Chapter XVI

Critical Notes.—1. Nearly all commentators agree in reading this verse, “To man belong the preparations of the heart, but the answer of the tongue is from the Lord.” Preparations, lit. “arrangements,” “orderly disposings,” as those of an army in array, or as the loaves of the shewbread set in order. 2. Miller translates this verse very differently. See comments on the verse. 3. Commit, rather roll. Thoughts, or “plans.” 4. For Himself. Many read “for its own purpose, or end.” There is much in favour, however, of the reading of the Authorised text. 5. Though hand join in hand, literally “hand to hand,” as in chap. xi. 21. This phrase is variously understood. Stuart renders it “Should hand be added to hand,” i.e., although a haughty man should enjoy all his powers of resistance, “he shall not go unpunished.” Delitzsch and Zöckler render it “assuredly,” as in chap. xi. 21. See also the comments on the verse. 6. Purged. Heb., kaphar, “expiated,” or “covered.” 9. Deviseth. The form of the verb denotes anxious consideration. 10. A Divine sentence, literally “divination,” i.e., “an oracle,” or “a decision.” “His mouth transgresseth not.” Stuart and Delitzsch read, “In judgment his mouth should not prevaricate, or err.” 11. A just weight, literally, “the scale,” “the upright iron in scales which the weigher holds in his hand” (Fausset). Weights, literally “stones,” which were anciently used as weights. 13. “They love him,” etc., rather “he who speaketh right, or uprightly, is loved.” 18. “The Hebrews observe that this verse stands exactly in the centre of the whole book” (Fausset). 19. Lowly, or the “afflicted.” 20. Delitzsch and Zöckler translate the first clause “He that giveth heed to the Word findeth good.” Stuart and others, “He that is prudent respecting any matter.” Miller says, “Literally, wise about a word.” 21. Sweetness, or “grace.” Learning, or “instruction.” 22. Instruction, rather “discipline,” “correction.” 26. He that laboureth, laboureth for himself, etc. Zöckler translates “The spirit of the labourer laboureth for him, for his mouth urgeth him on.” Stuart—“The appetite of him who toils is toilsome to him (i.e., makes him exert himself) for his mouth urgeth him on.” Delitzsch—“The hunger of the labourer laboreth for him,” etc. Miller—“The labouring soul labours for it, for its mouth imposeth it upon him.” (See his comment.) 28. A whisperer, i.e., “a backbiter.” 30. Moving, or compressing, indicating resolution, or biting, indicative of scorn and malice.

main homiletics of verse 1.

The Heart and the Tongue.

I. The human heart needs preparation. 1. It needs to be prepared for the reception of moral truth. When the earth was “without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep,” it was not in a condition to receive seed into its bosom. There was a need of preparation before it was fit to receive seed which would produce “herb after its kind.” Light must play upon its surface, heat and moisture must penetrate the soil. And man’s heart, in his present fallen condition, is like the earth before the “Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters, and God said, Let there be light: and there was light.” It needs some preparation before it can receive the truth of God so as to be benefited by it—before it is that “good ground” into which, when the “good seed” falls, it “brings forth fruit, some an hundred-fold, some sixty-fold, some thirty-fold” (Matt. xiii. 3–8). As the plough must break the clods before the seed can be sown with any hope of harvest, so the “fallow-ground” of the heart must be broken up—must undergo some preparation before it can be a profitable receiver of moral truth (Hosea i. 12). Our Lord, in the parable of the sower, teaches most distinctly the truth that the good which is derived from hearing Divine truth depends upon the state of heart of him who hears. 2. It needs to be prepared to yield moral truth. All the preparation of the earth is to the end—not that it should be a receiver, but a giver. The seed is sown not that it should remain in the soil but that the earth should “bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater” (Isa. lv. 10). So it is with the human soul. It takes in the thoughts of God, that it may translate them into holy words and deeds. The “preparation of the heart” is but a means to “the answer of the tongue.” Out of the “good treasure of the heart” good things are expected to issue (Matt. xii. 35). But unless there is preparation to receive there can be no giving out of anything that is worth the giving. The quality of the water that comes to the lip of the drinker depends upon the quality of the water that fills the well. As we have often before remarked, the “tree” must be first “good,” and then the “fruit will be good” (Matt. xii. 33). He whose heart is prepared by Divine influence to receive the Divine Word will not be at a loss for such an “answer of the tongue” as will bring glory to God, honour to himself, and blessings to others.

II. The preparation of the heart, and, therefore, the answer of the tongue, depends upon God. In nature laws are constantly at work to bring to pass certain facts and results, and man works with these laws, and in obedience to them. But behind the laws there must be a law-giver—behind the working there must be a worker—and this worker and law-giver is God. The preparation of the earth is the work of man; yet both the preparation of the earth and the answer of the earth to that preparation is from God. There would be no harvest if the husbandman did not toil; but there would be no harvest if behind him and his toil there was not the Life-Giver. God is the spring of all activities, not only in the sower of the seed, but in the seed which is sown and in the earth in which it germinates. So in the preparation of the heart, and the right use of the tongue. Man’s freedom and responsibility in these matters are insisted upon in the oracles of God. He and he alone is to be blamed if his heart is not prepared to receive the words of God. He is commanded as we saw just now to “break up his fallow ground” (Jer. iv. 3)—to prepare his spirit for the reception of Divine truth. Yet if a man’s heart is thus prepared, and if by preparation of heart his tongue is able to speak good words, he is not the sole producer of the result. Behind the springs of thinking—behind the means used by the man himself—God is working “both to will and to do of His good pleasure.” God claims to be the Author of all good, whether in the bud of thought or in the fruit of action. From Him “all good counsels and all just works do proceed.” This is the teaching of the verse as it stands in our English Bible, but many commentators translate the verse differently. (See Critical Notes.) The thought as thus translated is similar to that in verse 9, upon which see Homiletics.

outlines and suggestive comments.

The great doctrine of all Scripture is, that heart religion is true religion. In nothing is Christianity more distinguished from all other systems of religion than in the moral purity which it inculcates and which it provides the means of producing. Other religions multiply articles of faith and ritual observances, and pompous ceremonials: this alone fixes upon the internal character of the worshipper and the actual state of the heart before God. God first gives grace, and then owns and honours the grace which He gives. “The preparations of the heart are of the Lord;” “The prayer of the upright is His delight” (chap. xv. 8). This was discovered long before Solomon’s time. It was from the very first the primary design of the religion of the Bible. “By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain” (Heb. xi. 4). . . . It is God’s prerogative to prepare the heart for Himself, and he does this especially, by establishing the principles of grace and holiness in the mind, and then actuating the habits of grace which His own Spirit has implanted. We need preparation—1. For spiritual worship. The worship of God, as it necessarily includes all the devout affections, is the most spiritual act in which we are engaged. In prayer, in reading and hearing God’s word, and in approaching the sacramental table, we have especially to do with God, in the gracious relations in which He stands to us. And as these exercises raise us above the ordinary level of the world, and are foreign to our ordinary habits of thought and emotion as the creatures of dust and time, we need especial assistance to fix our attention, to purify our motives, and to realise the presence of the Master of assemblies. We need “grace whereby to serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear” (Heb. xii. 28). This preparation of the heart is God’s gift, it is God’s promise, it is the Church’s hope, and it has been realised in the experience of God’s faithful people in the ordinances of His appointment. 2. For active service. Christians have much to do for God in the world, in the family, in the Church, in the disposal of their ordinary business, etc. In all these things wisdom is needed to direct, and wisdom should be sought from Him. 3. For patient suffering. It is a great thing to have a heart prepared for suffering. One important requisite is, to anticipate its approach, that that day may not come upon us unawares, that trial may not entangle us in temptation, but may, like the overflowings of the Nile, leave the means of fertility behind. Another requisite is that we should expect to meet with God in affliction. When God announces a long succession of national judgments, He says, “And because I will do this, prepare to meet thy God, O Israel” (Amos iv. 12). This text is usually applied to death and judgment, but it really relates to worldly disasters, and teaches that God would have us prepare to meet Him in the distressing changes of human life. 4. For enjoyment. If there is much to be suffered there is also much to be enjoyed. But a time of prosperity needs heart preparation, lest a time of ease be a time of danger. “It is the bright day brings out the adder, and that craves wary walking.” It was when Noah had escaped the deluge, and had gathered in his first vintage from the grapes he had planted, that he drank of the wine and was drunken. David, safe in the wilderness, was entangled in fatal snares when walking on the roof of his palace. (Note. Though heart preparation is from God, it is not given as a premium to sloth, but in proportion to the earnestness with which we seek the grace. The following passage from a letter of Colonel Gardiner tells how that man of God sought preparation from God for the Lord’s Supper. “I took a walk on the hills and mountains over against Ireland. And could I give you a description of what passed there, you would agree that I had much better reason to remember my God from the hills of Port P——— than David from the Hermonites, the land of Jordan, and the hill Mizar. In short, I wrestled with the Angel of the Covenant some hours, and made supplication to Him with strong crying and tears until I had almost expired, but He strengthened me till I had power with God. You will be able to judge by what you have felt upon like occasions, after such a preparatory work, how blessed the Lord’s Supper was to me.”)—S. Thodey.

