Proverbs 20 Commentary - The Biblical Illusrator

Verse 1

Proverbs 20:1

Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging: and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise.

The evil effects of drunkenness

I. It deadens every moral sensibility. And what is the evidence of the drunkard himself? On his own declaration, are the principles of virtue as vigorous in his heart now as before? Is he as sensible of delight in contemplating the morally sublime, as much shocked with the morally deformed, as much grieved and disgusted with the depraved and licentious?

II. It impairs every intellectual faculty.

III. It accelerates death.

IV. It entails misery on families.

V. It terminates in everlasting destruction (1 Corinthians 6:10). (The Weekly Christian Teacher.)

Strong drink deceptive

The characteristic of strong drink is deceitfulness,

1. A great quantity of precious food is destroyed that strong drink may be extracted from the rubbish.

2. The curative and strengthening properties of our strong drinks, which are so much vaunted, are in reality next to nothing.

3. Strong drink deceives the nation by the vast amount of revenue that it pours into the public treasury.

4. In as far as human friendship is, in any case, dependent on artificial stimulant for the degree of its fervency, it is a worthless counterfeit.

5. Its chief deception lies in the silent, stealthy advances which it makes upon the unsuspecting taster, followed, when the secret approaches have been carried to a certain point, by the sure spring and deathly grip of the raging lion. (W. Arnot, D. D.)

Mischief and folly of drunkenness

I. The mischief. To the sinner himself. It mocks him, makes a fool of him, promises him that satisfaction which it can never give him. In reflection upon it: it rages in his conscience. It is raging in the body, putting the humours into a ferment. Pretending to be a sociable thing, it renders men unfit for society, for it makes them abusive with their tongues and outrageous in their passions.

II. The folly. He that is deceived thereby, that suffers himself to be drawn into this sin, when he is so plainly warned of the consequences of it, is not wise: he shows that he has no right sense or consideration of things; and not only so, but he renders himself incapable of getting wisdom; for it is a sin that infatuates and besets men and takes away their heart. (Matthew Henry.)

Total abstinence

The following story is told of General Harrison, one of the candidates for the Presidency of the United States, in connection with a public dinner given him on one occasion: “At the close of the dinner one of the gentlemen drank his health. The General pledged his toast by drinking water. Another gentleman offered a toast, and said, ‘General, will you not favour me by taking s glass of wine?’ The General, in a very gentlemanly way, begged to be excused. He was again urged to join in a glass of wine. This was too much. He rose from his seat and said in the most dignified manner: ‘Gentlemen, I have twice refused to partake of the wine-cup. I hope that will be sufficient. Though you press the matter ever so much, not a drop shall pass my lips. I made a resolve when I started in life that I would avoid strong drink. That vow I have never broken. I am one of a class of seventeen young men who graduated together. The other sixteen members of my class now fill drunkards’ graves, and all from the pernicious habit of wine-drinking. I owe all my health, my happiness, and prosperity to that resolution. Would you urge me to break it now?’”

Better sink than drink

A clergyman complained to the late Sir Andrew Clark of feeling low and depressed, unable to face his work, and tempted to rely on stimulants. Sir Andrew saw that the position was a perilous one, and that it was a crisis in the man’s life. He dealt with the case, and forbade resort to stimulants, when the patient declared that he would be unequal to his work, and ready to sink. “Then,” said Sir Andrew, “sink like a man.”

Abstinence favourable to health

The working man’s capital is health, not wealth. It does not consist in landed property, but in sinew and muscle; and if he persist in the use of intoxicating liquors they will strike at the very root of his capital--a sound physical constitution. After this is lost he becomes unfit for the workshop, for no master will employ a man who wants capital. He has then to repair to the poorhouse or infirmary. (J. Hunter.)

Water the best drink

“The best of all drinks for the athlete,” says Dr. Richardson, “is pure water. The athletic lower animals--the racehorse, the hound, the lion, the leopard--thrive well on water, because their bodies, like our own, are water engines, as steam engines are, and that, too, almost as simply and purely.”

Verses 1-30

Verse 3

Proverbs 20:3

It is an honour for a man to cease from strife.

The law of honour

The rules of life by which men are ordinarily governed are the law of honour, the law of the land, and the law of God. It is the object of religious institutions and instruction to uphold the last of these as the supreme and universal rule. In doing this, it is sometimes necessary to bring the other two into a comparison with it, as standards of duty and right. There ought to be no opposition between the law of the land and the commandment of God, and no contradiction to either of them in the sentiment of honour. The word “honour,” in its original idea, signifies respect or praise. It is that tribute of good opinion, which attends a character thought to be commendable. It is the external expression of the respect which is conceived to be due. The man of true honour is the man of real desert--the man who has this sense of character because he is conscious that his integrity of purpose and uprightness of life give him a claim to the honour which is always rendered to such a character. His sense of honour is sense of desert, rather than desire of reputation. Proceeding from this origin, it will appear that the characteristic ideas comprised in the sentiment of honour are, self-respect and respect for others. Such a man, valuing himself on the dignity of his nature, which others have in common with himself, conducts himself toward them as he desires that others should do toward him, in the spirit of apostolic injunction, “Honour all men.” He thinks himself less disgraced by its omission on their part than on his own. He is rather ready to defer to others, agreeably to the other injunction, “In honour preferring one another.” He yields, in this spirit of mutual respect, something to his fellows beyond what he thinks it necessary to insist on receiving. It is thus a generous spirit: it always consults the feelings of others; desires their happiness; guards their reputation; shuns wrong toward any one as the first disgrace; strives for right as the chief honour. Taken in this sense, the sentiment in question is a suitable one for man, and seems to have been designed in the constitution as one of the guardians of his virtue. When thus enlisted on the side of right it becomes a high instinct, prompting to spontaneous rectitude, and causing an intuitive shrinking from whatever is unworthy and base. It contradicts no law of man, and is in harmony with the law of God. But, at the same time, from its intimate connection with what is personal in interest and feeling, it is greatly exposed to degenerate into a false and misguiding sentiment. And so it has, in fact, happened. Connecting itself with the notions of character which prevail by chance in the community, rather than with the rule of light and of God, it has erected a false standard of estimate, and kindled a light that leads astray. Thus honour comes to bear the same relation to virtue that politeness does to kindness; it is its representative; it keeps up the form and pretension when the principal is absent; and, for all the ordinary purposes of the superficial social system of the world, it is accounted quite as good as that which it stands for. This, then, is the first objectionable trait in the world’s law of honour as a rule of life; it is deceptive and superficial; it is a thing of appearance only, and not a reality. And from this the descent is natural and easy, down to the next ill quality. Setting the value which it does on appearance, it finds the object of right gained by seeming to be right; then the heinousness of wrong may be avoided by concealing the wrong. The man has learned to act, not with a view to doing right, but with a view to reputation--sometimes even for the appearance of having the reputation. Thus it appears that a man of worldly honour may be guilty of a certain degree of baseness and crime without inconsistency and without compunction, if he have but the skill to keep it from being known. It is not wonderful that it should soon follow from this that he may be guilty of certain sorts of baseness and crime openly, and yet not forfeit his reputation. And such is the fact. One may be a gambler to a certain extent, and actually ruin a friend and drive him to despair--yet no impeachment of his honour. He may be unprincipled in his expenditures, so that the poor whom he employs shall be unable to obtain of him their just dues; he may revel in luxury, while defrauding the mechanics and tradesmen on whose ingenuity and toil he lives--yet no impeachment of honour. He may be a known debauchee, trampling on the most sacred rights and affections of his own home; he may, by a process of deliberate, heartless cunning and fraud, bring down an humble beauty to hopeless disgrace and misery; he may be, on a very trivial offence, the murderer of his friend--yet not one nor all of these crimes, accompanied as they are with what is mean and base, takes from him his claim to be treated as a man of honour.

