"Apply thine heart unto instruction, and thine ears to the words of knowledge. Withhold not correction from the child; for if thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die. Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul from hell. My son, if thine heart be wise, my heart shall rejoice, even mine; Yea, my reins shall rejoice, when thy lips speak right things. Let not thine heart envy sinners: but be thou in the fear of the Lord all the day long. For surely there is an end; and thine expectation shall not be cut off. Hear thou, my son, and be wise, and guide thine heart in the way. Be not among winebibbers; among riotous eaters of flesh: For the drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty; and drowsiness shall clothe a man with rags. Hearken unto thy father that begat thee, and despise not thy mother when she is old. Buy the truth, and sell it not; also wisdom, and instruction, and understanding."
The exhortation in the first of these verses, of which we have had the spirit and substance, though not the identical terms, frequently before us, is one that can never be too often repeated, or too urgently enforced. The words might be adopted by the teachers of all departments of useful knowledge, as their counsel to their pupils; and such an enlarged application of the words we can have no objection. But oh! my friends, and my young friends especially, we do feel that the admonition or the entreaty, has a peculiar appropriateness in the lips of those whose province it is to communicate divine knowledge,-the knowledge which God has been pleased to lay up in store by the inspiration of his Holy Spirit in this blessed Volume. Of its precious contents all of us have still much to learn. By whom have they ever been exhausted? The counsel, therefore, is in all cases, appropriate. The oldest, the most experienced, and the best informed Christian may take it, as well as the youngest beginner in the study of sacred science.
Verses Pro_23:13-14. "Withhold not correction from the child; for if thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die. Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul from hell." "We quoted these verses, in connexion with others on the same subject, formerly: and we entered then, pretty much at large, into what may be called the theory and practice of early discipline; of which, therefore, we do not now resume the discussion. I only entreat parents to mark, and to bear in mind affectionately and steadily, the end to be kept in view. It is to save from "the second death"-even "from hell." Of all parental instruction, admonition, restraint, correction, example, and prayer, this is the great aim. How unutterably precious to the heart of every truly Christian parent! O the anguish of the thought of a child, the object of the heart's fondest love, dying that death, sinking into the pit of woe! That parent deserves not the name of Christian, who would not cheerfully lay down his own life, to save his child from such a doom. O! it was not the mere temporal death of Absalom, that wrung with agony the spirit of David, when, on hearing the tidings, he "went up to the chamber over the gate of his palace, and as he went, wept, and said-O Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son!" It was not the thought merely of the darts with which the heart of that son had been transfixed, that pierced his own with grief so acute and overwhelming. It was the thought of his having died in rebellion against his father and against his God. This was the barbed and envenomed arrow, of which "the poison drank up his spirit."-And there is every reason to fear that a false tenderness, and an inexcusable laxity of parental discipline, had contributed to the profligate character and the fatal end of Absalom.
Let parents be further again reminded, that the conduciveness of correction to the end mentioned depends, to a very great extent, upon the manner of it. The why,-the when,-the what,-and the how? are all most important questions, each requiring to be seriously pondered in this department of parental duty. "Beating with the rod" may be so applied as to beat folly into the child instead of out of him. Too often have parents whipped their children with indiscriminate harshness, with the tear of anger and not of love. They have measured the chastisement by the mischief done, rather than by the evil disposition displayed. They have made religious duties a task, and exacted their performance on pain of the lash, and visited their neglect with the rigour of corporeal discipline. They have conducted the entire process of educational training on a system of scolding, and driving, and coercion, and flogging. They have thus produced sullenness and disgust; secret and smothered irritation; aversion to all that bears the name or aspect of religion; duplicity and cunning; a longing for freedom,-for the hour of release from such restraint, and of becoming their own masters; and, when that hour arrives, unbridled licentiousness.