Man may lay out his plans, but God alone can give them effect in answer to the tongue of prayer (ver. 9; chap. xix. 21; 2 Cor. iii. 5).—Maurer.

Often what you dispose in the aptest order in your heart you cannot also express suitably with your tongue. What one aptly speaks is from God.—Mercer.

Men often determine in heart to say something, but God overrules their tongue so as to say something utterly different, as in Balaam’s case (Num. xxiii).—Menochius.

God takes the stone out of the heart that it may feel (Ezek. xxxvi. 26); draws it that it may follow; quickens it that it may live. He opens the heart that He may imprint His own law, and mould it into His own image (Acts xvi. 14; Jer. xxxi. 33). He works, not merely by moral suasion or by the bare proposal of means of uncertain power, but by the invisible Almighty agency. The work then begins with God. It is not that we first come, and then are taught; but first we learn, then we come (John vi. 45). . . . Shall we then wait indolently till He works? Far from it. We must work, but in dependence upon Him. He works not without us, but with us, through us, in us, by us, and we work in Him (Phil. ii. 13; Job xi. 13). Ours is the duty, His is the strength; ours the agency, His the quickening grace. “The work, as it is a duty, is ours; but as a performance it is God’s” (Bishop Reynolds).—Bridges.

Undoubtedly we arrange and plan. That is a matter of consciousness. But these are but the tools of the Designer. He uses our plannings to shape the last word to His mind. . . . The “arrangings of the heart” are, indeed, as much God’s as the final “decree,” because, in brief, everything is. He destines everything; but not in the same sense in which they are consciously man’s. They precede the end, and are present. They cannot determine the end, that is future. I cannot determine now what I will say the next moment. God can. I can and do arrange. But at any convenient point, at any interval, even the very least, God can swing me round. What I shall say is a part of His providence. I cannot ordain to say it in such a way as that it shall be said. In the smallest interval that follows God may tempt Pharaoh, and he may have new views as to letting the children of Israel go. God cannot tempt me to evil; but He can govern by the privation of good. And, therefore, “the king’s heart is in the hand of the Lord, as the rivers of water. He turneth it whithersoever He will.” This, of course, implicates God, to our weak seeming, in the sins of the wicked. The next verse discharges Him from any such accountability. (See Miller’s rendering of verse 2, in his comments.)—Miller.

Though a man have never so exactly marshalled his matter in hand, as it were, in battle array, as the Hebrew imports, though he have set down with himself both what and how to speak, yet he shall never be able to bring forth his conception without the help of God. . . . Digressions are not always unuseful. God’s Spirit sometimes draws aside the doctrine to satisfy some soul which the preacher knows not. But though God may force it, yet man may not frame it.—Trapp.

This is a matter of experience to which the preacher, the public speaker, the author, and every man to whom his calling or circumstances present a weighty difficult theme, can attest. As the thoughts pursue one another in the mind, attempts are made and again abandoned; the state of the heart is somewhat like that of chaos before the creation. But when, finally, the right thought and the right utterance for it are found, that which is found appears to us, not as if self-discovered, but as a gift; we regard it with the feeling that a higher power has influenced our thoughts and imaginings; the confession by us “our sufficiency is of God” (2 Cor. iii. 5) in so far as we believe in a living God, is inevitable.—Delitzsch.

Man doth not carry himself one-half of the way, and then as one wearied is carried the rest by God. But it is God who supporteth him in the heart as well as in the tongue: it is He that supporteth man in the preparations of the heart, as well as in the subsequent proceedings of the man. He is a God of the valleys as well as of the hills; and it is He that worketh as well in the lowest degree of goodness as in the highest. His praise reacheth from the roof of the heart to the tip of the tongue, and all man’s goodness is from His grace—Jermin.

main homiletics of verse 2.

The Weigher of Spirits.

I. One man has many ways. The text speaks of “all the ways of a man,” implying they are numerous and varied. Man is a compound creature—the animal and the spiritual—mind and matter—both go to make up a man, and from this union of different elements come many different wants and wishes, hopes and desires, and from these many wants come many ways—many and diversified efforts to satisfy his cravings. He finds himself having many bodily wants, and he seeks many different ways of supplying them. He is generally conscious of intellectual desires, and he seeks ways of satisfaction for them. If he listens to the voice within him, he feels that he has moral needs, and he tries to satisfy them also.

II. As a rule men generally look with approbation upon their own ways or methods of life. A man does this because they are his ways. What is our own generally looks well to use because it is ours. This is especially the case if it is ours by choice—if we have been the main instrument in its becoming ours. The builder looks with partial eyes upon the house that he has planned, the poet upon the poem that he has composed, the painter upon the picture that he has painted, the statesman upon the law that he has introduced. Most men are disposed to judge partially of their own deeds; ungodly men always regard their “own ways” as “clean.” The sinner has a way of life which he has chosen for himself, and because it is his way he thinks it is a good way to walk in.

III. There is therefore need of an impartial Judge to pass sentence upon men’s ways. Those who look upon us and our ways are generally better judges of us and of them than we are ourselves. They are good judges in proportion as they are wise and disinterested, and have a sincere desire to do us good. From them, if we are not given over to our own conceit and self-will, we may gain much very important truth about our ways. God is a judge who must be perfectly unbiased, and He can have no object in view except our good, therefore when He passes judgment upon our ways, we must accept it as truth. He declares that a man’s ways, though clean in his own eyes, are not clean in His; we must not question the decision of absolute goodness and wisdom, and by refusing to have our ways condemned and to accept “His ways” (Isa. lv. 6–8), shut out from ourselves all hope of bettering our lives.

IV. However one man’s ways may deceive another, there is no danger of mistake on the part of God. “The Lord weigheth the spirits.” A man may deceive himself as to the goodness of his ways. Saul of Tarsus certainly did. When he “persecuted unto death, binding and delivering into prisons both men and women” (Acts xxii. 4), his ways were “clean in his own eyes.” But God weighed his spirit and found him wanting. And a man may deceive others. His outer garment may be so spotless that his fellows may not suspect what is hidden beneath. But there is an eye that can go beneath the surface—“discerning the thoughts and intents of the heart;” there is One whose glory it is that “He shall not judge after the sight of His eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of His ears,” and whose judgment, therefore is “righteousness” and “equity” (Isa. xi. 3, 4).

outlines and suggestive comments.

“As to all the ways of a man, pure in His own eyes, while yet he weighs out spirits, is Jehovah.” This change is very bold, and yet, really, not so bold as the old readings. It explains why “pure” is found to be in the singular. The common version, besides that disagreement of number, is strained, in sense, materially. There are instances of like thought (Psa. xxxvi. 2), and, in one case, great similarity of language (chap. xii. 15); but the emphasis, in the present instance, seems stronger than in any of the rest, and would make us pause. It is not altogether true, the “all the ways of a man are clean in his own eyes.” Moreover, the case most like it (chap. xxi. 2), and which might seem irrefragably to establish it in its sense, we shall find habited in the same way. . . . And while our common version would jump needlessly into another subject, the one I give fits most perfectly. God moves man as He lists (ver. 1), and yet, as to the ways of a man, He is right in His own eyes while “He weighs out spirits.” He weighs out to all that which determines them, and that is, gifts according to the measure that He ordained in the Redeemer. He “weighs out” in the sense of taking strict account.—Miller.

Weighing them, as goldsmiths do their plate and coins, finding them light and counterfeit oftentimes.—Muffet.

His “weighing the spirits” implies that here the moral good or the moral evil really lies. The mere action is in itself incapable of either, independently of what it indicates in the agent. When we speak of a moral action, we mean the action of a moral agent. A dog and a man may do the same action—may carry off, for instance, for their own use respectively, what is the property of another. We never think of calling it a moral action in a dog, but we condemn the man for the commission of a crime against his neighbour, and a sin against his God. An action may even in its effects be beneficial, which in regard to the doer of it is inexcusably bad: it may be good in its results, but bad in its principles.—Wardlaw.