1. The spirit of worldly honour is thus evidently characterised by selfishness. Its fundamental idea is a reference to what the world will think of me; my reputation, my standing--how are they affected? What will secure them in the eyes of the world? Everything must give way to this paramount consideration. I must secure my own good name among those with whom I move, come what may. It is amazing what deeds are done in consequence!

2. It is equally distinguished for its jealousy. Selfishness is always jealous. It cannot have anything of sincere and generous confidence in others. The man whose rule of life is to refer everything to its bearing on its own reputation, to weigh all the words and looks of other men with a view to discover whether they sufficiently acknowledge his claims to consideration acquires thereby an unreasonable sensitiveness of feeling, nourishes an uneasy spirit of jealous suspicion, is annoyed by slight causes, and offended by trifling inadvertences.

3. Thus jealous and revengeful, it is not surprising that the system in question should be despotic also. Such tempers are always so. It rules with arbitrary, inexorable, uncompromising sway. It allows no wavering, no relenting, no appeal. The slave is not mere entirely deprived of his right over his own limbs and labour than the devotee of honour is deprived of a right to his own judgment in all things within her province. He is in the hands of the ministers of honour, and they allow him no retreat. He must go on by that rule which he has adopted. The terrors of disgrace and ruin await him if he draw back. And thus, willing or unwilling--like a victim to the sacrifice--he is led out and immolated on the altar at which he had been proud to worship. This is the consummation to which the system leads. The duel is its tribunal and its place of execution. Worthy close of the progress we have described! It is fit that what began in meanness should issue in blood. The pulpit, beneath which so many young men sit while forming the characters by which they are to influence their country and their fellow-men during many future years of active and public life, would be false to its momentous trust if, at such a moment as this, it failed to lift its warning cry; if it did not attempt to disabuse their minds of the delusive fascination with which the reckless spirit of worldly honour is too often invested. The halls of learning, where Philosophy teaches, and Science utters truth, and Christianity communicates the law of brotherhood and love, would be unworthy of their lofty place if they did not resound with the proclamation that all those great and deathless interests denounce and abhor the masked impostor that, under the name of honour, opens to the aspiring young the highway of sin and death. And therefore it is that I have sought to tear away its disguise and expose its deformity; therefore it is that I would bring forward in its place the true honour, founded in right--exercised in self-respect and respect for all--faithful to all trusts alike--fearing only God. Let the future men of our country hear, and make it theirs. (H. Ware, D. D.)

Verse 4

Proverbs 20:4

The sluggard will not plow by reason of the cold; therefore shall he beg in harvest, and have nothing.

The present and the future

The present is intimately related to the future; and the future will faithfully reflect the character. Here is a principle from the operation of which none can escape. Life stands in the same relation to eternity as the time of ploughing does to the harvest. If this life is spent in neglect of the soul, there will be eternal poverty.

I. Life’s ploughing-time, or the period of preparation.

1. Note, that life is the seed-time is universally recognised and taught. The armer knows the time for preparing the soil, and is himself responsible if he does not improve it.

2. The ploughing-time is short, not too long if it is all well spent; the seasons quickly succeed each other. How short is life--

3. Though short, it is long enough. Life is short; there is no time to lose, but to each is given space for repentance.

4. Unlike the farmer, who may miss one harvest but secure the next, our opportunity once lost never returns.

II. The paltry reasons assigned as an excuse for neglect. “The sluggard will not plow by reason of the cold.” It is palpably unreal, the true reason is unconfessed; but it is found in the fact that the man is a sluggard--he loves not his work. (D. Thomas, D. D.)

The sluggard in harvest

This saying inculcates the lesson that men should diligently seize the opportunity whilst it is theirs. The sluggard is one of the pet aversions of the Book of Proverbs. The text contains principles which are true in the highest regions of human life. Religion recognise the same practical common-sense principles that daily business does.

I. The principles which are crystalised in this picturesque saying.

1. Present conduct determines future conditions. Life is a series of epochs, each of which has its destined work, and that being done, all is well; and that being left undone, all is ill. What a man does, and is, settles how he fares. The most trivial act has an influence on all that comes after, and may deflect a man’s whole course into altogether different paths. There come to each of us supreme moments in our lives. And if, in all the subordinate and insignificant moments we have not been getting ready for them, but have been nurturing dispositions and acquiring habits, the supreme moment passes us by, and we gain nothing from it. The mystic significance of the trivialities of life is that in them we largely make destiny, and that in them we wholly make character.

2. The easy road is generally the wrong road. There are always obstacles in the way to noble life. Self-denial and rigid self-control, in its two forms--of stopping your ears to the attractions of lower pleasures, and of cheerily encountering difficulties--is an indispensable condition of any life which shall at the last yield a harvest worth the gathering. Nothing worth doing is done but at the cost of difficulty and toil.

3. The season let slip is gone for ever. Opportunity is bald behind, and must be grasped by the forelock. Life is full of tragic might-have-beens.

II. Flash the rays of these principles on one or two subjects.

1. In business, do not trust to any way of getting on by dodges, or speculation, or favour, or anything but downright hard work.

2. In your intellects. Make a conscience of making the best of your brains.

3. In the formation of character. Nothing will come to you noble, great, elevating, in that direction unless it is sought, and sought with toil. Don’t let yourselves be shaped by accident, by circumstance. You can build yourselves up into forms of beauty by the help of the grace of God.

4. Let these principles applied to religion teach us the wisdom and necessity of beginning the Christian life at the earliest moment. There is a solemn thought still to consider. This life, as a whole, is to the future life as the ploughing-time is to the harvest. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)

A beggar in harvest

No life is really secular. The sanctification of our labour for the bread that perisheth is one of the purposes of our holy religion. The principles set forth in this text in relation to earthly business have also their application to the spiritual life.

