CHAPTER IV.

CRITICAL NOTES.--+2. Doctrine,+ Literally something received, handed over; the author so describes it because he received it from his father. The Septuagint and the Vulgate translate by +donum,+ "a gift." +3. Tender and only,+ "dearly-beloved"--not that Solomon was Bathsheba's only son (1 Chron. iii. 5). +5. Get,+ Heb. "acquire or buy"--spare no cost. The repetition of the verb makes the injunction more imperative. +Forget+ is a word in Hebrew that takes the preposition _from_. In the idea of forgetting there is naturally involved that of turning aside or away from the object to be remembered. +6.+ Miller translates the last clause: "Love her, and she shall stand sentry over thee." +7.+ The first clause of this verse contains only four words, viz.: +Beginning,+ or "principal thing;" +Wisdom; get wisdom.+ Its terseness has led to various translations. Hitzig and others read: "The highest thing is wisdom." Miller translates: "As the height of wisdom, get wisdom." Delitzsch--The beginning of wisdom is: "Get wisdom." +With,+ not to be taken in the sense of "in connection with," but "by means of," or "at the price of." +8. Exalt+ or "esteem." +9.+ Last clause, or "she shall compass thee with a crown of glory." +10.+ As is all other instances (see Notes on Chap. iii. 2), Miller translates the promise: "And they shall grow greater to thee through years of life." +14. Go not.+ The Heb. is literally "to go straightforward;" also, "to pronounce happy." +15. Avoid,+ "Let it go," "reject it." +Turn from it,+ _i.e._, even if thou hast entered, turn back. +16.+ Miller here reads: "For the mere reason that they sleep not, rest assured they do mischief; and that their sleep is stolen, rest assured they occasion stumbling:" and understands it to mean that the more sleepless the industrious impenitent, the faster he is carrying everything to eternal ruin. But all other commentators of importance read as in the English version. +18. Shining light,+ Lit. "the light of dawn that grows and brightens even to the establishment of the day." +19. Darkness,+ "thick darkness," the gloom of midnight. +22. Health,+ or "healing." +23.+ "Above all other watching, keep thy heart," some read: "Keep thy heart with all (kinds of) keeping." _Issues_--"currents," "outgoings." +24. Froward mouth,+ Lit., "distortion," "crookedness." +26. Ponder,+ "make level, or straight."

NOTE ON VERSE 20.--There is an aspect of sameness in these beginnings. But they _are_ beginnings. One of the characteristics of Scripture is a division, like Childe Harold into cantos, or separate sonnets. They are most conspicuous in the prophet Isaiah; and, like grapes upon a bunch, each wrapped in its individual rind, but all clustered on a common stem. If we ventured a conjecture, it would be that this suited the Israelitish worship. The synagogue would take one of these cantos and use it for the day. They were of irregular length, but that would allow variety. They have some repetitions, but so have missals and breviaries, that allow of choice on different occasions. There was an aim to provide most of the points for recitation on each occasion. What for one reading would seem very same, for many readings would seem wonderfully diversified.--_Miller._

_MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.--Verses_ 1-4.

THE RECIPROCAL DUTIES OF PARENTS AND CHILDREN.

+I. Parental Duty.+ "He taught me." Solomon, and all children, have many claims upon their parents to receive from them instruction in the revelation of God. 1. _Parents are responsible for the existence of their children._ They are the instrumental cause of their child's being in the world, and his being in that state of probation upon which hang such "infinite possibilities." 2. _The child is so absolutely ignorant of the life into which he comes._ Unavoidable ignorance has always a claim upon knowledge, and the claim is assuredly increased in proportion as those who know and those who do not know are related to each other by a divinely constituted bond. "I am a stranger in the earth" is the claim which every child puts in as a reason why he should be instructed and taught in a way which he should go. "Hide not God's commandments from me" is the appeal which the child's ignorance makes to those who have had some experience in the world. 3. _Children claim instruction because of their future relationship to others._ The neglect of a child's education is a sin against more than himself. He will come, in his turn, to influence others. Upon his character will depend, in a great degree, the characters and eternal destinies of many in generations yet to come. 4. _Children have a claim upon their parents because they belong to God._ If a proprietor of land hands over to the cultivator a piece of virgin soil, he does not relinquish his own claim thereby--he demands that his property shall be restored to him increased in value by being brought under cultivation. The child is given to its parent by God in its undeveloped moral condition, but God retains His own inheritance in the gift. He looks for nurture, for cultivation; He demands from the parent such a fulfilment of parental duties as will ensure to Him that His gift shall grow of more and more worth in the moral universe. A day of reckoning on this matter will assuredly come. Solomon recognises the claim which children have upon their parents by recording his own parents' conduct in relation to himself and by giving us an example of his own method of instructing his children.