They that were born in hell know no other heaven; neither goes any man to hell but he has some excuse for it. As covetousness, so most other sins go cloaked and coloured. All is not gold that glitters. A thing that I see in the night may shine, and that shining proceed from nothing but rottenness. . . . But God turns up the bottom of the bag as Joseph’s stewards did, and then come out all our thefts and misdoings that had so long lain latent.—Trapp.

The important doctrine deducible from this text is that conscience (simply as conscience) is no safe guide, but requires to be informed and regulated by God’s Will and Word, and that a right intention is not sufficient to make a good action.—Wordsworth.

How unclean are man’s eyes, in whose eyes all his ways are clean. Certainly whatever a man’s sentence may be of himself, there is something in him that gives another judgment. There is a spirit in man whose eyes, though dazzled much, cannot be put out. That seeth and condemneth much uncleanness, which man’s wilful blindness and seeing darkness will needs have to be purity. There is a conscience in man which, though enslaved much, yet in many ways goeth contrary to man’s perverseness, and condemneth those ways which man approveth. But God is greater than man’s heart, and by the exact weights of His conscience discerning the errors of the conscience He pronounceth all a man’s ways to be unclean.—Jermin.

main homiletics of verse 3.

The Establishment of Thoughts.

I. There is an intimate connection between a man’s works and a man’s thoughts. Where there is no thinking there can certainly be no profitable work. The skilful workman has the plan of his work in his mind before he begins to use his fingers to execute it, and throughout its progress his thought is as busy as his hand. A work undertaken and carried through without thought is generally a useless work; indeed, it is impossible for working to be entirely independent of thinking.

II. For the establishment of work there must first be the establishment of the thoughts. When a ship is under the guidance of one master-mind, and this mind is self-possessed and thoughtful, all the crew under his rule move with the regularity of clock-work. Order reigns in the leader, and therefore order rules the subordinates. He is the head and they are the hands, and because the one moves in obedience to a fixed purpose, the others do also. His thoughts are established, and therefore the work is done. Every man’s thoughts ought to be the guide of his work, and if his thoughts and his intentions are fixed, or established, by being in harmony with the righteous law of God, his works will partake of the same character. The orderliness of his outward life will be the effect of an order that reigns within.

III. If the thoughts are to be established, our undertakings must be committed to God. The learner tells the master what work he intends to undertake—he unfolds to him the plan of the machine he is going to construct, or shows him the design of the house he hopes to build, or the picture which he intends to paint, that he may be strengthened and encouraged in his undertaking, and that he may find out whether he has the approval of one who is much wiser than himself. If the master approves of his plan his mind is more fully made up, he is strengthened in his determination, his thoughts are established. Before he might have wavered, but now that he has submitted all his plans to one in whom he has full confidence and obtained his approval, he sets to work with a goodwill which is an earnest of success. If in all our undertakings in life we lay our plans before the Lord, and if we find, upon consulting His Word, that they are not in any way contrary to His Will, but appear to be in conformity with it, our minds have rest, our hopes of success grow stronger, and our energy is quickened to go forward. The establishment of our thought tends to the establishment of our work.

outlines and suggestive comments.

I consider that work as good as done, that trial as good as borne, which I have solemnly committed to God in prayer.—Fausset.

This counsel implies—1. That all our purposes and doings should be in accordance with God’s Will. How is it possible to commit them to God otherwise? . . . We ought not to form or pursue any purpose unless we can, with confidence, acknowledge God in it. The maxim by which, as Christians, we should be regulated, is to be found in the words—“Whatsoever is not of faith”—whatsoever does not proceed from a full conviction of right—“is sin” (Rom. xiv. 23). 2. That none of our works can prosper without God. This is a lesson of which the Divine Word is full (Psa. cxxvii. 1; Dan. v. 23; James iv. 13–16), etc. 3. That it is, therefore, the obvious and imperative duty of intelligent creatures to own their dependence. . . . This is a counsel to which, despite all the theories and speculations of infidelity, natural conscience gives its sanction. 4. That what is our duty is at the same time our interest. The act of committing all things into the hands of God to be regulated as He may see fit, preserves the spirit from corroding anxiety. 5. God will graciously smile on the efforts, and accomplish the purpose and wishes of him who seeks His blessing. God will second and prosper, and fulfil the purposes he forms, and the desires he cherishes, crowning his endeavours with success.—Wardlaw.

Roll thy doings in the direction of Jehovah; and they shall have success according to thy plans. “Roll,” not exactly commit. “In the direction of” the preposition towards. Trust, therefore, is less implied than an attitude of service. Roll forward thy work in the direction of Jehovah; that is, with an eye to Him; in a harmony with Him, recognising His plans (ver. 4): and what will be the result? Why, God means to have His way at any rate. Our works will “have success,” one or the other fashion, in His scheme of Providence. He works in the work even of Beelzebub. But if we act “in the direction of” His Will, they will have success as we planned them. That seems to be the meaning. We might read, “thy plans shall have success.” . . . The whole would then mean, “thy doings” shall “have success” (literally, be made to stand) as thy plans, or in the shape thy plans gave them. Or, in other words, God, having an express purpose for all you do (ver. 4), will give success to your work at any rate. He has the exact niche for all you work at. But, if you turn it in His direction, and aim with it at His Will, He will aim at yours; that is, He will give a success after your plan; if not in the actual letter, still, in what is far the best, in the way best suited to your peculiar interest.—Miller.

Never is the heart at rest till it repose in God; till then it flickers up and down, as Noah’s dove did upon the face of the flood, and found no footing till she returned to the ark. Perfect trust is blessed with a perfect peace. A famous instance of this we have in our Saviour, “Now is my soul troubled, and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour, but for this cause came I to this hour. Father, glorify Thy name” (John xii. 27). All the while the eye of His humanity was fixed upon deliverance from the hour of His temptation; there was no peace nor rest in His soul, because there He found not only uncertainty, but impossibility. But when he could wait on, acquiesce in, and resign to the will of His Father, we never hear of any more objection, fear, or trouble.—Trapp.

The word “commit” most properly signifieth cast, or tumble thy works unto the Lord. Now, in casting or tumbling, there are three things. First, a regardlessness of any merit in them, for such things are usually tumbled as are little cared for. Secondly, a speediness, for commonly things are tumbled to make the greater haste. Thirdly, there is a weakness and lightness in the things tumbled, for things of weight and strength are not so easily removed. Now, plainly, such are the works of man: there is little solidity or stability in them; tumble them, therefore, upon the Lord—commit them into His hands. And do it speedily; do not defer it until thou seest no farther help in man, but at first betake thyself unto Him, for that will best show the confidence thou hast in Him. And do not fret and vex thyself with care, but tumble and cast thy care upon God. The less thou carest in that manner the more He will care for thee. So that by Him thy works shall be established which of themselves are frail and uncertain; by Him no time shall be lost for the well ordering of them, if thou lose no time in the committing of them to Him. Or else we may take the meaning of the words thus, Put over thy works unto the Lord, and whatsoever thou doest well let Him have the praise of it—let Him have thanks for it. . . . To this purpose Chrysostom borroweth a similitude from the play at ball, saying, “We must cast back and return our works unto God, even as in the play of tennis, the one tosseth, the other tosseth back the ball, and so long the sport handsomely continueth, as the ball tossed and tossed back again between the hands of both doth not fall down.” The comfort of that which we have received from God is so long happily continued to us as we return God thanks for it.—Jermin.

Verses 2, 3. The first of these verses tells us how a man goes wrong, and the second how he may be set right again. He is led into error by doing what pleases himself; the rule for recovery is to commit the works to the Lord, and see that they are such as will please Him. When we weigh our thoughts and actions in the balances of our own desires we shall inevitably go astray. When we lay them before God, and submit to His pleasure, we shall be guided into truth and righteousness. . . . It is a common and sound advice to ask counsel of the Lord before undertaking any work. Here we have the counterpart equally precious—commit the work to the Lord after it is done. The Hebrew idiom gives peculiar emphasis to the precept—roll it over on Jehovah. Mark the beautiful reciprocity of the two, and how they constitute a circle between them. While the act is yet in embryo as a purpose in your mind, ask counsel of the Lord, that it may be crushed in the birth, or embodied in righteousness. When it is embodied bring the work back to the Lord, and give it over into His hand as the fruit of the thought you besought Him to inspire. . . . These two rules following each other in a circle, would make the outspread field of a Christian’s life sunny, and green, and fruitful, as the circling of the solar system brightens and fertilises the earth. . . . Perhaps most professing Christians find it easier to go to God beforehand, asking what they should do, than to return to Him afterwards, to place their work in His hands. This may, in part, account for the want of answer to prayer—at least the want of a knowledge that prayer has been answered. If you do not complete the circle your message by telegraph will never reach its destination, and no answer will return. We send in earnest prayer for direction. Thereafter we go into the world of action. But if we do not bring the action back to God the circle of supplication is not completed.—Arnot.

main homiletics of verse 4.

