xix. 16), and of whom it is written, "that by Him were all things
created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, and He is before all things, and by Him all things consist" (Col. i. 16, 17).--_Wordsworth._
Kings are kings only as they are wise, that is, wise in the sense of holiness. It does not mean holiness as altogether distinct from virtue, but holiness as that moral right which belongs to all ranks of moral intelligences. The virtue that belongs to God, and the virtue that belongs to Gabriel, and the virtue that remains in man, and the virtue that is wrecked in hell, are not all different qualities of moral right, but are all identically the same. One moral quality inheres in all. Government being a moral work, the man that governs must have a moral heart. And, as there are no two sorts of virtue, he truly exercises his kingship just in proportion as he is holy, _i.e.,_ in the language of this inspired book, just in proportion as he is spiritually wise.--_Miller._
Every kingdom is a province of the universal empire of the "King of Kings." Men may mix their own pride, folly, and self-will with this appointment. But God's providential counter-working preserves the substantial blessing.--_Bridges._
This language may be considered as implying 1. That human government, in all its branches, is the appointment of Divine wisdom. 2. That all who sustain positions of authority and power should set habitually under the influence of Divine wisdom. 3. That no authority can be rightly exercised, and no judicial process successfully carried out, without the direction of Wisdom. 4. That Divine wisdom exercises control over all human agents in the administration of public affairs.--_Wardlaw._
"By me kings reign," not as if men did behold that book, and accordingly frame their laws, but because it worketh in them when the laws which they make are righteous.--_Hooker._
_MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.--Verses_ 17-21.
THE REWARD OF EARNEST SEEKERS.
+I. The mutual love which exists between Wisdom and her children.+ There is always a mutual love between a true teacher and a diligent, receptive pupil, and the love on each side has a reflex influence on both master and pupil, and renders it more pleasant to teach, and more easy to learn. When a child loves his parent, and the parent is teaching the child, love oils the wheels of the intellectual powers, and furnishes a motive power to conquer the lesson. And when the parent feels that he is loved by his child and pupil, the love is a present reward. There is such a love between Christ and His disciples. Peter appealed to Christ's consciousness of being loved by him when he said, "Lord, Thou knowest all things; Thou knowest that I love Thee" (John xxi. 17). And Christ loves His pupils. "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." "As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you" (John xv. 9, 13). This mutual love imparts patience on the one side and perseverance on the other. It was Christ's "first love to us" that gave Him patience to "endure the cross and despise the shame" (Heb. xii. 2). And it is the responsive love of the disciple that enables Him to endure unto the end. It is the love that is born of the consciousness of being loved that stirs up to the _diligent seeking_ of the latter clause of the verse, which expresses--
+II. A certain success to the seekers of wisdom.+ In Holy Scripture earnest seeking and finding are complements of each other. The one does not exist without the other. Seeking ensures finding. Finding implies seeking. "If any man lack _wisdom,_ let him ask of God, who giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not" (Jas. i. 5). God's promise is absolute. It can only fail on one of three suppositions. 1. That when God made the promise He had no intention of keeping it, or--2. That unforeseen circumstances have since arisen which render Him unable to fulfil His word, or--3. That the conditions have not been fulfilled on the part of the seeker. We know that God's holiness and omnipotence render the first two impossible, and therefore, whenever there is no finding, we are certain that there has been no real, earnest seeking. For the promise is limited by the condition, "they that seek me early, or earnestly." If a traveller has a long journey to perform and many difficulties to overcome in the way, he shows his determination to arrive safely at his destination by setting out at early dawn. Those who are anxious to make a name, or a fortune, show their anxiety by rising early and sitting up late. There are degrees of earnestness in seekers after Divine wisdom as in all other seekers. But those whose seeking is the most earnest will receive the most abundant reward. The Syro-Phœnician woman who besought Christ to heal her daughter was a type of earnest seekers. She redoubled her efforts as the apparent difficulties increased. She _asked,_ she _sought,_ she _knocked._ And she received not only what she sought, but a commendation from the Lord for her earnest seeking (Matt. xv. 28).
