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Expositor's Bible Commentary Proverbs 29:1 He, that being often reproved hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy. CHAPTER 30 THE NEED OF REVELATION "Where no vision is, a people casts off restraint, but he that keepeth the law is happy."- Proverbs 29:18 THE form of the proverb shows that we are not to treat the vision and the law as opposite, but rather as complementary terms. Visions are it is true, especially the mark of the prophets, and the law is often confined in a special sense to the Pentateuch; but there is a much wider usage of the words, according to which the two together express, with tolerable completeness, what we mean by Revelation. The vision means a perception of God and His ways, and is quite as applicable to Moses as to Isaiah; and, on the other hand, the law covers all the distinct and articulate instruction which God gives to His people in any of His ways of self-communication. "Come ye," says Isaiah, { Isaiah 2:3 } "and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and He will teach us of His ways, and we will walk in His paths; for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem"; where the whole context shows that, not the Mosaic Law, but rather a new and particular declaration of the Lord’s will, is referred to. But while the vision and the law are not to be treated as opposites, it is possible to distinguish between them. The vision is the actual contact between God and the human spirit, which is the necessary condition of any direct revelation; the law is the recorded result of such a revelation, either passed from mouth to mouth by tradition, or written permanently in a book. We may then a little amplify the proverb for the sake of exposition: "Where there is no living revelation, no perceived contact between man and God, there the bonds which hold society together are relaxed or broken; but he that holds by the revelation that has been given, obeying the law, so far as it has been presented to him, happy is he." Man has need of a revelation; that is the assertion. Society, as an ordered and happy body of men in which each person is rightly subordinated to the whole, and in which law, as distinct from individual caprice, prevails, requires a revealed law. The light of nature is good, but it is not sufficient. The common sense of mankind is powerful, but not powerful enough. In the absence of a real and valid declaration of God’s will times must come when the elemental passions of human nature will break out with unrestrained violence, the teachings of morality will be disputed, their authority will be denied, and their yoke will be broken; the links which hold the state and the community together will snap, and the slow growths of ages may disappear in a moment. It is not difficult to show the truth of this assertion from experience. Every people that emerges from barbarism has a vision and a law; a certain revelation which forms the foundation, the sanction, the bond of its corporate existence. When you can point to a tribe or a group of tribes that know nothing of God, and therefore have no idea of revelation, you at once assure us that the people are sunk in a hopeless savagery. We are, it is true, inclined to deny the term revelation to those systems of religion which lie outside of the Bible, but it is difficult to justify such a contraction of view. God has not left Himself anywhere without a witness. The more closely we examine the multitudinous religions of the earth, the more clearly does it appear that each of them had at its origin a definite, however limited, revelation. The idea of One all-powerful, good, and wise, God is found at the beginning of each faith that can be traced back far enough, and the actual condition of heathen systems always suggests a decline from a higher and a purer religion. We may say, then, with much plausibility, that no lasting and beneficial form of human society has ever existed apart from a vision and a law. But leaving the wide field of comparative religions, do we not see an illustration of the truth of the text in the European countries which are more subject to our observation? In proportion as a people loses its faith in revelation it falls into decay. This was made manifest in the experience of the French Revolution. When the Jacobins had emancipated themselves from the idea of God, and had come out into the clear light of reason, so terribly did they "cast off restraint" that their own leader, Robespierre, endeavored with a feverish haste to restore the recognition of God, assuming himself the position of high pontiff to the Supreme Being. The nearest approach that the world has probably ever seen to a government founded on Atheism was this government of the French Revolution, and a more striking commentary on this text could hardly be desired. But the need of a revelation can be apprehended, apart from all appeals to history, by simply studying the nature of the spirit of man. Man must have an object of worship, and that object must be such as to command his worship. Auguste Comte thought to satisfy this need of the heart by suggesting Humanity as the Grand Etre, but humanity was and is nothing but an abstraction. Feeling this himself, he recommended the worship of woman, and he prostrated his heart before Clotilde de Vaux; but sacred and beautiful as a man’s love of a woman may be, it is no substitute for worship. We must have quite another than ourselves and our own kind, if our hearts are to find their rest. We must have an Almighty, an Infinite; we must have one who is Love. Until his spirit is worshipping, man cannot realize himself, or attain the height of his intended stature. Again, man must have an assurance of his own immortality. While he believes himself to be mortal, a creature of a day, and that an uncertain day, it is impossible for him to rise much above the level of other ephemeral things. His pursuits must be limited, and his aims must be confined. His affections must be chilled by the shadow of death, and in proportion as he has nobly striven and tenderly loved, his later years must be plunged in hopeless gloom, because his efforts have been ineffectual and his beloved have gone from him. No juggling with terms; no half-poetic raptures about "the choir invisible," can meet the mighty craving of the human heart. Man must be immortal, or he is not man. "He thinks he was not made to die." But to meet these demands of the spirit what, apart from revelation, can avail? That metaphysics is futile practically all men are agreed. Only the philosopher can follow the dialectics which are to prove the existence of God and the immortality of