Verses Pro_23:15-16. "My son, if thine heart be wise, my heart shall rejoice, even mine. Yea, my reins shall rejoice, when thy lips speak right things." What is the wisdom that is meant? The same which the writer so often describes*-the wisdom of spiritual principle,-the wisdom of the fear and love and service of God,-the wisdom that chooses what is best and most lasting as its portion,-that aims at the very highest attainments of which created natures are capable, likeness to God as its character, and the enjoyment of God as the All of its happiness. It is this wisdom that is the spring of the intensity of joy, that is evidently implied in the emphatic repetition of the terms of delight thrice in these verses. This-Oh! this is what parents who themselves fear God should desire most earnestly to see in their rising offspring. This should most of all gladden their spirits. Their souls should thrill with joy-joy the purest, the most exquisite, as they discover the opening indication of right principle in the mind and heart-"when the lips speak right things"-when there is the language of truth, unvarying, undissembling truth; of reverence for God and divine things; of gentleness, and kindness, and obedience, and sensibility to reproof, and apprehension of evil,-all manifesting an inward and vital change.
* See Pro_1:7; Pro_2:1-5; Pro_9:10.
But here I must address to parents a word of caution. They are exposed to the danger of one or other of two extremes:-
1. The first is that of expecting too much in children:-more than, from the nature of the case, we are at all warranted to expect. An extreme it assuredly is to leave out of account the natural buoyancy and glee and frivolity and fickle mutability of childhood, and, at that early period, to look for the consistency, gravity, and stayedness of advanced life. To this extreme those are specially more prone, whose minds have in them a tendency to the gloomy and morose. Persons of this mental cast are ready to construe all the harmless merriment and sprightly playfulness and light-heartedness and fun of children, and all their trifling, nonsensical talk, into sad indications of the want of grace and of the fear of God. This is expecting children to be men; ay, and something more. I would say to parents, If you wish to gain the ear and the interest of your children to your graver instructions and counsels at graver seasons, you must win their affections by entering kindly and cheerily into their innocent pastimes. Be merry with them if you wish them to be grave with you.
2. Then, there is the other extreme of being satisfied with too little. This is sadly common,-especially with parents of an easy, credulous, unsuspicious temperament. They are prone to flatter themselves that all is well,-to be easily pleased with their children, and thus to make their children (for in this lies the danger) too easily pleased with themselves. They are too prone to treat as levities what ought to be treated as sins, and to be content with symptoms of goodness that are at best equivocal and precarious. While I would warn parents against being too easily or hastily satisfied with the symptoms of early piety, and against allowing themselves to be deceived, by confounding the imitative, merely, or the effect of the wish to please, with the real operation of the germinant principles of godliness in the heart, yet would I not be understood as speaking the language of discouragement. Most delightful, indeed, it is to mark the effects, in the progress of early instruction,-the listening ear,-the moist and melting eye,-the tender conscience,-the fondness for the Bible,-the disposition to prayer, though in "the simplest form of speech that infant lips can try,"-the sensitive regard to truth, and all the indications of a filially affectionate and obedient heart.
3. I call on all the young now hearing me to mark the expressions in these verses. They are evidently intended to operate as a motive. If not, what is their meaning? They are an appeal-pointed and touching-to filial affection:-"My son, if thou be wise, my heart shall rejoice, even mine." The latter words have been rendered-"yes, I myself"-the father, the mother, whom you love, and who, you know, so tenderly loves you. Would you make glad the hearts of these your parents-dearest to you of all on earth?-then yield to the admonition, "Apply thine heart unto instruction, and thine ears to the words of knowledge." Not, as I have before said, that this is to be your only, or oven your chief motive. Imagine not that I am exhorting you to piety, merely to please your parents. In that case, there would be no fear of God in the matter. It would be fear and love "in word," not "in deed and in truth." It would be profession without principle; the most worthless of all things. The authority of the blessed God himself must be your supreme consideration,-associated with regard such as He enjoins, to your best and highest, your everlasting interests. But with these, in all propriety, may be associated also the consideration of the delight it will afford to the hearts of your parents. I would not have you depart, in one iota, from principle-from what the word of God tells you is right, to please even the dearest of parents; for God's claims, both on the ground of authority and love, are first. But when the thing itself is right-divinely right-then there can be no harm surely in your having a respect, in doing it, to the gratification and happiness of those whom, next to God, it is incumbent upon you to honour and to love.