+II. Filial Duty.+ "Hear, ye children." Parents have claims upon their children. 1. _From the simple fact of the relationship._ A good father claims the obedience of his son because he is that child's ordained guide and ruler. He is to his son God's viceregent so long as his commands are in accordance with God's law. 2. _From their larger experience._ They have trodden the path which the youth has yet to traverse, they have climbed the hill which rises yet before him, they have tested the worth of the things which will allure him. Their superior knowledge entitles them to say, "Hear the instruction of a father." 3. _From the self-denial which, as parents, they have exercised._ All that a good mother and father have done and suffered in order to advance the welfare of their children, their toil and forbearing love, constitutes a powerful claim to their children's grateful, reverential, attention and love. Solomon here gives an example of the honour in which every child should hold godly parents.

A PARENT'S MOST PRECIOUS GIFT.

+Good Doctrine.+ Verse 2. 1. _Because without it there can be no good character._ There can be no right feelings towards God unless there has been right teaching about Him. True views of God can only come from true doctrine concerning Him. Without a right view of God there is no motive power to form character. A man must know God as He is before he can begin to follow Him. There must be a true mirror to give a correct reflection. 2. _Because if there is not the beginning of a good character, there will be an increasingly bad one._ When men have no right doctrine concerning God, in other words, when they do not know Him as He is, they invariably make a God after their own conceptions. They bring God down to their level. "Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself" (Psa. l. 21), has been the fatal mistake of men in all ages. If a man falls overboard from the deck of a vessel, he will not remain long at the level of his first fall. If he is not rescued he will sink to such a depth as will be out of all comparison with it. He will go lower and lower till his body finds the bottom of the ocean. Man's first fall from obedience to disobedience was a great fall, but he has not been content with this moral distance between himself and his Maker, he has tried to drag God down with him and thus has brutalised and demonised the divine that was still within him. In more than a material sense he has "changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like unto corruptible man" (Rom. i. 23). This changing of the truth of God into a lie will always take place where there is an absence of the right conceptions of God, and the result must always be the moral deterioration which Paul gives as the result in Rom. i. 26-32. There is as much relation between "good" or "right" doctrine and good and holy character as there is between good bread and pure water and a healthy body. Good bread will make good muscles and sinew, bad bread will not nourish the human frame. Pure water is indispensable to health, stagnant water will breed a hundred diseases. And mistaken views about God must be fruitful of soul disease. Results prove this to be the case. National and individual history prove the truth of it. "By their fruits ye shall know them" (Matt. vii. 20). As we can foretell what the quality of the harvest will be from the seed sown, so can we tell what has been the character of the seed from that which it brings forth.

_OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS._

Verse 2. The common cry is "Who will show us any good?" and every man will lend both ears to a good bargain. The doctrine here delivered is good every way, whether you look to the _author, matter_, or _effect_ of it.--_Trapp._

God's commandments are not like the commandments of any other, which are directed to the benefit of the commanders: but God's commandments do only bring good to him that is commanded. . . . What is there so absurd, as to despise His commands who doth command that He may have matter for rewarding: for God doth not want our obedience, but we do want His commanding. Therefore it is said, "As the eyes of servants look unto the hand of their master, and the eyes of a maiden to the hand of her mistress, so our eyes wait upon the Lord our God until he have mercy upon us," that is, until He command us something, and that, thou, O David, callest mercy.--_Jermin._