+III. What those find who find God.+ The reward promised to those who seek God is God Himself. In finding Him they find 1. _The lasting riches of righteousness_ (vers. 18, 19). This a wealth which will _last._ However great the satisfaction, however many the blessings which may flow from the riches of the earth, "passing away" is written upon all. Yea, long before the end of life the riches may "make themselves wings" (chap. xxiii. 5). Among many other qualities that make moral wealth incomparably superior to material wealth, not the least is its _durability._ (See on vers. 10, 11; also chap. iii. 15, 16.) 2. _Guidance,_ ver. 20. (See on chap. iii. 6, etc.) 3. _Reality in opposition to shadow,_ ver. 21. The hungry man who dreams that he is feasting experiences a kind of pleasure. But the feast is only in vision. There is no power in it to appease his hunger, or nourish his frame. But, if on awaking, he finds a table really spread with food, he then has the substance of that of which in his dreams he had only the shadow. Worldly men walk, the Psalmist tells us, in a "vain show," _i.e.,_ in an "image," an "unreality" (Psa. xxxix. 6). "They walk," says Spurgeon on this verse, "as if the mocking images were substantial, like travellers in a mirage, soon to be filled with disappointment and despair." There are many who dream that they are being satisfied while they are morally asleep. But by and by they awake and find that they have been feeding on visions of the night, that they have been spending their money for "that which was not bread, and their labour for that which satisfieth not" (Isa. lv. 2). To all who are conscious of this soul-hunger, eternal wisdom here offers substantial heart satisfaction, "a well of water springing up into everlasting life."
_OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS._
Verse 17. The philosopher could say, that if moral virtue could be seen with mortal eyes, she would stir up wonderful loves of herself in the hearts of the beholders. How much more, then, would "the wisdom of God in a mystery!" (1 Cor. ii. 7), that essential wisdom of God especially, the Lord Jesus, who is "altogether lovely," "the desire of all nations." "My love was crucified," said Ignatius, who "loved not His life unto the death" (Rev. xii. 11). Neither was there any love lost, or can be, for "I love them that love me." Men do not always reciprocate, or return love for love. David lost his love upon Absalom; Paul upon the Corinthians; but here is no such danger.--_Trapp._
+The characters whom Christ loves.+ _Christ loves those who love Him._ (1) _Because He has done and suffered so much for their salvation._ We naturally prize any object in proportion to the labour and expense which it cost us to obtain it. How highly, then, must Christ prize, how ineffably must He love His people. For this, among other reasons, His love for them must be greater in degree, and of a different kind from that which He entertains for the angels of light. (2) _Because they are united to Him by strong and indissoluble ties._ The expressions used to describe this union are the strongest that language can afford. The people of Christ are not only His brethren, His sisters, His bride, but His members, His body, and He consequently loves them as we love our members, as our souls love our bodies. (3) _Because they possess His Spirit, and bear His image._ Similarity of character tends to produce affection, and hence every being in the universe loves his own image when he discovers it. Especially does Christ love His own image in His creatures, because it essentially consists in holiness, which is of all things most pleasing to His Father and Himself. (4) _Because they rejoice in and return His affection._ It is the natural tendency of love to produce and increase love. Even those whom we have long loved become incomparably more dear when they begin to prize our love and to return it. If Christ so loved His people before they existed, and even while they were His enemies, as to lay down His life for their redemption, how inexpressibly dear must they be to Him after they become His friends.--_Payson._
Seeking wisdom early implies 1. That it engages our first concern and endeavour, while matters of an inferior consideration are postponed. 2. The constant use of the proper means to obtain it. If we see one continually practising any art, we judge that it is his intention to be master of it. 3. The using them with spirt and vigour. The superficial and spiritless performance of duty is as faulty as the total omission.--_Abernathy._
All fancy that they love God. But those who either do not seek God at all, or seek Him coldly, whilst they eagerly seek the vanities of the world, make it plain that they are led by the love of the world more than by the love of God.--_Fausset._
It is His love to us that makes us to love Him; and, doubtless, He that loves us so as to make us to love Him, cannot but love us when we do love Him.--_Jermin._
Seek early, as the Israelites went early in the morning to seek for manna (Exod. xvi. 21), and as students rise early in the morning and sit close to it to get knowledge. To seek the Lord early is to seek the Lord (1) _firstly;_ (2) _opportunely._ There is a season wherein God may be found (Isa. lv. 6), and if you let this season slip, you may seek and miss Him. (3) _Affectionately, earnestly_ (Isa. xxvi. 6). That prayer that sets the whole man a-work will work wonders in Heaven, in the heart, and in the earth. Earnest prayer, like Saul's sword and Jonathan's bow, never returns empty.--_Brooks._
Verse 18. Spiritual riches are durable. 1. Because they are gotten without wronging any man. Temporal riches are often gotten by fraud and violence, and, therefore, are not lasting. The parties wronged use all means to recover their own, and God punishes unjust persons. Spiritual riches no man can challenge from us. 2. They are everlasting riches, and therefore durable. That must needs last long which lasts ever. These are true, not transitory riches, which often change their masters. They will swim out of the sea of this world with us, out of the shipwreck of death. Neither fire nor sword can take them from us.--_Francis Taylor._