the soul. And even the philosopher seems to grow pale and wizened in the process of his demonstration, and wins at last a vantage-ground of cold conviction, to find that there is no comfort there. But can science offer the assurance which philosophy was unable to give? Let us listen to the conclusion of a scientific writer on this subject, one who has lost his hold on revelation and can realize a little of what he has lost. "The highest and most consoling beliefs of the human mind," he says, "are to a great extent bound up with the Christian religion. If we ask ourselves frankly how much, apart from this religion, would remain of faith in a God, and in a future state of existence, the answer must be, very little. Science traces everything back to primeval atoms and germs, and there it leaves us. How came these atoms and energies there, from which this wonderful universe of worlds has been evolved by inevitable laws? What are they in their essence, and what do they mean? The only answer is, It is unknowable. It is ‘behind the veil,’ and may be anything. Spirit may be matter, matter may be spirit. We have no faculties by which we can even form a conception from any discoveries of the telescope or microscope, from any experiments in the laboratory, or from any facts susceptible of real human knowledge, of what may be the first cause underlying all these phenomena." "In like manner we can already, to a great extent, and probably in a short time shall be able to the fullest extent to trace the whole development of life from the lowest to the highest; from protoplasm, through monera, infusoria, mollusca, vertebrata, fish, reptile and mammal, up to man; and the individual man from the microscopic egg, through the various stages of its evolution up to birth, childhood, maturity, decline, and death. We can trace also the development of the human race through enormous periods of time, from the modest beginnings up to its present level of civilization, and show how arts, languages, morals, and religions have been evolved gradually by human laws from primitive elements, many of which are common in their ultimate form to man and the animal creation." "But here also science stops. Science can give no account of how these germs and nucleated cells, endowed with these marvelous capacities for evolution, came into existence, or got their intrinsic powers. Nor can science enable us to form the remotest conception of what will become of life, consciousness, and conscience, when the material conditions with which they are always associated, while within human experience, have been dissolved by death, and no longer exist. We know as little, in the way of accurate and demonstrable knowledge, of our condition after death as we do of our existence-if we had an existence-before birth." Science frankly confesses that she can tell us nothing of the things which it most concerns us to know. On those things she is no farther advanced than she was in the days of Aristotle. Never do we feel how much men need a revelation so vividly as when we have grasped the first principles of such a great scientific thinker as Mr. Herbert Spencer, and realize how far he is able to take us and how soon he has to leave us. How does it meet the craving of the soul for God to show us the slow stages by which man became a living soul? As well might you try to satisfy the musician’s ear by. telling him how his art had grown from the primitive tom-tom of the savage. How can it help the life to be lived wisely, lovingly, and well, in the midst of the uncertainty of the world, and confronted by the certainty of death, to be told that our physical structure is united by a thousand immediate links with that of other mammals. Such a fact is insignificant; the supreme fact is that we are not like other mammals in the most important respects; we have hearts that long and yearn, minds which enquire and question- they have not; we want God, our heart and our flesh crieth out for the living God, and we demand an eternal life- they do not. How can science pretend that what she does not know is not knowledge, while she has to confess that she does not know precisely the things which it most concerns us as men to know? How can the spirit of man be content with the husks which she gives him to eat, when his whole nature craves the kernel? What probability is there that a man will close his eyes to the sun because another person, very clever and industrious, has shut himself up in a dark cellar, and tries to persuade him that his candle is all the light he may legitimately use, and what cannot be seen by his candle is not real? No, science may not prove revelation, but she proves our need of it. She does her utmost, she widens her borders, she is more earnest, more accurate, more informed, more efficacious than ever: but she shows that what man most wants she cannot give, -she bids him go elsewhere. But now it may be said: It is one thing to prove that man needs a revelation, and another to show that a revelation has been given. That is perfectly true, and this is not the place to adduce all the evidence which might prove that revelation is a reality; but what an advance we have made on the cold, self-satisfied deism of the eighteenth century, which maintained that the light of nature was enough, and revelation was quite superfluous, when the truest and most candid voices of science are declaring with such growing clearness that for the knowledge which revelation professes to give, revelation, and revelation alone, will suffice! We Christians believe that we have a revelation, and we find that it suffices. It gives us precisely those assurances about God and about the soul without which we falter, grow bewildered, and begin to despond. We have a vision and a law. Our Bible is the record of the ever-widening, ever-clearing vision of God. The power and authority of the vision seem to be the more convincing, just because we are permitted to see the process of its development. Here we are able to stand with the seer and see, not the long aeonian stages of creation which science has been painfully tracking out in these later days, but the supreme fact, which science professes herself unable to see, that God was the Author of it all. Here we are able to see the first imperfect conception of God which came in vision and in thought to the patriarch or sheikh in the earliest dawn of civilization. Here we can observe the conceptions clearing, through Moses, through the Psalmists, through the Prophets, until at last we have a vision of God in the person of His Son, who is the brightness of the Father’s glory, the express image of His countenance. We see that He, the unseen Creator, is