Good. +I. In itself.+ It is most majestic, as containing not trivial and common sentences, but high parables and extraordinary mysteries. It gives the highest direction in the greatest things. +II. It is good to us.+ Good for profit and pleasure. Good for soul and body (1 Cor. xv. 2; Deut. xxviii. 1). Good for this life and the life to come (1 Tim. iv. 8). Good when it pleaseth us (Psa. cxix. 7). Good when it crosseth us (Isa. xxxix. 8).--_Francis Taylor._

Verse 3. Noteworthy is the prominence given to the mother's share in the training of the child. Among the Israelites and the Egyptians alone of the nations of the old world, was the son's reverence for the mother placed side by side with that which he owed to his father.--_Plumptre._

Verse 4. Training, discipline, not foolish indulgence, is the truest evidence of affection to our tender and beloved ones (chap. xiii. 24; with 1 Kings i. 6).--_Bridges._

"He taught me." The prayer of Solomon, at Gibeon, for wisdom, as the principal of God's gifts, was suggested to him by his father David, just before his death. (See 1 Chron. xxviii. 9, xxix. 19).--_Wordsworth._

Here Solomon again commands the involuntary, because he has shown the steps to it. We cannot, of all other things in the world, _live_ by a voluntary act, but we can "keep watch over the commandments." I mean, we can, as it is a voluntary act, if God makes us willing. But we cannot live as a voluntary thing except through some form of anterior obedience.--_Miller._

_MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.--Verses_ 5-13.

THE ONE THING NEEDFUL.

+I. Human nature has many needs.+ 1. _There are the needs of the body, which begin upon our entrance into life, and never cease until the day of our death._ These are common to all men, and keep every man in an attitude of getting all through his life. It is the demand of these needs--the effort to get what will supply them--that is the motive-power which keeps the world of men in motion. 2. _Men's needs are multiplied in proportion to the greatness of their sphere and their intellectual activity._ The needs of a judge upon the bench are more than those of a crossing-sweeper. Both have some wants in common, but the intellectual and social position of the former has multiplied his needs far beyond those of the latter. The needs of a master in a house of business, or of a mistress in a family, are more than those of their servants. They have more claims to meet--more responsible positions to fill. But the aim of each individual man, woman, or child is to supply their natural or acquired--their real or their supposed--wants, whether material, or intellectual, or spiritual.

+II. There is one need above all other needs--one thing to be gotten before all other gettings--viz.: Wisdom, taking the word to mean godliness.+ The husbandman finds that the field that has been given him to till needs many things before it will yield him a golden harvest. But there is one thing, among others, that is indispensable, viz.: the sunlight. He will plough, and harrow, and sow in vain if this want is not supplied. So all a man's gettings will fail to bring him a harvest of soul-satisfaction if this primal element be wanting.

+III. The blessings which follow the getting of godliness.+ They have already been enumerated in chap. iii. 21-26. See homiletics on that paragraph. On verse 9 see homiletics on chap. i. 9.

_OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS._

Verse 5. We cannot do it directly, but there immediately follow the rules to be observed, "forget not," etc. It is astonishing how much is made of attention. It is the only voluntary thing, not muscular.--_Miller._

For so much a man learns as he remembers. The promise also of salvation is limited to "keeping in memory what we have received" (1 Cor. xv. 2).

1. Because of the _excellency_ of it. Things of high birth are excellent. This wisdom is from above (James iii. 17). Things rare are precious. True wisdom is not found in many. 2. Because of the _pleasure_ of it (chap. iii. 17). No content in the world like that wisdom gives. 3. Because of the _profit_ of it. Every trade will tell you that wisdom thrives, and folly beggars men. So in spiritual things. 4. Because of the _necessity_ of it, which is the strongest argument. Without it die, nay be damned.--_Francis Taylor._

Verse 6. Jerome wrote to a friend, "Beg now for me, who am grey-headed, of the Lord, that I may have Wisdom for my companion, of which it is written, 'Love her and she shall keep thee.'"