1. Human co-operation is necessary in the beginnings of the religious life. God does not save men as a rule by sudden movements of His Spirit upon their souls without their co-operation with Him. Spiritual ploughing consists of self-examination in the light of God’s Word, followed by self-condemnation, the confession and renunciation of sin, and the other exercises of repentance.

2. Human co-operation in the Divine life is necessary all the way from the beginnings of repentance up to the throne of glory.

3. The text teaches not only the necessity for diligence, but also for courage. The sluggard was afraid of the cold.

4. The ploughing must be done at the right season. Youth is the best time for spiritual ploughing. (G. A. Bennetts, B. A.)

The soul-sluggard

The words “sluggard” and “sluggish” are the same derivation. We speak of sluggish water, stagnant, covered with green, breeding disease and death. What a contrast to a fountain of clear, sparkling water, dancing in the sunlight, quickening everything it touches into life! The soul’s harvest is in eternity. Why does the sinner neglect preparation for this harvest? Let us look at a few of his reasons.

1. He says that his heart is “cold”; he has not the proper feeling. He forgets--

2. The sinner urges, “The Church is ‘cold.’” He says, “No one speaks to me about my soul.” Does the traveller at the railway station wait till the train starts and the ticket-office closes because “no one speaks to him”? It is frivolous reasoning, that because Church members fail in their duty I have a right to fail in mine.

3. It is even urged by the impenitent that God is “cold”--indifferent to their salvation. They wait until He is ready--until He moves upon their hearts.

Observe--

1. The reasons urged by the impenitent are but shallow pretexts to hide their disinclination. The man would not plough because he was a sluggard.

2. “Therefore,” says the text, “shall he beg.” The begging is the effect of a sufficient cause. Eternal death is not the result of an accident.

3. They that beg in harvest shall beg in vain, “and have nothing.” The prayer of Dives was not answered. (P. S. Davis.)

Good effects of honest and earnest toil

I. Plenty. We must not think that diligence is only manual; it is also mental. It implies thought, forethought, planning, arranging. The general rule is that they who work obtain the things needful for this life, at least in sufficiency.

II. Power. It is industry, rather than genius, which commends us to our fellow-men, and leads us to positions of influence and power.

III. Personal worth. It is diligence, the capacity of taking pains, that gives to a man his actual worth, making him compact and strong and serviceable. The greatest gifts are of little worth, unless there is this guarantee of the conscientious and intelligent employment of them. (R. F. Horton, D. D.)

Duty sacrificed to convenience

There are two powers constantly pressing their claims on men: those of duty and convenience. These two generally come into collision here. The sacrificing of duty to convenience is an immense evil, because--

I. It involves a sacrifice of the cultivating season. Sluggard neglects the seed-time. It is so with men who postpone their day of religious decision. The whole of their earthly life is intended as a season for cultivation. But a very large portion of the cultivating season is already gone. The residue of their time is very short, and very uncertain.

II. Because it involves a disregard of existing facilities. The sluggard had everything else necessary to cultivate his land. He disregarded all, because it was rather cold. It is so with those who are putting off religion.

III. Because it involves the decay of individual qualification for the work. The qualification for any work consists in a resolute determination, and a sufficiency of executive energy. While the sluggard was waiting, these two things were decreasing.

IV. Because it involves the loss of great personal enjoyment. He would lose the joy arising from fresh accessions of manly power; from the consciousness of having done his duty; a freedom to engage in any other affair; prospect of reward.

V. Because it involves a certainty of ultimate ruin. Destitution. Degradation. Misery of these enhanced by their being--

1. Self-created.

2. Unpitied.

3. Irretrievable. Physical indolence brings physical ruin, moral indolence moral ruin. (Homilist)
.

Verse 5

Proverbs 20:5

Counsel in the heart of man is like deep water; but a man of understanding will draw it out.

The getting of wisdom from the wise:

I. Wisdom to man is a very valuable thing.

1. It improves the sphere of his being.

2. It improves the power of his being.

II. Sane men are favoured with more wisdom than others. The difference in the amount of men’s intelligence arises from the difference in their capacities, proclivities, and opportunities for mental improvement.

III. Those who have the most wisdom are generally the most reserved. Where knowledge dwells in large quantities, it is not like water on the surface that you can get at easily; it is rather like water that lies fathoms under earth--clear, beautiful, and refreshing--got at only by the pump, or the windlass and bucket. It has to be drawn out.

IV. In consequence of this reservedness of the most wise, it requires sagacity in others to draw it forth. Even Christ Himself felt that He could not unfold what was in Him, on account of the ignorance and the prejudice of His auditory. (D. Thomas, D. D.)

Verse 6

Proverbs 20:6

Most men will proclaim every one his own goodness; but a faithful man, who can find?

On goodness and fidelity

I. What are we to understand by “goodness” and a “faithful man”?--Goodness often means the Whole of a virtuous or religious temper. In Scripture it is sometimes limited to good affections, and the proper expression of them in our conduct. Goodness here is kindness; and a “faithful man” is one sincere and steady in goodness, who really feels benevolent affections, and is uniform and constant in the practical exercise of them.

1. He is “faithful in goodness,” whose general conduct is kind and beneficent. He is affable and courteous in his ordinary conversation, and never without necessity deliberately says that which may hurt or offend. He does not withhold his bounty till it is wrung from him by importunity. His friendly offices reach men’s spiritual necessities.

2. He is “faithful in goodness” whose goodness flows from an inward, a sincere, and a religious principle. Goodness sufficiently diffusive in its objects and exercises can only be the fruit of the Spirit of God.

3. The man “faithful in goodness” is steady, constant, and persevering in doing good. Important services to others often require much of diligence, self-denial, and disinterestedness. He does good, expecting nothing again.

II. What is suggested when it is said, “A faithful man, who can find”?

1. He reminds us that this is a character not to be found among unconverted sinners.

2. Faithfulness in goodness is uncommon.

3. Fidelity in goodness in a strict sense, and in full perfection, is not the character of the best saints on this side the grave.

III. Solomon’s maxim, that “most men will proclaim every one his own goodness.” Men are prone to disguise their true characters under a deceitful mask, and profess sentiments and affections to which their hearts are utter strangers. There are some who, in proclaiming their own goodness, cannot be charged with gross hypocrisy. They are self-deluded. Let every one press after the fidelity in goodness, to which every false display of it is opposed. (John Erskine, D. D.)