Love. Our Bible, too, is the record of a law, -a law of human conduct, the will of God as applied to earthly, life. At first the law is confined to a few primitive practices and outward observances; then it grows in complexity and multiplication of details; and only after a long course of discipline, of effort and apparent failure, of teaching and-deliberate disobedience, is the law laid bare to its very roots, and presented in the simplified and self-evidencing form of the Sermon on the Mount and the apostolic precepts. It is not necessary to start with any particular theory about the Bible, any more than it is necessary to know the substance of the sun before we can warm ourselves in his beams. It is not necessary to look for scientific accuracy in the histories and treatises through which the vision and the law are communicated to us. We know that the vessels are earthen, and the presupposition all through is that the light was only growing from the glimmer of the dawn up to the perfect day. But we know, we are persuaded, that here, to seeing eyes and humble hearts, is the revelation of God and of His will. Nor is it only in the Bible that God speaks to us. There have been times in the history of Christendom-such times as the middle of the eighteenth century-when though the Bible was in men’s hands, it seemed to be almost a dead letter. "There was no vision, and the people cast off restraint." It is by living men and women to whom He grants visions and reveals truths, that God maintains the purity and power of His revelation to us. He came in vision to Fox and the early Friends, to Zinzendorf and the early Moravians, to Wesley and the early Methodists. Seldom does a generation pass but some seers are sent to make the Word of God a living influence to their age. The vision is not always unmixed with human error, and when it ceases to be living it may become obstructive, a cause of paralysis rather than of progress. But Augustine and Jerome, Benedict and Leo, Francis and Dominic, Luther and Calvin, Ignatius Loyola, and Xavier, Fenelon and Madame Guyon, Jonathan Edwards and Channing, Robertson and Maurice, Erskine and MacLeod Campbell, are but examples of God’s method all down the Christian ages. The vision comes pure and fresh as if straight from the presence of God. Traditionalism crumbles away. Doubt retreats like a phantom of the night. Mighty moral revolutions and spiritual awakenings are accomplished by the means of His chosen ones. And it should be our desire and our joy to recognize and welcome these seers of God. "He that keepeth the law, happy is he." It is a mournful thing to be without a revelation, and to grope in darkness at midday; to hold one’s mind in melancholy suspense, uncertain about God, about His will, about the life eternal. But it is better to have no revelation than to have it and disregard it. Honest doubt is full of necessary sorrow, but to believe and not to obey is the road to inevitable ruin. "He that keepeth"-yea, he that looks into revelation, not for curiosity, but for a law by which to live; who listens to the wise precepts, not in order to exclaim, "How wise they are!" but in order to act on them. There are many professing Christians who are constantly plunged in gloom. Unbelievers may point the finger at them, and say, "They believe in God, in salvation, and in heaven, but see what an effect it has on them. Do they really believe?" Oh, yes, they really believe, but they do not obey; and no amount of faith brings any lasting happiness apart from obedience. The law requires us to love God, to love men; it requires us to abstain from all appearance of evil, to touch not the unclean thing; it bids us love not the world, it tells us how impossible the double service of God and Mammon is. Now, though we believe it all, it can give us nothing but pain unless we live up to it. If there is a vision and we shut our eyes to it, if there is a law and we turn away from it, woe unto us! But if we receive the vision, if we loyally and earnestly keep the law, the world cannot fathom the depth of our peace, nor rise to the height of our joy. The Expositor's Bible Text Courtesy of BibleSupport.com . Used by Permission.

He that, being often reproved, hardeneth his neck. Proverbs 29:1 The doom of the incorrigible sinner S. Davies, M.A. This proverb may be accommodated to all the affairs of life. In whatever course a man blunders on, headstrong and regardless of advice and admonition, it will ruin him at last, as far as the matter is capable of working his ruin. But here principal reference is to religion. Often reproved — this is undoubtedly our character. Reproved by men from all quarters. The Word of God has reproved us. God has reproved us by His providence in private and public calamities. God has reproved us more immediately by His Spirit. We have also been our own monitors. Conscience has often pronounced our doom. Even the irrational creatures and infernal spirits may have been our monitors. Solomon assumes that a man may be often reproved, and yet harden his neck; that is, obstinately refuse submission and reformation. Nothing but a sullen and senseless beast can represent the stupid, unreasonable conduct of that man who hardens himself in sin, against the strongest dissuasion and reproofs from God and His creatures. The stiff neck that will not bend to the yoke of obedience must be broken, and its own stiffness renders it the more easily broken. It may harden itself into insensibility under reproof, but it cannot harden itself into insensibility under Divine judgments. He shall be suddenly destroyed. Sudden ruin is aggravated because it strikes a man into a consternation. There is dreadful reason to fear that you will always continue in your present condition if you persist in being proof against all admonition. ( S. Davies, M.A. ) The duty of reprovers and persons reproved William Fenner. The verse may be read, "He that reproveth another, and hardeneth his own neck." The Hebrew is, "A man of reproofs, that hardens his own neck." 1. Such a reprover of sin does it against his office. The office of a reprover binds him to be blameless. 2. Such a reprover can never reprove to a right end. It is not because he hates sin; if he did he would put it away from himself. 3. Such a reprover can never do it in a right manner. As long as a man has a beam in his own eye he cannot rightly deal with the mote in his brother's. 4. Such a reprover is a hypocrite. 