We may take in, in this connexion, verses Pro_23:24-25:-"The father of the righteous shall greatly rejoice; and he that begetteth a wise child shall have joy of him. Thy father and thy mother shall be glad, and she that bare thee shall rejoice." In the verses on which we have been commenting, Solomon,-whether or not with his own son Rehoboam in his mind we cannot determine,-speaks in the character of a father. Thus at least I have understood him, although it is possible that he may use the compilation "My son" as one of fatherly affection to youth in general, in the same way in which similar designations are used by inspired apostles in the New Testament. The strength of the language, however, corresponds so much with that in other passages, that I cannot but think the light in which we have taken them up the more natural one. In these two verses, the united joy of both parents,-their sympathy of fervent delight-in witnessing the piety and virtue of their children,-dear to them as their very heart's blood, nay as their own souls,-is expressed with emphatic tenderness and force. And observe the peculiar stress that is laid on the mother's affection:-"Thy father and thy mother shall be glad, and she that bare thee shall rejoice." I believe there are not, in the whole compass of animated nature, feelings of more exquisite tenderness, than those of a mother of sensibility, whose instinctive love is heightened and hallowed by piety.-"A woman when she is in travail hath sorrow, because her hour is come: but as soon as she is delivered of the child, she remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world," Joh_16:21. This is the first joy of a mother;-a joy which, when the conjugal bond has been one of true affection, is intensely shared by him who is the partner of every throb of delight or of sorrow that visits her heart. But besides this first joy we have here before us another,-a purer, a higher, a nobler, a more lasting. The former is the joy of nature; this, the joy of grace;-the former, the joy that "a man-child is born into the world," the heir of a fleeting and precarious life; the latter, that an immortal has become a child of God's spiritual family, and an heir of life eternal. This, then, my youthful hearers, is a very tender appeal,-well fitted to touch and move the heart of every right-minded and affectionate son or daughter:-"she that bare thee shall rejoice." O! did you but know all that she has felt and suffered for you,-her anxieties, her alarms, her watchings, her tears, her prayers-it would "pierce you through with many sorrows" to be the occasion of sending a single pang to her bosom. That youth is ominously hardened,-is fit for any of the dark deeds of hell,-whose heart does not soften towards the mother that bare him! I hardly can fancy any other description of right feeling remaining in that breast. Every warm drop of generous sensibility must have been wrung out from the heart, ere it parted with its sense of a mother's love,-ere those earliest and tenderest meltings of nature ceased to be felt!
And what is the special joy of which Solomon speaks? It is the joy of parents who, having been the instruments of giving you being, yearn for the happiness of the being they have given. They have learned to view your existence, as well as their own, in its eternity. They have given commencement to an existence that is never to close,-to the existence of an accountable agent, whose unending state is to be bliss or woe! Can you wonder at their solicitude? or can you wonder at the joy, when they see the germs of eternal goodness and eternal blessedness putting themselves forth, even in their most incipient promise, in your hearts and characters? O! this is joy indeed! If the child lives, it is joy in his life; for he will live unto God. If the child dies, and dies before his parents, it is joy in his death, as he leaves behind him grounds of assurance that he is gone to live unto God in a higher, a holier, and a happier world. And if they die before the child, it is joy in their own departure, as they leave him in the cheering hope of his following them to glory. It is joy at the tribunal of Christ in the great day, to have their child with them on the right hand of the Judge, and. included with them in the gracious welcome-"Come, ye blessed!" and it is joy in heaven for ever, in the joint participation of its pure and perfect felicity! O what a joy, here and hereafter,-on earth and in heaven,-when parents and children, united by the ties of nature, are, at the same time, all one in the bond of grace,-one with Christ, and one in Christ,-and thus, having enjoyed the happiness of this double union in the present world, meet in the world to come-
"And form a family anew,
Unbroken in the skies!"
