i. 24), "in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge
(Col. ii. 3). To say the least, the language is admirably adapted to set forth the Incarnate Son, the Saviour of the world. The introductory paragraph reveals _the intense desire of Wisdom to win disciples._
+I. From her taking the initiative.+ Wisdom addresses man first. When two persons have become estranged by the wrong-doing of one, he who is in the wrong will be slow to find his way back to the other to acknowledge his fault. Because he is in the wrong he may conclude, and in many cases would rightly conclude, that an advance on his side would be useless. But an advance from him who is in the right would be more likely to be successful; such a course of conduct on his part would carry with it a powerful magnetic force to draw the offender back, and would be a most convincing proof of the desire of him who had been rightly offended to effect a reconciliation. And if the offence had been committed, not once, but many times, the reluctance of the offender to face his offended friend would be increased in proportion to the number of times the act had been repeated, and if, notwithstanding these repeated offences, advances should continue to be made from the other side, the desire for reconciliation would be made more and more manifest. Wisdom is here represented in this light, and God in Christ did take the initiative in "reconciling the world unto Himself" (1 Cor. v. 19). The Incarnate Wisdom _came_ to men because men would not, and could not, by reason of their moral inability, come to Him first. In proportion to the distance men wander from God do they feel the impossibility of returning to Him unless they can receive from Him some encouragement to do so. This encouragement they have in the fact that "the Son of Man came to seek and save that which was lost" (Matt. xviii. 11), that, "while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us" (Rom. v. 8).
+II. From the variety of places where Wisdom's voice is heard+ (verses 2 and 3). If a man has goods to sell, he seeks those places where he will be most likely to find buyers; if he has thoughts which he wishes to make public, he goes where he will find the most hearers. The pilot has wisdom which he wants to sell the less experienced ship-master, and he runs his cutter out into the highway of the channel. He is found at "the entrance of the gates" of the water-ways, at the mouths of the rivers; he places himself in the way of those who need his wisdom, and who will pay a good price for his skill. In proportion to a man's earnestness to obtain a market, or a hearing, will be his endeavour to seek out the places where he will most likely succeed. Wisdom is here represented as frequenting the most conspicuous places, the most crowded thoroughfares, to find buyers for that spiritual instruction which is to be had "without money and without price" (Isa. lv. 1). Christ was found imparting the treasures of His wisdom wherever men would listen to His words. He "went up into a mountain and taught" (Matt. v. 1). He was found in the streets of the cities, in the temple, at the publican's feast (Luke v. 27), in a boat on the shore of the lake. When multitudes were gathered at Jerusalem at the feasts, He was among them (John vii. 14 and 37). At other times "He went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and proclaiming the Gospel of the kingdom" (Matt. ix. 35). And thus He revealed His intense desire to give unto men those words which He declares to be "spirit and life" (John vi. 63).
+III. From the earnest tone of her call.+ "Doth not Wisdom _cry._" When the voice of Christ was heard upon earth it was in no indifferent tone He addressed His hearers. He was "moved with compassion" towards the multitudes who followed Him (Matt. xiv. 14). On the "great day of the feast He stood and _cried_, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink" (John vii. 37). With what earnestness must He have uttered His lament over Jerusalem: "If thou hadst known, even thou, in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace" (Luke xix. 42). A man's tone is more or less earnest to us in proportion as he gives proof that he is willing to follow up words by deeds. Judged in this light, how earnest must the call of Christ to men sound when they consider that He was willing to face Gethsemane and Calvary to give effect to His words. On this subject see also Homiletics on chap. i. 20, 21.
_OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS._
Verse 1. She crieth by the written word, by ministers, and by the dealings of Providence. Instead of the clandestine whisper of the adulteress in the dark, Wisdom "puts forth her voice" openly in the day, and in a style suitable to every capacity, so that all are left without excuse if they reject her, preferring darkness to light.--_Fausset._
The eternal Son of God gathers, plants, builds His church by a voice _i.e.,_ His Word. All true teachers of the Word are crying voices through which Christ calls. Out of Christ's school is no true wisdom. So long as Christ's wisdom is still speaking outside thee it avails thee nothing; but when thou allowest it to dwell in thee it is thy light and life.--_Egard._
We cannot promulgate as doctrine, but we think the last day will show that wisdom plied every art; that what was, "all things working together for good" in behalf of the believer, was something analogous in tendency in the instance of the sinner; that if the sinner thought his lot defeated repentance, he was mistaken; or that, could he have fared otherwise, his chances would have been improved: all this was largely error; moreover, that he will be held accountable at last for quite the opposite, and punished for a life singularly favoured and frequently adapted as the very best to lead him to salvation.--_Miller._
In her ministers, who are criers by office, and must be earnest (Isa. lviii. 1). See an instance in holy Bradford. "I beseech you," saith he, "I pray you with hand, pen, tongue, and mind, in Christ, through Christ, for Christ, for His name, blood, mercy, power, and truth's sake, my most entirely beloved that you admit no doubting of God's final mercies towards you." Here was a lusty crier indeed.--_Trapp._
This form of interrogation, which expects as its answer an assenting and emphatic "yes, truly," points to the fact clearly brought to view in all that has preceded, that Wisdom bears an unceasing witness in her own behalf in the life of men.--_Zöckler._
Verse 2. "Standeth" implies assiduous perseverance. Instead of taking her stand in dark places, in a corner, like the harlot (chap. vii. 9), she "standeth" in the top of high places.--_Fausset._
Wisdom is representing as haunting all human paths. Folly lives upon them, too. Wisdom does not claim them as her own; Folly does. Wisdom has but one path. And she haunts every other to turn men out of such diverse journeyings into the one great track of holiness and truth.--_Miller._
Verse 3. Thereby intending (1) to reach the whole concourse of the lost, and (2) to make human life at these great rallying places of men, speak its own lessons, and utter the loudest warnings against the soul's impenitence.--_Miller._
_MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.--Verses_ 4-9.
GOD'S SPEECH MEETING MAN'S NEED.
+I. Divine Wisdom has spoken because God's silence would be human death.+ When a man is lying in prison awaiting the execution of the extreme penalty of the law, after he has petitioned the monarch for a reprieve, the silence of the monarch is a permission that the sentence is to be carried out. His silence is a death-knell to the criminal who has asked for pardon. It is an anticipation of the steel of the executioner, of the rope of the hangman. He longs for the word that would bring pardon. There is _death_ in the _silence._ In the history of men's lives there are many other instances when the silence of those whom they desire to speak embitters their life. There are many who keep silence whose speech would fall upon the heart of those who long for it, as the dew and gentle rain falls upon the parched earth. A word or a letter would be like a new lease of life, but the silence brings a sorrow which is akin to death, which perchance is the death of all that makes life to be desired. A parent who has no word from his absent son goes down in sorrow to the grave. Jacob was thus going down mourning when the words of Joseph reached him. Then "his spirit revived" (Gen. xlv. 27), and the aged, sorrowful patriarch renewed his youth. The life of man--all that is worth calling life--depends upon God's breaking the silence between earth and heaven. His silence is that which is most dreaded by those who have heard His voice. Hence their prayer is, "Be not _silent_ unto me; let, if Thou be silent unto me, I become _like them that go down into the pit_" (Psa. xxviii. 1). If a man had been left without any communication from God, he must have remained spiritually dead throughout his term of probation. For he is by nature what is called in Scripture, "carnally-minded," which "is death" (Rom. viii. 5). Every man, if left to himself, forms habits of thinking and of acting that cause him "to be tied and bound with the chain of his sins." And if God had not spoken he must have remained in this condition, which is spiritual death. Therefore, God has broken this silence with an "Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead" (Ephes. v. 14). The nations were walking in the darkness and the shadow of death when the "light shined" upon them (Luke i. 79), in the person of Him who is the Word and the Wisdom of God, who, Himself, declared "_The words that I speak unto_ you, they are spirit, and they are _life;_" "I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly" (John vi. 63, x. 10).
+II. Human nature needs the voice of Divine Wisdom because the soul cannot rest upon uncertainties+ (verses 6-8). If a man is in the dark upon any subject, he is in a condition of unrest; there is a desire within him to rise from the state of probability to one of certainty. If a boy works a sum and does not know how to prove that it is right, he does not feel that satisfaction at having completed his task that he would do if he could demonstrate that the answer was correct. After all his labour he has only arrived at a may-be. So the result of all efforts of man's unaided reasonings concerning himself and his destiny was but a sum unproved. There was no certainty after ages of labourious conjecture. There might be a future life and immortality, but it could not be positively affirmed. Although the sum _might be right_ there was a possibility that it was wrong. The world by wisdom arrived at no certain conclusions in relation to the Divine character and the chief end of man, and uttered but an uncertain sound on the life beyond the grave. "How can man be just with God?" "If a man die shall he live again?" were never fully and triumphantly answered until the Incarnate Word stood by His own empty grave and said, "I ascend unto my Father and your Father, and to my God and your God" (John xx. 17). He brought "rest" to the weary and heavy laden (Matt.