Forsake her not, and thou will love her, for love is bred by continuing together; love her and thou will not forsake her, for love liketh not of parting. The manner of speech seemeth to intimate a union of marriage, and indeed Wisdom is a fit spouse for man's noble soul.--_Jermin._

We turn an eye to Wisdom, and she turns an eye to us. We watch and she watches. In our ungodly state we cannot think of Wisdom that she does not turn and step back to us by common grace. And, if we think so long, and strive so earnestly as that she comes to us and is full in sight, then each new fondness fascinates her and brings her close. Each wise thing that we do makes us wiser.--_Miller._

It is worse with him that leaves good, than with him that never did it (2 Pet. ii. 21). One goes blindfold to hell and hath less pains there; another, seeing, hath more.--_Francis Taylor._

Verse 7. Make religion thy business, other things do by the bye. As Cæsar, swimming through the waters to escape his enemies, carried his books in his hand above them, but lost his robe.--_Trapp._

It can have no place if it has not the first place. If it be anything it will be everything.--_Bridges._

The mistake of the principal thing is that which maketh the principle disorder in man's heart. . . . But as that is light which showeth the light unto us, so that is the principal thing which showeth the principal thing unto us, even wisdom alone.--_Jermin._

I. _What_ we are to acquire. Both divine and human learning, which differ as means do from the end. Were there no Divine learning, human learning would lose great part of its value: limited to the present life, it must terminate on the confines of the grave. And had we no human learning, now that the days of inspiration have passed, we should not be able to attain that which is divine. II. _How_ we are to acquire it. We must be taught by those who were in the world before us. Weeds and thistles only will be the spontaneous produce if the ground is _not_ broken up and good seed sown. III. _Why_ we are to acquire it. The pleasures of wisdom exceed all others--in kind, degree, and duration.--_Bishop Horne._

The world's maxim, on the contrary, is--money is the principal thing; therefore get money; and with all thy getting, get more.--_Fausset._

Amidst all thy other acquisitions acquire this, without which all others will be useless and even hurtful.--_Menochius._

"With," rather "by means of" (see "Critical Notes"). We are to turn all our gettings into the channel of more grace. We are to use all our properties for growing wiser. We are to grind up all our corn into the bread of spiritual nourishment.--_Miller._

Venture all for wisdom rather than miss it. 1. What we lose is transitory, what we get is durable. A fee-simple is better than a leaf. 2. What we lose is hollow and empty, what we get is full and substantial. A sound timber tree is better than one hollow within, though the latter make a bigger show. 3. What we lose is vain, what we get is profitable. A piece of gold is better than a counter. 4. What we lose is often matter of danger, what we get is matter of safety and security.--_Francis Taylor._

Verse 8. Of this recommendation of religion it is the more necessary to fix our attention because it is often refused to it by men of the world. Their notions of honour are apt to run in a very different channel. . . . A distinction must be made between fame and honour. The former is a loud and noisy applause; the latter a more silent and internal homage. Fame floats on the breath of the multitude; honour rests on the judgment of the thinking. Fame may give praise while it withholds esteem; but honour implies esteem mingled with respect. The one regards particular distinguished talents; the other looks up to the whole character. It follows, therefore, that in order to discern where man's true honour lies, we must look at the whole of what forms a man. A mind superior to fear, to selfish interest, and corruption; governed by this principle of uniform rectitude, the same in prosperity as in adversity, such is the mind which forms the distinction and eminence of men. And such a character is formed solely by the influence of true religion. II. The honour which man acquires by religion and virtue is independent and complete. It is independent of anything foreign or external. Wherever fortune is concerned it is the rank which commands our deference. Where some shining quality attracts admiration, it is only to a part of the character that we pay homage. But with goodness, it is the whole man whom we respect. III. This honour is divine and immortal. It is honour not only in the sight of man, but of God, whose judgment is the standard of truth and right. It enters with man into a future state; and continues to brighten through eternal ages.--_Blair._