5. Such a reprover is inexcusable. His reproving another man's sin makes himself inexcusable of his own. 6. Such a reprover is an absurd and impudent person. Such a man both wrongs his own soul and dishonours God. But the verse may be read, "He that, being often reproved, hardeneth his neck." Hebrew is, "Hardens his own neck." A "man of reproofs" equals a man often reproved. The Lord does not destroy a man nakedly, but upon consideration of sin. What a great sin it is, what a great ill it is, for man to sin against his reproofs.The greatness of the ill is set down in two ways. 1. By the great sinfulness of the thing. It is called the hardening of a man's own neck. 2. By the greatness of the punishment that God inflicts upon this sin. When God reproves a man of sin, the reproof primarily comes out of love. The end of reproof is to bring a man to good, to reduce him into a right way, to convert a man, and save his soul. There is no reason in the world why reproof should be taken otherwise than with all willingness and thankfulness and cheerfulness. First use of this: See here what an infinite punishment God is bringing upon a kingdom when He is taking away reprovers from them.The second use makes against those that despise the reproof of the wise. "Ye despise not men, but God." The Lord proportions punishments to men's sins. 1. Because hereby man's punishment appears to be so much the more equal and worthy. 2. Because this stops a man's mouth; it convinceth s man's conscience. 3. All the standers-by see the equity of it. Consider and see how God proportions punishments to sins in kind, quantity, quality, time, and place. ( William Fenner. ) The certain doom of the impenitent I. THE TRUE IDEA OF REPROOF. Whatever is calculated in its own nature or relations to arrest the attention of the mind, and call men to see their neglect of duty, or the obligation they owe to God, involves the true idea of reproof. II. THE WAYS IN WHICH GOD ADMINISTERS REPROOF. God exercises a universal providence. By judgments God ofttimes administers reproof. The Holy Spirit reproves by convincing the sinner of his sins and producing in his mind visitations of remorse. III. THE DESIGN OF REPROOF. To effect a reformation. He means to secure this end by forbearance. When He finds that will not do, then He uses the rod. IV. THE MEANING OF HARDENING THE NECK. The figure is that of a bullock working with a yoke upon his neck. The neck becomes callous with the pressure of the yoke. Men are represented as pushing against God's providence, and thus making their necks hard. The conscience of the sinner becomes quite callous under reproof if he does not yield to it. V. THE MEANING OF BEING SUDDENLY DESTROYED. Opposition and destruction will always go together. The conscience becomes so stupefied that men lose the sense of danger. The danger of men is great, just in proportion as they cease to be affected by a sense of it; when men feel the most secure, if they are living in sin, then destruction is most certain; and when it comes it will be sudden, because they do not expect it at all. This is not arbitrary on the part of God; it is a natural consequence of the sinner's conduct. ( C. G. Finney . ) Hardening perilous S. Bridge, M.A. I. A CASE SUPPOSED. 1. You have often been reproved by kind and judicious parents. 2. Or by some faithful friend who has seen your tendency to evil, and has stepped in to prevent the destruction which he saw was on its way. 3. A still larger class among us God has counselled and reproved by His ministering servants. 4. Many have been reproved by afflictions of various kinds. II. THE SEVERE JUDGMENT HERE DENOUNCED. The threat of the text is only against those who persevere in iniquity amidst all their religious privileges, who will not be warned nor instructed, who reject all advice and admonition, all offers of grace and mercy. Reflect on the suddenness, the greatness, and the eternity of the destruction which awaits impenitent offenders. But we only preach destruction that we may make you feel your need of salvation; and then, when we have awakened your fears, how gladly do we point you to the refuge and the remedy. ( S. Bridge, M.A. ) A solemn warning David Jamison, B.A. I. GOD'S LINGERING LONG-SUFFERING. He reproves. Why? That we may turn and live. He reproves often. Why? Because "He is not willing that any should perish." II. MAN'S INSANE INFATUATION. "Hardeneth his neck." Too many "reject the Word of the Lord." 1. How terrible the power of sin! 2. How deceitful the heart of man! 3. How inexcusable and suicidal the sinner! III. THE TERRIRLE THREATENING. God's long-suffering will not always last. 1. "The sinner shall be destroyed; his destruction is certain." 2. Be destroyed; his destruction fearful. 3. Shall suddenly; we know not what a day may bring forth. IV. THE AWFUL APPENDIX. "And that without remedy." There is a remedy here and now, however sinful we have been, but there will be none hereafter. ( David Jamison, B.A. ) Often reproved John Bate. I. THE CHARACTER IMPLIED. II. THE REPROOF GIVEN. "Often reproved." III. THE REPROOF REJECTED. "Hardeneth his neck." Setteth himself against taking the reproof, as a stubborn ox against taking the yoke. Indifferent to it. Laughs at it. Becomes worse. Obstinate in doing evil and in resisting good. "Mind your own business." "I am my own master." Throws off all restraint. Becomes sceptical, perhaps atheistic; scorns at religion and religious people. IV. THE PUNISHMENT THREATENED. "Shall suddenly," etc. He shall be cut off from hope; from friends; from honour; from happiness; from all his desirable possessions — suddenly; prematurely cut off; unexpectedly: apoplexy; disaster in travelling, etc. Irretrievable; eternal. Conclusion: 1. A limit to God's long-suffering. 2. To live against Divine reproofs is perilous. 3. Divine reproofs are Divine mercies. 4. Exhort sinners. ( John Bate. ) When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice. Proverbs 29:2 The happiness of the people John Taylor. Man is, for the most part, equally unhappy when subjected, without redress, to the passions of another, or left, without control, to the dominion of his own. Government is necessary to the safety of particular men and the happiness of society. The people cannot rejoice except the righteous are in authority. I. THE DUTY OF THOSE IN AUTHORITY TO PROMOTE THE HAPPINESS OF THE PEOPLE. No man is born merely for his own sake, to consult his own advantage or pleasure, and unconnected with the good of others. This is more evidently true of those who are exalted into high rank, dignified with honours, and vested with authority. He who wears the honours and receives the revenues of an exalted station, without attending to the duties of his post, is, in a very high degree, criminal, both in the eye of God and man. II. BY WHAT MEANS THE HAPPINESS OF THE PEOPLE MAY BE MOST EFFECTUALLY PROMOTED. The only uniform and perpetual cause of