All Things for God.

I. There is one Person in the universe who knows the history of all things. Jehovah knows all things because He made all things. Some men know the history of their nation and the history of many nations. Others know the history of the philosophies of the world, can tell when and by whom certain ideas were first promulgated and certain methods adopted. There are other men who are acquainted with the history of natural objects, and whose knowledge is so extensive that it embraces the heavens above and the waters under the earth. But there is only One Being who can claim a knowledge of all things and all persons, and that is the Maker of all things. The smith who has beaten a ploughshare out of rough iron can give us the history of the share because he made it. The sculptor who calls into shape and form a beautiful statue knows the day and hour when the statue ceased to be a thing of the imagination only by the first application of his chisel. And he can give the history of its progress from that day until now because he is the author of its existence. So God, having called all things into being at first, and having upheld them ever since by the word of His power, has a perfect knowledge of their history. But He goes farther. No human worker knows anything of the essential nature of the material out of which he fashions his work—he finds that ready to his hand and can tell us but little about it. But God is the Creator of matter; He called it into being at first, and therefore knows not only the history of the formation of things as we see them but the essential qualities of the material out of which they are formed.

II. Creation is the work of One Being. Most things made by man need co-operation. Although they are but inanimate objects they cannot be made by the unaided efforts of one creature. He must have the skill and strength of others to help him, either in the actual work itself, or in the preparation of the material, or the tools which he uses. A palace can be built only by the united effort of many hundreds of intelligent creatures, and when they have finished it they have only made a lifeless thing. A ship when in full sail is as much “like a thing of life” as any work of man, yet the movement that makes it look so life-like is not in itself but comes from an external power. Yet inanimate though it is, how many a man gave his toil and his strength to bring into existence this new thing. One thing made by man requires the strength and skill of many, and when made is without life; but the One God is the maker of all things that we see around us, many of which are full of life.

III. The world is not co-equal with God. Matter is one of the “all things” which He has made. This being the case it is not as old as God. He was before the material was out of which “in the beginning He created the heavens and the earth.”

IV. The One God is the absolute Lord of all His creatures. This is the thought which must be expressed in the second clause of this verse. In considering it we must remember—1. That the infinitely good God can do no wrong. In proportion as men are good, certain acts are impossible to them. There are human beings who we feel are incapable of certain immoral acts. In proportion as men approach in their characters to the character of God it becomes a moral impossibility for them to do wrong to any creature. It is, therefore, conceivable that if we could find a man who was perfectly true and good we should find a being who could do no wrong. We cannot find such an absolute being among fallen men, but we do have such a Being in God. He is absolute goodness and righteousness and truth—as to His character, “He is light, and in Him is no darkness at all.” It is, therefore, impossible for Him in any way to be author of sin. Being absolute goodness, He cannot make a wicked man. He hates sin, and cannot increase it by creating wickedness. It is an impossibility for Him to be the author of wrong in any way. 2. That all His plans and purposes are manifestly directed to making men good. If any person were to declare that God delighted or purposed that His creatures should live in darkness, we should point to the sun in the heavens as a direct refutation of such a statement. To any who declare that God is indifferent as to whether men live in sin or not, we point to the Bible and to the incarnation and death of His Son as the most emphatic denial of such an assertion. And if, in the face of such facts, it is impossible to believe that God is indifferent as to human character, it is a thousand times more impossible to conceive the possibility of His creating a “wicked man.” 3. Therefore no man can be brought to a “day of evil” except by his own consent. No man can be brought to perform an evil deed except by his own consent, and consequently he cannot be brought to the consequences of evil without the exercise of his own free will. The human tempter cannot destroy the virtue of his victim unless he first gain his consent, and whatever evil day comes as the consequences, the sinner feels that it is the fruit of his own act. The sting would be removed if he felt that it had come upon him without any deed of his own. Satan certainly believes that he can bring no man to a day of evil without that man’s consent. Consequently his great work is that of a tempter—a persuader—his great aim is to win the will of every man as he won that of our first parents. Nor can God bring a man to a day of evil unless that man consent. He has made man free, and His nature forbids Him to tempt His creatures to evil (Jas. i. 13), much more it makes it impossible that He should coerce their will to the committal of sin, which is the sole cause of all the evil that is found in the universe. The declaration of the text therefore is: 1. That all men exist by the will of God, who desires them to use their present life, so as to be fitted for a higher one. 2. That if a man crosses God’s desires and purposes in this matter, he will come to a day of evil. 3. God will use the actions of those who opposed His will against themselves, and for the furtherance of His own purpose. God was the Author of Pharaoh’s existence, and if he had yielded to the Divine Will he would by obedience have been raised to a higher condition of life. But when he opposed the Will of God, and put away from him the opportunities of Divine enlightenment, then it might be said that “God created him for the day of evil”—then God over-ruled his opposition to His glory and to Pharaoh’s destruction. And so He deals with all who exalt themselves against His will, refusing to fall in with His purpose of mercy towards them.

outlines and suggestive comments.

“Even the wicked for the day of evil,” i.e., to experience the day of evil, and then to receive His well-merited punishment. It is not specifically the day of final judgment that is directly intended (as though the doctrine here were that of a predestination of the ungodly to eternal damnation), but any day of calamity whatsoever which God has fixed for the ungodly, whether it may overtake him in this or in a future life. Comp. the “day of destruction” (Job xxi. 30), the “day of visitation” (Isa. x. 3).—Lange’s Commentary.

The day of evil is generally understood, and I have myself been accustomed so to explain it, of the day of final visitation and suffering to the wicked themselves. But I am now inclined to doubt whether “the day of evil” has here this meaning at all. There is another, of which it is alike susceptible, and which, in Scripture, it frequently bears—namely, the day of primitive visitation, in the inflection of judicial vengeance, in the course of God’s providential administration. I question if the suffering of the wicked be intended, and am disposed to refer the phrase to the instrumental agency of the wicked. “The Lord hath made all things for Himself” will thus mean that He employs all as instruments in effecting His purposes, and that thus He makes the wicked as a part of His agency: employing them, without at all interfering with their freedom and their responsibility, as the executioners of wrath, “when He cometh out of His place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity,” thus rendering their very passions the means of accomplishing His designs, making “the wrath of man to praise Him, and restraining the remainder of wrath.”—Wardlaw.

If by God’s making all things for Himself he meant that He aimed at and intended the manifestation of His wisdom, and power, and goodness in the creation of the world, ’tis most true that in this sense He made all things for Himself; but if we understand it so, as if the goodness of His nature did not constrain Him thereto, but He had some design to serve ends and necessities of His own upon His creatures, this is far from Him. But it is very probable that neither of these is the meaning of this text, which may be rendered with much better sense, and nearer to the Hebrew, thus, “God hath ordained everything to that which is fit for it, and the wicked hath He ordained for the day of evil;” that is, the wisdom of God hath fitted one thing for another, punishment for sin, the evil day to the evil-doer.—Tillotson.

God made things without life and reason to serve Him passively and subjectively, by administering occasion to man to admire and adore his Maker; but man was made to worship Him actively and affectionately, as sensible of, and affected with, that Divine wisdom, power, and goodness which appear in them. As all things are of Him as the efficient cause, so all things must necessarily be for Him as the final cause. But man is in an especial manner predestinated and elected for this purpose. “Thou art mine; I have created him for my glory; I have formed him; yea, I have made him” (Isa. xliii. 1–7).—Swinnock.

God, in His revelations, hath told us nothing of the second causes which He hath established under Himself for the production of ordinary effects, that we not perplex ourselves about them, but always look up to Him as the first cause, as working without them, or by them, as He sees good. But he hath told us plainly of the final cause, or end of all things, that we may keep our eyes always fixed on that, and accordingly strive all we can to promote it.—Beveridge.

main homiletics of verse 5.

Heart-Pride.

I. That which may be hidden from all others is manifest to One Being. There is coin in the world that is not money nor money’s worth, although it often passes through the hands of many before its worthlessness is detected. But there are eyes which could tell at once that it was not genuine, and hands which if it came into their possession would soon reduce it to its true level among the baser metals. So there is in the world a feigned humility, which has so much the appearance of the genuine article that no earthly creature suspects that it is the covering of a heart big with pride. But when God judges whether a man is proud or humble He looks through the words and actions at the heart. “Everyone that is proud in heart,” etc.

