
this volume only, the explanatory note which was pre-
fixed to the former volume is reprinted here:- These Illustrations of the Proverbs are not critical, continuous,
exhaustive. The comments, in imitation of the text, are intended to
be brief, practical, miscellaneous, isolated. The reader may, however,
perceive a principle of unity running through the whole, if he take
his stand at the outset on the writer's view-point-a desire to lay the
Christian System along the surface of common life, without removing
it from its foundations in the doctrines of Grace. The authority of
the instructions must be divine: the form transparently human.
Although the lessons should, with a pliant familiarity, lay themselves
along the line of men's thoughts and actions, they will work no deli-
verance, unless redeeming love be everywhere the power to press
them in. On the other hand, although evangelical doctrine be con-
sistently maintained throughout, the teaching will come short of its
purpose unless it go right into every crevice of a corrupt heart, and
perseveringly double every turn of a crooked path. Without "the
love wherewith He loved us" as our motive power, we cannot reach vi TO THE READER. for healing any of the deeper ailments of the world: but having such
a power within our reach, we should not leave it dangling in the air;
we should bring it down, and make it bear on every sorrow that
afflicts, and every sin that defiles humanity. The two extremes to
be avoided are, abstract, unpractical speculation, and shallow, power-
less, heathen morality; the one a soul without a body, the other a
body without a soul-the one a ghost, the other a carcass. The aim
is, to be doctrinal without losing our hold of earth, and practical
without losing our hold of heaven.
Most certain it is that if the Church at any period, or any portion
of the Church, has fallen into either of these extremes, it has been
her own fault; for the Bible, her standard, is clear from both impu-
tations. Christ is its subject and its substance. His word is like
Himself. It is of heaven, but it lays itself closely around the life
of men. Such is the Bible; and such, in their own place and mea-
sure, should our expositions of it be.
Had our object been a critical exposition of the Book, it would
have been our duty to devote the larger share of our attention to the
more difficult parts. But our aim from first to last has been more to
apply the obvious than to elucidate the obscure, and the selection of
texts has been determined accordingly. As there is diversity of gifts,
there should be division of labour. While scientific inquirers re-exa-
mine the joints of the machine, and demonstrate anew the principles
of its construction, it may not be amiss that a workman should set
the machine a-going, and try its effects on the affairs of life.
W. A. CONTENTS
PAGE
I. THE ALL-SEEING 9
II. A WHOLESOME TONGUE 23
III. MIRTH A MEDICINE 30
IV. TASTES DIFFER 37
V. HUMILITY BEFORE HONOUR 46
VI. THE MAKER AND THE BREAKER OF A FAMILY'S PEACE 51
VII. THE FALSE BALANCE DETECTED BY THE TRUE 59
VIII. MERCY AND TRUTH 68
IX. PROVIDENCE 74
X. WISDOM AND WEALTH-THEIR COMPARATIVE WORTH 88
XL THE HIGHWAY OF THE UPRIGHT 93
XII. THE WELL-SPRING OF LIFE 99
XIII. THE CRUELTY OF FOOLS 104
XIV. FRIENDSHIP 116
XV. THE BIAS ON THE SIDE OF SELF 126
XVI. A WIFE 131
XVII. ANGER 142
XVIII. A POOR MAN IS BETTER THAN A LIAR 147
XIX. THE DECEITFULNESS OF STRONG DRINK 152
XX. THE SLUGGARD SHALL COME TO WANT 164
XXI. WISDOM MODEST, FOLLY OBTRUSIVE 170
XXII. TWO WITNESSES-THE HEARING EAR/THE SEEING EYE 175
XXIII. BUYERS AND SELLERS 187 viii CONTENTS. PAGE
XXIV. A GOOD NAME 195
XXV. THE RICH AND THE POOR MEET TOGETHER 200
XXVI. HIDING-PLACES FOR THE PRUDENT 205
XXVII. EDUCATION 209
XXVIII. THE BONDAGE OF THE BORROWER 228
XXIX. CONVENIENT FOOD 237
XXX. THE RIGHTS OF MAN 244
XXXI. A FAITHFUL FATHER 256
XXXII. THE PROSPERITY OF THE WICKED 268
XXXIII. A BROTHER'S KEEPER 273
XXXIV. PIETY AND PATRIOTISM 282
XXIV. THE SLUGGARD'S GARDEN 290
XXXVI. MONARCHS-UNDER GOD AND OVER MAN 296
XXXVII. A FAITHFUL MESSENGER 303
XXVIII. THE FIRE THAT MELTS AN ENEMY 309
XXXIX. A TIME TO FROWN AND A TIME TO SMILE 317
XL. COLD WATERS TO THE THIRSTY SOUL 323
XLI. AN IMPURE APPETITE SEEKS IMPURE FOOD 328
XLII. NOW, OR TO-MORROW 333
XLIII. THE COUNTENANCE OF A FRIEND 342
XLIV. CONSCIENCE 348
XLV. SIN COVERED AND SIN CONFESSED 353
XLVI. THE FEAR OF MAN BRINGETH A SNARE 366
XLVII. PHILOSOPHY AND FAITH 379
XLVIII. LEMUEL AND HIS MOTHER 392
XLIX. A HEROINE 397
L. FAITH AND OBEDIENCE-WORK AND REST 407 ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE BOOK OF PROVERBS.
I.
THE ALL-SEEING.
"The eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding the evil and the good.
Hell
and destruction are before the Lord: how much more then the hearts of
the children of men?"-PROVERBS xv. 3, 11.
THE omniscience of God is usually considered a funda-
mental doctrine of natural religion. Nobody denies it.
Infidelity in this department is acted, not spoken. Specu-
lative unbelievers are wont, in a free and easy way, to
set down at least a very large proportion of the existing
Christian profession to the credit of hypocrisy. Hypo-
crite is a disreputable name, and most men would rather
impute it to a neighbour than acknowledge it their own:
but it is one thing to repudiate the word, and another to
be exempt from the thing which it signifies. That weed
seems to grow as freely on the soil of natural religion as
in the profession of Christian faith. A man may be a 10 THE ALL-SEEING. hypocrite although he abjures the Bible. Most of those
who reject a written revelation profess to learn from the
volume of creation that a just God is everywhere pre-
sent, beholding the evil and the good; but what disciple
of Nature lives consistently with even his own short
creed?
The doctrine of the divine omniscience, although owned
and argued for by men's lips, is neglected or resisted in
their lives. The unholy do not like to have a holy Eye
ever open over them, whatever their profession may be.
If fallen men, apart from the one Mediator, say or think
that the presence of God is pleasant to them, it is because
they have radically mistaken either their own character
or his. They have either falsely lifted up their own
attainments, or falsely dragged down the standard of the
Judge.
Atheism is the inner spirit of all the guilty, until they
be reconciled through the blood of the cross. All image
worship, whether heathen or Romish, is Atheism incarnate.
The idol is a body which men, at Satan's bidding, prepare
for their own enmity against God. The gods many and
lords many that thickly strew the path of humanity over
time, are the product ever and anon thrown off by the
desperate wriggle of the guilty to escape from the look
of an all-seeing Eye, and so be permitted to do their deeds
in congenial darkness. When spiders stretched their webs
across the eylids of Jupiter, notwithstanding all the efforts
that Greek sculpture had