public happiness is public virtue. Without virtue nothing can be securely possessed or properly enjoyed. In a country like ours the great demand is for the security of property, the confirmation of liberty, and the extension of commerce. If riches and liberty could make us happy, it would remain to be considered how riches and liberty can be secured. Human laws must be limited in their effects. The deficiencies in civil life can be supplied only by religion. The first duty of a governor is therefore to diffuse through the community a spirit of religion. To this end it is necessary that the external order of religion be diligently maintained, that the solemnities of worship be duly observed, and a proper reverence preserved for the times and places appropriated to piety. And governors must co-operate with their laws by their own examples. III. HOW THE PEOPLE ARE TO ASSIST AND FURTHER THE ENDEAVOURS OF THEIR GOVERNORS. Nations cannot be governed but by their own consent. The first duty of subjects is obedience to the laws. No man thinks laws unnecessary for others; and no man, if he considers his own inherent frailty, can justly think them unnecessary for himself. Even the errors and deficiencies of authority must be treated with respect. All institutions are defective by their nature, and all rulers have their imperfections, like other men. As government is difficult to be administered, so it is difficult to be understood; and where very few have capacity to judge, very few have a right to censure. The laws will be easily obeyed by him who adds to human sanctions the obligations of conscience; and he will not easily be disposed to censure his superiors whom religion has made acquainted with his own failings. ( John Taylor. ) A righteous government Bp. John Hough. I. SOME OF THE CHIEF ADVANTAGES THAT PEOPLE ENJOY UNDER A RIGHTEOUS GOVERNMENT. 1. The laws are duly executed. This keeps all the springs of the body politic in their right tone, and gives life and vigour to their motion. 2. True merit finds protection and encouragement under it. This enlivens people's spirits and makes them study to be serviceable upon a right principle. 3. Such a government appears abroad with weight and authority. Righteousness exalteth a nation and spreads its fame and reputation in countries far remote. 4. Such a government is attended with the blessing of God. II. HOW OUGHT PEOPLE TO EXPRESS THEIR JOY WHEN THE RIGHTEOUS ARE IN AUTHORITY? 1. By a ready and cheerful obedience to authority. 2. By grateful acknowledgments to God for so great a blessing. 3. The people should express their joy by their gratitude to such rulers. ( Bp. John Hough. ) A man that flattereth his neighbour spreadeth a net for his feet. Proverbs 29:5 Flattery R. South. I. WHAT FLATTERY IS. The nature and property of it is to put on all forms and shapes, according to the exigence of the occasion. He that would paint flattery must draw a picture of all colours, and frame a universal face, indifferent to any particular aspect whatever. It shows itself — 1. In concealing or dissembling of the defects and vices of any person. It will pretend not to see faults, and if it does, it will be sure not to reprove them. All people are not called to reprove others.(1) Who are they that are concerned to speak in this case? Such as are entrusted with the government of others. Those who are entrusted with the guidance and direction of others. Those that profess friendship.(2) In what spirit are these reprehensions to be managed? Let the reproof, if possible, be given in secret. Let it be managed with due respect to and distinction of the condition of the person that is to be reproved. Let him that reproves a vice do it with words of meekness and consideration; without superciliousness or spiritual arrogance. A reproof should not be continued or repeated after amendment of that which occasioned the reproof. 2. In praising or defending the defects or vices of any person. If to persuade men out of the acknowledgment of the evil and unlawfulness of their actions be flattery, then none are so deeply chargeable with flattery as these two sorts of men — such as, upon principles of enthusiasm, assure persons of eminence and high place that those transgressions of the Divine law are allowable in them that are absolutely prohibited and condemned in others, and the Roman casuists, who have made it their greatest study to put a new face upon sin. This kind of flattery is of very easy effect, by reason of the nature of man, and the nature of vice itself. From these two considerations we may easily gather how open the hearts of most men lie, to drink in the fawning suggestions of any sycophant that shall endeavour to relieve their disturbed consciences by gilding their villainies with the name of virtues. 3. In imitating any one's defects or vices. Actions are much more considerable than words or discourses. To any generous and free spirit it is really a very nauseous and fulsome thing to see some prostitute their tongues and their judgments, by saying as others say, commending what they commend, and framing themselves to any absurd gesture or motion that they observe in them. Every kind of imitation speaks the person that imitates him inferior to whom he imitates, as the copy is to the original. 4. An overvaluing those virtues and perfections that are really laudable in any person. This is more modest and tolerable, there being some groundwork of desert. II. THE GROUNDS AND OCCASIONS OF FLATTERY. 1. Greatness of place and condition. Men consider the great danger of speaking freely to great persons what they are not willing to hear. It may enrage, and make them mortal enemies. 2. An angry, passionate disposition This also frights and deters men from doing the orifice of friends, in a faithful reprehension. 