II. God abhors pride. 1. It is entirely contrary to His own nature. God is entirely without pride. His condescension is one of His most remarkable attributes. God manifest in flesh abased Himself beyond the possibility of any finite creature. “Being in the form of God . . . [He] made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: and being found in fashion as a man He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross” (Phil. ii. 6–8). We always find that in proportion as men are holy and God-like they are destitute of pride. The proudest men are always those who have least to be proud of. Therefore pride can have no place in the character of the holy and ever-blessed God. 2. It is opposed to the possessor’s well-being. God not only abhors pride because He is Himself supremely good, but He holds it in abomination because He desires men’s good. Whatever is opposed to God’s nature must be opposed to man’s interest. He who desires the salvation of all His creatures hates pride because it holds men tied and bound in fetters which hinder their approach to Him; because it makes men akin to the fallen angels. (On this subject see also on chapters xi. 1; xiii. 10, page 305, etc.)

III. Union is no guarantee against punishment. “Though hand join in hand, he shall not be unpunished.” When that which is an abomination to God is the foundation of a confederation, it must be overthrown by the power of the stronger arm. And it contains within itself an element of overthrow. A house may have an appearance of compactness which may lead a casual onlooker to think it is destined to stand for many a century. But its foundation is in the sand, and its fall is only the work of time, even if storms and tempests never beat upon its walls. So there may be an appearance of strength where pride is the basis of union, but it can be only an appearance. Pride is a dividing force and not a binding one, and all confederations against God being based upon it, they rest only upon a foundation of sand. (See also on chap. xi. 21.)

outlines and suggestive comments.

(1.) If God has made everything for His purpose (ver. 4), how foolish the man who arrogantly forgets Him! (2.) If God has besought us to work under His plans (ver. 3), how wicked the man who proudly mutinies. If God works even in kings (chap. xxi. 1), how absurd the man who would work away from Him. How can it work well? “Hand to hand,” i.e., in close quarters (chap. xi. 21), as we shall come all of us at the last, how can the workers outside of the Almighty possibly “go unpunished?”—Miller.

How many sins are in this sinful world, and yet, as Lemuel saith of the good wife (Prov. xxxi. 29), “Many daughters have done virtuously, but thou surmountest them all.” So I may say of pride, many sins have done wickedly, but thou surmountest them all; for the wrathful man, the prodigal man, the lascivious man, the surfeiting man, the slothful man, is rather an enemy to himself than to God; the envious man, the covetous man, the deceitful man, the ungrateful man, is rather an enemy to men than to God; but the proud man sets himself against God, because he doth against His laws, he maketh himself equal with God, because he doth all without God, and craves no help of Him; he exalteth himself above God, because he will have his own will, though it be contrary to God’s Will. As the humble man saith, “Not unto us, Lord, not unto us, but to Thy name give the glory” (Psa. cxv. 1); so the proud man saith, “Not unto Him, not unto Him, but unto us give glory.”. . . Therefore God is specially said to resist the proud, because the proud resist Him. Here is heaven against earth, the Creator against the creature, the father against the son, the Prince against the subject—who is like to win the field? . . . It had been too heavy for them, if he had said the Lord doth not care for them; for God’s care preserveth us, and our own care doth but trouble us; but to say that the Lord doth resist them, is as if Michael should denounce war with the dragon till he hath cast him into the pit.—Henry Smith, 1590.

Some make “hand in hand” to be no more than “out of hand,” “immediately,” or “with ease,” for nothing is sooner or with more ease done than to fold one hand in another. God “shall spread forth His hands in the midst of them, as he that swimmeth spreadeth forth his hands to swim, and He shall bring down their pride together with the spoil of their hands” (Isa. xxv. 11). The motion in swimming is easy, not strong; for strong strokes in the water would rather sink than support. God, with greatest facility, can subdue His stoutest adversary when once it comes to handy-gripes—when once his hands join to the proud man’s hand—so some sense this text—so that they do manus conserere, then shall it appear that it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the Living God (Heb. x. 31).—Trapp.

From hand to hand expresses the consecutive connection of causes through which the Lord works; though the proud escape one occasion of His punishment, yet he is reserved for another.—Mercer.

main homiletics of verse 6.

The Purging of Iniquity.

I. There is in the human heart and in human life that which is not conducive to human happiness, viz., iniquity. Iniquity is inequality, or injustice, and a sinner is an unjust man. 1. He is unjust to himself. He is bound to render to himself what is due to his own nature—to care for his own real and highest interests—but this no ungodly man does. 2. He practises iniquity towards his neighbour. This follows from the first as a necessary consequence. Shakespeare thus admonishes us—

“To thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.”

But if a man is not true to himself, it follows as certainly that he will not be true to any other man—will not in its real and broad sense be a just man in his relations to others. 3. He practises iniquity towards God. He does not render to God that which is His just due, and this is indeed the foundation of his iniquity towards himself and his fellow-men.

II. Human nature cannot find within itself a remedy for its own iniquity. The man who is smitten with fever cannot find a remedy for his disease in his own diseased body—he must look somewhere else for a cure. There are remedies powerful in curing his disease, but they must be administered from without, they are not resident within him. So there is a cure for human iniquity, and that cure is to be found in contact with mercy and truth, but neither of these is to be found in fallen human nature, or, if some traces exist among men, the mercy is not abundant enough, and the truth is not unalloyed enough to effect the cure.

III. There is enough mercy and truth in God to do away with human iniquity. He has devised a plan by which His abundant mercy and His unsullied truth shall be brought into contact with sinful men in such a manner as to cure them of their sin. Mercy without truth could not meet the need, neither could truth without mercy. Mercy is needed to do away with the guilt of sin—to give remission for past transgressions, but it is equally needful that some standard of truth and righteousness should also be given, lest men “sin that grace may abound.” Mercy frees the sinner from the penalty of sin, but truth is brought into contact with his soul to free him from the power of sin. Being “made free from sin” men must “become servants of God,” and “have fruit unto holiness” (Rom. vi. 22). And to obtain this end there must be a reception into the human soul of Divine truth to transform it—to regenerate it. Hence when the “Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us,” and men “beheld His glory,” it was a glory “full of grace and truth” (John i. 14). For Homiletics on the second clause of this verse, see on chap. xiv. 15 (page 364).

outlines and suggestive comments.

Loving and faithful conduct towards one’s neighbour is not in and of itself named as the ground of the expiation of sin, but only so far forth as it is a sign and necessary expression of a really penitent and believing disposition of heart, and so is a correlative to the fear of God, which is made prominent in the second clause; just as in the expression of Jesus with reference to the sinning woman (Luke vii. 47), or as in Isa. lviii. 7; Dan. iv. 34, etc.—Zöckler.

The purging of iniquity seems here to direct us to expiation, and considering that Divine mercy and truth are frequently exhibited in connection with this invaluable blessing, the analogy of faith appears to link it here with these combined perfections which kiss in Christ the Mediator (Psa. lxxxv. 10), and with that covenant of grace in which they shine so brightly. Should this view be thought not to cohere with the general tenor of this book, which deals more with practical points and matters of common life than with the deeper articles of faith, it may be observed that, when some of its pages are so fully illuminated by evangelical sunshine (chap. viii. 9), we might naturally expect—besides this connected splendour—occasional rays of doctrinal light to rest upon this system of Christian morals. . . . God purges iniquity by sacrifice, not nullifying the sanctions of the law by a simple deed of mercy, but combining the manifestations of His truth by fulfilling these sanctions upon the Surety which mercy provided (Isa. liii. 6, 2 Cor. v. 21). . . . So gloriously do these two attributes harmonise. We inquire not to which we owe the deepest obligation. Mercy engages, truth fulfils the engagements. Mercy provides—truth accepts—the ransom. Both sat together in the Eternal council. Both made their public entrance together into the world. Both, like the two pillars of the temple (1 Kings vii. 21), combine to support the Christian’s confidence. . . . The exercise of forgiveness is to implant a conservative principle. “By the fear of the Lord men depart from evil.” The supposition of pardon for a sinner continuing impenitent would be to unite the two contraries of reconciliation and enmity.—Bridges.

The Gospel in (1) Justification and (2) Sanctification is here as beautifully announced as by any of the apostles. Justification makes its appearance as a covering of iniquity by mercy and truth. “Mercy and truth” is the sum of holiness. How does holiness, therefore, which is “mercy and truth,” cover sin? Undoubtedly by the Gospel method. . . . But then there is to be a turning from evil. This is Sanctification. How is it to be accomplished? By ourselves, as the indispensable instrument. Mercy and truth win for us the Spirit; and then, under this outfit, we are to set out upon the journey. The man in the temple must lift forth his hand (Matt. xii. 10). But how are we to begin? This book tells us again and again. “The fear of Jehovah” is the beginning of wisdom (chap. ix. 10). The turning is by an access of fear. But how are we to continue? The turning is to be kept up. It is more like a departing. Sin, being slow to wear out, the turning has to go on; and it becomes a journey; and we travel each day, just as we set out. . . . And the very last of the journey, like the very beginning, is by “the fear of Jehovah.” The actual fear of Jehovah, tempered by love, is a thing of “discipline” (see on chap. xv. 33), which drives the Christian away from his iniquity.—Miller.