Self-applause and self-consistency

I. The commonness of self-applause. See it in nations; in churches. Pursue the subject more personally.

1. The profane. These say they mean well; their hearts are good; they are liberal, etc.

2. The Pharisees. What attempts they make to recommend themselves to others!

3. The orthodox. Those who pride themselves on their orthodoxy.

4. The godly. These are often guilty in a measure.

II. The rareness of self-consistency. A man faithful--

1. In his civil concerns.

2. In his friendly connections.

3. To his trusts.

4. To his convictions.

5. To his religious professions.

Enough has been said--

Subtle self-praise

Some, quite as vain, and as ambitious of commendation and praise, knowing that everything of the nature of ostentation is exceedingly unpopular, set about their object with greater art. They devise ways of getting their merits made known so as to avoid the flaw of ostentatious self-display. In company they commend others for the qualities which they conceive themselves specially to possess, or for the doing of deeds which they themselves are sufficiently well known to have done; and they turn the conversation dexterously that way; or they find fault with others for the want of the good they are desirous to get praise for; or they lament over their own deficiencies and failures in the very points in which they conceive their excellence to lie--to give others the opportunity of contradicting them; or, if they have done anything they deem particularly generous and praiseworthy, they introduce some similar case, and bring in, as apparently incidental, the situation of the person or the family that has been the object of their bounty. Somehow, they contrive to get in themselves and their goodness. (R. Wardlaw, D. D.)

A prevalent vice and a rare virtue

I. A prevalent vice. “Most men will proclaim every one his own goodness.” Self-conceit--men parading their imaginary merits. It is seen in the religious world, in the way in which certain men get their subscriptions trumpeted in reports, and their charitable doings emblazoned in journals. It is seen in the political world.

1. This vice is an obstruction to self-improvement. The man who prides himself on his own cleverness will never get knowledge; who exults in his own virtue will never advance in genuine goodness. Vanity is in one sense the fruit of ignorance.

2. This vice is socially offensive. Nothing is more offensive in society than vanity.

3. This vice is essentially opposed to Christianity. What says Paul? “For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith.” What says Christ? “Let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth.”

II. A rare virtue. “But a faithful man, who can find?” What is faithfulness? The man who in this verse is called faithful is in the next represented as just, “walking in his integrity.” Each of the three terms represents the same thing.

1. Practically true to our own convictions. Never acting without or against them.

2. Practically true to our own professions. Never breaking promises, swerving from engagements. Now this is a rare virtue. (D. Thomas, D. D.)

Self-laudation

It magnifies and multiplies matters. Loud was the lie which that bell told, hanging in a clock-house at Westminster, and usually rung at the coronation and funeral of princes, having this inscription about it:--

“King Edward made me,

Thirty thousand and three,

Take me down and weigh me,

And more you shall find me.”

But when this bell was taken down at the doom’s-day of abbeys, this and two more were found not to weigh twenty thousand. Many tales of fame are found to shrink accordingly. (W. Fuller.)

Verse 7

Proverbs 20:7

His children are blessed after him.

The just man’s legacy

1. Anxiety about our family is natural, but we shall be wise if we turn it into care about our own character. If we walk before the Lord in integrity, we shall do more to bless our descendants than if we bequeathed them large estates. A father’s holy life is a rich legacy for his sons.

2. Our integrity may be God’s means of saving our sons and daughters. If they see the truth of our religion proved by our lives, it may be that they will believe in Jesus for themselves. Lord, fulfil this word to my household! (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Verse 9

Proverbs 20:9

Who can say, I have made my heart clean; I am pure from my sin?

Purity of heart

I. Who can say, i have made my heart clean? We read of some who have clean hands, which implies an abstinence from outward sins. A clean heart implies more than this; it relates to the inward temper and disposition, to the bias of the will, and the various operations of the affections, as being spiritual and acceptable in the sight of God.

1. Purity of heart is much to be desired.

2. It is the work of the Spirit alone to impart it.

3. There is so much self-righteous pride and vanity in man that many are apt to think they have made their hearts clean.

II. Who can say, i am pure from my sin? To be pure from sin is similar to our being in a state of sinless perfection. This no one ever enjoyed in the present life, except Him only who “knew no sin.”

1. Who can say that they were never defiled with original sin, or that they are now free from that defilement?

2. Who can say that they are pure from inward sins, the evils of the heart?

3. Who can say that they are wholly free from practical evil in life and conversation?

4. Who can say they are free from every besetting sin, or that they are not defiled with any of those evils to which they are more especially exposed by constitutional habits, or by their occupation or immediate connections. As no one can say with truth that he is pure from his sin, what reason have the best of men to be abased before God! (B. Beddome, M. A.)

The duty of mortification

The trial and examination of our hearts and ways in reference to God is a duty which, though hard and difficult, is exceedingly useful and beneficial to us.

I. The duty of mortification. The cleansing of our hearts, to be pure from sin.

1. The nature of the action. Cleansing. A word implying some change and alteration that is to be made in us. That which is purged was formerly impure. God is pure; the saints are purged and purified. This shows us the nature of sin: it is a matter of uncleanness. Uncleanness is a debasing quality; a loathsome quality; a thing odious in itself and for itself. Cleansing shows the sovereign virtue of grace and repentance. It is of a purging virtue. It hath a power of cleansing us from the pollutions of sin. It is compared to clean water, which washes away filth. To a wind, which, passing, cleanseth. To a fire, that consumes dross and corruption.

2. The property of the agent. The text makes us agents in this great work. Sin is cleansed in our justification, when it is pardoned and forgiven. The act of forgiveness is God’s alone. Sin is cleansed by mortification, and regeneration, and conversion. The progress of these acts God works in us, and by us. His Spirit enables us to carry forward this work which He graciously begins, and to cleanse ourselves.

3. The circumstance of time. “I have cleansed.” Mortification is a work of long continuance; it requires progress and perseverance.

II. The object that must be wrought upon. “The heart.” The whole man must be cleansed, but first and specially the heart. The heart is the fountain and original from whence all other uncleannesses do stream and flow. The heart is the lurking-hole, to which sin betakes itself. The heart is the proper seat and residence of sin.

III. The measure or degree of mortification. “I am pure from my sin.” This is the high aim that a Christian must set to himself, to press forward to perfection. The text lays our sin at our own doors, and so it concerns us to rid ourselves of it. Sin is the offspring of our will. There is the sin of inbred and natural inclination; the sin to which our particular age disposes us: childhood is idle, youth wanton, age covetous; the sins of our calling and vocation: every calling has its special temptations.