Not only "get," "keep," and "love" her, but also "exalt her." We are apt to think less of those things which we have, however precious, after the novelty has worn off. Beware of this feeling in religion. Religion richly repays in kind all that we can do to "embrace" her. She exalts them who exalt her (Psa. xxx. 1), and gives them fresh reason for exalting her (Psa. xxxvii. 34).--_Fausset._

Verse 9. She is the diadem which bindeth up the shattered thoughts of man's understanding: she it is which covereth and succoureth the broken cracks of man's invention: she it is which delivereth the authority of sovereignty to the head, and maketh the head to be the head, in bearing rule and commanding the inferior affections and lusts of the heart and other members.--_Jermin._

Crowns were anciently given to many sorts of persons as tokens of general favour and esteem. 1. To wise men and learned; to those who excelled in the arts and sciences. Godly-wise men deserve them much better. 2. To men famous for justice and other moral virtues; to good lawmakers and judges. Godly-wise men excel in theological virtues, which are far more excellent. 3. To conquerors. A wise man is a conqueror over his passions and affections, which make other men, and great ones too, very slaves. 4. To bridegrooms when they were married. A wise man is married to Wisdom, the fairest bride in the world. 5. To kings on their coronation day. So shall godly men be crowned when they die. They know how to rule their own souls here, and to direct others, and to get an eternal crown in Heaven. A beggar being once asked what he was, answered: "I am a king!" "Where is thy kingdom?" "It is in my soul. I can so rule my external and internal senses that all the faculties of my soul are subject to me." And who doubts that this kingdom is better than all the kingdoms of the world?--_Francis Taylor._

Verse 11. He may boldly call to be heard who himself doth what he teacheth. Christ placeth doing before teaching (Matt. viii. 19), for good doing leading the way, though teaching doth not follow, yet good works can, as clear as the light, teach those that look upon us. Paul saith, "We have received grace and apostleship to the _obedience_ of faith;" one would have thought he should have said rather to the government and direction of faith, but he saith, _obedience_, because examples do direct and govern better than words.--_Jermin._

The two branches which constitute the sum of parental tuition--_instruction_ and _direction_--teaching truth and guiding to duty. The one part relates to _knowledge,_ the other to _practice._ In all rightly conducted education, the two should never be disjoined. To teach duty without truth is to teach action without motive--virtue without its principle. To teach truth without duty is to teach motive without the practice to which it should lead. They are both partial, and, if kept asunder, both worthless.--_Wardlaw._

Verse 12. Having a good mixture of zeal and knowledge; so that thy zeal doth quicken thy knowledge, and thy knowledge guide thy zeal.--_Trapp._

The way of wisdom is indeed narrow, but in a narrow way there may be large steps; for though our feet may be straightened from going aside, yet they are not straightened from going on apace.--_Jermin._

As "goest" refers to the ordinary course, so "runnest" refers to extraordinary undertakings, wherein the believer has to put forth more than common energy.--_Fausset._

The word _straightened_ seems to express the case of one in difficulty and perplexity--contradictory impulses and obstacles pressing and hindering him on every side, perpetually producing embarrassment and apprehension--hedging up the way, and hemming us in, and destroying the freedom and comfort of advancement. Such is the case of a man who walks according to a worldly and carnal policy. He is ever at a loss. As circumstances are ever shifting, he is ever shifting his principles and plans to suit them. But the "wisdom from above" inspires a simplicity and a unity of principle by which a vast amount of this painful and agitating perplexity is taken away.--_Wardlaw._