To fear the Lord and to depart from evil, are phrases which the Scriptures use in very great latitude to express to us the sum of religion and the whole of our duty. 1. It is very usual in Scripture to express the whole of religion by some eminent principle or part of it. The great principles of religion are knowledge, faith, remembrance, love, and fear. And religion is called the “knowledge of the holy” (Prov. xxx. 3), and the “remembrance of God” (Eccles. xii. 1), and the love of God (Rom. viii. 28, etc.), and here and elsewhere the “fear of the Lord” (Mal. iii. 16, etc.). So likewise the sum of all religion is often expressed by some eminent part of it, as it is here expressed by departing from evil. It is described by seeking God (Heb. xi. 6) and by calling on His name (Acts ii. 21), etc., etc. 2. The fitness of these two phrases to describe religion. The fitness of the first will appear if we consider how great an influence the fear of God hath upon men to make them religious. Fear is a passion that is most deeply rooted in our natures, and flows immediately from that principle of self-preservation which God hath planted in every man. Everyone desires his own preservation and happiness, therefore everyone has a natural dread of anything that can destroy them. And the greatest danger is from the greatest power, and that is omnipotency. So that the fear of God is an inward acknowledgement of a holy and just being, who is armed with an almighty and irresistible power; God having hid in every man’s conscience a secret awe and dread of His infinite power and eternal justice. Now fear, being so intimate to our nature, is the strongest bond of laws, and the great security of our duty. . . . For though we have lost in a great measure the gust and relish of true happiness, yet we still retain a quick sense of pain and misery. So that fear relies upon a natural love of ourselves, and is complicated with a necessary desire of our own preservation. And therefore religion usually makes its entrance into us by this passion; hence, perhaps, it is that Solomon more than once calls it the “beginning of wisdom.” As for the second phrase, the fitness of it will appear if we consider the necessary connection that there is between the negative and positive part of our duty. He that is careful to avoid all sin will sincerely endeavour to perform his duty. For the soul of man is an active principle, and will be employed one way or the other, it will be doing something; if a man abstain from evil he will do good. “Virtue begins in the forsaking of vice; and the first part of wisdom is not to be a fool.” . . . The law of God, contained in the Ten Commandments, consists mostly of prohibitions which yet include obedience likewise to the positive precepts contained in those prohibitions.—Tillotson.

No object can well be more dull and meaningless than the stained window of an ancient church, as long as you stand without and look upon a dark interior; but when you stand within the temple, and look through that window upon the light from heaven, the still, sweet, solemn forms that lie in it start into life and loveliness. The beauty was all conceived by the mind, and wrought by the hand of the ancient artist whose bones now lie mouldering in the surrounding churchyard; but the beauty lies hid until two requisites come together—a seeing eye within, and a shining light without. We often meet with a verse upon the page of the Old Testament Scriptures very like those ancient works of art. The beauty of holiness is in it—put into it by the Spirit from the first, and yet its meaning was not fully known until the Sun of Righteousness arose, and the Israel of God, no longer kept in the outer court, entered through the rent veil, and from the Holy of Holies, looked through the ancient record on an illuminated heaven. Many hidden beauties burst into view upon the pages of the Bible, when Faith’s open eye looks through it on the face of Jesus. One of these texts is now before us. . . . The first clause tells how the guilt of sin is forgiven; the second, how the power of sin is subdued. Solomon unites the two constituent elements of the sinner’s deliverance in the same order in which his father experienced them: “I have hoped for thy salvation, and done thy commandments” (Ps. cxix. 166). It is when iniquity is purged by free grace that men practically depart from evil. . . . Mercy and truth meet in the Mediator. In Christ the fire meets the water without drying it up: the water meets the fire without quenching it.—Arnot.

By iniquity God and men are severed, and never can iniquity be pardoned until God and man meet again. To procure this meeting there must be a meeting of mercy and truth, of mercy in God and truth in man. And these do call the one for the other. The mercy of God being ready to forgive iniquity, calleth for truth in man to confess iniquity; the truth of man being ready to confess his iniquity calleth for the mercy of God to pardon his iniquity. Now these two readily concurring, God and man are rejoined, and by their reunion iniquity is purged. But then there must follow a departing from iniquity. . . . For iniquity, forgiven and not forsaken, doubleth the iniquity both in man’s guilt and God’s wrath. Wherefore, let the mercy of the Lord breed a fear in thee, and let the truth of thy repentance appear, as well in shunning iniquity as in forsaking of it.—Jermin.

main homiletics of verse 7.

Pleasing God.

I. There are times when men’s ways do not please the Lord. The ways of the ungodly do not at any time please the Lord. Because they have no sympathy with His laws, and are at variance with His character. “God is not in all their thoughts” (Psalm x. 4), and it is impossible for God to be pleased with the ways of them who do not think Him worth thinking about. A man must forsake his own ways and come into God’s ways before his ways can please the Lord. The ways of a good man do not at all times please the Lord. They sometimes stray from the royal road—the highway of righteousness—and get into bye-paths, and thus bring down upon themselves the displeasure of their God. David, though in the main a “man after God’s own heart,” more than once walked in paths that were displeasing to the Lord, and several incidents in his life teach us plainly that some ways of a godly man may be very contrary to the Divine mind.

II. But God can be pleased by a man’s ways. Those who strive to conform to our desires—who are in sympathy with our minds—naturally yield us pleasure. And a good man’s desire is to conform his ways to the Will of God—he is in sympathy with the mind of God, and his life is the outcome of that sympathy. Therefore he can yield pleasure to the Eternal. If the Creator, in looking upon the inanimate works of His hands, pronounces them “good” (Gen. i. 31) when He sees them fulfilling the design of their creation, how much more good in His sight is it when a moral and responsible creature who has power to turn out of the path ordained for him seeks patiently to continue in well-doing notwithstanding all the temptations he has to encounter.

III. The consequence upon men’s minds of thus giving pleasure to the Divine mind. The way of pleasing the Lord promotes “favour and a good understanding in the sight of God and man” (chap. iii. 4). He whose aim is to please God will desire and strive to live at peace with men. And in cases where his godliness provokes the enmity of the ungodly, God, by His overruling Providence, often directly interferes on his behalf. He did so in the case of Jacob and Laban, in that of Joseph and his brethren, etc.

outlines and suggestive comments.

The doctrine of this verse, stands in apparent contradiction to 2 Tim. iii. 12. The truth seems to be that neither of the passages is to be taken universally. The peace possessed by those who please God does not extend so far as to exempt them from having enemies, and though all godly men must be persecuted, yet none are persecuted at all times. The passage from Timothy may, therefore, refer to the native enmity which true godliness is certain to excite, and the proverb to the Divine control over it.—A. Fuller.

There would be more sunlight in the believer’s life if he could leave the dull negative fear of judgment far behind as a motive of action, and bound forward into the glad positive, a hopeful effort to please God. . . . This is one of the two principles that stand together in the Word, and act together in the Divine administration. Its counterpart and complement is, “If any man would live godly in Christ Jesus, he must suffer persecution.”. . . Both are best; neither could be wanted. If the principle that goodness exposes to persecution prevailed everywhere and always, the spirit would fail before Him and the souls that He has made. Again, if the principle that goodness conciliates the favour of the world prevailed everywhere and always, no discipline would be done, and the service of God would degenerate into mercenary self-interest. . . . A beautiful balance of opposites is employed to produce one grand result. . . . A Christian in the world is like a human body in the sea—there is a tendency to sink and a tendency to swim. A very small force in either direction will turn the scale. Our Father in heaven holds the elements of nature and the passions of men at His own disposal. His children need not fear, for He keeps the balance in His own hands.—Arnot.

If it is manifest that God makes Himself known, bestowing blessings on a man, there lies in this a power of conviction which disarms his most bitter opponents, excepting only those who have in selfishness hardened themselves.—Delitzsch.