IV. The difficulty of mortification. This question, “Who?” is not meant for all sorts of sinners. It is not propounded to the profane man, to the grossly ignorant man, or to the negligent and careless man. The question reaches to the best sort of men, those that have made good progress in this work of cleansing and mortification, who, nevertheless, are condemned by their own consciences; who have still leaven to purge out; find some sins of surreption will steal in upon them. As to the question itself. It runs thus: “Who can say?” Not “Who doth say?” or “Who will say?” or “Who dare say?” We may safely resolve the question into a peremptory assertion, and conclude that no man is clear or free from sin. The earnest Christian can say, “Through grace I have broken the strength and dominion of sin.” (Bp. Brownrigg.)

Verse 10

Proverbs 20:10

Divers weights and divers measures; both of them are alike abomination to the Lord.

Caveat venditor

I. Dishonesty in trade is various in its forms. “Divers weights and divers measures . . . and a false balance.”

II. Dishonesty in trade is offensive to God.

1. Dishonesty is known to Him: His eye is on our business transactions, and no names or pretences, however plausible, can deceive Him.

2. Dishonesty is abhorred by Him. It is “an abomination unto the Lord.”

III. Dishonesty in trade is great folly and sin. This seems to be the idea of the latter clause of Proverbs 20:23 : “A false balance is not good.” The man who is dishonest for gain sacrifices--

1. The greater for the less.

2. The spiritual for the material.

3. The eternal and permanent for the temporal and uncertain.

4. The Divine for the worldly. Dishonesty is arrant folly; the man who gains by fraud is a great loser.

Conclusion:

1. Transact business by the rule laid down by our Lord (Matthew 7:12).

2. Transact business as in the sight of God. (W. Jones.)

Short weights and measures

All pound weights do not draw 16 ounces. Every yard stick is not quite 36 inches long. There are multitudes of things short weight, and not a few short measure. If all men were weighed and measured, some of us would need to be placed under short sticks, or require a big “make weight” to bring us up to the right standard. Besides men, there are things not quite full measure. Many things sold and used in Manchester, you may depend upon it, would be “short measure,” especially when compared with the standards the excise officers are in the habit of carrying about with them. I have met many men that would weigh 14 stone, but if you try to weigh their common sense it would not reach 14 ounces. There are hundreds of men whose tailors may be able to tell you how much cloth it would take to cover them; their shoemakers could tell you that their feet measured 9, 10, or 11 inches in length; but if you tried to measure all their good deeds--deeds of kindness done at home--deeds of sympathy to those who are poor--acts of love and mercy such as angels delight to see, and God smiles upon--you could do it with a 35-inch stick. And the misfortune is that these people are always the tall talkers. Talking does little work. Talking, minus doing, is minus weight. But there are some men that weigh too much. When I was a lad I used to see butter sold that was called “long weight.” Well, what was that? Eighteen ounces to the pound. I have met men more than 18 ounces to the pound. If they are workmen they can do twice as much as others in the same time. If you talk to them about their wives--there are not such women in the world. Their children are perfect models; their horses are better than their neighbours; and if they go out to buy goods, they can always get more for their money than anybody else, often, indeed, 25s worth for their sovereign. But get a little nearer to them, and you will find the work they do needs doing over again; as to their children, they are unruly and impudent; whilst the bargains they make are no bargains at all. I want now to look more particularly at men “short weight.” (Belshazzar instanced.) Pride? Can a proud man be short weight? Look at him, how big he is! Ah! you can measure some people’s pride, and you will get 37 inches to the yard. It takes 24 yards of silk to cover the pride of some women--and it will take 24 months to pay for it. Belshazzar was not the only proud person the world has known. I am afraid that pride exists in these days as well as in those. (Charles Leach.)

Divers weights and divers measures

Trade tricksters are not called highly respectable in Scripture, whatever they are in society. Apologists for tricks in trade say that the real fault is in the consumer, who will have a cheap article. On which showing, the whole charge of adulteration, and of the wickedness of selling worsted and silk for silk, shoddy for broadcloth, and sloe-juice for vine-wine, is held to amount to nothing. Cicero’s rule holds good to-day, that everything should be disclosed, in order that a purchaser may be ignorant of nothing that the seller knows. But few people have leisure for investigating the real quality and quantity of their purchases. It is only necessary, remarks Mr. Emerson, to ask a few questions as to the progress of the articles of commerce from the fields where they grew to our houses, to become aware that we “eat and drink, and wear perjury and fraud in a hundred commodities.” Christian critics have been fain to admire in Mohammed the vigour and emphasis with which he inculcated a noble sincerity and fairness in dealing. “He who sells a defective thing, concealing its defect, will provoke the anger of God and the curses of the angels.” Every age has its recognised offenders of this sort, from Solomon’s days downwards. It was reserved, apparently, for our own age to merit in full the bad eminence of attaining such a pitch of refinement “in the art of the falsification of elementary substances,” that the very articles used to adulterate are themselves adulterated. (F. Jacox, B. A.)

Verse 10

Proverbs 20:10

Divers weights and divers measures; both of them are alike abomination to the Lord.

Caveat venditor

I. Dishonesty in trade is various in its forms. “Divers weights and divers measures . . . and a false balance.”

II. Dishonesty in trade is offensive to God.

1. Dishonesty is known to Him: His eye is on our business transactions, and no names or pretences, however plausible, can deceive Him.

2. Dishonesty is abhorred by Him. It is “an abomination unto the Lord.”

III. Dishonesty in trade is great folly and sin. This seems to be the idea of the latter clause of Proverbs 20:23 : “A false balance is not good.” The man who is dishonest for gain sacrifices--

1. The greater for the less.

2. The spiritual for the material.

3. The eternal and permanent for the temporal and uncertain.

4. The Divine for the worldly. Dishonesty is arrant folly; the man who gains by fraud is a great loser.

Conclusion:

1. Transact business by the rule laid down by our Lord (Matthew 7:12).

2. Transact business as in the sight of God. (W. Jones.)

Short weights and measures

All pound weights do not draw 16 ounces. Every yard stick is not quite 36 inches long. There are multitudes of things short weight, and not a few short measure. If all men were weighed and measured, some of us would need to be placed under short sticks, or require a big “make weight” to bring us up to the right standard. Besides men, there are things not quite full measure. Many things sold and used in Manchester, you may depend upon it, would be “short measure,” especially when compared with the standards the excise officers are in the habit of carrying about with them. I have met many men that would weigh 14 stone, but if you try to weigh their common sense it would not reach 14 ounces. There are hundreds of men whose tailors may be able to tell you how much cloth it would take to cover them; their shoemakers could tell you that their feet measured 9, 10, or 11 inches in length; but if you tried to measure all their good deeds--deeds of kindness done at home--deeds of sympathy to those who are poor--acts of love and mercy such as angels delight to see, and God smiles upon--you could do it with a 35-inch stick. And the misfortune is that these people are always the tall talkers. Talking does little work. Talking, minus doing, is minus weight. But there are some men that weigh too much. When I was a lad I used to see butter sold that was called “long weight.” Well, what was that? Eighteen ounces to the pound. I have met men more than 18 ounces to the pound. If they are workmen they can do twice as much as others in the same time. If you talk to them about their wives--there are not such women in the world. Their children are perfect models; their horses are better than their neighbours; and if they go out to buy goods, they can always get more for their money than anybody else, often, indeed, 25s worth for their sovereign. But get a little nearer to them, and you will find the work they do needs doing over again; as to their children, they are unruly and impudent; whilst the bargains they make are no bargains at all. I want now to look more particularly at men “short weight.” (Belshazzar instanced.) Pride? Can a proud man be short weight? Look at him, how big he is! Ah! you can measure some people’s pride, and you will get 37 inches to the yard. It takes 24 yards of silk to cover the pride of some women--and it will take 24 months to pay for it. Belshazzar was not the only proud person the world has known. I am afraid that pride exists in these days as well as in those. (Charles Leach.)