In the matters of rank and riches, the two strong cords by which the ambitious are led, the two reciprocally supporting rails on which the train of ambition ever runs,--even in these matters, that seem the peculiar province of an earthly crown, the Prince of Peace comes forth with long challenge and conspicuous rivalry. Titles of honour! their real glory depends on the height and purity of the foundation whence they flow. They have often been the gift of profligate princes, and the rewards of successful crime. And the best the fountain is low and muddy: the streams, if looked at in the light of day, are tinged and sluggish. Thus saith the Lord, "Honour is with me." He who saith it is the King of Glory. To be adopted into the family of God,--to be the son or daughter of the Lord Almighty,--this is honour. High born! We are all low-born until we are _born_ again, and then we are the children of a King.--_Arnot._
Verse 20. Christ guides infallibly by--1. _His Word._ It is all truth. 2. _His Spirit._ Men mistake and think they are guided by God's Spirit when they are guided by their own, or by a worse spirit. But certainly when Christ's Spirit guides He guides aright. 3. _His example._ All other men have their failings, and must be followed no further than they follow Christ. He is the original copy; others are but blurred abstracts.--_Francis Taylor._
"I lead in the way of righteousness," which is to say, I got not my wealth by right and wrong, by wrench and wiles. My riches are not the riches of unrighteousness, the "mammon of iniquity" (Luke xvi. 9); but are honestly come by, and are therefore like to be "durable" (ver. 18). St. Jerome somewhere saith, that most rich men are either themselves bad men or the heirs of those that have been bad. It is reported of Nevessan, the lawyer, that he should say, "He that will not venture his body shall never be valiant; he that will not venture his soul never rich." But Wisdom's walk lies not any such way. God forbid, saith she, that I, or any of mine, should take of Satan, "from a thread even to a shoelatchet, lest he should say, I have made you rich" (Gen. xiv. 23).--_Trapp._
Verse 21. The great "I AM" (Exod. iii. 14) is the only substantial reality to satisfy the disciples of Wisdom.--_Fausset._
The followers of Christ shall be no losers by Him. They shall not inherit the wind, nor possess for their portion those unsubstantial things, of which it is said, _they are not_ (chap. xxiii. 5), because they are not the true riches. It is not for want of riches to bestow, nor for want of love to His people, that He does not bestow upon every one of them crowns of gold and mines of precious metals.--_Lawson._
Here is no yawning vacuum, but a grand object to give interest to life, to fill up every vacancy in the heart--perfect happiness. All that we could add from the world would only make us poorer, by diminishing that enjoyment of God for the loss of which there is no compensation. There is one point--only one--in the universe where we can look up and cry with the saintly Martyn, "With Thee there is no disappointment."--_Bridges._
"I will fill their treasures." This is a great promise. It is made in a kingly style. There is no limit. It will take much to fill these treasures, for the capacity of the human spirit is very large. God moulded man after His own image, and when the creature is empty, nothing short of His Maker will fill him again. Although a man should gain the whole world, his appetite should not be perceptibly diminished. The void would be as great and the craving as keen as ever. Handfuls are gotten on the ground, but a soulful is not to be had except in Christ. "In Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily, and ye are complete (_i.e.,_ full) in Him."--_Arnot._
_MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.--Verses_ 22-31.
THE PERSONAL WISDOM OF GOD.
+I. The antiquity of the Personal Wisdom of God.+ Wisdom in the abstract must have existed before the creation of the world, because the world bears marks of wisdom. There must have been in Solomon the wisdom to design the temple before it took the form of beauty which made it so famous. There is skill hidden in the artist's mind before it is manifested upon his canvas--the very existence of the picture proves the pre-existent skill. The world is a temple of large proportions, the beauty of which man can but copy afar off, and its existence proves the pre-existence of wisdom resident in a pre-existent person. As the world bears evident marks of great antiquity it proclaims an All-wise Cause which must necessarily be older still. There is no person known to the human race who claimed to have an existence before the world except Jesus Christ. He claimed--and it is claimed for Him by those who bore witness to Him--to have been before the world was, and to have been conscious of His divinity before the foundation of the world. He claims to have been possessor of "a glory with the Father before the world was" (John xvii. 5), a glory which included intellectual and moral wisdom. And the claim of His apostle concerning the pre-existence of the "Word of God" is most unmistakable (John i. 3). The existence of other and inferior "sons of God" before the creation of this world is implied in Scripture (Job. xxxviii. 7), but we have no direct revelation concerning them. We feel that we could not apply to them, or to any creature, the words of the text, "The Lord possessed me in the beginning of His way," etc. But, in the light of the New Testament revelation, if we give them a personal application, we must apply them to the Son of God, the Eternal Word, and to Him alone. The words point to an existence _distinct from_ God. "I was by Him," and "I was with Him." And yet the intimate relationship and fellowship described does not express _inferiority,_ but finds its fulfilment only in Him who not only "was in the beginning with God," but who "was God." (On this subject see note.)
