"As the fining-pot for silver, and the furnace for gold; so is a man to his praise. Though thou shouldest bray a fool in a mortar among wheat with a pestle, yet will not his foolishness depart from him. Be thou diligent to know the state of thy flocks, and look well to thy herds: for riches are not for ever; and doth the crown endure to every generation? The hay appeareth, and the tender grass sheweth itself, and herbs of the mountains are gathered; the lambs are for thy clothing, and the goats are the price of the field. And thou shalt have goats' milk enough for thy food, for the food of thy household, and for the maintenance for thy maidens."
The ordinary interpretation of the words in the first of these verses makes the praise try the man. But the words in our translation, and in the original. make the man try the praise:-and this appears to be the correct interpretation. Of the comparison two views may be taken:-
1. It may express what every man, with reference to the praise bestowed upon him, ought to do:-that is, he ought to do with it what the "fining pot" does to the "silver," and the "furnace to the gold." He should try it well. There is a deal of dross frequently in it; and men are apt to be fonder of the dross, in some of its appearances, than of the sterling metal. Let the following rules, then, be attended to:-First, reject as dross all flattery: it is worthless: it springs from false and selfish motives.-Further, use the "fining-pot" for all praise that is bestowed by persons who are in the habit of talking extravagantly, of using complimentary words without being very nice or considerate in weighing their amount of meaning. If you don't, you are sure to take them at a great deal more than they are worth.-Again, be very cautious in receiving without abatement all that is dictated by the known partiality of friendship. It may all be sincere, and all well meant, but it requires refining. It will not all pass with others, though the partial friend thinks it genuine.-Reject, too, entirely and at once, all commendation that is bestowed for qualities or for actions that conscience tells you have not the clear sanction of the word of God, how much soever they may be admired in the world. When this is tried in the crucible of truth and rectitude, it turns out all dross. None of it-no, not an atom, should be received and kept; all should be thrown away.-Finally, be jealous of those particular descriptions of commendation for which you are conscious of a special liking, and which are most apt to puff you up with undue self-elation, and to make you "think of yourself more highly than you ought to think." There ought to be the most careful scrutiny here-a sensitive apprehension of receiving more than enough,-of allowing that to pass for gold which has the glitter and the colour of it merely, without the solid value. The process of refining should in this case be very cautiously pursued: just as a chemist, if anxious for the correct result of an experiment with the crucible, will be the more careful in making it, in proportion as he is conscious of any leaning towards a particular theory,-lest this should bias his mind and put him off his guard.
2. "A man is to his praise what the fining-pot is to silver, and the furnace is to gold," because a man's conduct actually does put to the test the commendation bestowed upon him. That conduct is like "the fining-pot" and "the furnace" to it, in regard to the estimate formed of it by others. His behaviour detects whether it be or be not just and merited. Commendation naturally excites notice. All eyes are on the man who elicits applause, to ascertain if the applause be well founded. In this way the commendation is put to the test; and the man himself is the tester;-proving or disproving the justice of the character given him.
The principle here, you will at once perceive, is applicable to the character of societies as well as of individuals,-of families, of communities, of churches. Suppose a family has got high commendation bestowed upon it by one who professes to know it from long-continued intimacy, for mutual domestic affection, concord, sympathy, and practical kindness amongst its members,-anything of an opposite nature discovered among them, tests the praise, brings out the refuse, and operates as a deduction from the character, showing the eulogy not to be all genuine, but to have had in it so much at least of alloy-of baser material. So, when a church has been praised for purity, for love, for liberality, that church becomes its own "fining-pot." It must act up to the character, if it would prove the commendation deserved. And so as to communities, when they have been commended for education, for morality, for religion. Scotland has had a high character for these,-much higher, it is to be feared, than now at least is merited. A stranger comes. He has great expectations. But he begins to find a much larger number than he anticipated uneducated, and without the morality and the religion for which the community had been so eulogized;-much of vice and crime; much of worldliness, and of the form of godliness without the power:-what he actually witnesses will operate upon the praise as "the fining-pot" does upon the silver. The actual character tries the reported character.