Verse 13. Often a ship's crew at sea are obliged suddenly to betake themselves to their boats, or abandon the sinking ship. Such a case was recently reported of an American whale-ship in the South Seas. The huge leviathan of the deep, wounded by the art of man, ran out the distance of a mile by way of getting a run-race, and thence came up with incredible velocity against the devoted ship. She began to fill. . . . The word was given. All hands went to work, and soon all the seaworthy boats were loaded to the gunwale with the prime necessaries of life. The deck was now nearly level with the water, and the boats shoved off for safety. After they had pulled a hundred yards away, two resolute men leaped from one of the boats into the sea, and made towards the ship. They disappear down a hatchway. In a minute they emerge again, bearing something in their hands. As they leap into the water the ship goes down; the men are separated from each other and their burden in the whirlpool that gathers over the sinking hull. They do not seem to consult their own safety. They remain in that dangerous eddy until they grasp again the object which they had carried over the ship's side. Holding it fast, they are seen at length bearing away to their comrades in the boat. What do these strong swimmers carry, for they seem to value it more than life? It is the compass! It had been left behind, and was remembered almost too late. Now they have taken fast hold of it, and will not let it go. Whatever they lose, they will at all hazards keep it, for "it is their life." When shall we see souls, shipwrecked on the sea of time, take and keep such hold of the truth as it is in Jesus?--_Arnot._

Fasten and do not let slack. One rough grapple is not enough. Wisdom insidiously glides away if we give time to the arch deceiver. We are like a child trying to wake: he grasps the apple that one gives, but _slackens_ as drowsiness creeps back.--_Miller._

+I. Because many thieves lie in the way to rob us of what wisdom teaches.+ 1. _The devil steals away the seed of the word_ (Matt. xiii. 9). 2. _Wicked men also, by seducing us._ Sometimes by persecuting us to make us forsake the truth (Matt. xiii. 21). 3. _The world with its cares and profits seek to take this treasure from us_ (Matt. xiii. 22). The flesh presents many pleasures to us which drown our wits. +II. Because we may lose wisdom ourselves by negligence.+--_F. Taylor._

_MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.--Verses_ 14-19.

CONTRASTED PATHS AND OPPOSITE CHARACTERS.

+I. The just man's path.+ 1. It is a _pre-ordained_ one. The path which the sun takes through the heavens, the path in which our earth encircles the sun, are the paths which God has pre-ordained for them. They are the only paths which they could take and preserve the harmony of the system to which they belong. They are the orbits which are exactly adapted to the fulfilment of the end for which God created them. So the path--the manner of life--of the godly man is the path in which God intended man to walk when He created him. He called him into being in order that he might "walk before Him and be perfect" (Gen. xvii. 1). "The highway of holiness" is the God-ordained path of man, the old way which was trodden by His creatures for ages before man had any existence. 2. It is a _blessing-dispensing_ path. The sun, by keeping God's pre-ordained path, is a blessing to the world. Its rays possess a quickening power which develops the hidden life of the plant, and so clothes the earth with beauty and fruitfulness. Without its heat and light our globe would be a great Sahara--a vast wilderness of black barrenness. It likewise brings into operation a sense in man which would otherwise be dormant. The light of the body is the eye, but where would sight be without sun? Creatures who have lived for years in darkness appear to lose the power of sight, even if light shines upon their eye-balls. The constant contact of the eye with light keeps alive the power of vision. So with the just man's path. Without the godly this world would be a moral wilderness. All the beauty of goodness there is in it comes from the life of the children of wisdom. "They that dwell under his shadow shall return; they shall revive as the corn and grow as the vine; the scent thereof shall be as the wine of Lebanon" (Hosea xiv. 7). And He keeps alive the inner eye of man--the conscience. It, too, needs external light to play upon it to keep it alive. And the holy walk of the godly does this for the ungodly, it prevents the conscience from being utterly stifled by sin. 3. It is a _progressive_ path. It shines more and more. The light of dawn has glories all its own, but it is not strong enough to do the work of the noon-day rays, its heat is not able to penetrate beneath the surface of the earth and wake up the life out of the seed-corn hidden there; its brightness touches the mountain-tops, but does not scatter the shadows in the valleys. But when the sun reaches its meridian "there is nothing hid from the heat thereof." So with the children of wisdom. When they first set out upon their journey their godliness is not so manifest to others, nor does it yield so much comfort to themselves as when they have trodden the path for years. But it must, from a necessity of nature, go on unto perfection. "Just men will be made perfect" (Heb. xii. 3). "They go from strength to strength" (Psa. lxxxiv. 7). They come "to the perfect day."