3. A proud and vainglorious disposition. To tell a proud person of his faults is to tell infallibility that it is in an error, and to spy out something amiss in perfection. III. THE ENDS AND DESIGNS OF IT ON HIS PART THAT FLATTERS. Every flatterer is actuated and influenced by these two grand purposes — to serve himself, and to undermine him whom he flatters, and thereby to effect his ruin. For he deceives him, and grossly abuses and perverts his judgment, which should be the guide and director of all his actions. He that is thoroughly deceived is in the very next disposition to be ruined; for cast but a mist before a man's eyes, and whither may you not lead him? And he undermines, and perhaps in the issue ruins, him whom he flatters, by bringing him to shame and a general contempt. Moreover, by his flattery and its consequences, he renders his recovery and amendment impossible. Every fault in a man shuts the door upon virtue, but flattery is the thing that seals it. ( R. South. ) The tendency of flattery R. Wardlaw, D.D. In this verse Solomon does not refer solely to the intention of the flatterer; he refers also to the tendency of the flattery. The latter may be far from harmless, even although to a greater degree the former may. Injury may be done, and many a time is done, when no harm is meant to the party, and when there is no interest of our own to serve. And there is no little guilt on the part of those who, seeing vanity to be a man's failing, set themselves on purpose to feed it, pouring into the ear, merely in the way of an amusing experiment, every description of fulsome adulation, trying how much and in what variety it will be taken in. ( R. Wardlaw, D.D. ) Flattery A. Macdonald. The weakness of the human heart exposeth it to innumerable dangers. Constant attention is necessary to preserve it secure, because it is often assailed on the most unsuspected side. The conceit and vanity, which all men have in some degree, renders truth itself often dangerous. It is the prerogative of God alone to receive praise without danger. He hears, and is pleased to hear, the endless hymns of His angels. He hears the voice of praise ascending from all nature: the infinite variety of beings celebrating Him as the great, the just, the merciful God. He receives those truths without prejudice to His holiness; because, being in Himself essentially holy and true, these attributes can never jar, nor harm each other. It is far otherwise with us: unstable ourselves as water, our very virtues partake of this instability; whence ariseth the necessity of our suspecting everything that flatters us, because there is nothing in general more seductive and deceitful; and of all delusions, there is none more shameful and pernicious than that which, by the suggestions of self-love, makes us take falsehood for truth, and think of ourselves more highly than we ought to think. People tell us what we ought to be rather than what we are, and we, by a pitiable blindness of running into the snare that is spread for us, believe ourselves to be indeed what adulation represents us. In this manner it often happens that a man who is naturally modest, and who would be humble if he knew himself, intoxicated with this vain incense, thinks himself possessed of merits which he never possessed; thanks God for graces which God never gave him; acknowledgeth the reception of talents which he never received; ascribes to himself successes which he never had; and enjoys himself secretly, while he is openly despised. Some learned men have very plausibly ascribed the origin of those idolatrous superstitions that prevailed so long in the world to that inclination which men have of believing what is advantageous, however incredible it may really be. Certain men were told that they were gods; and, by often hearing this told them, they became accustomed to be honoured and treated as gods. Those who first held that language to them knew very well that it was false; yet, from a spirit of flattery, they performed every action that they would otherwise have done from a spirit of sincerity had they been convinced that what they spoke was true. We dare not say that this error is entirely destroyed even by Christianity: vestiges of it remain everywhere, and a species of idolatry is established by the custom of the world. We tell the rich and the great no more that they are gods, but we tell them that they are not as other men are; that they want those weaknesses which others have, and possess those qualities which others want: we separate them so from the rest of mankind that, forgetting what they are, they think themselves gods; not considering that their admirers are interested persons, determined to please them, or rather determined to deceive them. Nor may we confine ourselves to the great and powerful ones of the world to justify this observation: the idolatry I speak of reigns equally in the lower conditions, and produceth there proportionable effects. Thus a woman is idolised by interested and designing men, till she knows herself no more; and, though marked with a thousand faults and imperfections, yet thinks of correcting none of them; believing herself a subject every way accomplished, the joy and admiration of the whole world, because such phrases are constantly employed for her seduction and ruin. The contradiction is, that in the midst of all this, those men, so vain and so passionate for glory, never cease to protest that the thing they abhor most is to be deceived; in the meantime they wish to be praised, flattered, and admired, as if flattery and delusion could possibly be separated. What resolution, then, can we take to avoid these errors? We must resolve to distrust even truth, when it seems to flatter us; because there is no appearance of truth which approacheth so near to falsehood, and consequently, there is none so much exposed to the dangers of falsehood. Jesus Christ Himself, who, according to the Scripture, was the firm and immovable Rock, to whom the praises of the universe were due, as the tribute of His supreme grandeur and adorable perfections, yet while on earth would not suffer those truths which made for His honour and glory. He wrought wonders; He cured the blind and the deaf; He raised the dead; yet when the people began to celebrate His name for this, and to cry that He was the prophet of God, He enjoined them silence, and seemed upon the whole extremely impatient of applause. ( A. Macdonald. ) Flattery a web D. Thomas, D.D. I. VARIOUSLY WROUGHT. Woven of many threads, and of various hues. Some are coarse as a rope, others as fine as a gossamer web; all are suited to the character of the prey to be caught. II. WIDELY SPREAD. ( D. Thomas, D.D. ) Scornful men bring a city into a snare. Proverbs 29:8 The snares of the metropolis R. Ainslie. As residents in London we ask, Is there as much wickedness here as in other great cities? Are there snares and temptations of a peculiar character, and highly dangerous to the rising youth of the age? 1. One of the snares is the spirit of the world — the spirit of competition and a low tone of moral feeling. 2. Irreligious habits. 3. Irreligious associates; such as the young man who is not conscientious in the discharge of his ordinary duties; the young man who is devoted to pleasure. 