The twofold lesson, then, is-that we be self-jealous and humble in testing all commendation bestowed upon us to our face: and that we strive to maintain such a character as will prove the truth of what is bestowed upon us to others. They are both important lessons. Yet there is another still with which they ought to be associated. We should ever remember that there is a still higher test of commendation and of character than either our own judgment of ourselves or that of our fellowmen concerning us. Paul felt the necessity of bearing this in mind, when he said respecting the opposite of commendation-the false insinuations and charges of his enemies-"I am conscious to myself of nothing; yet am I not hereby justified; but He that judgeth me is the Lord." The same principle applies equally to praise. There is a tribunal even above conscience itself, which is liable, as Paul had before experienced, to various biassing and perverting influences;-so, that while amid the applause of our fellow-men, we may be "conscious to ourselves" of no flattery, of no undue partiality or extravagance in their praise,-and fancy it all no more than really belongs to us,-we do well to remember, that "he that judgeth us is the Lord."-O what is to become of the man, who receives the praise of his fellows, and is encouraged by it to flatter himself that he stands well with God,-when, upon his character being subjected to "the lining pot" of the divine law, and to "the furnace" of the divine omniscience, it all comes out as dross, mere worthless dross-the praise found to be "of men but not of God?"
Verse Pro_27:22. "Though thou shouldest bray a fool in a mortar among wheat with a pestle, yet will not his foolishness depart from him."-To analyse this figure would be to render ludicrous what is most significant and impressive. It is a strong proverbial expression for what is superlatively difficult or impossible. You may separate the straw and the chaff by thrashing,-you may take off the husk by rubbing and trituration,-you may turn the grain to meal or flour by grinding,-but to drive folly from the human heart, is more than man can do.
By the fool here might with truth be understood the weak and senseless man,-of little mind, and at the same time (as not seldom happens), of no little self-conceit; who is ever obstinate and headstrong,-tenacious of his own opinions and his own ways; ever saying and doing absurd and preposterous things, and still stoutly and with mulish stubbornness maintaining their propriety, to the annoyance and vexation of all about him or connected with him; and whom no instructions, no expostulations, no reproofs, and no fatal consequences of his errors, how much soever experienced by both himself and others, will mend. His folly is engrained; and the very next thing he does will be as absurd and preposterous as before. But here, as in most other places in this book, the "fool" is the unprincipled man. And the sentiment is, that the native corruption of the human heart, especially when it has acquired the additional force of habit, is such that no mere means whatever, applied with even the largest amount of persevering diligence, will effectually overcome and remove it. And though means of all descriptions may be included, those most naturally suggested by the figure are correction and suffering. The meaning will then be,-that no parental admonitions and chastisements,-no pains and penalties of human infliction,-no divine judgments,-will radically and permanently change the heart. Its corruption is not like a husk, which envelopes the grain, and does not enter into its substance, and which an external application of a little skilful force will remove. The corruption is in the heart itself-penetrates and pervades its entire substance, even to the very core, and vitiates all that proceeds from it.
Mistake not. There is no assertion made at variance with the universally admitted tendency of means, and the duty and necessity of using them. But the power of "the old man" is too strong for them, and successfully resists them all. Temporary impressions may be made,-such as appear promising; and external and partial reformations may manifest themselves. Thus it was with Herod under the faithful ministry of the Baptist. He "feared John, because he was a just man and holy; and when he heard him he did many things, and heard him gladly." Yet he set at nought and insulted Him of whom John testified-" He that cometh after me is mightier than I; the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to stoop down and unloose;" and he lived and died in impenitence and wickedness. Where the impression and the reformation are the effects of the operation of means alone, working on the natural principles of reason and conscience, they will, in like manner, prove superficial and evanescent:-
"Can aught beneath a power divine
The stubborn will subdue?
'Tis thine, Eternal Spirit, thine
To form the heart anew."
The sentiment here so strongly expressed, and in such harmony with other statements of Scripture, should he seriously weighed by those who entertain the idea that the punishments of a future world are to operate correctively, and to work an ultimate reformation upon the offenders who, having died impenitent, are their unhappy subjects. Suffering may and must produce regret-bitter, agonizing regret: and this, indeed, is an ingredient in the suffering,-the agony of regret, when known and felt to be too late and to be of no avail. But suffering can never subdue enmity,-can never generate love. Regret is not repentance. It cannot turn the heart to God. It will rather turn it against Him, embittering the virulence of its hatred and its tormenting but impotent vindictiveness.
