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Pro_14:34 Righteousness exalteth a nation: but sin [is] a reproach to any people.
Ver. 34. Righteousness exalteth a nation.] True religion and the power of godliness is the beauty and bulwark of a state; {Deu_28:13} so are good laws, enacted and executed. This made "the faithful city" {Isa_1:21} to be the princess of provinces; {Lam_1:1} that land a "land of desire, a heritage of glory"; {Jer_3:19} even "the glory of all nations." {Eze_20:6} Josephus calls tile commonwealth Yåïêñáôåéáí ; and Prosper’s conceit is, that Iudaei Judah, were so called because they received ius Dei. law of God, It was said of old, Angli quasi Angeli, and Anglia regnum Dei. England was called the kingdom of God, and Albion quasi Olbion, a happy country, the paradise of pleasure and garden of God. {a} Now the Lord is with us while we are with him, &c.; but if we cast off the yoke of his obedience, as Capernaum, though lifted up to heaven, we shall be brought down to hell. Sins are the snuffs that dim our candlestick, and threaten the removal of it; the leaven that defiles our passovers, and urges God to pass away and depart from us; the reproach that will render us a proverb and a byword, {Deu_28:37} an astonishment and a hissing, {Jer_25:9} like Sodom and her sisters, a reproach and a taunt; {Eze_5:15} which to prevent, Currat poenitentia, ne praecurrat sententia. {b} Mittamus preces et lachrymas cordis legatos. {c} Let us break off our sins, and cry mightily to God; for otherwise a dismal change, a sad removal of our candlestick, may be as certainly foreseen and foretold as if visions and letters were sent us from heaven, as once to those seven churches of Asia. {Rev_2:1-29; Rev_3:1-22}
{a} Polyd. Virg.
{b} Isidor
{c} Cyprian.