4. Late hours. This leads to neglect of prayer. And the late hour is the hour of sin. 5. Lewd women. This snare involves great moral debasement, the prostration of all intellectual power, and the annihilation of all benevolent and elevated feeling. And to this specific form other vices will adhere. ( R. Ainslie. ) The rod and reproof give wisdom: but a child left to himself bringeth his mother to shame. Proverbs 29:15 A neglected education, the parent's dishonour Daniel Wilson, M.A. I. LOOK AT THE CHILD LEFT TO HIMSELF. That is, without reproof, and that grave advice which gives wisdom. The original term is applied to the unbridled impetuosity of an animal. The child, if not held in by the bit and bridle of a religious education — if left to the impetuosity of his own passions — will be ruined. Appeal to the nature of things. What is there left to itself that comes to any good? What is land without inclosure and cultivation? Appeal to experience as to the effect of a neglected education. Who are the pests of society? Appeal to Scripture. II. THE EFFECT OF THIS NEGLECT. Look at the parent. "Bringeth his mother to shame." This is only one result. Other things follow. Ruin to the child's principles. All the consequences of his conduct to a neighbourhood. Tendencies to sap the foundations of morality and justice between man and man. In all this there seems to be a remarkable feature of the retributive justice of God in His moral government. The education of children in the fear of God is one of the first and self-evident duties, the foundation of all moral good. But it is implied that a child carefully trained for God and religion shall not bring his mother to shame. III. THE MOTIVES FLOWING FROM THESE CONSIDERATIONS. 1. Enforce this duty on our own hearts. 2. See it in reference to the children of the poor. 3. The need of guarding children against the evil influence of the press. Show what religion you possess by your endeavours to educate your children religiously. ( Daniel Wilson, M.A. ) A child neglected, a parent's disgrace James Cottle, B.A. I. THE AFFECTING OBJECT: "A child left to himself." Allusion is probably intended to the natural impetuosity of a horse. 1. A child left without religious instruction. Parents are enjoined to "train up a child in the way he should go": not the way he would go. Education must have its foundation in Scripture. The spirit of the age requires that parental instructions should be of a decidedly Scriptural character. The work of instilling Divine truth must be commenced early. Train them to early habits of industry, to diligent reading of the Scriptures, and to constant prayer. 2. A child left without fervent prayer. Do you know the way to a throne of grace, and can you forget the child of your affections? If you do not pray for him it is not likely that you will pray with him. 3. A child left without a good example. Children understand actions better than words. The parent who, by his ungodly example, betrays the confidence of his child by leading him in the way of sin when he should guide him in the paths of piety and peace is guilty of a species of cruelty difficult to be described. 4. A child left to himself is one without salutary restraint. Instruction should be enforced by authority. If you lose your influence, the child will assume it and rule you, when you should govern him. In compelling obedience the happy medium should be observed between too much harshness on the one hand and too great laxity on the other. Eli does not appear to have failed either in instruction or example, but he is censured for withholding restraint. Let there be energy of character, efficient discipline, the tenderness of love blended with firmness of decision, and there will seldom be a necessity for adopting any painful or severe measures. II. THE PARENT'S DISGRACE. The duties and responsibilities of parents are mutual. It must, however, be admitted that a mother's influence is more powerful, her appeals more touching, her access to the heart more easy. But how many parents have passed days of sorrow and nights of sleeplessness in consequence of the misconduct of their offspring! Much of your future happiness is in the hands of your children. Look at the nature of things. A field without cultivation would speedily be overgrown by noxious weeds. Appeal to experience. Who are the Sabbath-breakers, the drunkards, the lawless and disobedient, the scoffers at Divine things? Are they not the persons who, in their childhood and youth, were left to themselves? Examine facts. David was brought to shame by Absalom and Adonijah. Hophni and Phineas brought Eli to shame. 1. A word of expostulation. You are leaving your children to themselves because you have never felt the value of your own soul. Think of your own comfort. Think of your country's welfare. Think of the approbation of heaven. 2. A word of exhortation. Your danger is great. Repent and believe the gospel. 3. A word of encouragement. The Christian parent has much to animate him in the conscientious discharge of his duty. All the promises of God, the experience of the past, and the hope of the future encourage his affectionate endeavours to train up his children in the fear of the Lord. He must not; however, expect harvest in spring. ( James Cottle, B.A. ) The importance of early discipline T. Kennion, M.A. If we have conscientiously performed any particular duty, no failure in the object to which it has been directed can inflict disgrace. We may do our part, and do it well, but we cannot command success by our best contrivances and our utmost diligence. It is not every child who is trained up in the way he should go that walks in that way. In such cases, deplorable as they are, no disgrace attaches to the parent, the instructor, the guardian. It is when the duty imposed by God and enforced by natural feelings has been neglected that the ignorant, the vicious, or the worldly character becomes the just reproach upon those to whom it is in that case justly to be ascribed. "A child left to himself." How many ideas of compassion are suggested by these words! A child, however carefully nourished and guarded, left to himself in regard to his soul, his intellect, his tempers, habits, and character, is no uncommon case. A child left to himself is a child untaught. For them to be grounded in the languages, informed in history, and embellished with every usual branch of knowledge and accomplishment is not enough. To know God alone is life eternal. Too often children are practically left to themselves to gather their notions of religion from the opinions around them and the current literature of the day. They ought to have been trained from childhood to know the Holy Scriptures; they should have been taught their ruined state, the love of God in the gift of His Son, and the love of Christ in giving Himself to the death upon the Cross. The child untaught is often undisciplined and unrestrained. The twig which might have been bent becomes firm as the gnarled