The Spirit of God, it is true, can and does make use of judicial inflictions in this life, amongst the means of awakening, convicting, and converting sinners. But of themselves they will never work the change. It is not till God himself touches the heart that Ephraim is heard thus to bemoan himself-"Thou hast chastised me, and I was chastised, as a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke: turn thou me, and I shall be turned; for thou art the Lord my God. Surely after that I was turned, I repented; and after that I was instructed, I smote upon my thigh: I was ashamed, yea, even confounded, because I did bear the reproach of my youth," Jer_31:18-19. And beyond the present world, the divine influence by which true penitence is produced, and the heart changed from enmity to love, does not extend. Hell will make no penitents--no converts. "He that is unjust shall be unjust still; and he that is filthy shall be filthy still."
The verses which follow to the close of the chapter relate evidently to one subject. There are two different views taken of them.
1. By some the verses have been considered as the wise man's recommendation of the simplicity, the comforts, the general enjoyment and happiness of a country life,-a life of rural retirement, and labour, and competency; and as designed for the purpose of repressing, in the bosom of the man of privacy and rustic seclusion, the rising envy of the wealth and the honours of a city life,-or a life of greater eclat and publicity:-the natural effect of such envy being indolence and inaction, arising from dissatisfaction with the occupations of his own sphere.
According to this interpretation, the "riches which are not for ever," and "the crown"-or honours of this world-that "endure not to all generations," must be understood of the riches and the honours by which envious desires have been engendered. These riches and honours are proverbially insecure.* Royal dignity itself may soon pass from one to another. Even "the crown" sits not firm upon any brow. Instead, therefore, of repining in envious dissatisfaction-apply thyself, says the wise man, assiduously and cheerfully, to thy rural occupations. "Be thou diligent to know the state of thy flocks, and look well to thy herds."
* Pro_23:5.
The further motive to this course is-the personal and social comfort which such a life was fitted to yield. Here is a picturesque exhibition, as such commentators understand the passage, of the attractions of a rural life.
i. We have, in the first place, the cheerful loveliness of nature, rising before the eye, in all its freshness, luxuriance, and beauty: "The hay appeareth, and the tender grass showeth itself, and herbs of the mountains are gathered." There is something in the scene itself that is interesting and attractive to a mind of which the natural tastes have not been perverted, independently of all idea of profit and personal advantage. How charming is the green and glittering freshness of a dewy summer morning,-when every blade of grass is decked with diamonds, sparkling in the light of the rising sun,-when the mower plies his task, and the fragrance of the new-mown hay scents the air; and the cornfields wave in promise of the coming autumn, and the hills are clothed with their appropriate trees, and shrubs and herbage! How preferable such a scene to the dingy smoke and manifold pollutions of the crowded city! Custom and habit, it is true, and diverse associations of ideas, both form and change men's tastes. But surely nature is on the side of the country:-
"God made the country, and man made the town."
ii. We have here too before us, in association although not in expression, the simplicity and comparative harndess innocence of rural life. I speak only comparatively:-and comparatively, it must, I think, be admitted. Great towns necessarily become scenes of concentrated profligacy, of mental contamination and progress in vice. Many a youth that comes from the country, with all the simplicity and unsuspiciousness of rural habits, is ruined by this fatal contagion, for which his experience has not prepared him, when he enters on a town life. As evil is much more readily and effectually learned than good, wherever there is the crowding and intermixture of a dense population, there will be the rapid spread of its infection,-there will be the accumulation of immorality. We must, however, be on our guard against sentimentalism and romance. Some appear almost to forget that the corruption of our nature extends to the country at all. But the country alas!-and that even in its most retired seclusiveness, has its irreligion and ungodliness, its vices, its sins and crimes, as well as the city;-the glories and the beauties of nature too frequently presenting a mournful contrast to the moral and spiritual desolation and deformity prevalent among the inhabitants who live in the midst of them. God makes himself known in all around; yet even in the midst of all the manifestations of Him that are fitted to elevate the soul to the adoration of His perfections, He is by multitudes forgotten and disregarded. But we speak now of what the country is in its native tendencies, not of what man is in his compliance with or resistance of those tendencies.