Whatsoever a man’s ways are, it is part of every man’s intention to please howsoever; it is the object that maketh the difference. All men strive to please, but some to please themselves, some to please other men, and some few to please the Lord. . . . The last is—1. A duty whereunto we stand bound by many obligations. He is our Master, our Captain, our Father, our King. He is no honest servant that will not strive to please his master. And he is no generous soldier who will not strive to please his general. And that son hath neither grace nor good nature in him that will not strive to please his father, and he is no loyal subject that will not strive to please his lawful sovereign. And yet there may be a time when all those obligations may cease, for if it be their pleasure that we should do something that lawfully we may not, we must disobey, though we displease. But we can have no colour of plea for refusing to do the pleasure of our heavenly Lord and Master, in anything whatsoever; inasmuch as we are sure nothing will please Him but what is just and right. With what a forehead, then, can any of us challenge from Him either wages as servants, or stipends as soldiers, or provision as sons, or protection as subjects, if we be not careful in every respect to frame ourselves so as to please Him? 2. It is our wisdom, too: in respect of the great benefits we shall reap thereby. There is one great benefit expressed in the text, and the scope of those words is to instruct us, that the fairest and likeliest way to procure peace with men is to order our ways so as to please the Lord. . . . The favour of God and the favour of men are often joined together in the Scriptures as if the one were consequent of the other. See Luke ii. 52; Prov. iii. 3, 4; Rom. xiv. 18, etc. . . . But it may be objected that sundry times when a man’s ways are right, and therefore pleasing to God, his enemies are nothing less, if not perhaps much more, enraged against him than formerly. . . . Sundry considerations may be of use to us in the difficulty, as, first, if God have not yet made our enemies to be at peace with us, yet it may be He will do it hereafter. Neither is it unlikely that we do not walk with an even foot, and by a straight line, but tread away in something or other which displeaseth God, and for which He suffereth their enmity to continue. . . . Or if He do not presently make our enemies to be at peace with us, yet if He teach us to profit by their enmity, in exercising our faith and patience, in quickening us unto prayer, etc., is it not in every way, and incomparably better? Will any wise man tax Him with a breach of promise, who, having promised a pound of silver, giveth a talent of gold? Or who can truly say that that man is not as good as his word who is apparently much better than his word?—Bp. Sanderson.

It is our peace with God that maketh Him to make our enemies to be at peace with us, and it is our enmity against God’s enemies that maketh God to be at peace with us. Now, the enemies of God are the sins of men, and if we be in a continual war with those, then do our ways please God. Then it is that He is ready to please us, when our ways please Him. Neither is He hard to please—a willingness, a desire to please, is accepted by Him. He looks not—He requireth not—that we should do exactly all that is contained in His commandments, but if we go about to please Him—if we put ourselves carefully in the way—then do our ways please Him. And then will He give us that glorious victory over our enemies which is above all others. For to subdue our enemies is but to make ourselves happy in their misery; but to make our enemies at peace with us is a victory for God’s hand, and giveth man a double triumph, as well over the hatred as the power of our enemies.—Jermin.

The subject of verse 8 is substantially the same as that of chap. xv. 6 and 17. See Homiletics on page 405, etc.

outlines and suggestive comments.

“Better,” for the tranquility of conscience, for the present enjoyment of this life, and for the life to come. In chap. xv. 16, we are warned against gain without religion, in chap. xv. 17, against gain without love to our neighbour: here, against gain without right.—Fausset.

Abraham would not take to himself of the spoils of Sodom so much as the value of a shoe-latchet, that it might never be said in after times that the king of Sodom had made Abraham rich; so neither will any godly man that hath learned the art of contentation, suffer a penny of the gain of ungodliness to mingle with the rest of his estate, that the devil may not be able to upbraid him with it afterwards to his shame, as if he had contributed something towards the increasing thereof.—Bishop Sanderson.

A little that is in man’s own is better than a great deal that is another body’s. Now that which a man hath with righteousness is his own, for there can be no better title than that which righteousness maketh. But that which thou hast without right cannot be thine, howsoever thou mayest account it, or others may call it. Possession may be a great point in human laws, but it is nothing in God’s law; the want of right overthroweth whatsoever else may be said. Tis true, thou mayest have quiet possession on earth, but there be adversaries that do implead the unrighteousness at God’s judgment bar, where they are sure last to be cast, and where themselves will give the verdict which the wise man here doth.—Jermin.

main homiletics of verse 9.

Man Proposes, God Disposes.

I. This is a fact of national and individual history. In both inspired and uninspired records we meet with abundant confirmations of this truth. There is no more striking illustration of it than in the life of Joseph. He leaves his father’s house, as he supposes, for a few days, little dreaming that he is traversing a path by which he will never return. He only purposes to find his brethren, and “see if it is well with them, and bring his father word again.” But God is then directing his steps into a far-off land—into slavery, to a prison, and through both to a throne. So the shepherd boy of Bethlehem sets out with the unambitious intention of carrying supplies to his brethren, and of seeing how the battle is likely to go, and becomes himself the central figure in the camp, and the hero of his nation. And David’s predecessor goes in search of his father’s asses, and finds a crown and a kingdom at the end of his journey. Cromwell, despairing of enjoying liberty in England, planned to make a home in America, and, it is said, actually went on board a vessel which was about to sail. But God, using as an instrument the man to whose throne he was to succeed, directed his steps in another direction, and being forbidden to quit the country, he becomes not only England’s deliverer, but a great and powerful ruler, whose influence was felt throughout Europe. Clive went out to India as a clerk, because he had no prospects of getting a living at home, and lays the foundation of our Indian empire. And there is hardly a man living who, if he reflects upon his past life, cannot remember passages in his own history which confirm the truth of the text. He makes certain plans, and purposes to accomplish certain designs, and the result of his doings is quite different from his intentions, or leads him to a place, or a position, or into relationships which were entirely out of his calculation when he “devised his way.”

II. This is a law which must be in operation till the end of time. Unexpected events must be the outcome of man’s plans and purpose, because he is finite and very short-sighted, and there is an Infinite and Omniscient Ruler of the universe, who comprehends in His plan of the universe all the plans of His creatures, and in His plan concerning every man all that man’s devices and deeds. “God professes in His Word,” says Dr. Bushnell, “to have purposes pre-arranged for all events; to govern by a plan which is from eternity even, and which, in some proper sense, comprehends everything. And what is this but another way of conceiving that God has a definite place and plan adjusted for every human being? And without such a plan, He could not even govern the world intelligently, or make a proper universe of the created system; for it becomes a universe only in the grant unity of reason which includes it, otherwise it were only a jumble of fortuities without counsel, end, or law.” This being so, a man can rejoice in the truth that “The Lord directs his steps”—that the events of his life are not the outcome of chance, but are all under the control of a supremely wise and benevolent King and Father. Not that God’s foreknowledge is the cause of man’s actions, but that seeing He must know what shall come to pass, nothing takes Him by surprise, and therefore nothing finds Him unprepared to arrange all a man’s affairs after the counsel of His Own Will. Nothing happens without His permission; no good thing comes to a man’s life without His instigation and co-operation, and, if a man is willing to yield himself to His guidance, He will not only direct his steps, but direct them so as to further that man’s true well-being—will make “all things work together for good” to him (Rom. viii. 28). The fact here declared will redound to a man’s eternal gain or loss according to the attitude which he takes towards God. “There is then, I conclude, a definite and proper end, or issue, for ever man’s existence; an end which to the heart of God is the good intended for him, or for which he was intended; that which he is privileged to become; called to become, ought to become; that which God will assist him to become, save by his own fault. Every human soul has a complete and perfect plan cherished for it in the heart of God—a Divine biography marked out which it enters into life to live. This life, rightly unfolded, will be a complete and beautiful whole, an experience led on by God and unfolded by His secret nurture, as the tree and the flowers, by the secret nurture of the world; a drama cast in the mould of a perfect art, with no part wanting; a Divine study for the man himself, and for others; a study that shall for ever unfold, in wondrous beauty, the love and faithfulness of God; great in its conception, great in the Divine skill by which it is shaped; above all, great in the momentous and glorious issues it prepares. What a thought is this for every human being to cherish! What dignity does it add to life! What support does it bring to the trials of life! What instigations does it add to send us onward in everything that constitutes our excellence! We live in the Divine thought. We fill a place in the great everlasting plan of God’s intelligence. We never sink below His care—never drop out of His counsel. But there is, I must add, a single and very important qualification. Things all serve their uses, and never break out of their place. They have no power to do it. Not so with us. We are able, as free beings, to refuse the place and duties God appoints; which, if we do, then we sink into something lower and less worthy of us. That highest and best condition for which God designed us is no more possible. . . . And yet, as that was the best thing possible for us in the reach of God’s original counsel, so there is a place designed for us now, which is the next best possible. God calls us now to the best thing left, and will do so till all good possibility is narrowed down and spent. And then, when He cannot use us any more for our own good, He will use us for the good of others—an example of the misery and horrible desperation to which any soul must come when all the good ends, and all the holy callings of God’s friendly and fatherly purpose are exhausted. Or it may be now, that, remitting all other plans and purposes in our behalf, He will henceforth use us—wholly against our will—to be the demonstration of His justice and avenging power before the eyes of mankind, saying over us, as He did over Pharaoh in the day of His judgments, ‘Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might show My power in thee, and that My name might be declared throughout all the earth.’ Doubtless He had other and more general plans to serve in this bad man, if only he could have accepted such; but, knowing his certain rejection of these, God turned His mighty counsel in him wholly on the use to be made of him as a reprobate. How many Pharaohs in common life refuse every other use God will make of them, choosing only to figure, in their small way, as reprobates, and descending, in that manner, to a fate that painfully mimics his.”—(Bushnell.)

outlines and suggestive comments.