+II. The wicked man's way.+ It is in every point the converse of that which has just been sketched. 1. _It is his own way_ (chap. i. 31): _not God's way, not the way in which he was destined to walk_. It is an _old_ way (Job. xxii. 15), but not the _oldest_ way; it is a path cast up by the will of man and pre-Adamite sinners. 2. _It is a way of darkness, because it is a way of blindness._ Blindness puts a man in the dark, and, being in the dark, he has only the experience that springs from darkness. Wickedness puts out the eyes of the soul, and, like a blind Samson, it sits in darkness and the shadow of death. A state of blindness is a state of _ignorance_. A blind man cannot avoid objects that come in his way, and when he falls in consequence, he knows not the object that caused him to fall. So the wise man here describes the ungodly as one "who knows not at what he stumbles" (verse 19). He has no realisation of the real character of his tempters, no insight into the sinfulness of sin; the lack of a guiding principle turns his walk into a series of stumblings. It follows of necessity that such a path is one of _danger_. It is more dangerous to walk in the night than in the day. The footpad or the highwayman can hide himself from our view in the darkness, and come upon us unawares. We may fall over the precipice at night that we could easily avoid in the day. So it is in a course of sin. A man who shuts his eyes to the light within him, and rejects the light which is to "lighten every man" (John i. 9), will, unawares, be overtaken by retribution, and fall into depths of remorse upon which he little counts. 3. _Like the path of the just, it is a progressive path._ No man stands still in it. The darkness thickens as the blindness increases, and the blindness grows the longer men refuse to "come to the light" (John iii. 20). Men do not at once come to the height or descend to the depth of iniquity described in verse 16, when, unless they have done some iniquitous act, they feel that they have lost a day. The merchant may feel he has lost a day when he has failed to make a good bargain; the scholar feels it when he has not added to his stock of knowledge; the heathen emperor reckoned a day lost when he had not benefited some one; but for a man not to sleep except he has done a mischief, surely expresses as "perfect a night" as it is possible for human nature to attain to. Surely he then proves himself to be a child of him whose business it is to "go about seeking whom he may devour" (2 Pet. v. 8). 4. _It is a path which is destructive to others._ As the good man, by walking in God's path, blesses his fellow-creatures as well as himself, so the wicked man, in his path of darkness, is a curse to others as well as himself. The force of evil example alone is pernicious to all who surround him, but although he may begin in this negative way, he soon advances to positive acts of sin, until he lives upon the misery of others. It becomes his meat and drink to drag others to destruction with him, or, failing that, to do them as much injury as he can (verses 16 and 17).

+III. The means of escape from this path of darkness and ruin.+ "Enter it not," and, to make sure of not entering it, give it a wide berth--"pass not by it, turn away" (verses 14, 15). When we see those whom we love in danger, we multiply words of warning, and are not careful to avoid repeating words which may have little or no difference in their meaning. So Solomon's anxiety shows itself here in the repetition of his exhortations. But there is some gradation observed in them. 1. _We are not to enter the paths, not even to set one foot upon the forbidden way._ Men may be tempted to venture a step or two just to take a glance, and intend to turn back as soon as they have done so, but it is enchanted ground, and it is more than likely if they are once upon the track they will go further than they at first intended. But if they do not _enter_ it, they cannot _walk_ in it. 2. _If you have already entered, do not persevere another moment, turn from it at once._ If the captain of a ship becomes all at once aware that he is steering his vessel upon the rocks, he puts about at once. The next best thing to not going wrong at all is to turn back--in Bible language, to repent, to put the face in the opposite direction, to turn the whole man back to the opposite goal. 3. _In order to escape the danger of entering at all, or of re-entrance after having once forsaken it, avoid its very neighbourhood, pass not by it, go not in the way of temptation._ If a youth has been induced to gamble, and has resolved to give up the habit, let him not go near the gambling house--let him give up all intercourse with gamblers; if he has been once under the fatal influence of strong drink, he must taste it no more--not even "_look upon_ the wine when it is red" (ch. xxiii. 31). He must "flee youthful lusts" and the most certain method of doing this is to strike out another course--to "follow after righteousness" (1 Tim.