Divers weights and divers measures

Trade tricksters are not called highly respectable in Scripture, whatever they are in society. Apologists for tricks in trade say that the real fault is in the consumer, who will have a cheap article. On which showing, the whole charge of adulteration, and of the wickedness of selling worsted and silk for silk, shoddy for broadcloth, and sloe-juice for vine-wine, is held to amount to nothing. Cicero’s rule holds good to-day, that everything should be disclosed, in order that a purchaser may be ignorant of nothing that the seller knows. But few people have leisure for investigating the real quality and quantity of their purchases. It is only necessary, remarks Mr. Emerson, to ask a few questions as to the progress of the articles of commerce from the fields where they grew to our houses, to become aware that we “eat and drink, and wear perjury and fraud in a hundred commodities.” Christian critics have been fain to admire in Mohammed the vigour and emphasis with which he inculcated a noble sincerity and fairness in dealing. “He who sells a defective thing, concealing its defect, will provoke the anger of God and the curses of the angels.” Every age has its recognised offenders of this sort, from Solomon’s days downwards. It was reserved, apparently, for our own age to merit in full the bad eminence of attaining such a pitch of refinement “in the art of the falsification of elementary substances,” that the very articles used to adulterate are themselves adulterated. (F. Jacox, B. A.)

Verse 11

Proverbs 20:11

Even a child is known by his doings, whether his work be pure, and whether it be right.

A child’s accountability

The Bible recovers lost truths, as well as lost souls. The recovery of lost truth is one means of restoring lost souls. It is like a guide in a wilderness, as food in famine, as light in darkness: it is the restoration of that which is useful and essential. The truth of this passage is a lost truth. That human beings are early accountable, and early assume a decided character, is evident to reflection and observation. Apart from the teaching of Scripture, it is a lost truth that a “child is known by his doings.” “Child” means a son or daughter under parental control.

I. The actions of children become, in process of time, their own doings. Children move before they act, and they live as mere animals before they act spiritually and morally. In process of time the child acts. All its movements become conduct, the result of a determination to behave itself in a particular way.

1. An act which we are justified in describing as right or wrong, and which we can lawfully call the act of an accountable individual, must be performed by a being endowed with the following capacities: He must be able to conceive the act before its performance, mentally to see the thing done before doing it. He must be capable of appreciating motives for and against the action. He must know good and evil. He must have the power of saying, “I will,” and “I will not.” The “doings” of an individual are those acts which he rationally and intentionally performs.

2. A child, in course of a few years, exhibits the capabilities of which we speak.

3. Then it is, whether it comes early or late, that the actions of a child are his “doings.” He now performs the functions of a rational creature.

II. When the actions of children become their doings the children are recognised as accountable.

1. God recognises the child as the author of its own actions: He sees the doings of the child spring from a motive and principle within. He now holds the child guilty for its transgressions of His law. The child is now exposed to punishment; and to escape punishment, a dispensation of mercy to that individual child is necessary. God’s treatment of the child recognises the child’s doings.

2. The god of evil knows, by the doings of children, with whom and with what he has to do. He cannot, as God, search the heart, but he can observe the principles, tastes, and inclinations. He studies the child’s nature that he may know best how to injure it.

3. The angelic inhabitants of heaven recognise children in their ministrations. A child who is an heir of salvation is known to the angels--they minister to him, performing offices of kindness and services of charity, ordained by the God of love.

4. Children are recognised as accountable by their fellow human beings. Children are known to other children, and known to men.

III. From these two facts draw certain inferences.

1. The evils of sin are not escaped by the childhood of the sinner. God does not hold him guiltless because he is a child. But the Supreme Lawgiver does not account the child a man. Sin brings darkness into a child’s mind, and disquiet into a child’s heart, and gloom over a child’s spirit. There are wages paid now, and paid in the spiritual condition of the early sinner, and those wages are death.

2. As a child, he is exerting influence for good or for evil. The measure of the influence is not so considerable as in the case of the adult, but there is influence.

3. All the differences of human character are not traceable to education. Some of these differences may be thus explained, but not all, and not the greatest. The earliest doings of a child do not make manifest his education, but himself.

4. The character of the future man is often indicated by the character of the present child. If the earliest actions of children be observed, they will indicate the character which the child so constituted will form.

5. God does not treat a generation of children en masse, but individually. There is a personality about every child.

6. If a child be known by his doings, one test of character is universally employed by the Judge of all. The decisions of the final judgment are according to that a man hath done, whether good or bad. The child and the man are under one Lawgiver. (E. Martin.)

Fruit

We must be good before we can do good. What fruits will be found on that tree which God’s Holy Spirit has made a living tree?

1. There will be love to God, which will make you try to please Him, and to care for everything which belongs to your heavenly Father, His book, His house, His day.

2. There will be obedience to parents. Obedience to our parents on earth leads up naturally and pleasantly to obedience to our Father which is in heaven.

3. There will be truthfulness. Two great causes of untruthfulness are cowardice and the habit of exaggeration. Do not use overstrained expressions. Speak in a natural, straightforward, simple way.

4. There will be conscientiousness. The conscientious person will do his best, as in God’s sight. He will do his work thoroughly. He will be trustworthy. You may depend upon him. No one can be a Christian unless he is conscientious in his work, and conscientious in all his dealings with others.

5. There will be two things found in you, modesty and temperance. Would you think a pert girl or a saucy boy at all like Christ? By “temperance” I mean self-control, self-restraint. Greediness, the desire to get all you can for yourself, is the opposite of it. Temperance teaches us where to stop--shows us how to keep ourselves within bounds. All these good things are fruits of the Spirit. (G. Calthrop, M. A.)

Children may be known

A young tree is known by its first fruits, a child by his childish things.