iii. We have next the profit and comfort which are the fruit of rural occupations, when attended to with diligent and patient industry: "The lambs are for thy clothing, and the goats are the price of the field. And thou shalt have goats milk enough for thy food, for the food of thy household, and for the maintenance of thy maidens." The fleece of the lambs, when they come to maturity, furnishes the means of comfortable clothing and protection from the cold:-the goats assist in producing payment for the rent of the laud,-or in yielding interest and profit upon "the price" of it, and the outlay upon it;-and the family is maintained and served, with decency and comfort, in the homely and simple, but wholesome and happy style of rural economy:-not the less happy for being free of the luxury which advancing prosperity and the emulation of refinement and show arising from it, ever introduce into great towns and cities.-The farmer, then,-even with all his cares and solicitudes, and all his peculiar difficulties and trials, need not envy the city merchant, even in his highest prosperity and honour.-
2. It is quite as likely, if not more so, that Solomon here, under one description of earthly property,-intends to include all,-and while inculcating duty, to recommend mindfulness of the uncertainty of the possessions of this world in general, and the moderation of desire and pursuit of them which that should produce. In this view, we have-
i. The duty of industry and diligent application to our temporal affairs: "Be thou diligent to know the state of thy flocks, and look well to thy herds." The duty is very frequently enjoined in this Book, and throughout the Bible. Neither in rural nor in city occupations, are men to expect success without the prudent and active employment of means. And the duty is enjoined on the people of God as well as others. Nowhere does He teach them to beware of having any thing more to do with secular business,-to be entirely absorbed in their spiritual concerns, and leave the world to shift as it may-the men of the world to mind the world's affairs. No. It is theirs to set an example of industry with moderation, of active application without undue solicitude, and without undue regret in case the industry should fail of success; of the compatibility of "diligence" in worldly matters with true spirituality of mind,-of doing earthly work with having "the heart in heaven,"-of being "not slothful in business," whilst "fervent in spirit, serving the Lord." Then we have-
ii. The precariousness and transitory character of all that pertains to time and the world, is adduced as a motive to the diligence enjoined. "For riches are not for ever: and doth the crown endure to every generation?" The riches and honours of this world are not acquired in perpetuity,-no, not even with the security of a day. It is necessary to look well after them, to give diligence to keep as well as to get, inasmuch as, even with all attention and care, "riches make themselves wings and fly away." With it they may; and without it they must. And the time being not only uncertain, but short at the longest, it is the dictate of prudence,-Use them while you can. Take the moderate and the comfortable enjoyment of them, so long as God may be pleased to continue your possession of them. It is a pleasing view of the kindness of Him whose "tender mercies are over all his works," to be assured, that what He bestows it is his design that we enjoy:-that we "use without abusing,"-that we take the benefit, and apply it for the comfort of ourselves and families, in the first instance, with decency and respectability, but without extravagance and waste. He does not give, and with the gift issue an order not to use it. There is nothing to be found in the Bible of that kind of self-denial which consists in the penance of self inflicted privation,-in the practice of voluntary mortification and abandonment of all the innocent enjoyments of life. If God gives "flocks and herds "-they are for "food and for clothing," and for the comfortable maintenance of the household establishment:-"If any man provide not for his own, and especially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel." But then-
iii. Whenever we make admissions of this kind, they are in danger of being perverted. When we tell men of God's kind, indulgences,-they are ever prone to take advantage of them, and to forget the restrictions under which those indulgences are placed. The different parts of the divine word are to be viewed in their connexion. A passage like this must not be taken by itself, and the inference drawn from it that while we are expending what God gives on the food and clothing and comfort and enjoyment of our families, we are doing what God requires and all that God requires. We should then be forgetting other requirements not less obligatory than these, and showing in the latitude with which we interpret what is most to our mind, the amount there is remaining in us of personal and domestic selfishness. On the contrary, we ought to be most on our guard on the side of self-most on our guard where we are most in danger of erring. We should be jealous of ourselves; and, aware of the deceitfulness of our hearts, to keep our ear the more open, and our heart the more open, and our purse the more open, to the claims of the poor, and to the claims of God and of a perishing world, in proportion as self and family put in their plea with earnestness.
Finally, while we are all abundantly sensible of the value, and eager for the acquisition, of the comforts and the wealth of the present world, O let us remember and feel the infinitely superior value of the "treasure in the heaven that faileth not." On this, above all, let our hearts be set,-as the gift of God, "without money and without price,"-which "cannot be gotten for gold, neither can silver be weighed for the price thereof." "Where our treasure is, there let our hearts be also."