Mark the striking antithesis in next verse, where the address is still to youth:-"Be not envious of sinners; but be thou in the fear of the Lord all the day long." Such envy produces the danger of casting off the fear of God. But cultivate this fear. Cleave, with increasing firmness and constancy, to God and to his ways; and by and by, sinners will envy you:-"For (Pro_23:18) surely there is an end; and thine expectation shall not be cut off." Here, I apprehend, is a twofold consideration enforcing the counsel. The words refer at once to the end of the sinner, and to the fulfilment of the hope of the righteous. Ah! my youthful hearers, the prosperity of sinners, by which you are so prone to be deceived, is a delusive prosperity, seducing them from God, and luring them to eternal death. "Their end is destruction." But, of those who are "in the fear of the Lord the expectation shall not be cut off." No. It shall be realized and satisfied to the full-satisfied in the enjoyment of perfect, unchanging, endless bliss.
We shall dwell but briefly on the verses which follow:-verses Pro_23:19-22. "Hear thou, my son, and be wise, and guide thine heart in the way. Be not among winebibbers; among riotous eaters of flesh: for the drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty; and drowsiness shall clothe a man with rags. Hearken unto thy father that begat thee, and despise not thy mother when she is old."-"The way" in which Solomon, in the first of these verses, enjoins the young to "guide their hearts"-is clearly "the way of God's commandments"-the way of believing and holy obedience. And the counsel can only be complied with by your taking God"s Word as your directory for the way, and seeking God's promised Spirit to make the way, by means of it, plain before your face; to save you from all biassing and seducing influences, and incline your heart steadily to follow it.
The warning against gluttony and drunkenness-against the sensual indulgences of the table-is enforced by motives taken from the effects of such a course. "Be not amongst them"-that is, be not one of them: be not thyself a glutton or a drunkard;-thus degrading thyself below the beasts; contracting guilt before God; searing thy conscience; deadening thy heart to every good impression; preparing thyself for every other description of wickedness, and for temporal and eternal ruin. The three things in the 21st verse (Pro_23:21) are often united in the same character. Indolence frequently leads to gross indulgences; and it is ever confirmed and increased by them,-the habits grow together; and what good can be looked for to the person or the family of the lazy beastly sot?-the lowest, the most contemptible, and the most loathsome of all characters; whose time is divided between eating and drinking and sleeping, except the remnant that is given to debauchery and wickedness of other kinds. Shun, then, their company-for two reasons;-lest you learn their ways, and lest you share their doom.
The next verse is a repetition of the counsel in previous verses-but with an addition. The addition is-"despise not thy mother when she is old." There is a connexion to be noticed, of this verse with the two preceding. The youth who frequents such company as they describe, will find much said, of which the object is, to coax him to go to excess. Among other things, he will hear not a little of the unreasonableness of parents in not making allowance for the young,-in tying down youth to the maxims and the precision of age. What harm in a little joviality?-it is natural to youth; why not indulge it? And if his father or his mother be "old" he may hear hints, perhaps, with a shrug of the shoulders, and a sly look to those about him, of the good old gentleman, or the good old lady, that is beginning to get into dotage, and has forgotten what it is to be young. Now, mark me:-the youth who allows himself for once and for one moment to listen to such reflections, has already begun to violate the command here given.
Respect was enjoined by the law to old age.* What peculiar respect then, must be due to the silver locks of a father or a mother!-How incumbent the duty to smoothe, by every affectionate and reverential attention and kindness, the declining path to the tomb of those who have been the guardians of your childhood and youth!-to strive to make them happy, instead of breaking their hearts by neglect and misconduct! Fearful was the retribution of the stubborn and rebellious son, under the law:-"If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother, and that, when they have chastened him, will not hearken unto them: then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the elders of his city, and unto the gate of his place; and they shall say unto the elders of his city, This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton, and a drunkard. And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die: so shalt thou put evil away from among you; and all Israel shall hear, and fear," Deu_21:18-21. This law is passed away. But it indicated the mind of God. And the rebellious son is still as of old, the object of His condemnation, and will be visited with His vengeance.
* Lev_19:32.