1. Children will discover themselves. One may soon see what their temper is, and which way their inclination leads them, according as their constitution is. Children have not learned the art of dissembling and concealing their bent as grown people have.

2. Parents should observe their children, that they may discover their disposition and genius, and both manage and dispose of them accordingly, drive the nail that will go, and draw out that which goes amiss. Wisdom is herein profitable to direct. (Matthew Henry.)

The child’s fortune told

We know persons by sight, or by name, or by description. They are best known by their actions.

I. What is meant by “doings” here?

1. The tempers a child indulges in. These tempers are fretful, or patient, or selfish, or generous.

2. The ill habits he forms. Idle, or industrious, or careless, or careful, or dilatory, or prompt.

3. The company he keeps. The choice of companions is a very important thing.

II. What may be known of a child by his doings? You are making your fortunes now every day. The tempers you are indulging, the habits you are forming, and the company you are keeping are all helping to make them. How careful you should be to find out what is wrong in your tempers and habits, and pray to God to help you to correct it at once. (R. Newton, D. D.)

A child’s doings

This big world of ours is really made up of a multitude of little ones. Every living creature has a world of its own. Every child has. So he can be known by what he does.

1. We are not to be judged merely by our sayings. Many people would like to be judged that way.

2. We are not to be judged only by our appearance.

3. We can only be known by our doings. But who is it knows us thus? In this way our fellow-men know us. In this way, above all, God knows us. If we are to be doing always what we ought to do, we shall need a helper.

Christian childhood soon discovers itself

How do we know a Christian boy or girl? Why in the same way that you know a candle has been lighted--by its shining. Do you suppose that people do not know whether you love your mother or not? You need not say to them, “I am very fond of my mother”; they will find it out soon enough for themselves--by the way you speak of your mother; by the way you speak to your mother; by your obedience to her directions; by your thoughtfulness when you think you can help her; by your willingness to be in her company; by your grief when she is grieved, or in trouble or pain. Yes, in a hundred different ways people can discover your affection for your mother. So with your love and devotion to the Lord Jesus Christ. But though you need not announce to the world how good you are, the world will find out if you are good, will find out if you love Jesus Christ, when they see that you really--not in pretence, but really--like all that belongs to Him: His book, His house, His day. (G. Calthrop, M. A.)

Verse 12

Proverbs 20:12

The hearing ear, and the seeing eye, the Lord hath made even both of them.

Ears and no ears, eyes and no eyes

1. There are wise men in the world who will not admit that it was God who made the seeing eye, or the hearing ear, or anything else; who will rather assume that the ear and the eye made themselves by a gradual process of development. And you may not be able to withstand their arguments. The text may have an inexpressible value for you. If you can quote against the wise the words of a wiser, you are on firm ground. And the vast majority of the wisest and best men of every age concur with Solomon.

2. There is something in the text suitable for young children. When Solomon spoke of the hearing ear, he meant to remind us that some have ears which do not hear, and eyes that do not see. What we hear in any utterance depends on what we bring the power of hearing, just as what we see in any scene depends on what we bring the power of seeing. We are all apt to overlook that which is unknown to us. What we do not understand, or do not expect, excites no curiosity, touches no interest, rouses no attention; and hence it slips by unseen, unheard--just as the snapping of a slender twig might say nothing to us, and yet might tell a sportsman where the wild creature was which he was trying to shoot down. If God makes the hearing ear and the seeing eye, He expects us to make them too. He expects us to use and train these wonderful faculties. He rewards us in proportion as we meet, or disappoint, His expectation and our duty.

3. When the Bible speaks of deaf men who hear, and blind men who see, it almost always refers to men’s moral condition, to their attitude towards truth, righteousness, and God, as well as to the use they make of their mental faculties and capacities. It praises them for seeing and hearing as for an act of virtue and piety; it blames them for not seeing and hearing as for a sin. Knowledge without love is at once a poor and a perilous endowment. To be clever without being good, without even trying to be good, is only to deserve, and to secure, a severer condemnation. You have not even begun to be truly wise until you love and reverence God; until, from reverence and love for Him, you set yourselves to know and do that which is right, however hard it may be, and refuse to do that which is wrong, however easy and pleasant it may look. Men also prize goodness more than knowledge and cleverness, and value a kind heart more than even a full and well-trained mind. Be good, then, if you would be wise, if you would prove that you have an eye that sees and an ear to hear and obey. To be good no doubt is hard work. But that is the very reason why God asks you to trust in Him and to lean on Him. He is good, and He both can and will make you good, if you will let Him. (S. Cox, D. D.)

The hearing ear and the seeing eye

Why does Solomon say this?

I. That God should be studied in these organs.

1. In them Divine wisdom is manifest. Take--

2. In them Divine goodness is manifest.

3. In them Divine intelligence is symbolised.

II. That God should be served by these organs. The service for which God intends us to use them is to convey into our understandings His ideas, into our hearts His Spirit; translate the sensations they convey to us into Divine ideas; apply Divine ideas to the formation of our characters. God’s ideas should become at once the spring and rule of all our activities. (D. Thomas, D. D.)

The hearing ear and seeing eye

For all the faculties of a man’s body, as well as of his soul, he is entirely indebted to his great Creator. The forgetfulness of the Creator of our bodily faculties is always accompanied by a forgetfulness of our responsibility for the use of them. How far have we turned to the best account those organs of the body which are more immediately connected with the mind, with the immortal spirit, with the state and well-being of the soul? The eye and ear are inlets to the soul. Be anxious to use your faculties while they are mercifully continued. As God made and opened the natural ear for the perception of sound, so does He make and open the spiritual ear for the reception of Divine truth into the heart. The mental ear, as well as the bodily, is liable to be disordered. In a state of spiritual deafness every child of Adam was born. None of us, when we came into the world, had an ear for spiritual things. Every prayer we offer up to God for grace to bless and prosper His preached Word to our souls is an acknowledgment that the hearing ear, the willing and longing and profiting ear, is His own gracious gift. Does He open thine ear? Listen faithfully. Does He open thine eye? Drink in fully the stream of light from heaven’s eternal fountain. (J. Slade, M. A.)

Hearing and sight

Every one hears and sees all day long, so perpetually that we never think about our hearing and our sight, unless we find them fail us. And yet, how wonderful are hearing and sight. How we hear, how we see, no man knows, nor perhaps ever will know. Science can only tell us as yet what happens, what God does; but of how God does it, it can tell us little or nothing; and of why God does it, nothing at all. It is wonderful that our brains should hear through our ears, and see through our eyes; but it is more wonderful still, that they should be able to recollect what they have heard and seen. Most people think much of signs and wonders, but the commonest things are as wonderful, more wonderful, than the uncommon. It is not faith only to see God in what is strange and rare. This is faith, to see God in what is most common and simple; not so much from those strange sights in which God seems to break His laws, as from those common ones in which He fulfils His laws. It is difficult to believe that, because our souls and minds are disorderly; and therefore order does not look to us what it is, the likeness and glory of God. The greatness of God is manifest in that He has ordained laws which must work of themselves, and with which He need never interfere. The universe is continually going right, because God has given it a law which cannot be broken. (Charles Kingsley, M. A.)