+II. The Personal Wisdom of God the delight of the Eternal Father.+ "I was daily His delight" (verse 30). (1) Likeness in character is a foundation of delight. A man who is godly delights to see his own godly character reflected in his son. The recognition of moral likeness in the uncreated Son gave delight to the Eternal Father. Nothing gives God so much joy as _goodness_. Hence His joy in His only-begotten Son. (2) Equality of nature is a source of delight to the good and true. Fellowship with an equal gives joy. Christ, when on earth, ever claimed this equality with the Father. He claimed an _eternity of being._ "Before Abraham was, I am" (Exod. iii. 14; John viii. 58). _Omniscience_ is claimed for Him, and He gave evidence that He possessed it. "He knew what was in man" (John ii. 25). "And Jesus knowing their thoughts," etc. (Matt. ix. 4). _Divine energy._ "My Father worketh hitherto and I work" (John v. 17). _Independent existence._ "As the Father hath life in Himself, so hath He given to the Son to have life in Himself" (John v. 26). _Holiness._ "Which of you convinceth me of sin?" (John viii. 46). _Almighty power._ "All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth" (Matt. xxviii. 18). In the eternal ages, before the creation of the world, the Father looked upon this "brightness of His glory and express image of His person" (Heb. i. 3), and this Divine Equal gave joy to the uncreated God (Isa. xlii. 1).
+III. The delight of the Personal Wisdom of God in the creation of the home of man.+ "Rejoicing in the habitable parts of the earth" (verse 31). The artist has joy in the thought of his completed work while it is in progress. He joys in that which _is not_ as yet in outward form, but which _is,_ in the completeness within his mind. The architect, who sees day by day the building being reared which he knows will be the wonder of coming ages and the means of yielding comfort to thousands, rejoices in the thought of the blessing that is to come out of his work. He experiences an emotion, with which a stranger cannot intermeddle (Prov. xiv. 10). And so Eternal Wisdom is here represented as regarding the future home of man. He saw its adaptability to the wants of the creatures who were to inhabit it--its inexhaustible resources for the supply of all man's physical and many of his intellectual wants, and the thought of the missions to whose happiness the earth's riches and beauties would minister throughout the ages gave Him joy. The best natures among human-kind delight when they are able to produce what will increase the happiness of their fellow-creatures. The poet rejoices when he feels that his thought will cheer the hearts of other men. The inventor is glad when he has made a discovery which he knows will be a boon to his race. And so the Eternal Wisdom of God looked with joy upon the earth which He had called into being for the habitation of the race whom He was about to create. The joy that would be theirs gave Him joy when He looked upon creation with their eyes.
+IV. The special delight of Personal Wisdom in man himself.+ "My delights were with the sons of men." 1. _His delight in man would arise from the fact that he was a creature different from all pre-existing creatures._ Man is a link between mind and matter. He is a compound of the animal and the angel, of the dust of the earth and the breath of God. The material creation was called into being before man. The angelic and spiritual creatures existed before man. Man was, as it were, the clasp which united the two, and his unique character, we may well believe, made him a special object of interest to his Creator. New combinations give joy to those who, by combining forces, or material, or thoughts for the first time, bring about a new thing in the earth. They create a power or an idea which would not have existed if these elements had remained separate. Man, as he came originally from the hand of God, was such a perfectly balanced compound of mind and matter, of body and spirit, that his Creator had joy in the contemplation of His work, and declared it to be "very good" (Gen. i. 31). If we apply the words of the text to the second person of the Godhead, we know, from Scripture testimony, that He was the Creator of man, for "without Him was not anything made that was made." He is as rich in invention as He is in goodness. 2. _The delight of Christ would be especially with men, because in His own nature God and man would meet in an eternal combination._ The commander who can pluck victory out of the jaws of defeat, by the combination of certain forces not yet brought upon the field with others which have been already defeated, is allowed to give evidence of the highest military skill. The statesman who, anticipating the defeat of one measure, reserved another method of tactics in the background which he knew would ensure an ultimate success, and who used the very means by which he had been defeated as a lever to establish a better law and a more lasting benefit, would be considered to display ability of the first degree, and to be a benefactor of his race. And the contemplation of such a victory beforehand must be an occupation of the deepest interest to the mind which originates the plan and carries it into action. Christ is, beyond all comparison, the leader of men. He saw beforehand that human nature would be defeated in its first conflict with evil. He knew that Satan would enter in and spoil this new principality of God. But He had already made preparation for this defeat, and He purposed, by means of the very human nature which would be thus defeated, in combination with His own divinity, to spoil the spoiler and lead captivity captive. By the eternal union of His own nature with the human He purposed to place man on a firmer standing ground, and gain for him the power of an endless life. Christ becoming the head of the race has defeated sin in the human nature that was itself defeated, and the grace which He has thus imparted to man has lifted him to a higher level than that in which he was created. And if the first edition of man, which was "of the earth, earthy" (1 Cor.