Verse Pro_23:23. "Buy the truth, and sell it not; also wisdom, and instruction, and understanding." The allusion is to the merchandise of the world;-the buying and selling of its commodities. In such merchandise, benefit is expected from both. A merchant buys, for the very purpose of selling; and he will not buy, unless he has a pretty good assurance that he can sell at a profit; that he can get for his article more than he has given. The case here, then, is quite a peculiar one. It is all buying. The article is one which is to be bought, but never sold. And why? For the best possible reason,-that it never can be sold at a profit, there is nothing too valuable to be given for it, there is nothing valuable enough to be taken for it. Get for it whatever else we may, the bargain will be a losing one.
The latter clause of the verse may be considered as comprehended in the former; for to secure "the truth" is to secure "wisdom, instruction, and understanding;" and of wisdom and understanding the highest proof is the securing of "the truth." In further illustration then of the words "Buy the truth, and sell it not, observe:-
1. The buyer tests his article. He uses means to ascertain its genuineness. Suppose it is an article whose component parts are "gold and silver, precious stones, and pearls." Such to the eye it appears. Such, by him who offers it for sale, it is declared to be. But the cautious purchaser will make sure of his bargain; and all the surer, the higher the price. He will assay the purity of the gold and silver; and chemically ascertain that the precious stones and the pearls are not factitious imitations.
Now, all that is presented to us as truth, must thus be tested. It must be proved to be what it professes to be. In physical science, scientific men will not take upon trust what professes to be a new discovery-especially if it happens to be at variance with previous theories,-without examining thoroughly the experiments by which it is said to have been ascertained, and trying, by counter-experiments, to determine whether there has been any slip or mistake in the processes, and any consequent fallacy in the conclusion. Thus too does the metaphysician in regard to every new theory in mental science; and the moral philosopher in the department of ethics. Everything in the various provinces of inquiry is examined by evidence according with its nature. The one question is-Is it truth? Truth alone is valuable; alone worthy to be received and held.
Now, we are as far as possible from wishing it to be otherwise in the department of religion. In proportion to the importance of the case,-to the height of the authority on which the claims to acceptance are rested,-the magnitude at once of the benefits promised, and of the risks incurred,-ought to be the solicitude and care with which the testing process is conducted. This then is the last department of all, in which what professes to be truth should be taken upon trust; in which inquiry should be careless, and faith easy. The obligation to examine is imperative and solemn; and marvellous, indeed, is the indisposition of men to enter on the investigation. Men who, with the utmost earnestness and perseverance, will test every alleged truth in science, in history, or in politics, cannot be persuaded to apply their powers to an inquiry more important, by infinite degrees, than any other that can engage the attention of the human mind! They either decline it altogether, or they set about it with a levity and a superficiality utterly at variance with what such a question demands, and from which no just appreciation or correct conclusion can be anticipated.
2. It is not enough for the buyer to ascertain the genuineness of his article. He sets about estimating its real worth; its worth intrinsically, and its worth adventitiously; its worth in itself, and its worth to him. The two may be widely different. The diamond is of incomparably more intrinsic worth than the grain of barley; but the cock in the fable spurned away the former and picked up the latter. In the present case,-having once ascertained the divine authority of the record,-there can be no hesitation about either the intrinsic or the relative value of what it makes known. All truth is precious; but its preciousness is, of course, endlessly varied in degree. Two things may be considered as combining to constitute its value. These are-its subject, and its utility. In natural science some truths present a union of both. The discoveries of astronomy, for example, are, many of them, full of intrinsic interest from their vastness and sublimity, and the impressions they give of the transcendent majesty of God; while, in some of their practical bearings, they are of pre-eminent advantage to men. But in a peculiar sense may this be affirmed of the discoveries of divine revelation. These discoveries present views of God's moral government, in its great essential principles and in their practical application, such as have in them a weight of moral grandeur, and a consequent depth of absorbing interest surpassing all that nature can disclose. And, while they possess intrinsic preciousness above all other truths,-think of their value when estimated by the blessings which are unfolded in them, and to which the faith of them introduces the believer, in time and in eternity! The purchaser values the article he is about to purchase, by the amount of benefit the possession of it will bring him. In like manner must you estimate the value of "the truth" you are here counselled to buy. The value of it, in this view, is summed up by our Lord himself, when he says-"THIS IS LIFE ETERNAL." What then, the real worth to you, of any other compared with this?