Living faculties

The Lord is willing to be judged by His work. The sculptor can make an ear, the Lord makes the hearing ear. But man has lost his power to listen. The mischief is that he thinks he is listening, and is deceiving himself. Listening is the act of the soul. The Lord maketh the seeing eye. The artist has made a thousand eyes, but no seeing eye. God did not give such faculties without a purpose. The very quality and capacity of the faculty must have some suggestion. These faculties were given us for education, not for prostitution. Take care how you use the ear and the eye. Has anybody been the better for your hearing or your seeing? Where faculties are given in man or beast or bird, there is a corresponding opportunity for their exercise provided. There are internal, spiritual eyes. The non-use of faculties is a religious crime. As certainly as we have bodily faculties that have meanings, missions, and issues, as there is a balance and relationship between the bodily and the external, so we have what is called a “religious nature.” We “know the meaning of reason, we know the meaning of faith, we know the meaning of passionate and wordless yearning. What are you going to do with your religious nature? You can starve it. (J. Parker, D. D.)

Verse 14

Proverbs 20:14

It is naught, it is naught, saith the buyer: but when he is gone his way, then he boasteth.

Fraud exposed and condemned

The man who would be really religious, must be influenced by religion in every part of his conduct, and on all occasions, during the week, as well as on the Sabbath; in his intercourse with man, as well as in his approaches to God. To conduct worldly business in a perfectly fair and upright manner, in such a manner as God prescribes, is a most important and difficult part of true religion.

I. Some general rules which God has given for the direction of those who wish to know and do their duty.

1. The rule that requires us to love our neighbour as ourselves.

2. The rule which forbids us to covet any part of our neighbour’s possessions. The command is express and comprehensive. We are not forbidden to desire the property of another, on fair and equitable terms. It forbids every desire to increase our property at our neighbour’s expense.

3. We are commanded to observe in all our transactions the rules of justice, truth, and sincerity.

4. We are directed in all our transactions to remember that the eye of God is upon us.

II. Apply these rules and show what they require, what they forbid, and when they are violated.

1. What do these rules require of us as subjects or members of civil society? There is an implied contract or agreement between a government and its subjects, by which the subjects engage to give a portion of their property in exchange for the blessings of protection, social order, and security.

2. The application of these rules to the common pecuniary transactions of life. They forbid every wish, and much more every attempt, to defraud or deceive our neighbour. And this on the part of both buyer and seller. We must put ourselves in the place of our neighbour, and do as we would be done by. We are always to act as we would do if our fellow-creatures could see our hearts.

3. Apply these rules to our past conduct, that we may ascertain how far we have observed, and in what instances we have disregarded them. God takes special cognisance of the wrongs which are done by artifice, fraud, and deceit, and which human laws cannot prevent or discover. Any who have violated these rules in their pecuniary transactions are required to repent, and to bring forth fruits meet for repentance. There is no repentance, and of course no forgiveness, without restitution. How can a man repent of iniquity who still retains the wages of iniquity? And these rules must regulate our future transactions if we mean to be the real subjects of Christ. They are the laws of His kingdom, which you have covenanted to obey. (E. Payson, D. D.)

Bargain-driving

The inconsiderate thirst for cheapness is one of the social curses of our age. Here is a concise description of a bargain-driver. Say anything to depreciate the article, and get it at a lower price than is asked; then boast of your success. This may be sharp, but if it is not always sin, it is constantly on the very margin of vice. In buying cheap we may avail ourselves only of lawful advantages, and may not compass unrighteous or unfair gains. To get what a man wants, and to give as little as possible for it, need not be sinful. Lying is a sin in trade just as much as in common conversation. The inconsiderate craving for cheapness has a bad effect on the mind. It makes it grasping and selfish, greedy of its own gain, but careless of others’ well-doing. It produces, if long indulged in, a spirit of low and unworthy cunning. Observe how the influence of this thirst for cheapness spreads. I have no words to express my contempt and abhorrence for the meanness which goes into a shop with the deliberate resolve to get the articles wanted for less than the price asked. Such questions are the very essence of religion. A religion that does not touch our every-day life, our money matters, our actions in and on society, is a religion that is on the surface merely. It is the undue severance of things secular from things sacred which makes so much of men’s religion unreal, and so much of their business unrighteous, i.e., not carried out with a full sense of what is right from man to man. (J. E. Clarke, M. A.)

Chicanery

Mr. Bridges says “that Augustine mentions a somewhat ludicrous, but significant story. A mountebank published in the full theatre that in the next entertainment he would show to every man present what was in his heart. An immense concourse attended, and the man redeemed his pledge to the vast assembly by a single sentence: ‘Vili vultis emere, et caro vendere’ (’You all wish to buy cheap, and to sell dear’), a sentence generally applauded; every one, even the most trifling (as Augustine observes) finding the confirming witness in his own conscience.” There is no harm in buying in the cheapest market and selling in the dearest. In fact, this is both wise and right in the vendor. Some regard the word “buyer” here in the sense of possessor, and then the idea of the passage is changed, and it is this--that a man attaches greater value to a thing after he has lost it than before. This is a law of human nature. The lost piece of silver, the lost sheep, the lost son. But it is more like Solomon to regard the text as meaning what it says--the “buyer.” We offer two remarks upon the passage.

I. That it reveals a common commercial practice. The “buyer” depreciates the commodity in the process of purchase. He does this in order to get it at a price below its worth. And when he succeeds, and it comes legally into his possession, the value of the article is not only properly estimated, but greatly exaggerated. “He boasteth”--

1. Because his vanity has been gratified. He feels that he has done a clever thing. “He boasteth”--

2. Because his greed has been gratified.

II. That it reveals an immoral commercial practice.

1. There is falsehood.

2. There is dishonesty. (D. Thomas, D. D.)

Honest buying

It was once proposed to the Duke of Wellington to purchase a farm in the neighbourhood of Strathfieldsaye, which lay near to his estate, and was therefore valuable. The Duke assented. When the purchase was completed, his steward congratulated him upon having made such a bargain, as the seller was in difficulties, and forced to part with it. “What do you mean by a bargain?” said the Duke. The other replied, “It was valued at £1,100, and we have got it for £800.” “In that ease,” said the Duke, “you will please to carry the extra £300 to the late owner, and never talk to me of cheap land again.” (Home Words.)