oak. Habits of self-will, habits of self-gratification, habits of idleness perhaps, prepare for everything that is bad. When a child has been thus left to himself what can be expected but vice, want of honourable principle, a character passionate, headstrong, reckless? It cannot be a surprise that, in such a case, disgrace is thrown back upon the parents. The parent and the child are allied as long as recollection can associate them, and honour or dishonour they reflect, and cannot but reflect, upon each other. If parents neglect the soil and suffer it to be overrun with weeds what can they expect to be the harvest? The shame and discredit that come will be shared by both parents, but the feeling is fastened upon the heart of the mother in a manner and degree which are peculiarly severe. This is partly the case because so much depends on a mother's care, and partly because of the keener sensibilities of her sex. To the mother her domestic scene is the whole world. The shame which comes upon her as the punishment of neglected duty gathers intensity by its perpetual concentration of the reflection. Let me urge upon you as parents to encounter your arduous and responsible duty with the firm resolve that you will, heaven's grace assisting you, vigorously discharge it. They are beings to eternity, and for eternity it is your duty to prepare them. ( T. Kennion, M.A. ) Leaving children to themselves W. H. Nauben, M.A. "Left to himself" means "left alone, with nobody to mind him and take notice of what he does." This, however, does not seem to have been the meaning of the author of the proverb. Hebrew writers, in their poetry, would sometimes bring two thoughts together, meaning nearly the same, only expressed in different words. Sometimes they would bring two thoughts together, the meaning of which is exactly opposite. This is the thing we have in the text before us. The words "rod and reproof" are intended to be opposite to the words "a child left to himself." A mother may have her child almost always with her and yet be "leaving him to himself." A child is "left to himself" whenever he is allowed to do as he likes, whenever his character is not watched over, and his evil inclinations checked. It is the spoilt child who brings his mother to shame. The mother is specially mentioned because she has the first and the most direct and constant influence on the child. And when children are allowed to do as they like it is usually from a weak fondness and over-indulgence on the mother's part rather than on the father's. In all reproof of the faults of children the object aimed at is not merely to guide them aright at the present time, but also to make them able to guide themselves aright when they shall have become older, correct their own faults, and restrain their own inclination to what is evil. A self-willed child "brings his mother to shame," because the remarks of her acquaintance on his character and conduct never fail to reach her ears. In nine cases out of ten, shameful conduct on the part of a man signifies shameful carelessness on the part of that man's mother when he was a child and subject to her authority and influence. The children who are sure to honour their mother when they grow up are those who in childhood were kept in their proper plac

29:1 If God wounds, who can heal? The word of God warns all to flee from the wrath to come, to the hope set before us in Jesus Christ. 2. The people have cause to rejoice or mourn, as their rulers are righteous or wicked. 3. Divine wisdom best keeps us from ruinous lusts. 4. The Lord Jesus is the King who will minister true judgment to the people. 5. Flatterers put men off their guard, which betrays them into foolish conduct. 6. Transgressions always end in vexations. Righteous men walk at liberty, and walk in safety. 7. This verse is applicable to compassion for the distress of the poor, and the unfeeling disregard shown by the wicked. 8. The scornful mock at things sacred and serious. Men who promote religion, which is true wisdom, turn away the wrath of God. 9. If a wise man dispute with a conceited wrangler, he will be treated with anger or ridicule; and no good is done. 10. Christ told his disciples that they should be hated of all men. The just, whom the blood-thirsty hate, gladly do any thing for their salvation. 29:11. He is a fool who tells every thing he knows, and can keep no counsel. 12. One who loves flatterers, and hearkens to slanderers, causes his servants to become liars and false accusers. 13. Some are poor, others have a great deal of deceitful riches. They meet in the business of this world; the Lord gives to both the comforts of this life. To some of both sorts he gives his grace. 14. The rich will look to themselves, but the poor and needy the prince must defend and plead for. 15. Parents must consider the benefit of due correction, and the mischief of undue indulgence. 16. Let not the righteous have their faith and hope shocked by the increase of sin and sinners, but let them wait with patience. 17. Children must not be suffered to go without rebuke when they do amiss. 18. How bare does a place look without Bibles and ministers! and what an easy prey is it to the enemy of souls! That gospel is an open vision, which holds forth Christ, which humbles the sinner and exalts the Saviour, which promotes holiness in the life and conversation: and these are precious truths to keep the soul alive, and prevent it from perishing. 29:19. Here is an unprofitable, slothful, wicked servant; one that serves not from conscience, or love, but from fear. 20. When a man is self-conceited, rash, and given to wrangling, there is more hope of the ignorant and profligate. 21. Good usage to a servant does not mean indulgence, which would ruin even a child. The body is a servant to the soul; those that humour it, and are over-tender of it, will find it forget its place. 22. An angry, passionate disposition makes men provoking to one another, and provoking to God. 23. Only those who humble themselves shall be exalted and established. 24. The receiver is as bad as the thief. 25. Many are ashamed to own Christ now; and he will not own them in the day of judgment. But he that trusts in the Lord will be saved from this snare. 29:26. The wisest course is, to look to God, and seek the favour of the Ruler of rulers; for every creature is that to us which God makes it to be. 27. The just man abhors the sins of the wicked, and shuns their company. Christ exposed the wickedness of men, yet prayed for the wicked when they were crucifying him. Hatred to sin in ourselves and others, is a needful branch of the Christian temper. But all that are unholy, have rooted hatred to godliness.