3. The buyer, when he has estimated the value of his article, makes proportional sacrifices to obtain possession of it. Foolish estimates there may be; and these foolish estimates may be the occasion of foolish bargains; and these may be the grounds of regret and self-dissatisfaction. But supposing the certainty of all the benefits, for time and eternity, which in the Bible are promised and guaranteed in connection with "the truth." O! what is there, in the whole compass of what this world can confer, that should not, without one moment's hesitation, be sacrificed for its attainment?
The language, observe, does not refer to any compensation to the Author of "the truth,"-anything to be given by which we can ever make it ours by purchase-ours as a matter of right or desert.*1 But there are some things which stand in competition with it. These must be parted with if it is to be ours; and these, whatever they may be, are what Solomon had in his eye, and what our Lord had in His, when the one directly, and the other virtually, counsels the sacrifice of them all for the sake of it.-By the "pearl of great price," and by the "treasure hid in the field," our Lord meant the blessings of the gospel,-"the unsearchable riches of Christ;" and all these are comprehended in "the truth" here spoken of. And in His parables, there is a manifest reference to the circumstances in which many of those who embraced the principles of His kingdom,-who believed and professed "the truth," would be placed,-the sacrifices they might be called to make, on account of those principles. Often does He forewarn his disciples of this; and tells them faithfully the necessity of preferring their principles, and parting with every thing for them,-and for the blessings of course associated with them; believing that at every kind and amount of sacrifice, they should be gainers.*2 He holds out encouraging assurances to them of what would be infinitely more than a compensation for any such sacrifices.*3 In all cases the bargain is one of gain,-gain unspeakable.
*1 See Isa_55:1; Rom_6:23; Rev_22:17. rr
*2 See Luk_14:33. rr
*3 Mat_16:24-27; Mat_19:27-29. rr
4. In proportion to the buyer's estimate of his article, and the cost at which he has obtained it, will be the jealousy with which he retains and guards it. "Sell it not." Selling the truth, is not simply letting slip from the mind the remembrance or the knowledge of mere abstractions; it is to give up the profession and faith of it for the sake of the very things which we sacrificed for it.-But "sell it not." Sell it not for the pleasures of sin. Sell it not for the riches and the honours of the world. O part not with "the pearl of great price" for the husks which the swine do eat. And sell it not for any other description of knowledge. Sell not the most valuable of all knowledge, for that which, how legitimate and attractive soever, can never compensate for the loss of the other, or ever supply its room. Let no book usurp the place of your Bible. The more you know of "the truth" revealed in it; the more richly "the word of Christ dwells in you;" the more you have experimentally tasted its sweetness and felt its blessed and holy power upon your hearts,-the more unwilling you will be to part with it; the more tasteless in comparison will every other kind of reading and knowledge become to you; and, were a library of all the world's literature and science, in all their departments, put in your offer for YOUR BIBLE, you would bind the sacred treasure to your hearts, and reject the offer, saying, as you clasped it to your bosom, with tears of gratitude-"THIS IS LIFE ETERNAL."
Get THE TRUTH, then, at any price; part with it at no price. And, be prompt with your bargain. Those who are much set upon an article, will not delay their purchase, lest perchance it should pass from their hands. Blessed be God! there is no danger here, so far as others coming forward before you is concerned. The store of divine truth and divine blessing is never reduced by the number of purchasers. One buying-thousands buying-will not leave the less for you, or at all interfere with your obtaining, whensoever you make up your mind. But if not now prompt and decided, you may be thwarted in another way. There is one who may ere you are aware, decide the matter for you, by putting the acquisition for ever out of your power. Death may lay his sudden arrest upon you. And if The Truth is not then yours; if its blessings and its hopes are not then yours,-woe unto you! You gain the world, you LOSE YOUR SOUL; and in the bitterness of hopeless despair will deplore your bargain through eternity.