The thought of the first verse, coming to be repeated, this versatile sentence-maker calls it back with different scenery. “The answer” or “decree of a tongue” (ver. 1) is one pregnant act, the “step” of a foot is another. Both may make a man or ruin him, for this world, or that which is to come. The critical thing, in either case, is controlled by the Almighty. . . . “Heart,” more intellectual than the English heart. “Devises” too intellectual for our emotional nature. It means studies, or deeply meditates. The sinner really reflects upon his future wisdoms. Alas! they are too future! And when the future come, he “plants,” “sets firm his step,” quite differently from what he had decreed.—Miller.

The doctrine of Providence is not like the doctrine of the Trinity—to be received by faith. Experience gives a demonstrable stamp of evidence—even in all the minutiæ of circumstances, which form the parts and pieces of the Divine plan.—Bridges.

It must be so. If there is a God at all it cannot be otherwise. It were the height of irrationality as well as impiety for a moment to question it—to imagine the contrary possible. How otherwise could God govern the world? Were not all human schemes under supreme and irresistible control, what could become of the certainty of the Divine?—Wardlaw.

When it is said that a man’s heart deviseth his way but the Lord directeth his steps, we must not think that the purpose of the creature is condemned as an impertinence. It is an essential element of the plan. Neither human purposes, the material on which God exercises His sovereign control, nor the control which He exercises on that material could be wanted. If there were no room for the devices of men’s hearts, providence would disappear, and grim hate, the leaden creed that crushes Eastern nations in the dust, would come in its stead. If, on the other hand, these devices are left to fight against each other for their objects without being subjected all to the will of a Living One, faith flees from the earth and the reign of Atheism begins. The desires of human hearts, and the efforts of human hands, do go into the processes of providence, and constitute the material upon which the Almighty works. When God made men in His own image, a new era was inaugurated and a new work begun. Hitherto, in the government of this world, the Creator had no other elements to deal with than matter and the instincts of brutes; but the moment that man took his place on creation, a new and higher element was introduced into its government. The sphere was enlarged and the principle elevated. There was more room for the display of wisdom and power. The will of intelligent moral beings being left free, and yet as completely controlled as matter and laws, makes the Divine government much more glorious than the mere management of a material universe. For God’s glory man was created, and that purpose will stand; a glory to God man will be, willing or unwilling, fallen or restored, throughout the course of time, and at its close. The doctrine of Scripture regarding Providence neither degrades man, nor inflates him. It does not make him a mere thing on the one hand, nor a god on the other. It neither takes from him the attributes of humanity, nor ascribes to him the attributes of Deity. It permits him freely to propose, but leaves the ultimate disposal in a mightier hand.—Arnot.

The doctrine of the text—I. Should correct immoderate care about the future events of our life. What means this mighty bustle and stir—this restless perturbation of thought and care—as if all the issues of futurity rested wholly on thy conduct? Something depends upon thyself, and there is reason, therefore, for acting thy part with prudence and attention. But upon a hand unseen it depends, either to overturn thy projects, or to crown them with success, therefore thine attention should never run into immoderate care. II. Should enforce moderation of mind in every state. How little ground the real situation of the most prosperous man affords for the vain elation of mind, for he is dependent every moment on the pleasure of a superior. III. Places the vanity and folly of sinful plans in a very strong light. The sinner has against him, first, the general uncertainty which belongs to all the designs of men. And he hath also engaged against himself one certain and formidable enemy. IV. That an interest in God’s favour is far more important than all the wisdom and ability of man. In a world so full of uncertainty, let us take pains to secure to ourselves one resting place, one habitation that cannot be moved.—Blair.

God having made man lord of the earth, He hath made him lord also of the ways of the earth. He is not tied to this way or that way, but as his heart deviseth, so he may go. And herein is the dignity of a man above a beast. For that way must a beast go which he is driven: but man, not driven by fate, or constellation, or any other necessity, as master of himself, chooseth his own courses wherein to walk. Notwithstanding, man is not without an overseer, a ruler, by whom his steps are directed. The wicked chooseth an evil way, but God directeth it to a good end. The good chooseth a good way, but it is by God brought to a good issue.—Jermin.

main homiletics of the paragraph.—Verses 10–15.

Kings.

It is obvious that some of these proverbs as they stand in our Authorised Version, do not admit of universal application in relation to human monarchs. History and experience both contradict the assertion that a “Divine sentence” is always, or has been generally, in the lips of a human king, but if we understand the verse, as Miller does (see his comment) as an application of the truth set forth in the preceding verse and in verse 1, that God is behind and above all the decrees of earthly potentates, we can at once admit the fact and rejoice in it. Again, it cannot, alas! be said that as a rule, “righteous lips are the delight of kings,” or that “in the light of the king’s countenance is life.” Many kings have been themselves incarnations of iniquity, and have bestowed all their favour upon men like themselves, and persecuted often to the death those who have dared to tell them the truth. If this proverb admitted of universal application, Ahab would not have sought to slay Elijah, Jeremiah would not have been imprisoned by Zedekiah, and Herod would not have put to death John the Baptist. And the favour of most of the men who have sat upon the thrones of the world would have had no life in it for some of their subjects. There has been a faithful few in all the ages of the world to whom the favour of their wicked rulers would have been very unlike “a cloud of the latter rain.” But the truths taught here are:—

I. That a king ought to be God’s prophet and viceregent upon the earth. All painters have an ideal in their minds to which they desire to attain in their handiwork. They must place before them the highest model, if they would rise to anything like excellence. And Solomon, as a great theoretic moralist, is here setting before himself, and before all rulers, an ideal king. Kingship among men ought to be a type and symbol of Divine kingship. The loyal obedience which the majority of men have always been ready to yield to those who they have regarded as their appointed rulers, has its root deep down in the constitution of human nature—it is a prophecy of a need which is only fully met in the rule of the true and perfect King of men—that King whose right it is to reign, and who can do no wrong to any of His subjects. “That was not an inconsiderable moment,” says Carlyle, “when wild armed men first raised their strongest aloft on the buckler-throne, and, with clanging armour and hearts said solemnly, Be thou our acknowledged strongest (well named King, Kön-ning, Canning, or Man that was Able), what a symbol shone now for them—significant with the destinies of the world! A symbol of true guidance in return for loving obedience; properly, if he knew it, the prime want of man. A symbol which might be called sacred, for is there not, in reverence for what is better than we, an indestructible sacredness?” And when a king realises what idea he embodies, and strives to fulfil worthily the duties of his high calling, and in proportion as he does so, he is a representative of God to men. Then he will have a Divine sentence in his mouth because he will be a truth-speaker. His lips will be a reflection of his character. Being a man of truth, he cannot do other than speak the truth. He will be able in a limited sense to use the words of His Divine Ideal, and say, “To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness of the truth” (John xviii. 37). And as all truth and justice is from God (ver. 11), he who is a truth-speaker—he from whose lips come only just decisions, utters a “Divine sentence”—is a representative of Him whose “is a just weight and balance,” whose “work are all the weights of the bag.” To such an one it will be “an abomination to commit wickedness”—any kind of iniquity will be detested by him. He will not—he cannot—be a sinless man; the desires and intentions of every good man are always beyond his deeds—he can always say, “To will is present with me, but how to perform that which is good I find not” (Rom. vii. 18), but he will not commit sin because he loves it. Such a king will be a real benefactor to his nation by exalting the true and the good, and so blessing all. It is a blessing for all men—whether they be good or bad—when the best men in the nation are in the fore-front—when the righteous fill the highest positions in the State. And a true king will gladly avail himself of the services of men of “righteous lips,” and so will be a source of blessing to all his people. The “latter rain” which refreshes the thirsty earth after a long season of drought lets its life-giving drops fall upon the parched leaves of the humblest weed as well as upon the stately oak. And the influence of a wise and godly monarch is beneficial to all classes of his subjects from the highest to the lowest. All such are types—dim foreshadowings—of that “king who reigns in righteousness and who is as an hiding place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest; as rivers of water in a dry place, as a shadow of a great rock in a weary land” (Isa. xxxii. 1, 2).